How good was Fedor really? Was he truly elite?

[dipstickjimmy]

Why is Rogers being ranked ludicrous? Pretty sure Poatan was ranked after he beat Strickland. Max just got ranked at 155 after beating no one but Gaethje.
Shane Carwin wasn’t even in the Top 25 at the start of 2009, but was ranked in the Top 10 after beating nobody worthwhile but Gonzaga.

That’s kind of just how rankings work, man.

Alex's entire career is built off of the success of Izzy and Alex's kickboxing history.
Max as a top ranked FW and former champion I can see being ranked at LW but in no way should he be parachuted into Gathje's #2 slot.

Carwin's situation HW as thin as it is now was worse being split by SF, UFC, Affliction etc. Stipe's era has most if not all the top HWs.

Rogers is and was a CAN. One fluke win and he is thrown into a title fight with Fedor. He did not belong in the cage with him.

 

[dipstickjimmy]

You seem to have an incapability of understanding your advantage of hindsight lol
Who else was he going to beat on the regional scene at the time? Name someone that could have crossed paths with Brett Rogers that would have been a "good win" before getting into SF.

Edit: Please no novella length reply, just 2-4 names of regional heavyweights that would have been a good wins at the time.

Not saying it was Roger's fault. Never said that. Not sure what makes you think I did say that???

Fedor fought a can. Nothing new he fought tons of them. Stipe has been fighting an excalating level of competition his entire career. Fedor never did that. Whether it is the fault of different Era's or something else is not my concern.

IMO Stipe's career is more impressive then Fedor's. The hindsight is looking back at both of their careers. No advantage on either side. Not sure why Hindsight is some sort of issue for you?

 

[Taric]

The hindsight is looking back at both of their careers. No advantage on either side. Not sure why Hindsight is some sort of issue for you?

If you can't see why revisionist history is a problem, nobody can help you.

Brett Rogers defeated the #2 HW in the world. That is something that happened in the real world... you are purposely choosing to ignore reality.

Calling Rogers a can is like calling Matt Serra a can. It completely ignores what happened in real life.

 

[gspieler]

I think a ton of people, the majority, completely ignore or are completely unaware of the fact that he DOMINATED combat sambo at the exact same time. For pretty much all his 10 years of dominance.

Being the absolute best at two combat sports at the same time....while not being obviously juiced and usually undersized.

And....he just coincidentally started losing at Sambo around the same time he started losing in mma. But the haters will just never admit he physically wasn't the same when he lost to Werdum, and actually well before that.

 

[markg171]

Majority of the noobie crowd on here is incapable of rating talent at the time the fights occurred. Therefore they de-value majority of his wins. Fedor cleaned out the HW division for years. Guys like CroCop were absolute killers while in their prime.

Fedor was great, but saying he cleaned out HW is just laughable propaganda.

 

[markg171]

And....he just coincidentally started losing at Sambo around the same time he started losing in mma. But the haters will just never admit he physically wasn't the same when he lost to Werdum, and actually well before that.

Yes, it was the "lack of physical prime" that caused him to jump head first into the guard of the greatest grappler he'd ever faced.

Pretty much all of Fedor's losses were just him fighting like a reckless idiot in completely winnable fights.

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

Fedor was great, but saying he cleaned out HW is just laughable propaganda.

The only two HWs from Fedors era that he didn't clean out were Barnett and Couture. Barnett ducked him for years- which is why Fedor fought Coleman the second time. Pride confirmed Barnett ducked him that night and fought Nastula that same night instead. Barnett popped for steroids the same week they were finally supposed to fight in Affliction. That wasn't Fedors fault.

Besides Barnett it was Randy who tried to fight Fedor but the UFC wouldn't let him. Randy ended up getting mopped by the fossil of Minotauro so we know how that would have most likely turned out.

Besides those two who was Fedor supposed to fight to clean out from his generation?

Ubereem is the only one but he wasn't even a HW until the tail end of Fedors run.

 

[markg171]

The only two HWs from Fedors era that he didn't clean out were Barnett and Couture. Barnett ducked him for years- which is why Fedor fought Coleman the second time. Pride confirmed Barnett ducked him that night and fought Nastula that same night instead. Barnett popped for steroids the same week they were finally supposed to fight in Affliction. That wasn't Fedors fault.

Besides Barnett it was Randy who tried to fight Fedor but the UFC wouldn't let him. Randy ended up getting mopped by the fossil of Minotauro so we know how that would have most likely turned out.

Besides those two who was Fedor supposed to fight to clean out from his generation?

Ubereem is the only one but he wasn't even a HW until the tail end of Fedors run.

Look at you moving the goalposts already by changing the criteria to "his generation" and "Fedor's run". Thank's for proving my point about laughable propaganda by doing so when the claim was that Fedor cleared out HW.

Now let me further guess. Fighting guys like Mir in 2018 counted for you. That one was "Fedor's generation" he beat. But I mean who gives a shit if it was 13 years after when it meant anything, I'm sure it did for you conveniently of course.

Let me also guess. Despite that, and while being the #2 HW in Bellator all the way up to 2023 when he retired, that conversely magically doesn't count for all the HWs he never fought during that same period. Despite being active and highly ranked in his organization, we just get to conviently completely ignore 17 years worth of HWs he should've and could've fought then instead of the bums he did.

Let alone how dishonest you obviously have to be just to have left out the Brock sized hole in your post.

You would make Stalin blush with your levels of propaganda. I don't know why you guys feel the need to try and revisionist history so brazenly to people who literally themselves will admit Fedor was #1 during that period. It's a mental illness at this point to get so upset at even the slightest criticisms of pointing out obvious facts like no Fedor did not clean out HW.

 

[dipstickjimmy]

If you can't see why revisionist history is a problem, nobody can help you.

Brett Rogers defeated the #2 HW in the world. That is something that happened in the real world... you are purposely choosing to ignore reality.

Calling Rogers a can is like calling Matt Serra a can. It completely ignores what happened in real life.

What is revisionist about assessing Rogers career now that it is over? You are assuming I am saying Fedor pursued Cans. I never said that. Rogers is a CAN. He is 17-10 and never beat anyone but Arlovski. He lost to everyone else who had any legit ranking. His best win aside from AA was James Thompson who was ranked #52 according to Fight Matrix. Or maybe you think #223 ranked Kawaguchi was better? Or Ruben Villareal at #219

Rogers rising from nowhere to be ranked in the top 10 for 1 relevant win is akin to an NFL team at 0-15 beating a team at 15-0 and being given their playoff spot. One win doesn't make you the beat in the sport.

Again not sure how any of you who are so invested in Fedor's legacy can be arguing that Roger's is anything but a can. Maybe he was a good CAN by CAN standards??? but I don't think so.

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

Look at you moving the goalposts already by changing the criteria to "his generation" and "Fedor's run". Thank's for proving my point about laughable propaganda by doing so when the claim was that Fedor cleared out HW.

Now let me further guess. Fighting guys like Mir in 2018 counted for you. That one was "Fedor's generation" he beat. But I mean who gives a shit if it was 13 years after when it meant anything, I'm sure it did for you conveniently of course.

Let me also guess. Despite that, and while being the #2 HW in Bellator all the way up to 2023 when he retired, that conversely magically doesn't count for all the HWs he never fought during that same period. Despite being active and highly ranked in his organization, we just get to conviently completely ignore 17 years worth of HWs he should've and could've fought then instead of the bums he did.

Let alone how dishonest you obviously have to be just to have left out the Brock sized hole in your post.

You would make Stalin blush with your levels of propaganda. I don't know why you guys feel the need to try and revisionist history so brazenly to people who literally themselves will admit Fedor was #1 during that period. It's a mental illness at this point to get so upset at even the slightest criticisms of pointing out obvious facts like no Fedor did not clean out HW.

You're desperately trying to discredit Fedors legacy like the rest of the geeks in this thread. Oddly every pro fighter celebrates Fedors legacy as one of the best ever.

The best HWs of Fedors generation were Mirko, Nog, Tim, AA and Randy. You also had guys like Barnett, Sergei and Werdum but they all lost to eachother or to Big Nog.

Fedor completely destroyed Nog at his peak twice and Nog completely outclassed every other top HW: Barnett, Werdum and Sergei. Fedor also completely out classed Mirko as well who beat Barnett multiple times.

I remember when 's on sherdog were making absurd claims that Fedor was afraid of coming to the UFC and ducking Tim and AA. There were some mentions of Randy but he was retired and had only beaten Tim so it's not like he was some super active HW during that time where people were saying Fedor had to fight him to prove himself. AA and Tim were those guys.

Nobody was talking about Fedor having to beat Mir at that time either. Literally no one. Mir was out for a long time due to injury from that motorcycle crash and when he returned he was getting mopped by the likes of Brandon Vera. No one was saying Fedor had to fight Mir to prove himself or clean out the division.

Bringing up Brock is weird because he didn't become champion until 2008 in the tail end of Fedor's run and retired with less than 10 fights. He's not an all time great like the others I mentioned above.

I've literally never seen anyone claim that Fedor had to beat Brock to clean out the division. If Fedor beat Brock guys like you would move the goalposts and say he now had to beat Cain and JDS. I know how it goes you fools.

Fedor beat the best HWs of his generation minus Josh and Randy who he tried to fight but couldn't. Either way neither of them could beat Nog and Mirko who Fedor beat handily. I'd say that's pretty close to cleaning out the division when you also consider that Fedor also beat Hunt, Herring, Coleman, Randleman and Schilt who took up a lot of HW top 10 during Fedors run.

 

[moreorless87]

If you can't see why revisionist history is a problem, nobody can help you.

Brett Rogers defeated the #2 HW in the world. That is something that happened in the real world... you are purposely choosing to ignore reality.

Calling Rogers a can is like calling Matt Serra a can. It completely ignores what happened in real life.

The problem is really people are very selective about how they treat such fights.

Fedor beating guys like Randleman and Rogers off the back of them having a great win is discounted as meaningless but that kind of thing has happened so many times in the UFC and people will happly just put it down as a "top 10 win".

Guys like Nog and Crocop losing to Fedor but carrying on as elite fighters afterwards really I would argue tends not to be the norm in MMA, the reality is a lot of fighters take a big loss in a title fight and then decline, especially at HW.

 

[DayV]

You are either intentionally skipping the keyword or deliberately doing so. Perhaps you have jumped in without having seen my original post in this thread or my many replies.
Stipe at age 33 fought in Consecutive fights: Hunt, Arlovski, Wedrum, Overeem, JDS & Francis. All KO/TKO wins except for a 5 round domination over Frank.

At 33 Fedor fought Werdum, Bigfoot & MW Dan Henderson. That was the first time he fought a string of top ranked HWs consecutively and Hendo was even a HW. He never did that in RINGS which was run by his own team wasn't it?

His Pride HW run to the title was Schilt, Herring & Big Nog. Then 4 fights against middling guys and then 40 year old Coleman, Randelman. Throw in a Japanese guy and then a NC with Nog and a rematch with Nog. Then a Can, Cro cop, Zulu (Can with a cool name) then 42 year old Coleman.

I can keep going but I need to move on with my life. Fedor never fought at the highest level CONSECUTIVELY. He always had favourable matchmaking and or a bunch of cans added to his calendar. You can't actually ignore that he fought a lot of Cans. He also never fought consecutively against top level completion. Show me a consecutive string equal to what Stipe did.

Stipe fought in 7 years:
Hunt, Arlovski, Werdum, Overeem, JDS 2x, Ngannou 2x, Cormier 3x

Fedor fought in 7 years:
Schilt, Herring, Nogueira 3x, Coleman (1 loss removed from beeing champion), Randleman (beat top ranked CC), Cro Cop, Hunt, Sylvia, Arlovski

If you look at it like that, then Fedor fought the same amount of "consecutive" quallity opponents as Stipe. But those are all fight that Stipe fought.
Fighting top opponent once a year, and then fighting next year is not "CONSECUTIVELY".

While Stipe was sitting on his ass, resting and waiting for next "consecutive" opponent next year, Fedor was fighting. He fought additional
solid & dangerous opponents like

Fujita (Top 10), Goodridge, Koshaka who previously beat him, Rogers (Top 10), Ogawa (Top 15), Linland...

where he almost got KO'd, and got injured. He fought some cans like Nagata, Valavicius, but at HW lot of unforseen things can happen, he fought giants with huge size advantage like Zuluzinho and Choi, who were undefeated and eager to utilize their advantage, and you actually had to step into the ring and prove with your skin that their size advantage does not count.

It is harder to fight quality oppontes in the same or greater frequency, with solid medium and weaker opponents added inbetween, like Fedor and Pride guys did, which carry more danger and risk of beeing caught and beaten, or getting injuries which can cost you a defeat later. If Stipe fought additional 5-6 Struves in that run, he could have easily lost more fights, or lose the fights he won, due to wear, burnout and injuries.

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

The problem is really people are very selective about how they treat such fights.

Fedor beating guys like Randleman and Rogers off the back of them having a great win is discounted as meaningless but that kind of thing has happened so many times in the UFC and people will happly just put it down as a "top 10 win".

Guys like Nog and Crocop losing to Fedor but carrying on as elite fighters afterwards really I would argue tends not to be the norm in MMA, the reality is a lot of fighters take a big loss in a title fight and then decline, especially at HW.

Great point.

Fedor is criticized for fighting dangerous guys at the peak of their confidence and momentum when it's something he or anyone else should be given credit for.

Big Nog went 9-1 in his next 10 fights after losing to Fedor and mounted wins over Barnett, Sergei and Werdum. Then he went on to the UFC and became in interim world champion there. The one loss was a split decision loss to Barnett in what was a very close fight which Nog avenged in the rematch.

Mirko went 6-1 in his next 7 and mounted a win over Wand and Barnett in that span and won an OWGP. The loss came to Mark Hunt in a very close split decision, K-1 like fight.

It's clear that Mirko and Nog were both elite fighters who mounted strong runs after losing to Fedor. Same goes for AA who made it back to the UFC and went on a nice run 6 years later. This isn't the same as Stipes opponents being aleady washed up when he fought them and being barely able to win a fight after losing to him.

 

[moreorless87]

Great point.

Fedor is criticized for fighting dangerous guys at the peak of their confidence and momentum when it's something he or anyone else should be given credit for.

Big Nog went 9-1 in his next 10 fights after losing to Fedor and mounted wins over Barnett, Sergei and Werdum. Then he went on to the UFC and became in interim world champion there. The one loss was a split decision loss to Barnett in what was a very close fight which Nog avenged in the rematch.

Mirko went 6-1 in his next 7 and mounted a win over Wand and Barnett in that span and won an OWGP. The loss came to Mark Hunt in a very close split decision, K-1 like fight.

It's clear that Mirko and Nog were both elite fighters who mounted strong runs after losing to Fedor. Same goes for AA who made it back to the UFC and went on a nice run 6 years later. This isn't the same as Stipes opponents being aleady washed up when he fought them and being barely able to win a fight after losing to him.

In Nogs case you had a period of over 6 years were he only loses to Fedor and then the first 9 years of his career he only loses to Fedor plus a close decision to Barnett and a very bad decision to Hendo, both of which he avenges, if not for Fedor he would clearly be the HW GOAT.

To be honest I don't really see any creditable case for Stipe being the GOAT simply because he lost too often, not just late in his career but during what would be considered his prime.

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

In Nogs case you had a period of over 6 years were he only loses to Fedor and then the first 9 years of his career he only loses to Fedor plus a close decision to Barnett and a very bad decision to Hendo, both of which he avenges, if not for Fedor he would clearly be the HW GOAT.

To be honest I don't really see any creditable case for Stipe being the GOAT simply because he lost too often, not just late in his career but during what would be considered his prime.

Nog will never get the credit he truly deserves because of UFC fan recency bias and because he stuck around for too long but his legacy is better than Stipes too IMO.

If Fedor didn't exist and you take away that fake loss to Hendo which was a clear cut robbery which Nog avenged in the rematch by finishing Hendo, there was point in Nog's career when he would have had a record of 34-1 with no unavenged losses and one loss being by split decision to Barnett which Minotauro avenged and wins over prime Mirko, prime Barnett , prime Werdum, prime Sergei and prime Herring when they were all in their 20s. Pride champion and UFC champion. Stipe's career can't fuck with that.

 

[AmericanMMA]

Fedor did ok in Pride fc

 

[moreorless87]

Nog will never get the credit he truly deserves because of UFC fan recency bias and because he stuck around for too long but his legacy is better than Stipes too IMO.

If Fedor didn't exist and you take away that fake loss to Hendo which was a clear cut robbery which Nog avenged in the rematch by finishing Hendo, there was point in Nog's career when he would have had a record of 34-1 with no unavenged losses and one loss being by split decision to Barnett which Minotauro avenged and wins over prime Mirko, prime Barnett , prime Werdum, prime Sergei and prime Herring when they were all in their 20s. Pride champion and UFC champion. Stipe's career can't fuck with that.

I feel after that top 2 you have several fighters making cases, JDS, Stipe, Crocop, Werdum, Cain and Barnett, what order they go in I don't think really matters as it depends a lot on whats valued more.

 

[Oz.Pride]

Put it this way.

Leon could win ten more in a row and still wouldn't be worth the sweat squeezed out of Fedors jocj strap.

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

He is a straight up CAN. 10-0 but literally the only single ranked fighter he went against was AA. Him shooting up into the top 10 is ludicrious. He had never faced anyone of any note prior to Arlovski. He also never beat a single ranked fighter after AA. Losing to Fedor, Overeem, Barnett, Eddie Sanchez, Volkov, De Fries.

Removing Arlovski from his record his best wins are Josh Thompson career 20-17 record & Kawaguchi 18-12 career record. Nobody else he beat even rates having a wiki page FFS.

Wins over:
Stan Strong 0-1 career record
Chris Clark 7-30 career record
Brian Heden 31-17 career record
Mark Racine 0-3 career record
Josh Melichar 5-1 career record
Ralph Kelly 5-10 career record
James Thompson 20-17 career record
Jon Murphy 6-4 career record
Ron Humphrey 7-3 career record

He was brought in to give Arlovski and easy win and lo and behold he gets a flukey win. What do they do? Rush him in to the cage with Fedor!!! He is an undefeated killer!!!!

Rogers is a CAN and that isn't disrespect it is just the truth.

Lol he wasn't brought in to get an easy win. He was 10-0. He was feared and undefeated. You have no proper recognition of the past.

 

[Sms_productions713]

It’s because when he was on top, the ufc heavyweights sucked outside of maybe mir and arlovski. His era, he fought the better heavyweights.

Same reason shogun was doubted as the best lhw because ufc lhw sucked outside of chuck and Tito