Who stands out as the real GOAT

For me it's now out of GSP or Fedor, I'd probably have Jones at number 1 had he not failed two drug tests. GSP is very reluctant to fight bigger guys and I don't think he could, Fedor had some rather embarrassing losses but he's very much a do or die type of fighter. The fact that he went 10+ years undefeated at HW is incredible, he has a few padded wins but overall his reign of terror was impressive.
 
If he stopped fighting after he won the second belt he would be the definitive #1 or #2 in everyone's mind but he couldn't stop fighting. Hell, he still wants to compete. Look, he accomplished so much so fast that he had no way but down to go after reaching the mountain top.
 
MMAcolyte said:
1) You say that GSP called Penn his toughest foe and toughest fight (first time, I take it). You then use that as evidence to support your point that the (rightful) decision was somehow doubtful or unclear. In philosophy this is what's called a logical fallacy. Meaning that your argument is not a logical conclusion to the evidence/supporting statement that you provided. If GSP had said that Penn was his toughest fight, and he had no idea if he'd get his hand raised or not, then you might have a point. Furthermore, GSP has always been absurdly modest and heaped tons of praise on his opponents, especially after he beats them. Just another way Georges exemplifies himself as the quintessential martial artist.

2) You're quoting Dana White? Actually? This severely damages the credibility of your argument, not bolsters it. If I didn't have to work in the morning I'd find several examples to illustrate what I mean, but if I have to do that then you really don't follow the sport very closely. I mean....when has Dana ever been a reliable source for anything related to the UFC? For anything at all, really?

3) As to the severity and legitimacy of grease-gate, I'll defer to @Nurse Joy , as she both has done a far better job of refuting your claims than I could and is a far more credible source on the subject than either of us combined.
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Now you've gone overboard with your "big words" and "talking good" and stuff...

1. ONE JUDGE saw it my way and the other two saw it your way so there is no "fallacy" to the argument. If all three judges gave GSP a 30-27 victory then you may have a point. Other than you are excellent at English prose, you don't.

2. I'm not quoting White after the fight, I'm quoting him at the exact time that GSP got busted and they stopped the fight temporarily to try to figure out the situation. They caught him with vaseline illegally applied to his body, White heard this and "knew" that GSP was done. He wasn't, however, as the new commission didn't know the exact rules for this situation in MMA and handled it as a boxing match which kept the fight going. Had they followed the MMA rules, the fight would have been stopped and GSP disqualified. I don't know what is so hard to understand about all of this.

3. She doesn't know what the hell she is talking about if that is all the depth that her response contains.
 
TS there is only one answer, but your join date would explain why you don't know it
 
TrueFightFan said:
Now you've gone overboard with your "big words" and "talking good" and stuff...

1. ONE JUDGE saw it my way and the other two saw it your way so there is no "fallacy" to the argument. If all three judges gave GSP a 30-27 victory then you may have a point. Other than you are excellent at English prose, you don't.

2. I'm not quoting White after the fight, I'm quoting him at the exact time that GSP got busted and they stopped the fight temporarily to try to figure out the situation. They caught him with vaseline illegally applied to his body, White heard this and "knew" that GSP was done. He wasn't, however, as the new commission didn't know the exact rules for this situation in MMA and handled it as a boxing match which kept the fight going. Had they followed the MMA rules, the fight would have been stopped and GSP disqualified. I don't know what is so hard to understand about all of this.

3. She doesn't know what the hell she is talking about if that is all the depth that her response contains.
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Your first point completely refutes the claim you made in the first place: that BJ won their first fight. You tried to use GSP's post-fight praise of Penn to support that assertion; I showed you why that was erroneous. Now you use the fact that ONE of three judges saw it your way to support your claim that BJ won. When in fact that means the precise opposite.

GSP won the fight according to the judges and according to objective analysis of how the fight played out in the context of the 10-point must system. I realize the latter claim is what we're arguing about, and the fact that 2/3 judges saw it my way certainly lends credence to my position. Judges do make unfathomable decisions though, even though I've never heard anyone claim this fight to be an instance of that. I'm going to watch the fight again tomorrow night with as much impartiality as possible anyways and check back in with you. I haven't seen it in ages, so I'm excited to see it again, and I thank you for providing the impetus to do so.

This is honestly a really refreshing way to discuss a disagreement around here, and I respect your devotion to Penn and how you go about arguing your position.

Okay, on to your next point. Dana White is a bombastic buffoon who blows everything out of proportion. He is extremely reactionary, and it would be completely characteristic of him to start shooting off like that without actually knowing what TF he's talking about. Evidently he was mistaken in his assertion (imagine that), as Georges was in fact not done and went on to beat Baby Jay with as much impunity as the ref/rule set would allow.

Now, you're going to say that the point is, according to the rules, Dana was right and GSP should have been done. You claim that the commission, due to the ineptitude born of inexperience, followed the rules for a boxing match and wiped it off rather than following the MMA ruleset and stopping the fight.

Now, Nurse Joy has given her professional opinion that the corner didn't apply enough vaseline to warrant all the attention this received. You replied that the commission thought differently. And while her opinion is more informed that ours, their's is more informed than hers. But doesn't their lack of knowledge that you described indicate incompetence? Or at the very least a lack of the very information they need to make the correct judgements? If they were unaware of some of the rules they were supposed to be enforcing, who's to say their judgement was infallible in regards to how much vaseline was "too much"? As you mentioned, they were a new commission, and it certainly stands to reason they were figuring things out as they went.

Now, let's fast forward to Silva-Sonnen II. The commission has been doing this for a while now. The commission employees apply vaseline to Silva's face and he begins wiping what's on his face over his chest, torso, arms, shoulders. A commission official comes over with a towel and wipes him off. So two things here:

A) the commission is still unaware of the rules you described (or you're mistaken)

B) even though the NSAC employee applied the vaseline, they figured Silva still had too much on his body so took corrective action.

Looking at point B, the difference in Georges' and Anderson's cases is that it was GSP's coach who applied the vaseline to Georges' face and chest, whereas it was the commission who applied it to Anderson's face and Silva himself who rubbed it elsewhere. The similarity between the two is that the NSAC determined both fighters had too much vaseline on their bodies and took remedial action. It can be assumed that the licensed official wasn't trying to give Silva an unfair advantage; and yet they still had to wipe him off, just as they did Georges. Therefore it is entirely plausible that his corner didn't apply an excessive amount of vaseline. Only thing they did was touch Georges' chest with the same hands they used to apply it to his face.

Anderson smeared it all over himself, but since it was an official who applied it in the first place, there was no room to cry foul after an official towelled him down. Which is why they made a big deal about the GSP thing and made it a rule that it had to be a commission member applying vaseline. If the commission puts on too much vaseline, or the fighter pulls an Anderson, they can correct it and no harm no foul. If it's the fighter's corner applying vaseline there would have always been room for the BJ's of the world to try to make excuses rather than accept defeat at the hands of a superior fighter.
 
GSP

DJ is in the running though, and JBJ if he comes back and dominates like he used too. Of course with his failed drug tests, a lot of people will always put an asterisk beside his name.
 
If you have to ask who stands out, maybe that should be a sign for you that nobody stands out and you shouldn't make the thread.
 
TrueFightFan said:
The officials in the ring "caught" him greasing. They handled per the boxing rules and not MMA rules. They admitted that they should have disqualified him but didn't understand the MMA rules at the time. The commission later decided that GSP, himself, didn't cheat and if his corner did, it was without his knowledge and they refused to change the fight to a no-contest. Vaseline obviously has an effect otherwise they wouldn't ban it.
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It’s not banned. Every Mma fight it’s used for the face and for cuts.
 
Jones

But If PED's disqualify him then

GSP has surpassed Fedor for me otherwise I always considered Fedor the GOAT. He did lose pretty badly quite a few times in the end like Silva and Aldo and that has to count a bit since GSP and Jones never really lost after their long winning streaks. Khabib has the chance to surpass them all if he stays unbeaten beacuse there are going to be big names for him from here on out and I just don't see him getting disqualified by PED's and his winning streak is already unbelievable.
 
P⊚WER² said:
I give Anderson a pass because he only popped after he got his leg snapped in half at damn near 40. We all know he wasn't supposed to walk again properly. He obviously started taking after that, first for his health and then for his ego.
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<36>
 
GSP had the tools to beat his opponents in all aspects of the game, was a dominate champion that defended his title many times, and has the best ranked opposition in both normal and mathematical ranking systems. That he's now a two-division champ is just icing on the cake that was already enough.

His toughest competition will be Demetrious Johnson as things are looking now. He's an allround fighter of great skill but many might not give him as much credit due to which division he's in.
 
GSP.

Cleaned out his division, titles in two weight classes, avenged every loss, won 13/15 title fights, has arguably the toughest line up of opponents out of anyone
 
MMAcolyte said:
Your first point completely refutes the claim you made in the first place: that BJ won their first fight. You tried to use GSP's post-fight praise of Penn to support that assertion; I showed you why that was erroneous. Now you use the fact that ONE of three judges saw it your way to support your claim that BJ won. When in fact that means the precise opposite.

GSP won the fight according to the judges and according to objective analysis of how the fight played out in the context of the 10-point must system. I realize the latter claim is what we're arguing about, and the fact that 2/3 judges saw it my way certainly lends credence to my position. Judges do make unfathomable decisions though, even though I've never heard anyone claim this fight to be an instance of that. I'm going to watch the fight again tomorrow night with as much impartiality as possible anyways and check back in with you. I haven't seen it in ages, so I'm excited to see it again, and I thank you for providing the impetus to do so.

This is honestly a really refreshing way to discuss a disagreement around here, and I respect your devotion to Penn and how you go about arguing your position.

Okay, on to your next point. Dana White is a bombastic buffoon who blows everything out of proportion. He is extremely reactionary, and it would be completely characteristic of him to start shooting off like that without actually knowing what TF he's talking about. Evidently he was mistaken in his assertion (imagine that), as Georges was in fact not done and went on to beat Baby Jay with as much impunity as the ref/rule set would allow.

Now, you're going to say that the point is, according to the rules, Dana was right and GSP should have been done. You claim that the commission, due to the ineptitude born of inexperience, followed the rules for a boxing match and wiped it off rather than following the MMA ruleset and stopping the fight.

Now, Nurse Joy has given her professional opinion that the corner didn't apply enough vaseline to warrant all the attention this received. You replied that the commission thought differently. And while her opinion is more informed that ours, their's is more informed than hers. But doesn't their lack of knowledge that you described indicate incompetence? Or at the very least a lack of the very information they need to make the correct judgements? If they were unaware of some of the rules they were supposed to be enforcing, who's to say their judgement was infallible in regards to how much vaseline was "too much"? As you mentioned, they were a new commission, and it certainly stands to reason they were figuring things out as they went.

Now, let's fast forward to Silva-Sonnen II. The commission has been doing this for a while now. The commission employees apply vaseline to Silva's face and he begins wiping what's on his face over his chest, torso, arms, shoulders. A commission official comes over with a towel and wipes him off. So two things here:

A) the commission is still unaware of the rules you described (or you're mistaken)

B) even though the NSAC employee applied the vaseline, they figured Silva still had too much on his body so took corrective action.

Looking at point B, the difference in Georges' and Anderson's cases is that it was GSP's coach who applied the vaseline to Georges' face and chest, whereas it was the commission who applied it to Anderson's face and Silva himself who rubbed it elsewhere. The similarity between the two is that the NSAC determined both fighters had too much vaseline on their bodies and took remedial action. It can be assumed that the licensed official wasn't trying to give Silva an unfair advantage; and yet they still had to wipe him off, just as they did Georges. Therefore it is entirely plausible that his corner didn't apply an excessive amount of vaseline. Only thing they did was touch Georges' chest with the same hands they used to apply it to his face.

Anderson smeared it all over himself, but since it was an official who applied it in the first place, there was no room to cry foul after an official towelled him down. Which is why they made a big deal about the GSP thing and made it a rule that it had to be a commission member applying vaseline. If the commission puts on too much vaseline, or the fighter pulls an Anderson, they can correct it and no harm no foul. If it's the fighter's corner applying vaseline there would have always been room for the BJ's of the world to try to make excuses rather than accept defeat at the hands of a superior fighter.
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A solid rebuttal and all good points made, however, GSP being the 170lb GOAT and his team, still had to rely on vaseline to help insure a victory against a smaller fighter in Penn.

As for the first fight, 1 of the 3 judges saw Penn as the victor. The other two didn't. I felt that he won but he was not the UFC's pick to fight Hughes again. Was their bias in the judging? Perhaps. Whatever the outcome, it was enough to make GSP and his team not want to "stand" against Penn again and a little vaseline goes a long way in helping prevent a stand up war. The commission agreed that they screwed up on the vaseline situation but the damage was done. White, knew they busted GSP and fully expected the fight to be stopped. He can be a buffoon but in this instance, he was right.

As for the Silva/vaseline incident, I didn't really know about it nor do I care. My point was that GSP used it to keep Penn from using his Jiu Jitsu against him. Hughes and Serra both confirmed that GSP felt slippery in their second fights with him and this may be what alerted the commission to keep an eye out for it. Who knows. The fight goes down as the "beating of a lifetime" for Penn but those who are true followers of the sport know otherwise.

With all of this said, I am not a GSP detractor, I'm actually a fan and believe that he will go down as the greatest welterweight of all time but he cannot be considered an overall GOAT because he cut weight to duck two weight classes that he could have fought in. LHW and Middleweight. Fighters who cut are fighters who duck, period. That is why I believe Penn is a true GOAT. With everything he was able to accomplish and he did it on his terms against whomever, whenever. That is a true warrior and his record is not indicative of how he was once one of the most dangerous men in the world.
 
Nurse Joy said:
It’s not banned. Every Mma fight it’s used for the face and for cuts.
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Sorry, for not clarifying it for you. I didn't think you were as simple minded as that. "Banned" from using it on the body, you know, greasing? Hope that clears it up for you.
 
Bones undoubtetly
But stigma of failed test is there for him

So i am going to go with GSP, an
 
TrueFightFan said:
A solid rebuttal and all good points made, however, GSP being the 170lb GOAT and his team, still had to rely on vaseline to help insure a victory against a smaller fighter in Penn.

As for the first fight, 1 of the 3 judges saw Penn as the victor. The other two didn't. I felt that he won but he was not the UFC's pick to fight Hughes again. Was their bias in the judging? Perhaps. Whatever the outcome, it was enough to make GSP and his team not want to "stand" against Penn again and a little vaseline goes a long way in helping prevent a stand up war. The commission agreed that they screwed up on the vaseline situation but the damage was done. White, knew they busted GSP and fully expected the fight to be stopped. He can be a buffoon but in this instance, he was right.

As for the Silva/vaseline incident, I didn't really know about it nor do I care. My point was that GSP used it to keep Penn from using his Jiu Jitsu against him. Hughes and Serra both confirmed that GSP felt slippery in their second fights with him and this may be what alerted the commission to keep an eye out for it. Who knows. The fight goes down as the "beating of a lifetime" for Penn but those who are true followers of the sport know otherwise.

With all of this said, I am not a GSP detractor, I'm actually a fan and believe that he will go down as the greatest welterweight of all time but he cannot be considered an overall GOAT because he cut weight to duck two weight classes that he could have fought in. LHW and Middleweight. Fighters who cut are fighters who duck, period. That is why I believe Penn is a true GOAT. With everything he was able to accomplish and he did it on his terms against whomever, whenever. That is a true warrior and his record is not indicative of how he was once one of the most dangerous men in the world.
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We've beaten grease-gate to death, and you make valid points regarding the issue as well. I can't leave without disputing your claim that GSP could have fought at LHW though. Technically speaking, he does walk around between 185 and 205, so he legally could have made the contracted weight, true enough. But that's not how this game works, and you know it.

GSP would have likely been the smallest LHW in UFC history. It would be like Conor McGregor fighting at WW, not even being able to make the 170 lb limit. That's insanity (good thing he wasn't fighting a career WW). And yes, BJ Penn fighting all the way at fucking LHW is nutty as hell, and is respectable in and of itself. But when assessing legacies results do matter.
 
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