gee i wonder why If Jones' car runs out of fuel he can take a tinkle into the tank and it will probably go faster than before
It's nebulous due to depth of different divisions as well as what era as the sport hass evolved quickly over a short period of time. I tend to look at reign and quality of opposition, and you can't compare fighters now to 20 years ago as it would be like comparing boxers now from a 100 years ago, it's complicated and multi variable. So I would throw out some names who are in the conversation. Fedor at Heavy. Honerable mention Cain. Jones at Light Heavy- Long reign but 7 years of inactivity due to various bans and lay offs, should have been better. Silva at Middle- I remember his fight with Franklin to win the belt, it was a brutal beat down, sometimes he messed about other times he just clowned the opposition. His fight at Light Heavy against former champ Griffen took the ****, Griffen didn't land a single glove on Silve who was literally in the matrix in that fight. GSP at Welter- Long reign in a deep division-GSP beat guys at their own game whether that was striking or wrestling. Kamara and Hughes are honerable mentions. Khabib or PJ Penn at Lightweight- Tricky one as being a deep division nobody has reigned and dominated like the the people listed above, both men were beasts in their respective primes, yeah PJ fell of a cliff, but still went up to Welter and wrecked Hughes who was a beast at Welter and top 3 in that division all time. Aldo at Feather although Volk is catching him- Aldo was an elite striker and just wrecked people in his prime piecing dudes up, long reign in a deep division. Cruz or Dillashaw- Cruz edges it but had a lot of time out due to injuries, Dillashaw although a bit of a dick was a great fighter. Demetrious at Flyweight- Overlooked a little due to lack of depth but Demetrious was a well rounded fighter who always found a way to win.
When people say GOAT some are thinking resumes and some just go off of who was the best at their peak. I go by who was the most unstoppable while at their best combined with the opponents they defeated. Prime Fedor is still to this day the best MMA fighter the world has seen. And he never got popped for PED’s. Case closed. GSP is a close 2nd
That's not how PED's work. There are Olympic weightlifters that are juiced to the gills who have less muscle mass than Fedor for instance. Not all PED's are steroids, and not all PED's make you look like Overeem. Fedor, like 90% of athletes, was 110% on PED. Idk why people get defensive about this. It's literally a level playing field, especially in his promotions at the time. It's physiologically impossible for a clean athlete to compete against a similarly talented PED using athletes, and it's psychologically unlikely to the point of virtual impossibility for one of the most competitive human beings on the planet to not take PED's when Pride literally said in their contract that they don't test for them. Imagine if your boss said that you'd get paid exactly the same and continue to get raises regardless of whether or not you show up for work, and then explicitly said in your contract that they don't check if you show up or not. Would you work a 9-5 anyway? **** no.
1. I sent a massive series of posts to someone else about PEDs. What evidence would you need to be convinced that Fedor took PED's? Full disclosure, the answer "a failed drug test" is invalid, because we know that they are extraordinarily easy to pass and that passing them doesn't mean you're clean. Lance Armstrong never failed a drug test. Most athletes that get busted never do. Armstrong also took a ridiculous amount of steroids and growth hormone btw. Like I said, not having big muscles doesn't mean anything. 2. Trying to prove to someone that (likely) knows nothing about sports science, sports statistics, sports biochemistry, sports physiology, sports psychology etc that all top level professional athletes use PED's is an impossible task. In addition to requiring a foundation of knowledge that you don't have, there's also a lot of misinformation and sentimental nonsense to deal with that one doesn't have to do for other subjects. For instance, I know for an absolute fact that Usain Bolt took PED's, but to someone that doesn't know anything about them this is a controversial statement, when in reality it's just basic, and I do mean basic inductive reasoning and statistics. Similarly, it's biologically impossible for a healthy and talented clean athlete to beat a healthy and comparably talented PED using athlete. Performance enhancing drugs wouldn't be named as such if they didn't enhance performance. So I'm not really even sure what proof I could give you outside of the entire history of PEDs in sport, drug testing and the biochemistry of performance lol. I'm not trying to be rude btw, you're one of my favourite posters. It's just that most sports fans aren't sports nerds. Not really interested in sports science AND have been fed a ridiculous amount of disinformation regarding PED's. Saying basic **** like weight training makes you stronger or no one is "naturally" 30%-40% body fat, Fury and Ruiz are just overweight is controversial around here. Hell, most people on this website didn't even know that a standard barbell weighed 20kg, yet they're knowledgeable enough about training and performance to have ideas about who is and isn't on drugs lol.
All I know is that he never failed a test and therefore I'm not going to accept that he used without proof. In my view while peds can obviously increase performance they are not a magic bullet. Take for example Helenius failing his PED test and losing to AJ recently.
Helenius all things being equal is much worse than AJ, AND AJ is also on PED's lol so mute point. And a single PED isn't a magic bullet, but athletes don't tell singles. They cycle different drugs on and off throughout the year. That's the difference between being washed at 33 and being washed at 38, or merely qualifying for the Olympics and winning medals.
Yes AJ is clean, Fedor was clean, only people who get popped are using PEDs and the tooth fairy is real.
