who would be considered the best MMA fighter of alltime

[grizzly adams]

just wondering if any of todays current fighters would be in the mix

 

[Snail Shell]

Nominees (assuming all fighters are at their peak) would include:
Anderson Silva
Wanderlei Silva
Matt Hughes
Tito Ortiz
Shogun Rua
Georges St. Pierre
Fedor Emelianenko
BJ Penn
Uriah Faber

To name a few.

Snail Shell

 

[obama666]

Royce Gracie!!!... The winner of UFC #1 and #2 or whatever the fuck they called it back then...His fighting stlye and victories separated what worked and what was "Dojo Bullshit"...Fucking "Death Blows", "10 years to perfect a punch", "Two years to make a perfect fist", "Oyama's extract a bull's heart death grip" and the "Super Kick" that could kill a man. It all turned to bullshit when Gracie submitted these phony assholes within a minute or two... After the Gracie victories "pratical application" became the rule of the day and all this "mystical, masters' of the Orient bullshit" was thrown out the window... Lesnar V Carwin was awesome by the way!!!

 

[The Fallen Angel]

royce gracie

 

[FlockOfSeagulls]

royce gracie

I am a huge fan of the Gracies and agree that Royce is absolutely one of the legends and helped bring MMA to the masses.

What is scary is that many believe that Rickson ; Royce`s half-brother , was on a whole other level than Royce. Royce himself has many times commented that Hickson was 10times better.

Hickson is 11-0 and it the new modern-style MMA matches but says he is undefeated in over 400 matches.

at the age of 20 Rickson defeated the legendary Brazilian brawler Rei Zulu.

 

[meangry]

Fedor Emelianenko and this isn't even up for debate.

 

[Dave Pavet]

Fedor Emelianenko...Talk about over-rated!

 

[Snail Shell]

Fedor Emelianenko and this isn't even up for debate.

The issue with saying that is that, even at his peak, Fedor hasn't beaten everyone.

Compare with Georges St. Pierre, for the sake of argument.

GSP has beaten all other major names at 170. Fitch, Alves, Koscheck, Hardy, Hughes, Parisyan, Miller, Sherk, Penn, Trigg. He's beaten them all. Who's left? Martin Kampmann, who hasn't earned a title shot yet. Paul Daley, who'll never fight in the UFC again and at any rate, lost to Koscheck. Jake Shields, who just signed to the UFC. That's it, and I can't see GSP losing to any of them.

Fedor has beaten many great names, but there are other heavyweights he hasn't beaten. He's never fought Couture, Lesnar, Carwin, Velasquez, Mir and he still has a loss over his head to Werdum.

In order to truly be considered the best ever, Fedor would have to fight the list above and win decisively. A great fighter? Without a doubt. The best ever? Not a chance.

Snail Shell

 

[bftk2005]

Anderson Silva

 

[meangry]

The issue with saying that is that, even at his peak, Fedor hasn't beaten everyone.

Compare with Georges St. Pierre, for the sake of argument.

GSP has beaten all other major names at 170. Fitch, Alves, Koscheck, Hardy, Hughes, Parisyan, Miller, Sherk, Penn, Trigg. He's beaten them all. Who's left? Martin Kampmann, who hasn't earned a title shot yet. Paul Daley, who'll never fight in the UFC again and at any rate, lost to Koscheck. Jake Shields, who just signed to the UFC. That's it, and I can't see GSP losing to any of them.

Fedor has beaten many great names, but there are other heavyweights he hasn't beaten. He's never fought Couture, Lesnar, Carwin, Velasquez, Mir and he still has a loss over his head to Werdum.

In order to truly be considered the best ever, Fedor would have to fight the list above and win decisively. A great fighter? Without a doubt. The best ever? Not a chance.

Snail Shell

Fitch, Alves, Koscheck, Hardy, Hughes, Parisyan, Miller, Sherk, Penn, Trigg. Those are the quality wins. I'm not throwing out Carlos Newton and people like that at welterweight and saying "well, he hasn't fought him, he's a former champ, so he needs to beat him to be great". There isn't a diluge of great fighters at welterweight as there was/has been at heavyweight. Save Couture and Mir, the other guys are all post PRIDEfc UFC fighters, and I'm sorry if you think a gassing Shane Carwin somehow equates to an elite level fighter.

This argument is lame; Fedor doesn't fight for the UFC, so he hasn't faced those names. Somehow, because he doesn't fight there now, and because MMA fans are completely and utterly short sighted toward "what have you done for me lately", people forget that Fedor spent a decade undefeated and beating some of the greatest fighters ever convincingly. Using your mode of reasoning, Magic Johnson has to beat Steve Nash and Chris Paul today to hold onto his spot as the best point guard ever.

We'll talk about St. Pierre when he reaches year nine of his winning streak.

 

[Snail Shell]

By that argument, your vote should be for Royce Gracie. He beat 7 of the best in the world at the time in under 15 minutes.

And I'm not discounting what Fedor did in Pride. However, MMA has evolved since then, much the same as it has evolved beyond Royce Gracie's expertise. Matt Hughes proved that in 2006. What I'm suggesting is that, in my opinion, the truly be considered the best ever in a sport like MMA, one must defeat all other major names in the weight class. While Fedor did defeat many, there are several others he did not defeat. As well, at age 33, those fights, in the UFC or otherwise, are not impossible to see.

As for the UFC not being the pinnacle of the sport, right now at sherdog.com, the top 10 rankings in each weight class have the UFC champion in that weight class at the #1 spot. I can't disagree.

Regardless, you're entitled to your opinion. 🙂

Snail Shell

 

[Dave Pavet]

I really think Fedor avoided UFC Heavyweights for the later part of his career. MMA is relatively short on history compared to Boxing so it's tough to rate all-time greats.

 

[Snail Shell]

MMA is relatively short on history compared to Boxing so it's tough to rate all-time greats.

That's an excellent point too.

Snail Shell