Ngannou vs Prime Cro Cop in a ring

Yeah because he got old. Some guys don’t age the same skills way, or have different physical primes.

Do you think this shit is some kind of video game or something? Do you not have the ability to grasp simple concepts like the passage of time?

He has wins over three current top ten fighters:

- Overeem

- Andrei

- Werdum

It’s like, fucking lol for Christ’s sake.

He beat a very green Werdum via split decision and the other 2 are notoriously chinny and ran hot and cold throughout their careers. He gets killed by Stipe, Cain, or JDS. And Arlovski isn't in anyone's top 10 currently.

He was
28 when he got choked out by the much older, smaller Monson...28.
 
Semmy wasn't fighting in the 90ies, Semmy was actually a mma fighter before being a K-1 fighter, kinda like Overeem.

Most of the guys you named weren't 260 fit like Verhoeven, not even close.
The average K-1 heavyweight back in the day was a lot smaller.

I said he was 200-220 in his K-1 and Pride days, go read my original post.
In the early K-1 days he was smaller.
Hahaha not even close huh? Lebanner was 265 at 6'4" and way stronger than Rico. Semmy and Bjorn were close to 300! Bernardo was around 250ish. And yes semmy was fighting then and even before then when he was competing in Kyokishin, prob spelt that wrong but whatever. Went to Pancrase after karate before K-1. Just some examples. Even Bonjasky, Hoost, and Aerts were only about 20-30 pounds off and the same height but also faster and packed more KO power. Alexey 6'5" 250.
 
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Crocop would be the clear favorite and it's not even up to debate. Having said this, Ngannou has reach and a lot of power so he still has a decent chance to beat any HW on a single fight.
 
Randleman was able to KO prime crocop so i bet Francis would too.
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Nganou lost to Zoumana Cisse, I don't see how a prime Cro Cop doesn't beat the juggernaut Cisse.
 
Hahaha not even close huh? Lebanner was 265 at 6'4" and way stronger than Rico. Semmy and Bjorn were close to 300! Bernardo was around 250ish. And yes semmy was fighting then and even before then when he was competing in Kyokishin, prob spelt that wrong but whatever. Just some examples. Even Bonjasky, Hoost, and Aerts were only about 20 pounds off and the same height but also faster and packed more KO power.
Listen dude, you said 90ies and then you name fighters that haven't fought in the 90ies.
Bonjasky, Hoost and Aerts were way smaller than Verhoeven and they got bigger with time, because the competition got bigger.
Le Banner was the only guy of the size of Verhoeven and a lot less athletic.

Overall K-1 heavyweights got bigger with time, if you can't see that i don't know what to say.
 
Personally I lean towards to Ngannou but we do need to see how his career pans out just to be sure.
 
Listen dude, you said 90ies and then you name fighters that haven't fought in the 90ies.
Bonjasky, Hoost and Aerts were way smaller than Verhoeven and they got bigger with time, because the competition got bigger.
Le Banner was the only guy of the size of Verhoeven and a lot less athletic.

Overall K-1 heavyweights got bigger with time, if you can't see that i don't know what to say.
Rico weighs 260 now and he was smaller once too. You talk like he's some rare monster to the sport only having 15 finishes in almost 60 fights when there have been bigger and better before him. Lebanner was faster and more explosive so I don't understand how he was less athletic. Competition didn't get all around bigger. Guys just gain weight as they get older no matter what era you talk about just like Rico. 6'5" 260 is nothing new to that sport. Rico couldn't even finish a 43 high mileage Peter Aerts and look what Badr Hari did to him 3 years before that with great ease!
 
Rico weighs 260 now and he was smaller once too. You talk like he's some rare monster to the sport only having 15 finishes in almost 60 fights when there have been bigger and better before him. Lebanner was faster and more explosive so I don't understand how he was less athletic. Competition didn't get all around bigger. Guys just gain weight as they get older no matter what era you talk about just like Rico. 6'5" 260 is nothing new to that sport. Rico couldn't even finish a 43 high mileage Peter Aerts and look what Badr Hari did to him 3 years before that with great ease!
Verhoeven is 28, it's normal he got bigger in the last 5 years, when he fought Aerts he was a kid and still getting a lot better.
6.5 260 is a lot different compared to the past dominant heavyweight kickboxers of the earlier days like Rob Kaman, Brako Cicatic, Ernesto Hoost, Andy Hug.

Competition in kickboxing it's a different story, the sport is in a bad state currently.
 
Overeem has a win over him as well, when he was still fighting at 205.




Kharitonov is a good fighter, don't get me wrong, but he is not as good as you think he is.
Miocic is far better than him.

That is the fight that affected Sergei for a while and effectively ended his prime. He hurt his shoulder bad in that fight and Reem started kneeing the shit out of his face on the ground.

Then Sergei lost to Fedor's brother in a war later that year.

Sergei still KO'ed Reem in a rematch a few years later. He also KO'ed Arlovski after that.

Sergei's prime years were 2000 to 2006.

No surprise he has declined as of 2017 but is still a very good boxer and knocking people out all over the world.
 
Verhoeven is 28, it's normal he got bigger in the last 5 years, when he fought Aerts he was a kid and still getting a lot better.
6.5 260 is a lot different compared to the past dominant heavyweight kickboxers of the earlier days like Rob Kaman, Brako Cicatic, Ernesto Hoost, Andy Hug.

Competition in kickboxing it's a different story, the sport is in a bad state currently.
Most of the guys you just named were at their best in the 80's and your purposely picking the smallest of the litter. Where's the dominate heavyweights from the best era of K-1 being the late 90's early 2000's when there were a lot of guys his size? What's the point your trying to make anyway? Do you actually think Rico is some evolved new breed in modern day kickboxing which we both agree is dead for the heavies. When Hoost, Aerts, Bonjasky, Schilt, Bernardo, and Lebanner were all fighting for the crown into the early 2000's they were all between 240ish-290, semmy being the 290 of course and the shortest guy of the listed bunch was 6'4".
 
BJJ isn't magic, i am a purple belt and it's not easy to sub someone from the guard, no gi even harder, at heavyweight and at the highest level in mma where you could stall all day if you are on top it's almost impossible.
There is a reason you barely see submission anymore in mma and even less at heavyweight, it's not because the level went down, it's the opposite, the level got up and nobody is willing to play on the ground anymore because if you are on bottom you are losing.

I haven't seen Kharitonov against Werdum in ages, but it's easy to shut down someone from the guard if you are on top, just put your hands on their biceps and stall, you could do that even if you are clueless.



This is a great seminar Cormier and Velasquez did in Russia (and it's free, god bless the internet).

At 34 minutes Cormier says that at the highest level in mma nobody want to play guard anymore, they want to stand up, and Crazy Bob Cook on the bottom says" we want them to play guard".
You play guard in 2017 and you lose the fight, unless you are a freak with no articulations like Brian Ortega that can catch submissions from anywhere.



This is a folkstyle drill at AKA, the guy on bottom wants to stand up, you see Cain wrestling with Todd Duffee meanwhile Cormier says to someone "get up, forget that jiu jitsu shit".

Nogueira had poor wrestling, there is not way around it.
That takedown against Kharitonov was bad, you don't go to your knees in mma, and at heavyweight you are asking to get sprawled and carry a big ass man on top of you, if the guy know how to wrestle, unlike Kharitonov.
Cormier says the same thing in that video i linked above, if you are interested.


I'd say its a bit of a mix, you see fewer subs partly because judging favours them less(which means losses via LnP are more likely) but also because yes the level has gone down. Back in the 00's we had a steady tide of very high level sub grapplers moving to MMA seriously, more recently this source of talent has largely dried up. I'd say due to a combination of BJJ/sub grappling paying much better and MMA being less likely to offer big money fairly quickly with fewer orgs and the UFC less likely to value elite grappling backgrounds highly.

Again watch Nog/Sergei and tell me that's a terrible takedown early on, its a well timed quick and accurate shot that catches him off balance. No Nog isn't a world class wrestler but again he has the advantage he can commit to shots like that without fear of being reversed vs most opponents. As I said look at Maia, by your standards he's a poor wrestler yet the man has a record of consistently getting opponents to the ground in an "evolved" era just as Nog did.

One of the clearest issues with the aging HW division I would say is actually declining wrestling ability. Werdum had a similar if not quite as good shoot on him in his early days, these days he can barely get down for one and the same is true for guys like Barnett.

Werdum gets ontop of Sergei twice in their fight and both times Kharitonov escapes fairly quickly, he also throws some GnP with range on it several times and defends submission attempts. That fight is not at all like Werdum/Hunt for example with one guy just staying close and laying on the other. The reality is that Kharitonov was an excellent submission grappler(maybe not at Nog/Werdum/Fedor levels but strong none then less) back in the day but largely ignored that side of his game post Pride when training with Glory and fighting kickboxing.
 
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Most of the guys you just named were at their best in the 80's and your purposely picking the smallest of the litter. Where's the dominate heavyweights from the best era of K-1 being the late 90's early 2000's when there were a lot of guys his size? What's the point your trying to make anyway? Do you actually think Rico is some evolved new breed in modern day kickboxing which we both agree is dead for the heavies. When Hoost, Aerts, Bonjasky, Schilt, Bernardo, and Lebanner were all fighting for the crown into the early 2000's they were all between 240ish-290, semmy being the 290 of course and the shortest guy of the listed bunch was 6'4".
There is no way Hoost, Aerts and Bojansky were 240 pounds in the early 2000.
Fighters were smaller back in the day, the more you go back in time the smaller the heavyweight.

My point is that heavyweight fighters got bigger with time in every combat sport and i said it from the beginning.
But if you want to have the last words, you are right, i don't care.
 
we are in the weakest heavyweight time in history...aside from the rocky marciano era...

I dont know about that. Marciano fought some great guys like archie moore, ezzard charles (twice), jersey joe (twice). Those are all time greats.
 
Is this a joke?

Prime crocop got destroyed by gonzaga n Congo

He was simply too small in pride (220).

Francis would ko him in couple of minutes
 
I started watching fighting sports in 2002 with K-1 and then Pride, started watching UFC only in late 2006.

I have been passionate about all those legends, Shogun, Big Nog, Mirko, Fedor, they were like gods back in the day.
Skillwise, the HW division has decreased. IMO, the likes of Aleks Emelianenko, Barnett, Sergei, Fedor and Mirko have nothing to envy to the current HW's, even more, they seemed more explosive (maybe because there were no testing) and showed more cardio (the 10 minutes first round).

The sport has evolved but the heavyweights did not evolve in term of skills but in more in term of size.

A decade ago, the top HW's weighted between 105 and 115 Kg for the heavier ones, and since Brock's UFC run, the HW size has increased a lot (JDS, Carwin, Overeem, Ngannou ...), in one decade, the HW division has gained 10 Kg of pure muscles.

Sure, Mirko did KO fighters heavier than him (Waterman, Sapp), but it's pointless to say that today's heavies would murder the old generation, because it's like it's a whole different weight class, hell, even more crazy, when you compare Fedor's size to Jon Jones's size, or Gus's size, you really wonder yourself if you have not been following for years light heavyweights who did not cut weight in the Pride HW division.
 
There is no way Hoost, Aerts and Bojansky were 240 pounds in the early 2000.
Fighters were smaller back in the day, the more you go back in time the smaller the heavyweight.

My point is that heavyweight fighters got bigger with time in every combat sport and i said it from the beginning.
But if you want to have the last words, you are right, i don't care.

I would say that size tends to become more important in an era with lesser skill levels, there was certainly no lack of big men back in the day yet the three smaller HW's were at the top of the heap.

Kickboxing is I would say similar, Rico for me clearly does not represent a increase in talent from the days of Aerts/Hoost/Hug. He's a big guy who fights fairly conservatively against less skilled opposition than that era.
 
I'd say its a bit of a mix, you see fewer subs partly because judging favours them less(which means losses via LnP are more likely) but also because yes the level has gone down. Back in the 00's we had a steady tide of very high level sub grapplers moving to MMA seriously, more recently this source of talent has largely dried up. I'd say due to a combination of BJJ/sub grappling paying much better and MMA being less likely to offer big money fairly quickly with fewer orgs and the UFC less likely to value elite grappling backgrounds highly.

Again watch Nog/Sergei and tell me that's a terrible takedown early on, its a well timed quick and accurate shot that catches him off balance. No Nog isn't a world class wrestler but again he has the advantage he can commit to shots like that without fear of being reversed vs most opponents. As I said look at Maia, by your standards he's a poor wrestler yet the man has a record of consistently getting opponents to the ground in an "evolved" era just as Nog did.

One of the clearest issues with the aging HW division I would say is actually declining wrestling ability. Werdum had a similar if not quite as good shoot on him in his early days, these days he can barely get down for one and the same is true for guys like Barnett.

Werdum gets ontop of Sergei twice in their fight and both times Kharitonov escapes fairly quickly, he also throws some GnP with range on it several times and defends submission attempts. That fight is not at all like Werdum/Hunt for example with one guy just staying close and laying on the other. The reality is that Kharitonov was an excellent submission grappler(maybe not at Nog/Werdum/Fedor levels but strong none then less) back in the day but largely ignored that side of his game post Pride when training with Glory and fighting kickboxing.
I don't remember the Werdum vs Kharitonov fight so i can't comment on that.

There were a lot of sub wrestlers in mma at the time because a lot of mma fighters were invited to ADCC, but that's a big difference.
Today very few mma fighters get invited and even fewer want to compete in ADCC, because the sport evolved so much it's a different ball game.
99% of the competitors in ADCC are full time jiu jitsu athletes, the mma fighters can't compete at that level.

Citing John Danaher, GSP and Weidman jiu jitsu coach, but also the coach of the team that is wreaking every no gi grappling competition in the world.

"ADCC is almost twenty years in existence. If you look at early ADCC competition it often looks amateurish compared with contemporary events."





Currently in mma we a lot of jiu jitsu champions, you don't know them because not everybody is world class in mma.
In 2017 if you are world champion in jiu jitsu doesn't mean you will have success into mma, the competition is a lot harder.
Augusto Mendes, Gilbert Burns, Sergio Moraes, i bet you never heard them before, but they are as good as you can be in jiu itsu.
 
There is no way Hoost, Aerts and Bojansky were 240 pounds in the early 2000.
Fighters were smaller back in the day, the more you go back in time the smaller the heavyweight.

My point is that heavyweight fighters got bigger with time in every combat sport and i said it from the beginning.
But if you want to have the last words, you are right, i don't care.


You have no idea what the fuck you are talking about lol. Hoost was easily 240lbs in 2000, aerts too and bonjasky was close to that. They are all tall men. Again , you have no idea what you're talking about
 
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