Top 5 List

[Chiron]

It's kinda dead in here so I figured I'd make something subjective to talk about. My question is who do you think are the top 5 fighters in the world for each weight division (UFC weight division since Pride's will be that way soon)? Anyone wanna offer their opinion?

[kuri]

I usually don't like lists because it all depends on style matchups.

but...

HW
#1 who else but the last emperor
#2 Cro Cop (no matter the Gonzaga KO)
#3 Barnett
#4 Nogueira
#5 Randy

LHW
#1 Shogun
#2 Rampage
#3 Arona
#4 Chuck
#5 Silva

MW
#1 Henderson
#2 Anderson Silva
#3 Lindland
#4 Kang
#5 Filho

Welter
#1 GSP
#2 Hughes
#3 BJ
#4 Karo
#5 Koschek

LW
#1 Gomi
#2 Sherk
#3 Aoki
#4 Melendez
#5 Sakurai

Let the battle begin

[Chiron]

Originally Posted by kuri

I usually don't like lists because it all depends on style matchups.

Ya, there's always the "Rock, paper, scissors" thing to deal with so no list will be perfect. I can't speak for anyone else but I'm not gonna argue with anyones list. I'm just curious what others here are thinking things look like now that Pride and the UFC are under the same umbrella and there have been some shakeups lately.

Oh ya...

HW
#1 Fedor (duh)
#2 Big Nog (I think he's due to go down any time though)
#3 Crocop
#4 Barnette
#5 Randy

LHW
#1 Shogun
#2 Rampage
#3 Sokoudjou (Ya, I know it's early)
#4 Silva
#5 Liddell

MW
#1 Henderson
#2 Anderson Silva
#3 Lindland
#4 Kang
#5 Filho

WW
#1 GSP
#2 Penn
#3 Hughes
#4 Karo
#5 Koscheck

LW
#1 Sherk
#2 Gomi
#3 Sakurai
#4 Aoki
#5 Melendez

[LT Hebert]

Originally Posted by kuri

I usually don't like lists because it all depends on style matchups.

but...

HW
#1 who else but the last emperor
#2 Cro Cop (no matter the Gonzaga KO)
#3 Barnett
#4 Nogueira
#5 Randy

LHW
#1 Shogun
#2 Rampage
#3 Arona
#4 Chuck
#5 Silva

MW
#1 Henderson
#2 Anderson Silva
#3 Lindland
#4 Kang
#5 Filho

Welter
#1 GSP
#2 Hughes
#3 BJ
#4 Karo
#5 Koschek

LW
#1 Gomi
#2 Sherk
#3 Aoki
#4 Melendez
#5 Sakurai

Let the battle begin

Just out of curiosity...why don't you include Diego Sanchez in that list? I thought he hadn't lost a fight until very recently?

[Chiron]

Originally Posted by LT Hebert

Just out of curiosity...why don't you include Diego Sanchez in that list? I thought he hadn't lost a fight until very recently?

He hadn't. But a lot of people don't think most of the fighters he beat (with the exception of Diaz, Parisyan, and maybe Riggs) were any good. And some people thought he lost the Diaz fight. For the record I'd put him at #6.

[kuri]

I agree with Chiron. Diego needs to fight the cream of the crop first. Good thing is now that he lost Dana may start putting him against some of those guys.

Chiron, I'm curious how you would see a Gomi vs. Sherk fight going.

[Chiron]

Originally Posted by kuri

Chiron, I'm curious how you would see a Gomi vs. Sherk fight going.

Under UFC rules I think Sherk would win probably 6 out of 10 times via LnP. That's the only reason I ranked him higher than Gomi. I hope I'm wrong. Not because I'm a Gomi fan (I'm not really) but because I hate the LnP style of fighting. To me, if a guy doesn't win by a submission or a knockout the victory doesn't mean as much as it goes against the spirit of the whole thing, imo. So I'd rather see Gomi take it. If he improves his takedown defense and ground work he would definitely be the best LW out there. But that's just my opinion.

How do you see it going?

[kuri]

Pretty much the same way. I don't see Gomi stopping Sherk's shoots in MMA, but Gomi is a bad ass grappler. Have you ever seen vid of the Japan sub grappling tourneys?

I think he just looks for the standing KO and isn't great at escaping from the bottom against the best BJJ/wrestlers. Like I said it's all about the matchup of styles and strengths.

However Gomi has beaten more top guys IMO than Sherk at this point, which is why I put him up there.

[kuri]

Relatedly check out Dana's words on Pride: http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/...=4029&zoneid=2

It'd be sad if they kill off Pride or make it into a B show as I think that will really stifle competition. The style of Pride was great too, and unless they keep a crack Japanese staff to run everything in Japan it's doubtful it will succeed.

Thanks god for K-1, Heroes, and Shooto.

[Chiron]

Originally Posted by kuri

Pretty much the same way. I don't see Gomi stopping Sherk's shoots in MMA, but Gomi is a bad ass grappler. Have you ever seen vid of the Japan sub grappling tourneys?

I think he just looks for the standing KO and isn't great at escaping from the bottom against the best BJJ/wrestlers. Like I said it's all about the matchup of styles and strengths.

However Gomi has beaten more top guys IMO than Sherk at this point, which is why I put him up there.

I haven't seen the Japanese grappling tourneys with Gomi in them. He hasn't looked like a great grappler in MMA to me though. He's looked decent but not great. I think he's beaten more top guys than Sherk has too. It's always a question of "Who they've beaten" vs "Who would win" I guess. If we're going by who they've beaten I'd rank Gomi higher. I don't like his attitude but I like the fact he actually tries to finish opponents instead of playing it safe like Sherk does.

Originally Posted by kuri

Relatedly check out Dana's words on Pride: http://www.mmaweekly.com/absol utenm/...=4029&zoneid=2

It'd be sad if they kill off Pride or make it into a B show as I think that will really stifle competition. The style of Pride was great too, and unless they keep a crack Japanese staff to run everything in Japan it's doubtful it will succeed.

Thanks god for K-1, Heroes, and Shooto.

Didn't we see that coming though? Pride as a form of competition was dead the moment was finalized. It's doubtful Dana ever wanted to keep Pride. Hell, when they first announced it a few months ago he got up there and said "The UFC is coming here to kick your ass." I think he wants to bury Pride. The way I look at it, the UFC acquisition of Pride can be a good or a bad thing depending how they go about it. Potentially having all those great fighters in one org could be awesome. But, going by their track record, I figured it would likely be a bad thing because the UFC typically only has 1 or 2 (occasionally 3) good matches on a card. It seemed they wanted to take it that direction similar to boxing. They could change that now with more top fighters in one org but they could've done that already to some degree. Instead they threw in TUF guys like Chris Leben and Sean Salmon to fill the space. Pride was more willing to stack it a little more (they had some suck matches too of course). That, the production, and a few differences in the rules made Pride better overall to me, despite the occasional freakshow match.

I think they'll probably keep Pride just for the lesser fighters and to find up-and-comers. Pride might die if they do that but who knows. I just hope K-1 and the other orgs push a little more to come into the US to help keep the UFC. Maybe that'll help keep the UFC honest. But really the only one that could have seriously competed with the UFC was Pride.

But I'm wondering if they'll get Fedor and Barnette. Fedor doesn't like not being allowed to fight in Russia and from things he's said in interviews recently it sounds like they've butted heads. And we know Barnette doesn't like UFC management. It would be a blow to lose those two to K-1. We both know that, to many fans, no UFC champion will be considered the legitimate #1 HW unless he beats Fedor.

[Waittz]

I thought penn is going back to 155? if thats the case, sherk, penn, gomi. No one can stop the muscle shark.

I heard on the radio that Mayweather was talking smack about MMA and said he could smack around the current champ at his weight.......

Guess the shark is hungry for some dark meat.