Which prospect turns out to be the biggest bust in MMA history?

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Obviously, boom or bust = success - expectation, so even if a prospect's career turns out to be alright, he could be a big bust.

Just from a top of my head.

Satoshi Ishii

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After he announced to become a mma fighter, nearly every mma fan expects the 21-year-old 2008 Judo gold medalist to become a top HW contender in the UFC or an extremely dominating figure in Jmma scene.

Promoters were throwing contracts at him and he seemed to take training very seriously with praise from training partners from top gyms in the US.

As we all know, he turned out to be an average LHW/HW fighter, who under-performed despite being carefully matched up against over-the-hill opponents following his disappointing defeat to Yoshida in 2009.

I think he is a great example that you can't just take a young, best of the best, A-level athlete and expect him to eventually become an amazing fighter that crushes all opponents.

Other examples:

Sokoudjou, the Pride phenom

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Brandon Vera, the first "double UFC Champ"

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Y'all mafuckas thought Erick Silva was the second coming
personally was hype for Amir Sadollah
 
Bob Sapp made a more money than most so not bust but after a few decent outings He got hit very hard by CroCrop , a fight he did try and can imagine that hurt tremendously , but after that was very quick to quit.
 
Denis Kang comes to mind. Houston Alexander was for real also.
 
I thought a lot of Bellator's champions were gonna be good, at least for a decent amount of time.

Marcos Galvao
Brandon Halsey
Liam McGeary
Emanuel Newton
Christian M'Pumbu
Will Brooks

All of those dudes declined rapidly after losing their belts. Will Brooks is still debatable, however. He just had a really bad UFC run.
 
Denis Kang comes to mind. Houston Alexander was for real also.
While I’l Always be a fan of Denis, dude was the definition of a choke artist. He’s always make it to the brink, then would lose. His fiancée Shelby Walker’s death definitely took a toll, but he was like that even before then.

Didn’t help he was injured against (the never should have been there in the first place) Misaki.
 
Roger Huerta comes to mind.
 
Obviously, boom or bust = success - expectation, so even if a prospect's career turns out to be alright, he could be a big bust.

Just from a top of my head.

Satoshi Ishii

20080815c7942_ishii_jpn_o100kgs.jpg


After he announced to become a mma fighter, nearly every mma fan expects the 21-year-old 2008 Judo gold medalist to become a top HW contender in the UFC or an extremely dominating figure in Jmma scene.

Promoters were throwing contracts at him and he seemed to take training very seriously with praise from training partners from top gyms in the US.

As we all know, he turned out to be an average LHW/HW fighter, who under-performed despite being carefully matched up against over-the-hill opponents following his disappointing defeat to Yoshida in 2009.

I think he is a great example that you can't just take a young, best of the best, A-level athlete and expect him to eventually become an amazing fighter that crushes all opponents.

Other examples:

Sokoudjou, the Pride phenom

0691.jpg


Brandon Vera, the first "double UFC Champ"

OneChampionship_10_moa_2015_CNNPH.png
Suren Balachinskiy.

In Rings, was supposed to be Fedor b4 Fedor...
 
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Y'all mafuckas thought Erick Silva was the second coming
personally was hype for Amir Sadollah

So sick of this meme where people act like Erick Silva is in his mid 30s and his window of oppurtinity is closed. HA HA. It was funny for awhile but it’s getting tired. Now go sell life insurance to pre-teens.

Kid is just getting started and no fighter has faced the load he has faced at such a young age. Just finding what key fits into that massive toolbox.
 
Bob Sapp made a more money than most so not bust but after a few decent outings He got hit very hard by CroCrop , a fight he did try and can imagine that hurt tremendously , but after that was very quick to quit.

I think it was after the Fujita or Jan Nortje fight that Sapp morphed into Ken Shamrock.

Sapp was never tremendously skilled and pulled in a lot of directions with self-imposed media commitments. He got by on size but that can only carry him so far.
 
Karam Ibrahim (but he may have been giving mma a single try).

Coming off an absolutely dominating run during the Olympics (where he took gold), The mma world shook when he decided to throw his hat into the Pride ring. He was given Kazuyuki Fujita as an opponent. After Ibrahim decided to sucker punch Fujita during the glove touch, it was all downhill. His striking was completely amateurish at best and took a couple of hard shots before Fujita knocked him stiff. Never heard from the guy again.
 
I think that several have graced the octagon over the years. Several are mentioned above. Brandon Thatch comes to mind.
 
Tarec Saffdeine
Thomas Almeida (jury’s still out on him, still has time to turn it around)
Definitely thatch, boy did I have high hopes for him. I remember seeing his record years prior to his UFC signing and wondering all the time when they were going to sign him.
 
Jorge Santiago comes to my mind.

0-5 in 2 separate runs.
 
Uriah Hall and Warley Alves were both expected to become top contenders after tuf and have shown flashes of high level skills but neither has come close to expectations.
 
None of these compare to how Roger Huerta was built up and how quickly he fell.
 
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