Quote:
Originally Posted by aejones
i like this list better, tho i'd prob drop mir a few spots
Mir is incredibly underrated imo. His last 8 fights(with my ranking of his opponent in parentheses):
win over Roy Nelson(8)
win over Crocop(unranked)
loss to Carwin(6)
win over Kongo(7)
loss to Brock(3)
win over Big Nog(unranked, but this was in 2008 when Big Nog was much closer to his prime than now. For example, in the fights before and after facing Mir, Big Nog beat Tim Sylvia and Randy Couture)
win over Brock(3)
win over Hardonk(unranked)
So he has lost to my #6 and split with my #3. Otherwise undefeated.
By comparison, lets take a look at the guy ranked right below him in my rankings, Alistair Overeem. Not counting his no contest against CroCop, he has won 10 in a row, but look at his opponents:
Fabricio Werdum
Todd Duffee
Brett Rogers
Kazuyuki Fujita
James Thompson
Tony Sylvester
Gary Goodridge
Mark Hunt
Lee Tae-Hyun
Paul Buentello
I'm definitely excited to see Overeem/Brock, but I'm not sold on Overeem at all yet. His last win over Werdum was incredibly unimpressive imo. I think he gets way overrated due to "OMG, hes so big and scary looking!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyOcean_
Kongo at 7 seems way too high. Assani underrating basically all of the SF heavyweights imo.
The SF HW division has/had a bunch of cans like Fedor, Brett Rogers, BigFoot, etc. These guys beat up on each other, so people forget that its the minor leagues.
Now I'm not saying that definitively proves that there aren't any elite talents in their division. But, just like in other sports, it can be a bit of a crapshoot as to who will pan out when they finally reach the big leagues and who will bust. For every Peyton Manning, theres a Ryan Leaf.
I may be overrating Kongo, but his only losses in his last 9 fights were to Cain Velasquez and Frank Mir. And I consider his performance against Cain to actually be a positive for him in these rankings. He took him to a decision and he actually knocked him down with punches twice in that fight. Before the JDS/Cain fight, Kongo was the only one to make Cain look human. Just watch the Brock/Cain fight and the Kongo/Cain fight back to back and I think Kongo comes out looking great.
With all that said, I could definitely buy moving Kongo down to #11 on my list. I made my list fairly quickly and didn't think things through a ton.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyOcean_
For instance: In my mind, Barnett would kill Nelson, and also has the more impressive recent resume. Nelson is 1-2 in his last 3 and let old man washed up cro cop fight surprisingly well in his one win. Nelson really has no great wins, just a few decent wins. Barnett hasn't lost since his 2006 loss to prime Nog, and has no great wins but lots of decent wins, more than Nelson.
Maybe I give fighters more credit for competitive losses than you do. Roy Nelson took JDS to a decision, and JDS had plenty of opportunities to finish imo. Since entering the UFC:
KO win over Brendan Schaub(KOTN)
KO win over Stefan Struve(KOTN)
Decision loss to JDS
Decision loss to Mir
KO win over CroCop
I very much disagree that Barnett's resume was more impressive. Here were his opponents in that win streak you speak of:
Hidehiko Yoshida
Jeff Monson
Pedro Rizzo
Gilbert Yvel
Mighty Mo
Geronimo Dos Santos
Brett Rogers
Sergei Kharitonov
Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyOcean_
agree with yowhatsup
Brock actually has a fine chin, the problem is that his reaction to getting hit is to cower. that **** will get you killed, to quote training day. He can take plenty of punishment, but his reactions are panicky.
Thats interesting. What can a fighter do to work on this then? Obviously you don't want to be taking huge punishment in training.