Is Urijah Faber one of the greatest P4P fighters of all time?
- Thread starter Nastycrow
- Start date
NYR30 said:
I was probably one of the biggest Faber fans around during his WEC days, but no. He had an awesome run and is hugely responsible for bringing lighter weights to peoples attention, and was an entertaining fighter and personality....but I think the sport caught up with him. When Faber was ruling the WEC there weren't as many good lighter weight fighters as there are now, and a lot of them are better than he is now.
I just cant call a guy who is 5-5 in his last 10 fights "one of the greatest p4p fighters of all time
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so that knocks Matt Hughes, BJ Penn, Shogun Rua, Rampage Jackson, Chuck Liddell, Wanderlei Silva (who is actually worse), etc. out as well.
Moranis said:
so that knocks Matt Hughes, BJ Penn, Shogun Rua, Rampage Jackson, Chuck Liddell, Wanderlei Silva (who is actually worse), etc. out as well.
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Outside of Penn I don't think any of those guys were ever top p4p anyways. I don't consider anything done in Pride as top p4p because there are so many suspicions of PEDs/fight fixing (that's just my personal opinion) and neither Shogun/Silva have done
that
well in the UFC (Shogun was a champion yes..but zero defenses and 5-5 record overall). Either way, Liddell/Hughes/Rampage would never have been considered top p4p....they had one-dimensional skill sets that wouldn't necessarily translate well into other divisions.
As time moves on, P4P guys are going to eventually pass their primes and get beat by someone who's next in line to carry the sport on their shoulders. Those guys become the new P4P Best, and previous P4P guys move into the category of "Legends."
Those Legends will probably never win the championship again, but will always be considered as Top 10 in their divisions because of how they've benefited the sport. As much as it sucks for certain fans to admit, Urijah Faber now finds himself in that category of Legend. That's just the way the sport works.
Moranis said:
so that knocks Matt Hughes, BJ Penn, Shogun Rua, Rampage Jackson, Chuck Liddell, Wanderlei Silva (who is actually worse), etc. out as well.
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No, just knocks them out of being top p4p currently. All of their bodies of work were more impressive than Fabers before the fall from grace
NicoSuave said:
As time moves on, P4P guys are going to eventually pass their primes and get beat by someone who's next in line to carry the sport on their shoulders. Those guys become the new P4P Best, and previous P4P guys move into the category of "Legends."
Those Legends will probably never win the championship again, but will always be considered as Top 10 in their divisions because of how they've benefited the sport. As much as it sucks for certain fans to admit, Urijah Faber now finds himself in that category of Legend. That's just the way the sport works.
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I think if you look at boxing P4P lists you'll see the top ranks littered with champs from early days and not a lot of newer fighters.
The reason, imo, why you see the early pioneers of MMA shuffled down is because of MMA's youth, the circus atmosphere of the early days and most importantly, the relatively small pool of fighters from whom to choose. Being the best of 300 guys is something, but being the best guy out of 10,000 - different story. As the sport matures, you'll see the list of fighters considered the best P4P become more static.
I think a few of the current P4P contenders will be around for a long time. For example, I daresay it'll be a really long time before Silva gets knocked off the top ten P4P list.
I think a lot of people forget how good he was in his prime
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So Faber's prime ended when he turned 28?
You (and many other people) need to take that word out of your vocabulary unless you're talking about a cut of meat.
GSP is 33, Silva is 37, Cain is 30, Benson is 29 and Dan was in his prime at age 40 when he KO'd a past his prime 34 year old Fedor.
I would wager a rather large amout of $$ that if you polled fighters between the ages of 30-35 MOST of them would say they are a better fighter today then they were when they were 25 and in their PRIME.
Koos said:
So Faber's prime ended when he turned 28?
You (and many other people) need to take that word out of your vocabulary unless you're talking about a cut of meat.
GSP is 33, Silva is 37, Cain is 30, Benson is 29 and Dan was in his prime at age 40 when he KO'd a past his prime 34 year old Fedor.
I would wager a rather large amout of $$ that if you polled fighters between the ages of 30-35 MOST of them would say they are a better fighter today then they were when they were 25 and in their PRIME.
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31. GSP is thirty one.
Koos said:
So Faber's prime ended when he turned 28?
You (and many other people) need to take that word out of your vocabulary unless you're talking about a cut of meat.
GSP is 33, Silva is 37, Cain is 30, Benson is 29 and Dan was in his prime at age 40 when he KO'd a past his prime 34 year old Fedor.
I would wager a rather large amout of $$ that if you polled fighters between the ages of 30-35 MOST of them would say they are a better fighter today then they were when they were 25 and in their PRIME.
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you just need to realize that in their fan's eyes prime means when they start losing.....just something to make them feel better when their favorite isn't as good as they thought.
Reckin007 said:
Outside of Penn I don't think any of those guys were ever top p4p anyways. I don't consider anything done in Pride as top p4p because there are so many suspicions of PEDs/fight fixing (that's just my personal opinion) and neither Shogun/Silva have done
that
well in the UFC (Shogun was a champion yes..but zero defenses and 5-5 record overall). Either way, Liddell/Hughes/Rampage would never have been considered top p4p....they had one-dimensional skill sets that wouldn't necessarily translate well into other divisions.
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During his run in Pride Wanderlei most certainly was. Shogun after the 2006 GP was considered by many to be the top 205er in the world. At those points they most certainly were.
NYR30 said:
I was probably one of the biggest Faber fans around during his WEC days, but no. He had an awesome run and is hugely responsible for bringing lighter weights to peoples attention, and was an entertaining fighter and personality....but I think the sport caught up with him. When Faber was ruling the WEC there weren't as many good lighter weight fighters as there are now, and a lot of them are better than he is now.
I just cant call a guy who is 5-5 in his last 10 fights "one of the greatest p4p fighters of all time
"
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Shogun, Randy, Rampage, Chuck, BJ Penn, Rich Franklin, etc...
really?
While I don't agree that he is that high on the all-time p4p list...people should stop picking on Faber for recent losses. That goes for any fighter who only loses to dominant champions (or a guy on a 29 fight win streak). I'm looking at you Frankie Edgar/Chael Sonnen. Saying these guys are "out of their prime" or "overrated" are just setting themselves up to look idiotic when these fighters turn around and put a win streak together against top contenders after losing to the champion.
WIN
- Brian Bowles - Nov / 19 / 2011 -- UFC 139 - Shogun vs. Hendo
2 bw - 2011 - Nov 16 - MMA Weekly
3 bw - 2011 - Nov 11 - MMA Torch
5 bw - 2011 - Nov 6 - Fight Matrix-Published
3 bw - 2011 - Oct 27 - Bloody Elbow-Consensus
WIN
- Eddie Wineland - Mar / 19 / 2011 -- UFC 128 - Shogun vs. Jones
9 bw - 2011 - Mar 9 - MMA Weekly
7 bw - 2011 - Mar 1 - MMA Bay
13 bw - 2011 - Feb 25 - Bloody Elbow-Consensus
10 bw - 2011 - Feb 21 - LA Times
WIN
- Takeya Mizugaki - Nov / 11 / 2010 -- WEC 52 - Faber vs. Mizugaki
6 bw - 2010 - Nov 4 - Sports Illustrated/Josh Gross
6 bw - 2010 - Nov 4 - MMA Torch
6 bw - 2010 - Oct 28 - Bloody Elbow-Consensus
6 bw - 2010 - Oct 27 - Sherdog
WIN
- Raphael Assuncao - Jan / 10 / 2010 -- WEC 46 - Varner vs. Henderson
5 fw - 2009 - Dec 28 - Sports Illustrated/Josh Gross
5 fw - 2009 - Dec 27 - Sherdog
4 fw - 2009 - Dec 22 - MMA Weekly
6 fw - 2009 - Dec 17 - Bloody Elbow-Consensus
WIN
- Jens Pulver - Jan / 25 / 2009 -- WEC 38 - Varner vs. Cerrone
15 fw - 2009 - Jan 14 - Fight Matrix-Published
WIN
- Jens Pulver - Jun / 1 / 2008 -- WEC 34 - Sacramento
7 fw - 2008 - Jun 1 - Fight Matrix-Published
10 fw - 2008 - MAY - Full Contact Fighter
WIN
- Jeff Curran - Dec / 12 / 2007 -- WEC 31 - Faber vs. Curran
7 fw - 2007 - Dec 5 - MMA Weekly
7 fw - 2007 - Dec 4 - MMA Fighting
4 fw - 2007 - Nov 20 - Sherdog
4 fw - 2007 - Nov 13 - The MMA Collective-MMARanks
WIN
- Ivan Menjivar - Jan / 28 / 2006 -- TKO 24 - Eruption
5 fw - 2006 - JAN (8) - Bloody Knux
4 fw - 2006 - Jan 1 - Fight Matrix-Generated*^^^
3 fw - 2005 - Nov 26 - The MMA Collective-MMARanks
7 fw - 2005 - Oct 7 - MMA Fighting
WIN
- Hiroyuki Abe* - May / 7 / 2005 -- KOTC - Mortal Sins
10 fw - 2005 - May 4 - ADCC MMA Top Ten
(*odd ranking)
Gnarcore said:
During his run in Pride Wanderlei most certainly was. Shogun after the 2006 GP was considered by many to be the top 205er in the world. At those points they most certainly were.
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Wandy can't win anything in the UFC and Shogun has been one of the most inconsistent fighters ever. He's got the skills...but he's not a top p4p fighter. He's a top LHW...but definitely not top p4p. I mean sure, maybe they were ranked pretty well in 2006 but outside of Rampage, they weren't exactly destroying the cream of the crop in the division. The difference with p4p is that there are fighters from other divisions that were better than Shogun/Wandy on that list (even in 2006) and they wouldn't keep their 2006 rankings as the years go on. Shogun is a skilled fighter and all, but he only had 18 fights by the time he came to the UFC and in those 18 fights he only fought like 3 relevant guys. Anyways I don't really want to argue much about it...Pride was kind of a sham in terms of records/rankings, as evident by the ratio of successful/not quite as successful fighters that came into the UFC in 2007.
Reckin007 said:
Wandy can't win anything in the UFC and Shogun has been one of the most inconsistent fighters ever. He's got the skills...but he's not a top p4p fighter. He's a top LHW...but definitely not top p4p. I mean sure, maybe they were ranked pretty well in 2006 but outside of Rampage, they weren't exactly destroying the cream of the crop in the division. The difference with p4p is that there are fighters from other divisions that were better than Shogun/Wandy on that list (even in 2006) and they wouldn't keep their 2006 rankings as the years go on. Shogun is a skilled fighter and all, but he only had 18 fights by the time he came to the UFC and in those 18 fights he only fought like 3 relevant guys. Anyways I don't really want to argue much about it...Pride was kind of a sham in terms of records/rankings, as evident by the ratio of successful/not quite as successful fighters that came into the UFC in 2007.
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You said they were never ranked in top P4P. They were at one point and whatever has happened since doesn't change that. Were you watching in MMA in 2004-2007?
Just admit you were wrong.
Gnarcore said:
You said they were never ranked in top P4P. They were at one point and whatever has happened since doesn't change that. Were you watching in MMA in 2004-2007?
Just admit you were wrong.
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Yeah probably....but still it was 2006 who cares now lol.