Fact of the matter is Prime Nog would be the betting favorite for GOAT if it weren't for Fedor and prime Crocop is still the scariest mma striker of all time and Fedor even neutralized that.
Fedor was exciting, dead eyed and a beast. No doubt about it, I watched Pride early on and loved it.
However Fedor will always have an asterisk beside his name because of three things IMO NOW.
Pride didn't help Fedor, he had a good number of Fights in Pride where the Belt Wasn't on the line, Freak Fights, entertaining but not against great MMA fighters. Therefore it padded his record overall.
Next there were the Allegations of fight fixing. Fighters who fought for Pride saying they were offered more cash to lose a fight ... this one hurts. It was more than a few times this was discussed and with the Japanese Mob in the background, it is certainly more than a possibility of it being true. Who knows if any or Fedor's fights were fixed or not?
Then still at an age HWs are still in their Prime ,Fedor came to the USA to fight in Strikeforce. Losses ( all finishes) to Werdum, Bigfoot and Henderson ( a MW who moved up to HW) .
It was these losses all together on top of the Pride Fight Fixing Rumours that gave me cause to believe they could be true. I hope not, I do. I'd like to say Fedor is the GOAT but to me it will always have an asterisk beside his name because of the above .