HEAVYWEIGHTS..snakebit?
- Thread starter Nastycrow
- Start date
What? Ricco Kerr and Rulon Gardner? Ricco and Kerr weren't lost they just got old and stopped being good fighters. Lesnar and Carwin got sick/injured and pretty much had to retire. Duffee and Struve are pending. So you're left with like 3 or 4 guys the HW division has "lost".
Each division has had a lot of dudes retire for a number of reasons.
However, if you really think there's something there. My guess would be HW fighters get hit harder than any other fighter. The chances of getting KO'd as a HW are far greater than any other division.
Fiercedragon said:
Why is it the heavyweight division loses more talent than any other division? Herring,Konrad,Duffee,Del Rasario(with due respect), Struve,Lesnar,Carwin,Ricco,Kerr...even Rulon Gardner looked promising...
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Carwin is old & injury prone.
Struve is back in training.
Lesnar realised that he didn't like being hit plus he was never the same after his illness.
Konrad wasn't fighting much & realised MMA isn't a long term career.
Duffee suffered from an illness but is looking to come back.
Fiercedragon said:
Why is it the heavyweight division loses more talent than any other division? Herring,Konrad,Duffee,Del Rasario(with due respect), Struve,Lesnar,Carwin,Ricco,Kerr...even Rulon Gardner looked promising...
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Alexander Karelin was very promising, but like Rulon, I don't think he liked punching people in the face. Eventually fighters retire, whether it be from injury, age, or lack of drive. It happens in all divisions. Struve wants to come back, even though it might not be the best thing for him to attempt. Dang, you made me look up Ricco on fight finder, and he beat Zelg Galesic in October, awesome.
Spud said:
Carwin is old & injury prone.
Struve is back in training.
Lesnar realised that he didn't like being hit plus he was never the same after his illness.
Konrad wasn't fighting much & realised MMA isn't a long term career.
Duffee suffered from an illness but is looking to come back.
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Pretty disrespectful to Lesnar if you ask me. Guy took everything Carwin had to dish out and still came out and won the 2nd. Obviously people talk about his spinning cart wheel against Cain but standing in front of the guy wasn't really going to be a great strategy either, so he chose to get out of there quickly. Still took some heavy shots in the fight. Diverticulitis is no joke and he had it twice...that's the only reason he got out of the fight game.
The HW division is weak because the UFC got lazy scouting talent. They let some good guys get scooped up by bellator, M1 and even One FC. They could do a HW season of TUF if they wanted, the talent is out there. They just have to really break down video and go to some shows. The key is not getting guys that gas in 1 round or guys that completely lay n pray. Real HW talent is tough to come by, they really shouldnt be letting talent get away like they have been doing. And if they see a guy with only a few fights but looks promising, they need to tell RFA to sign them. Cause isnt RFA supposed to be the UFCs developmental/feeder league?
The big problem with heavyweight is the talent level is so low. Obviously Cain is a monster but after him the only elite fighters are JDS, Werdum, and Barnett. Overeem is elite in skill but his chin and cardio will prevent him from ever reaching his potential. The only real prospect they have that I can see breaking into that elite group is Miocic. They made a BIG mistake letting bellator get Vitaly Minakov, he's one of the other few guys that could be elite. Obviously bellator got Ruslan Magomedov also but he's waiting his contract out so I've pretty much just marked him down as a UFC fighter. He's good and I think he could be top 10 but not in the elite group. They have signed a lot of new heavyweights lately but the results haven't been great. Rosholt, Harris, and Lewis all have some promise but I don't see them ever amounting to much. They need to go on a signing spree at heavyweight. One guy I was always high on was Alexey Krupnyakov. 5-0, 5 first round subs, and beat Cormier in wrestling. He hasn't fought in over a year so I'm not sure what's up with him but if he comes back and wins they need to sign him. Some other guys they should sign are Steve Mocco after 3-4 more wins, Marcin Tybura, Ion Cutelaba, Tyler East (unlikely due to his criminal record), Christian Colombo, Andrew van Zyl, Cody East, Justin Woods, Chris Lokteff, Yosef Mohammed after another few wins, Dmitriy Sosnovskiy, Denis Smoldarev, Gheorghe Ignat if he comes back and wins, Viktor Pesta, Michal Wlodarek.
That's all the guys I can think of and most of them would likely suck but if they want to find talent in the heavyweight division that's what they've gotta do. Out of all them there's gotta be one guy that doesn't suck
Morbid said:
The HW division is weak because the UFC got lazy scouting talent. They let some good guys get scooped up by bellator, M1 and even One FC. They could do a HW season of TUF if they wanted, the talent is out there. They just have to really break down video and go to some shows. The key is not getting guys that gas in 1 round or guys that completely lay n pray. Real HW talent is tough to come by, they really shouldnt be letting talent get away like they have been doing. And if they see a guy with only a few fights but looks promising, they need to tell RFA to sign them. Cause isnt RFA supposed to be the UFCs developmental/feeder league?
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RFA isn't affiliated with the UFC in any way, except that Soares is the manager of a few fighters and they have non-exclusive fight deals. Promotions like the RFA are feeder leagues for everyone above regional status, as Lance Palmer just fought for the WSOF.
The general question is the HW division as a whole, which I find to be exciting right now. Guys who started fighting 10+ years ago are going to retire sooner rather than later, but that is true with any division.
The HW division in the UFC has the current top talent, but they have to bring in and gamble on some young guys so they don't lose out to Bellator. Minakov was 9-0 with two recognizable wins when Bellator scooped him up. That guy is legit. They also have undefeated HW prospects Ivanov, Etherton and Butler; one out of the three will turn out to be legit.
Marcin Tybura is 9-0 with last 3 wins in M-1. Steve Mocco is an amazing wrestler at 4-0. If Anthony Hamilton destroys Schoover for his defense of the MFC title, which he won by KO'ing prospect Smealinho Rama with a massive headkick, he should get a look. Damian Grabowski is 19-1 and beat some decent guys. TUF HW? I'd watch. TUF USA v. World would be awesome, subtitles are fine with me.
Blaster u basically hit it on the head with the talent you mentioned. How could they miss on Minakov, Butler, Etherington, Ivanov, Tybura and a few other guys that M1 grabbed. They also let One FC get Lokteff and Cheng. I mean we dont know if a bunch of those guys will turn into stars or be flops, but the ufc should have at least gotten ahold of them and found out. As the top organization in mma they should have contacts everywhere that gives them the heads up on talent. And they should have people that do nothing but research potential fighters to sign.
And KZUFCchamp also hit it with HW guys that could turn out to be good like Krupnyakov, Mocco, Colombo, Lokteff, Mohammed, Smoldarev, Pesta and Wlodarek. Van Zyl is fighting fellow south african HW prospect ruan potts in a few days, so im curious to see what happens in that fight.
Guys like the East brothers both have extensive criminal records so theres no chance the UFC will sign either of them. Woods is a really short fat guy who hasnt got out of the first round, he seems like the kind that will gas for sure. And im always hesitant to take HWs that look like human blobs seriously, if they were serious then they would be in shape. Not sure if Ignat is in jail or not, but he was arrested for being part of a romanian cyber gang that stole a shitload of credit card numbers. So he probably screwed himself out of a shot in the ufc. Cutelaba needs to keep his weight under control as he is known for letting himself get bloated and his cardio is still very suspect. Not to mention he recently lost to another polish HW prospect Michal Andryszak.
Hes actually 100x better judoka than he is a sambo fighter. He easily could have been on the russian olympic national judo team. He does need to tighted up his boxing and wrestling takedowns. His few holes comes from the fact that he competed in sports sambo. Which to my knowledge doesnt allow striking and only allows 2 submissions. I think slams are also not allowed except a judo style hip toss and trips. So thats why his striking can be wild at times and why he might have to work on on wrestling and subs a bit. He could easily make top 10 in the ufc and probably top 5. But to have a chance to really win the title hes has to fix those holes. I hope the time spent at jackson/winklejohns has helped with that. But hes gonna be locked into bellator for a long time so dont hold your breathe if you expect to see him in the ufc.
Reckin007 said:
Pretty disrespectful to Lesnar if you ask me. Guy took everything Carwin had to dish out and still came out and won the 2nd. Obviously people talk about his spinning cart wheel against Cain but standing in front of the guy wasn't really going to be a great strategy either, so he chose to get out of there quickly. Still took some heavy shots in the fight. Diverticulitis is no joke and he had it twice...that's the only reason he got out of the fight game.
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He didn't react well to getting hit, that was my point. Yeah, he stayed conscious against Carwin, but he was almost running away from him. He reacted badly to being hit against Cain & Overeem too.
Spud said:
He didn't react well to getting hit, that was my point. Yeah, he stayed conscious against Carwin, but he was almost running away from him. He reacted badly to being hit against Cain & Overeem too.
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He got smashed by Carwin, Cain, and Overeem...has anyone really reacted well to getting hit by them? Again, not the reason he retired.
Morbid said:
Blaster u basically hit it on the head with the talent you mentioned. How could they miss on Minakov, Butler, Etherington, Ivanov, Tybura and a few other guys that M1 grabbed. They also let One FC get Lokteff and Cheng. I mean we dont know if a bunch of those guys will turn into stars or be flops, but the ufc should have at least gotten ahold of them and found out. As the top organization in mma they should have contacts everywhere that gives them the heads up on talent. And they should have people that do nothing but research potential fighters to sign.
And KZUFCchamp also hit it with HW guys that could turn out to be good like Krupnyakov, Mocco, Colombo, Lokteff, Mohammed, Smoldarev, Pesta and Wlodarek. Van Zyl is fighting fellow south african HW prospect ruan potts in a few days, so im curious to see what happens in that fight.
Guys like the East brothers both have extensive criminal records so theres no chance the UFC will sign either of them. Woods is a really short fat guy who hasnt got out of the first round, he seems like the kind that will gas for sure. And im always hesitant to take HWs that look like human blobs seriously, if they were serious then they would be in shape. Not sure if Ignat is in jail or not, but he was arrested for being part of a romanian cyber gang that stole a shitload of credit card numbers. So he probably screwed himself out of a shot in the ufc. Cutelaba needs to keep his weight under control as he is known for letting himself get bloated and his cardio is still very suspect. Not to mention he recently lost to another polish HW prospect Michal Andryszak.
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Since the US doesn't like watching Heavyweights on TUF and TUF international versions don't really get watched in the US, why doesn't the UFC have the next couple of international TUFs have the heavyweight division solely or at least as one of the weight classes. This way they could start to get a closer look at a lot of these international HWs and really analyze and develop them. Then they could bring over the top 6-10 HWs from a couple of TUF seasons and replenish that division?
I dont think the US doesnt like HW TUFs. Its just that they dont like HW TUFs filled with lay n prayers, guys that gas halfway through the first round or old vets that have no shot at making it in the ufc. Do the research and find legit guys, and a HW TUF could bring in big ratings. Cause everybody loves seeing the big guys bang. Maybe even bring in 1 fighter with a big name like they did with kimbo that would help ratings but wont survive in the ufc. Bobby Lashley could be a good choice. I think they could pull off a HW TUF in maybe 1 or 2 countries at most. But there might be some sub par fighters on the show.
Some of you missed the point. Name 1 other division where so much top 20 talent was lost for reasons other than getting old...there are several guys that retired in the PRIME of their careers.
And thanks to all those that contributed names of potential signings.