Media TheAthletic.com fighters survey about who the GOAT is , confirms once again what we already knew.

[BangBang]

No Aldo???

 

[The Crow]

ROFL did he really do that? AHAHHAHAHAA

Yup. Lmao.

 

[Towerworld]

Wwe guys? Like CM Punk, brock or Ronda?

dinosuars? Dinosaurs from his era like Reem, AA, Big Ben and Glover all just won against the modern evolved ufc fighters last month so good attempt But LMAO

Guys like zulu, fujita and HMC those are japanese wwe guys basically not real fighters. Not sure what your point is with those other guys, LHW and HW suck and always had except for the top3-5 of the division. The guys Mighty mouse beat are also better than most of Andy’s wins except, most guys were also archaic brawlers but still more technical than many of fedor’s.

 

[gspieler]

Surprised McGregor wasn’t ranked higher.

 

[rjmbrd]

Top of the food chain is an excellent way of putting it, with the slight modification that the biggest herbivores rank even higher than apex predators. Elephants aren't nearly as fast, mobile, or athletic as lions and tigers. They don't have claws (though they do have tusks), and their bite isn't a weapon. But a single male African elephant can chase off a pride of lions, and even smaller Indian elephants chase off tigers. Being big lets you beat up on smaller, more athletic fighters (or animals).

As others have pointed out, most athletic big men have much better options (in terms of money, in terms of prestige and national renown, and in terms of not getting your brains bashed out) than MMA, so of course they're going to go another route. The HW's that remain in MMA are still the elephants of the sport though, and everyone else gets out of their way.

I get your analogy but I honestly don't think its true.

Cormier was the #2 guy at 205lbs, and the champion there beat him twice. He wrestled 184lbs as a 5th year senior in college. He casually ran ROUGHSHOD over the heavyweight division in Strikeforce and the UFC, including knocking out the champion. He's in his 40's.

I would bet a substantial sum of money some top middleweights could moonlight at 265 and embarrass a bunch of guys outside the top 5. Thats the skill gap of heavyweight MMA.

 

[mirko>anyone]

Lol, they can’t help themselves. But I think my post actually kept some of them on their best behavior. It spoke to them.

Edit: The Spider was actually very confused. First he came in ranting about one of the only recent articles that doesn’t have GSP as GOAT being the true voice of the people. Then he was confused and didn’t realize they could only vote for 1 fighter. Then he came with his copy/paste “Pro MMA fighters’ opinions>” not realizing these were actually Pro MMA fighters’ opinions. Funny shit.

Yeah. His only counter to the sherdog GOAT poll was that there was some secret pro fighter poll that Silva won and that pro fighters > sherdog noobs. This pretty much crushes his dreams. But we shouldn’t underestimate these guys, as logic has never wavered their high minded goal of elevating his status about his rightful place, #4 all time. I expect his output to double in the coming weeks trying to convince the world otherwise.

 

[Dirge]

GSP was so ahead of his time. Most fighters today are still no where near his level. Id like to see him come back to 170. I think he could still be champ. Not so much at 185.

Every time Usman would close distance he'd eat a jab or a superman punch....

I still find it hilarious that there are people on this site that thought Woodley would be a threat to GSP...

 

[mirko>anyone]

The same thing was said about GSP fans and the CBS list. Psychics everywhere.

Listen, I don’t really have a dog in the never ending Silva/GSP debate. I’m not really an invested GSP fan per se, either, but I respect his career. He’s certainly a more complete fighter and higher up the list than Silva on the overwhelming majority of all polls from fans, and now fighters apparently. Like everyone, I have my bias’ though, but it’s just my perception.

I was fortunate enough to watch both their primes unfold live and it was nothing short of incredible. Yes, I think GSP is a better fighter than Anderson, but Silva was capable of the most incredible shit we’ve ever seen if you played his game. Dunno if I ever screamed harder than when he front kicked Belfort.

Jon Jones is the best fighter ever, in my opinion, but he and Silva are proven cheaters. I realize it was following an injury, but in the flip side he failed when USADA showed up. I mean, Cro Cop also admitted to use, despite not actually failing his test. He doesn’t get a pass either.

 

[Gilday]

Lmao how in the fuck did Conor even get a vote, let alone DJ being ahead of Fedor...

For me GSP is the GOAT, although if you don't care about failed drug tests Jones has a lot of big names on his record.

 

[Intellidamus]

Yeah. His only counter to the sherdog GOAT poll was that there was some secret pro fighter poll that Silva won and that pro fighters > sherdog noobs. This pretty much crushes his dreams. But we shouldn’t underestimate these guys, as logic has never wavered their high minded goal of elevating his status about his rightful place, #4 all time. I expect his output to double in the coming weeks trying to convince the world otherwise.

That’s funny, I’ve actually thought the same thing. There were some threads going hard on Jones awhile back and people kept pointing out GSP was winning the GOAT poll pretty handily. Go figure all of sudden Jones began making a push in the poll. A quick look revealed numerous brand new account votes and deleted member votes. Eventually it slowed as they saw how much work it would take to make a huge jump.

 

[mirko>anyone]

That’s funny, I’ve actually thought the same thing. There were some threads going hard on Jones awhile back and people kept pointing out GSP was winning the GOAT poll pretty handily. Go figure all of sudden Jones began making a push in the poll. A quick look revealed numerous brand new account votes and deleted member votes. Eventually it slowed as they saw how much work it would take to make a huge jump.

Why did he block me? I responded respectfully with my input. Weird.

 

[Sturm]

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

I get your analogy but I honestly don't think its true.

Cormier was the #2 guy at 205lbs, and the champion there beat him twice. He wrestled 184lbs as a 5th year senior in college. He casually ran ROUGHSHOD over the heavyweight division in Strikeforce and the UFC, including knocking out the champion. He's in his 40's.

I would bet a substantial sum of money some top middleweights could moonlight at 265 and embarrass a bunch of guys outside the top 5. Thats the skill gap of heavyweight MMA.

Cormier was drained at 205 though, so its hard to say -- its curious that Jones wasn't interested in fighting Cormier at HW, despite it saving him cutting weight (never a pleasant week or even two).

I agree that HW is a much thinner division than MW and below. LHW is almost as thin as HW and for the same reason -- athletic guys over 6' and 200 pounds can play any number of much better paying sports. For that matter, most MW's are over 6' and a fit 200 pounds, so the athletic ones have a number of very well paying sport options.

Still, I think MW's beating top five HW's is pushing it, I'd say more like top ten. My argument is that every LHW and MW trains with HW's, so they have a pretty good idea how they stack up against HW's. If they believed they could do well at HW (without going through the pain and discomfort of cutting from over 205 pounds to under 185 pounds -- that's most MW's, even Anderson claimes he was at 220 between fights) they'd almost certainly do it. Why do the cut unless experience in training tells them they wouldn't do as well against HW's?

The skill gap is as you say real, but the margin of error is much smaller at HW -- the ability to hit harder goes up faster than the ability to take a hit. An error against a MW that might rock you is likely to finish you against a HW. It'd take a MW with good footwork and elusiveness to be confident of beating even a top ten HW, someone able to tire out the HW for several rounds without getting in close contact. There aren't that many MW's who could consistently do that -- which I'd argue is why they cut to MW.

 

[Intellidamus]

Why did he block me? I responded respectfully with my input. Weird.

It looks like either he deleted all of his posts or mods did. Not visible to me either. Maybe you set him off (inadvertently) and he went into one of his tirades. Mods have been deleting a lot of posts lately if it starts going south.

 

[Pierced7681]

bah... a ´tard is deletin´the posts...

just looked, not sure why your posts got deleted, they weren’t over the line or anything, we kept it pretty respectful other than a few funny digs.

 

[Drugstore Cowboy]

No Aldo???

Fucking crazy that he's not even in the convo.....the most underrated fighter in MMA.

 

[rjmbrd]

Cormier was drained at 205 though

Let me stop you there. Cormier wrestled as a 5th year senior at 184lbs, lean and muscled. He failed to make 211lbs in the Olympics because he showed up fat. He's addressed his food discipline problems publicly, to the point that he made a video dancing with fried chicken.

He was a chubby, undersized 205, and yet still ran ROUGHSHOD over the heavyweight division.

I agree that HW is a much thinner division than MW and below.

Its not up for debate, the number of guys contracted to each division is public information. It is a matter of fact that 145/155/170 are substantially deeper then 205/265, to the point that 155 has DOUBLE the depth of heavyweight, thus twice as competitive.

The skill gap is as you say real, but the margin of error is much smaller at HW -- the ability to hit harder goes up faster than the ability to take a hit. An error against a MW that might rock you is likely to finish you against a HW. It'd take a MW with good footwork and elusiveness to be confident of beating even a top ten HW, someone able to tire out the HW for several rounds without getting in close contact. There aren't that many MW's who could consistently do that -- which I'd argue is why they cut to MW.

Top 5 middleweights would absolutely embarrass plenty of top 20 heavyweights and I would bet a substantial amount of money on it.

If you want to know how bad it is at heavyweight, consider Brendan Schaub went 6-4, despite having a whole other athletic career he washed out of first. They are shuffling around old fat guys in their 40's at heavyweight unironically.

 

[macaronicaesar]

What I don't get is, when. Anderson and gsp were both active, mma journalists questioned his greatness next to silva, not gsp

Was it because gsp ran into retirement, while silva stock dropped from losing as an older man?

I have also seen other reporters compare jones to Floyd

I think race is something to do with this

GSPs title run was at a similar time as Anderson

Anybody that understands fighting know that silva was a much superior martial artist in his peak

Fighters think Silva is the goat

Except this a poll of the fighters and Silva is sucking the hind tit.

 

[gono btw]

just looked, not sure why your posts got deleted, they weren’t over the line or anything, we kept it pretty respectful other than a few funny digs.

Your post where you were accusin´fighters of fixed fights was deleted?

If not, go figure...

 

[Fioretti]

Except this a poll of the fighters and Silva is sucking the hind tit.

170 fighters doesn't represent the voice of all the active and retired MMA fighters in the world.

Same as 1542 votes (with tons of alt accounts juicing that up) doesn't represent the voice of millions of fans worldwide.