Paid Members Egg Shen Posted October 25, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 25, 2020 Count me as another one who always forgets about Charles Oliveira at 155. It wont happen next either, but Gaethje/Hooker needs to happen at some point too. That'll be one of those wars Gaethje was talking about. Ā Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted October 26, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 26, 2020 lots of 'GOAT' discussion since Saturday night. Jon Jones has been defending his own claim since Saturday and is pissing off/trolling a whole bunch of fans... Ā Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimufctna24 Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 (edited) For me, it's between GSP and Khabib. I really didn't think that Khabib was going to beat Gaethje. Let alone finish him. That win has thrust him firmly into the GOAT debate.Ā Edited October 26, 2020 by jimufctna24 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted October 26, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 26, 2020 Much as I dislike him, Nurmagomedov has definitely solidified his contention, above Jones I think. Going undefeated in one of the deepest divisions in the UFC, not to mention having the longest undefeated career in MMA (assuming his retirement sticks), and joint longest undefeated streak in MMA, not to mention the sheer dominance with which he won most of them - that easily puts him on a par with GSP, if not ahead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zebra Kid Mark Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 33 minutes ago, Egg Shen said: lots of 'GOAT' discussion since Saturday night. Jon Jones has been defending his own claim since Saturday and is pissing off/trolling a whole bunch of fans... Ā How can a guy be so classy on Saturday and Tweet "Until I go up to heavy and win, that GOAT status is yours" and then go on a full onĀ Twitter melt down and arguing with a load of Trolls. Twitter really brings out the worst in people. It's poison. Despite my criticism of Jones and his tweets. It's between him and GSP for me. They both have cleaned out their division on more than one occasion, Jones especially. Jones has a red mark against his name because we truly don't know how much he was doping but the fact he has so many title defences can't be argued with. Khabib is the greatest lightweight of all time but he's not pound for pound. The fact he went 29-0 is incredible but he only fought the very top in his last 5 fights. I would have loved to have seen him cement his legacy and clear out the lightweight division again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted October 26, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 26, 2020 (edited) 9 minutes ago, Zebra Kid Mark said: Khabib is the greatest lightweight of all time but he's not pound for pound. The fact he went 29-0 is incredible but he only fought the very top in his last 5 fights. I would have loved to have seen him cement his legacy and clear out the lightweight division again. He beat RDA 8 fights ago. Plus he's beaten a load of guys who were at least near the very top, if not the pinnacle - Barboza, Tibau, Trujillo, Horcher. If you look at the LW division as a whole, there aren't that many "elites" available. The only elite lightweight he hasn't fought is Tony Ferguson, and it's not like he wasn't up for it. A fighter can only fight the guys in front of him. Edited October 26, 2020 by Carbomb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimufctna24 Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 (edited) Khabib's highs are higher than Jones's highs in my opinion.Ā I rate Gaethje, Poirier and McGregor above any three of Jones' wins.Ā Khabib hasn't had the lows that Jones has had either. HeĀ didn't go to the wire with a guy who couldn't crack the top 10 in the division below, doesn't have a NC on his record due to doping, never got disqualified in a fight, and never got a highly questionable decision over a fighter of Reyes's calibre.Ā As for GSP, he was a more well-rounded fighter than Khabib. And arguably has aĀ better record. But was he a better fighter than Khabib? I am not so sure about that.Ā Edited October 26, 2020 by jimufctna24 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zebra Kid Mark Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 7 hours ago, Carbomb said: He beat RDA 8 fights ago. Plus he's beaten a load of guys who were at least near the very top, if not the pinnacle - Barboza, Tibau, Trujillo, Horcher. If you look at the LW division as a whole, there aren't that many "elites" available. The only elite lightweight he hasn't fought is Tony Ferguson, and it's not like he wasn't up for it. A fighter can only fight the guys in front of him. Yea fair enough, I missed out RDA, that was before RDA went on his hot run and before he became champion. I think he was ranked 5 at the time so he counts as a top guy. I agree that a fighter can only fight guys in front of him but Khabib only fights once a year, he's had the championship for 2 and a half years and the UFC have had to create 2 new interim champions during that reign, obviously it's not his fault that there was a pandemic but he wasn't the most active guy before this happened. Before Jones went off the boil he was facing everyone, he beat who was in front of him, then beat the next batch of guys in front of him when it looked like there was no one else left. Between all of the people in the GOAT discussion, Khabib was definitely the least active. I don't want to debate too much about it as Im not a Jones fan at all, you would have to go back many years to a Jones fight where I actually wanted him to win. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted October 27, 2020 Author Paid Members Share Posted October 27, 2020 1 hour ago, Zebra Kid Mark said: Yea fair enough, I missed out RDA, that was before RDA went on his hot run and before he became champion. I think he was ranked 5 at the time so he counts as a top guy. I donāt mean to nitpick but, although RDA wasnāt champion yet, he was definitely on a hot run when Khabib beat him. He was 20-6 and on a strong 5 fight winning streak coming into that fight. Heād just beat Cerrone handily, a fight most were picking him to lose. And even most of his losses had asterisks next to them. The Tibau fight couldāve gone either way, he was doing well in the Guida fight before getting his jaw broke, the Tyson Griffin fight was close. Even that Jeremy Stephens uppercut from hell back in 2008, I seem to recall havingĀ RDA ahead before he got clobbered withĀ that late on. He was threatening to become something long before he actually did. And going into that Khabib fight he seemed to be finally putting it all together.Ā Then after Khabib trounced him, RDA went on another 5 fight win streak and beat Bendo, Diaz, Pettis for the title and then Cerrone.Ā Dos Anjos from about 2012 to 2016 was legitimately one of the best Lightweights weāve ever seen, in my opinion. As mad as it seems I think he actually still gets under-appreciated for his run at thatĀ time and a lot of that is probably down to Rogan and Schaub spouting baseless speculation that he was juicing. Just because heās Brazilian, I guess. He never failed a test, never tried to avoid a test,Ā there was never any controversy surrounding him. It was based on nothing. But in a fucked up way I guess itās a compliment that he looked so good in his fights at that time that people thought he had to be on the gas.Ā He was a scary man back then and Khabib utterly dominated and schooled that version of him. That was actually the fight that really made me a believer in Khabib as something a bit special.Ā Ā Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ColinBollocks Posted October 27, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 27, 2020 (edited) Issy tweeted "Quality over quantity" and it's definitely something to consider when discussing Jones. He beats everyone but we've long moaned on here how rubbish the LHW division is, in terms of overall quality. I mean, even Jones is moving up because it's such a dullfest. Jones has the two victories over DC to his name which is very impressive, but he's never faced and wonĀ a run like Khabib's last 3-5 fights. The closest he's come is when he faced Glover, Gus and DC back-to-back - winning via decision in all of them. The GOAT discussion is always a massively subjective one anyway. For me, GSP is the GOAT and that was before Silva and Jones starting failing drug tests. In GSP's day too, he was defending in one of the better divisions in the sport and, in his prime, usually always comfortably beat his opponents. Edited October 27, 2020 by ColinBollocks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted October 27, 2020 Author Paid Members Share Posted October 27, 2020 Yeah, what strengthens GSP and Khabibās cases are the divisions they wereĀ in. 170 and 155 have always historically been strong and deep divisions. And if weāre talking āquality over quantityā, well GSP had both. He beat all the top Welterweights and wave after wave of them. From the Hughes, Penn, Trigg era to the Koscheck, Fitch, Alves era to the Hendricks, Condit, Diaz fights at the end. On the flipside, Khabib didnāt see off generations of challengers like GSP did but he also never had any losses or even any real scares in a fight to speak of. Even GSP had those moments like getting dropped by ConditāsĀ headkick or that armlock from Parisyan. Itās a pointlessĀ debate, it really is. Even GSP said as much himself in that Helwani interview after this show. Youāll always favour who you favour and you can always twist a fighterās record with the benefit of hindsight to make a case for your pick as #1 or to diminish another fighter. Thatās another reason the discussion is arse. Too often when discussing this, people look at a fighterās record and dismiss certain fights because theyāre judging those names by how they might look today instead of the form they were in at the time. Like when people try to downplay Fedorās accomplishments. I think the years of seeing Big Nog and Cro Cop getting laid out make a lot of people think less of Fedorās wins over them. But at the time he beat those guys they were killers. Similar with GSP beating a guyĀ like Condit. Theyāll look at Conditās series of losses in recent years and decide that GSP beating him wasnāt all that impressive. Or Andersonās wins over Belfort, Griffin and so on. And even Khabibās dominant win over RDA as discussed. Itās too easy to open up Tapology, get a fighterās record up and find reasons to poke holes in it when a lot of the names later passed their primes and went on slumps towardsĀ the end of their careers. You have to look at theĀ wins and losses on a fighterās record in the context of the time they happened. GSP, Khabib, Jones, Anderson, Fedor, Mighty Mouse, Nunes etc. Theyāre all up there for me. The order Iād rank them in would probably change daily if I bothered to give it enough thought. For me the GOAT talk isĀ more logical when itās kept to within a division. You can actually talk about it sensibly then based on facts, common opponents, styles etc. Rather than going all āwell if Mighty Mouse was 6ā5ā but still as fast as a Flyweight but had Heavyweight power...ā like the silly pound-for-pound waffle usuallyĀ leads to. GSP is undeniably the GOAT at 170. Khabib is at 155. Jones is at 205. Stipe is at Heavyweight. Aldo is at 145.Ā You can actually answer/debateĀ those reasonably. P4P just becomes a āwhoās your favourite champ ever?ā discussion and itās a load of old wank.Ā Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted October 27, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 27, 2020 its not a discussion i like to get involved with because its all subjective, and you just go around in circles but reading some of the arguments made on twitter for their reasoning is quite frustrating, people take this shit seriously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted October 27, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 27, 2020 (edited) Absolutely. I stand by what I've posted before on here, that it's pointless trying to figure outĀ theĀ GOAT because there are so many variables across different eras anyway, such as developments in training methodology and sports biology, changes in fight rules, matchmaking policy, combat sports business framework, and so on. Prime GSP trained using mid-2000s methods - would a prime Nurmagomedov trained in the same era have done as well? Conversely, how would a GSP trained now do against Nurmagomedov as we've seen him? It's all too murky to call. Edited October 27, 2020 by Carbomb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted October 27, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 27, 2020 It is, i dont think anyone can argue that Khabib has a stronger overall resume than Jon Jones though. On an individual fight basis you can argue, or comparing Khabib's last 3 fight stretch to any 3 fight fight stretch on Jones' resume maybe, but overall body of work? theres no argument is there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted October 27, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 27, 2020 31 minutes ago, Egg Shen said: It is, i dont think anyone can argue that Khabib has a stronger overall resume than Jon Jones though. On an individual fight basis you can argue, or comparing Khabib's last 3 fight stretch to any 3 fight fight stretch on Jones' resume maybe, but overall body of work? theres no argument is there. Not to flip-flop, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that there's no argument at all. When you've got a scalp list of Shogun, Rampage, Evans, Machida, Sonnen, Cormier, Belfort, Teixeira, Gustafsson, Bader, and what would've been the longest title reign in UFC history and an undefeated career if he wasn't such a horrendous bin-fire of a person, then he's definitely got a strong case. And that's kind of where I diverge with the argument for him: looking at what he's actually done, as opposed to the sheer level of ability he has and what heĀ couldĀ have accomplished, I think GSP and Nurmagomedov have stronger cases. But that's why it's so murky - other people will absolutely take his potential, natural ability, and purely what he did in the cage as a criterion for being the GOAT, and that is an equally valid viewpoint. There's just no right way to judge things when it comes to something so subjective. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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