Wanderlei Silva and CroCops lack of success in the UFC?

[BowserJr]

They were overrated and likely not used to deal with even the softest drug testing policy.

Just like Fedor.

Just like. Chuck, Ricco, Rizzo, Kerr, Randy, Lindland, and Mir

They all fought outside of the UFC and did poorly. Just goes to show that UFC has always been Bush league

 

[jsbx45]

Different gear. Different years.

 

[moreorless87]

Just like. Chuck, Ricco, Rizzo, Kerr, Randy, Lindland, and Mir

They all fought outside of the UFC and did poorly. Just goes to show that UFC has always been Bush league

More importantly look at the big established names of the UFC during the Pride era....

Chuck
Tito
Sylvia
Hughes
Randy
Ricco
Babalu
Rizzo
etc

How well did these guys do post Pride?

The original post is fundamentally dishonest from a brand fanboy troll, Pride fighters stopped being created after 2007 and even moreso he judges only older established Pride names with a lot of milage. I mean really if you look at fighters from that era who carried on having top level sucess long term there were actually more ex Pride guys like Reem, Mousasi, etc than there were UFC names pre Pride buyout.

The truth I would argue is that you had a big influx of talent into MMA around the millenium or just before, Japanese MMA was booming, US MMA was recovering and there was suddenly a lot more cash on offer meaning you got a big rush of talent entering the sport in that era, espeically at HW and LHW. A lot of talent who started off around the same time also started to decline around the same time.

Clue loads of "you can't decline in your early 30's" posts from people who are fine when its suggested with UFC fighters like JDS and Cain.

 

[nonoob]

Fight Mileage.​

2 all time great's, imho, after having years of extremely savage battles.

 

[Brigfa2]

That's why Fedor never came to the UFC

 

[DayV]

Next to big mileage and injuries, Cro Cop and Wanderlei are quintessential examples of ring fighters, and ring is essential for their fighting style and success.
No wonder that the purest ring fighters did not do that good in the cage.

The key thing was that the ring, due to it's closing to corners and abillity to cutt off movement of opponents using square shape, corners and ropes that are allways just a few steps near the body and limit movement; did not allow their opponents to avoid and evade their strikes. Instead, opponents would be left expsed and had to face their strikes head to head, they did not have space to just easilly escape and avoid beeing hit with movement and make it difficult to approach and set up strikes.

Opponents would be forced to stand in front of Cro Cop and try to guess which one is comming: left high kick, left middle kick, or left straight (all 3 techniques have the same start and look the same at the start of the move) and try to block it, with huge chance to guess wrong and be left exposed and open for strike.

Wanderlei would overwhelm opponent's defense with a rain of fast and explosive strikes, which of course you cannot block all, they would be faster and more numerous than opponent's reactions, opponent beeing with his back on the ropes or in the corner had nowhere to escape, and something would go through, and he would continue with knees, soccer kicks and stomps on the floor once opponent was hurt.

In the ring you also cannot just pinn and wall them to the wire fence like in the cage and use body weight to wear them out and keep them out of effective striking position for a long time.

UFC cage negatively changed everything for them, and made it a lot easier for oppoents to avoid their striking game with movement, distance and circling in big, round open space and counter them once they fail to hit, and with long periods of fence walling and hugging that wear & expend stamina, strenght and time.

The target is a lot more moveable and harder to hit in the octagon than in the ring.

 

[Kevster]

Pride guys are beyond touchy, would think it’s their grannies getting slapped with a kipper.

 

[Genki Sudo]

Makes me laugh when ufc fanboys talk about ufc as if it was drug free... Give it a rest. Overeem was a 205lbs when he fought rua... In ufc he was totally OP'd with ufcs Therapeutic use shenanigans.

 

[gibson5413]

It's true that there were alot of can fights, but he also beat top guys like Sakuraba, Arona, Rampage, Hendo, KT, Kondo, Fujita

People forget that Wandy was on a two fight losing streak before he even got to UFC. The reality is he trained at a gym that was notorious for sparring full blast, on top of having a ton of mileage on him from years of Vale Tudo fights. The dude was in the twilight of his career when he got to the UFC and still managed to have some decent wins (Bisping, Stann, Cung Le)

Don't forget Mark Hunt on short notice as well. I get that it was short notice for both fighters but Mark hits like a Mack truck and is quite a bit bigger than Wandy. Honestly, I thought Wandy won the fight but whatever. Wand got hit by some hammers in that fight and stayed in it with his own punches, kicks and takedowns. I think this fight was the start of his downfall.

 

[ComeChooDaddy]

Wandy just came to fuck Chuck. Crocop idk about…

 

[gibson5413]

Cage vs Ring is a factor. Both should have been a division lower than they were too when they moved to the UFC IMO.

They also had a ridiculous amount of wear and tear for guys in their early thirties. First, they were both basically kill or be killed type of fighters, which was encouraged in Japan. They'd both been badly KOd prior to coming to the USA.

CroCop had over 50 K1/MMA fights, which is crazy. Basically 5 fights/year for 10 years straight. Wanderei was the same with like 40 MMA fights and training hard at Chutebox.

And they did can crush a bit in Pride, but it wasn't like they had 15 easy fights at local shows before they hit the big time. Compared to guys that got into the UFC relatively early in their careers they had an absurd number of fights. Chris Weidman, Leben, Uriah Hall, Dominick Reyes: WAY less fights by age 30.

By like age 31 CroCop had fought Barnett x 2, Hunt, Wanderlei x 2, Coleman, Fedor, Alex E, Randelman x 2, Big Nog, Igor, Fujita, Herring. And in K1: Hunt, Bojansky, Aerts, Hoost x 3, Le Banner. And about 25 other dudes.

CroCop had 14 MMA fights in 2004 and 2005!! Imagine Tom Aspinall doing that, or Jiri P. It's crazy, even with PEDs. Colby Covington has been in the UFC for 10 years and has only 15 fights total, by comparison.

Wanderlei had 10 MMA fights in 2000 and 2001, against Tito, Guy Mezger, Yvel, Hendo, Sakuraba x 2.

Plus, throw in the fact that some of these fights were multiple IN ONE NIGHT. Fighting tournament style with multiple fights in a night takes a toll as well.

 

[jeskola]

They were overrated and likely not used to deal with even the softest drug testing policy.

Just like Fedor.

/thread, why are there 6 pages? oh yeah its Sherdog

 

[Oldman1]

I know that fighting in the cage offers different challenges than in a ring. But Wanderlei and CroCop had great success in Pride fc and they both failed terribly in the UFC. To me the epic difference in performance shows that there maybe other reasons.

I know people will say that CroCop was over the hill, similar to Fedors fall from grace in the cage. But Silva fought in the UFC when he was far from being over the hill, albeit abit relatively new to the game.

Lack of PEDs and meth.
Lack of pre-determined fights.
Records not padded by fighting complete and utter bums

 

[BowserJr]

Lack of PEDs and meth.
Lack of pre-determined fights.
Records not padded by fighting complete and utter bums

Same reasons Chuck, Tim, AA, Randy, Franklin all started losing around the same time I guess

 

[Gandulf]

He fought Vitor in 1998 and Tito in 2000.

doesn't change my point though...

 

[TheComputerGuy]

Look. I love Minowaman and Giant Silva and Zuluzinho as much as the next guy, but these guys weren't high level even for the era they fought in.

NO UFC champion is fighting a 0-1 pro wrestler in the prime of their career like Fedor did. 16-0 world champion fighting Yuji Nagata is a joke. No wonder these guys could fight 2 months after. Not to mention their medicine really helped with recovery.

Fedor beat everyone. You run out of people to fight.

 

[bongwater]

They were never any good!

 

[cade187]

I've said it in the past, but Cro Cop's style was literally all about cornering his opponents to set up the LHK. Once he'd get them trapped, defending against the kicks was much harder. In the octagon, there was nowhere you could trap an opponent. His style literally didn't work in the octagon.

Wanderlei I'm more skeptical of.

 

[Choco]

Just like. Chuck, Ricco, Rizzo, Kerr, Randy, Lindland, and Mir

They all fought outside of the UFC and did poorly. Just goes to show that UFC has always been Bush league

Now you are doing the same that the noobs that shit on Wandy and Mirko.

Kerr was a tormented guy that did almost as well in his early run in the UFC than in the WVC/Pride untli his addictions and demons (And a cute Succubus) lead him to destruction

Ricco did pretty well in Pride, winning all his fights and beating Prime Nog (You know the decision was poliitcal bullshit) and all his fights there, then following the Kerr route of drugs and booze for a while, and then becoming a minor league staple.

Lindland did more or less the same in the UFC than outside.

Chuck has virtues and flaws, as many pioneers.

To judge Mir career, that was already in a very steep decline in his last time in the UFC (2-6 with only victories against TRT deprived Pezao and Glasscannon Dufee), for his money grabbing fights in Bellator, is way worse that most of the ignorant post in this thread.

In the last year of SEG, they tried hard to keep the talent in but just couldn't do as much as they wanted, and were unable to expand further because the political harrasment left them pennyless.

In the early years of the Frittatas, they get rid of the Non-resident-in-North-America fighters (With some strategic exceptions like Vitor, and the fleeting obssesion with a Brit champion), were stingy as fuck, very impatient with some worhty fighters' flaws, overplaying favourtism, and basically made the UFC into a National Level Promotion, exacerbating the talent drain, while pretending that they were still the big deal, but managed to conserve their status as the second best MMA promotion globally (By a mile, everyone else were the REAL bush leagues), after RINGS folded.

Once the UFC exploded thaks to TUF, and PRIDE folded, no one can say that the UFC wasn't the best promotion overall. No matter how fond memories of Dream and Strikeforce are.

 

[arcadeperfect]

Age and wear and tear. Remember, by 2007 quite a bit of the PRIDE roster would've been in the twilight of their careers. Cro Cop in particular was fighting the next generation of HWs. UFC fighters from the same era also started to lose in the late 2000s.