What's the highest ATG ranking you'd find acceptable for Kazushi Sakuraba?

Bill, great post :good

Flash, Saku is hardly 'primitive' though? His grappling game alone would see him through against the majority of 185lbers today, his awkward (and often outlandish strikes) would see him do okay enough to win rounds (and not get mullered, fought two ATG Heavyweight strikers and didn't get ruined) and his heart and toughness do not know the boundaries of past, present and future.

The numbers of his record would be more pleasing to the eye, the range of his resume as it is could only be replicated in the time he was fighting.

A 'great' in any era IMO.

 

All time great rankings are even sillier for MMA than they are for boxing, in my opinion. What do you base them on? It would seem you can only do so in comparison to how they fared against their opposition without taking into account the quality of the era. The sport is still improving exponentially. That said, Saku, in his prime, was one of the most beloved, entertaining fighters of all time, and a true pioneer. One of the most successful peaks ever reached, late career losses be damned.

 

A bump in respect to the great Sakuraba

 

i'd say somewhere in the top 10 or top 15....He's one of mma's most important fighter. He's everything Royce Gracie pretended to be & then more. As important as Royce was too , he was too one dimensional. But his contribution to mma (and jiujitsu)...tremendously helped the sport. Saku was more versatile and had better competition. (sometimes unfair for his size)

 

By today's standards...his versatility as a fighter still holds up...the problem is that he's a shadow of his former self...too old , way past his prime...he should've retired years ago...His fight against Arona should've been the last nail in the coffin of his career...and that was in 2005 !...

 

I wouldnt say so, the sport is still certainly improving but I think the late 90's/early 00's really were the watershed when things changed dramatically. Compairing fighters who fought in Pride and the UFC from around 2001 onwards is reasonabley straightforward, before that though things become alot muddier with skills advnacing rapidly and the best talent spread out over a number of orgs under very differnt rulesets. Saku's prime years largely fall the wrong side of that though which puts him in a similar position to someone like Bas or Igor, clearly great but hard to judge agenst modern fighters.

If were talking in terms of influence on the sport then you could make a good case for Saku being #1 if you ask me. Yes the Gracies played a big role in launching MMA in the US and in Japan BUT they were to some degree interchangeble, if Royce hadnt taken part in the early UFC's for example Rickson would most likely have dominated instead.

Saku by compairson was unique, he took the budding popularity of MMA in Japan and ensured it didnt turn into a short term fad after Takada's loses to Rickson but instead launched it as a sport on the level of K1. That sudden jump it popularity not only helped the sport in technical terms with some degree of uniformity but I don't think you can underestimate its impact on the business side. Once Pride had become the money making juggernaut it did then its no supprize that investment grew massively, would the Fertitta's have bought the UFC without that example of MMA's sucess? I strongly suspect not.

 

Of course he should have retired by now just like Ray Robinson should have but they were immense in their prime & you can never take away who they were then, the current Sakuraba that loves fighting so much that he is still doing it 9 or 10 yrs past his best days should have no impact on judging the mans greatness, we dont use Joey Archer, Trevor Berbick or Hector Camacho when judging the greatness of SRR, Ali & SRL... lets stick to when the man in question was at his peak... Sakuraba ranks with any fighter in MMA history in that regard.

`Botswana`

 

Another good post Bill :good

 

In Sakuraba's case there was also a clear reason why his peak wasnt espeically long, he'd been pro wrestlign extensively in the 4-5 years before his MMA debut with the physical punishment that entails. By 2003 I think it was pretty clear Saku was in decline, his wrestling and grappling that had been so explsove in previous years started to become much more pedestrian.

 

Yes, I agree, his reflexes started to diminish by 03 & that meant he was caught cleanly more often by the bigger men where as before he was only tagged cleanly on occassion & he was able to absorb those shots then... just look at his 1st Pride loss to Wanderlei, the kicks to the head he was taking were death threatening yet Saku still kept trying for that single leg when just aout every other fighter would have either been spark out or hammering the mat with there finger tips.

His very next fight vs Rampage (even tho he won by choke, only man to this day to submit Rampage) he showed signs of the slowness you were talking about, it was a rapid decline after that even tho he still pulled off some great victories (Randlemann, armbar) & some losses were he did extremely well (Lil Nog, points)

To answer the thread title, the acceptable answers are 2-5 & 6-10 because Fedor is no1 without dispute & to have Sakuraba outside the top 10 shows a complete lack of knowledge on the man & IMHO an insult to how talented he was & who & HOW he beat his opponents back in his day.
This aint Harry Greb or Helio Gracie reading is believing ****, this is all on film to view in perfectly good footage, thats why it baffles me when I dont see the man on the occassional top 10 list.

 

20th+

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Nobhead ^

 

The real change to me seemed to be post Crocop, agenst Wanderlei the 1st time he misjudged the importance of knees on the ground being introduced IMHO and you saw a much more compeitibve fight second time round. Rampage obviously had a big power advanatge but Saku was still busting out the sub atempts agenst him.

After the very compettiive fight with Crocop though we had that terrible boring match vs Gilles Arsene and then the loss to Elvis. Then you had Randleman who like Rampage overpowered Saku but didnt have the weaknesses in his sub defence exploited until much larger in the fight, ealier Saku would have put him away before that IMHO.

 

Greb :nono No.1 without a doubt.

And there is footage of Helio....against Kimura:yep

 

Isnt that Grace v Kimura fight 3 hours long? Major kudos to anyone who watched all of that
Anyway, I think looking back in a head to head sense maybe Sakuraba wont hold up as time goes by, similar to some of the old timers in boxing (Fitzsimmons, Corbett, Jeffries) ect
But all things considered, his impact on the sport of MMA is second to none. Most points have already been made so I wont go over them again. Like Frank Shamrock he was one of the 1st grapplers to truly mixed striking and the ground game imo and he was damn entertaining to watch
A true all time great however you chose to look at it. A pioneer who has to be respected

 

Not much footage tho & SRR no1