Nogueira is fantastic. The rest, not so much. Fedor was built like a tank in his early PRIDE days and had pretty unreal explosiveness. I'd buy the whole steroids thing. He is Russian afterall.
He was the best but I think several fighters could have beaten him. I think Barnett could've beaten him, I think Couture would've had a chance. Fedor didn't perform too well against powerful grapplers, it's just the only one he fought that had anything resembling a multi-faceted game was Arona who he robbed pretty dramatically. The funny thing with Noguieria is that as much as he's declined physically in his recent years in the UFC, his wrestling his actually better than ever....it was pretty poor for most of his career and it's why he took a lot of unnecessary damage before he could submit guys. I think if he had consistently beaten a palette of tough contenders with different styles he'd be judged more fairly. Everyone has their Chael Sonnen or their Matt Serra or whatever it may be....Fedor fought two good fighters every half decade and then went about armbarring Middleweights in the interim. As far as Prime Fedor being a champion, he'd be in contention but I highly doubt it. Antonio Silva probably still beats him unless he gets caught early. Silva is basically just a giant version of Arona and what he did to Fedor wasn't really caused by Fedor not being in his prime but rather a career long deficiency that has been hidden by the fact that the wrestlers he fought had no submission defense once they got on top.
Knocked out and submitted by Frank Mir. That puts all his previous fights and opponents in perspective. Do me a favor, aside from fights he split with Hendo and Barnett, give me the name of the best win on Big Nog's resume. And Couture at 150 years old probably shouldn't be the name you pick.
He's beaten a lot of excellent fighters. He beat Fabricio Werdum, he beat Sergei Kharitonov, he beat Cro Cop. He arguably has a better resume in terms of pure wins than Fedor just not as consistent.
"for sure" doesn't mean 'probably', it means 'absolutely' or 'positively'. I assume you used the wrong terminology based upon the justification you came up with for saying this?
Werdum was a BJJ guy only in the first fight, his striking is worlds better than it was and he's probably in him prime now. Nog is slipping badly and is worse that he used to be. Werdum by destruction.
Werdum pretty easily. Wouldn't even surprise me if he knocked him out. His Muay Thai is pretty developed and above average in the division, Nog takes a bad shot these days. The only thing Nog has gotten better at since then is his wrestling but Werdum's better than him on the floor so he's going to have trouble.
We will see. I just don't think Werdum has improved as much as his wins over Russow and Nelson might make it seem. This is the exact same chin and heart that got knocked stiff by JDS and flopped around like a girl against Overeem. Nogueira is a fearless striker with a far deeper boxing background than Werdum. I have a sig bet that says Big Nog wins for any takers.....
It's been at least a good 3-4 years that Nog has looked old (though he did look good vs Herman). Very, very uninteresting matchup imo, Nog had no advantages whatsoever over Werdum.
