Who are your top five favorite fighters? I'm not asking for who is the best pound-for-pound rankings. I want your personal opinion on who your five favorite fighters are, wins and losses aside.
Mine are in no specific order:
The Ice Man
BJ Penn
Georges St-Pierre
Anderson Silva
Wanderlei Silva
Who are yours?
When it comes to classy fighters I'd have to put Georges St-Pierre and BJ Penn at the top of the list. They are both just stand-up guys. As classy as they are good.
ReplyDeleteBy far, THE ICE MAN.
ReplyDeletei like all those guys.
ReplyDeletehere'a different list just cause
Fedor
crocop
Randy Couture
Takanori Gomi
Igor Vovchanchyn
Well played. Fedor, CroCop, Couture...all 4 sure! You just brought me right back to Pride son. Forgot all about Gomi and Vovchanchyn. Nicely done. We'll have to do a top 20 list now!!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdNdeBd5qb4
ReplyDelete#1 Todd Ambrosia. Pulasky PA. Friend and great guy. Late starter in mma but determined and gracious. Battled some injuries. 2-1 with a win in Vermont.#2 Urijah Faber. Longest running 145er in history. Recent troubles with move up in weight but you'll have that. #3 Jason Riley. ANother local guy. 265er. Amanda Ohio. Big hearted dude who takes time for the kids. NAAFS champ. UMMAXX fighter and just missed the cut on Ultimate fighter 2 yrs ago. #4 . ICEMAN. Nuff said. #5 Jens Pulver. Best chin in history. Warrior to the max
ReplyDeleteI'm all about supporting your local fighters and their grass roots campaigns. People like them are how people like the UFC greats got great in the first place. UfC is king but these feeder leagues and these ordinary Joes who have the balls to put it out there deserve the support. I aint filling Dana Whites pockets until I've given my props to the little guys
ReplyDeleteDan,
ReplyDeleteYou should follow my blog man. It would be great to have you on here contributing on the regular. Use the "follow" button. If you don't already have a gmail account, definitely creae one. It's a great service.
Your comment about Jens Pulver got me thinking. I don't dislike Jens Pulver, but I'm not a huge fan. You make a great point though. He's been in the game a long time and he has a cement block for a chin. I've seen him tagged multiple times and come back for more. In one or more occassions he might have been lights out and still swinging. Although I'm not a hug fan, I couldn't agree more with your statement about him being a warrior. He's been along for the ride and fought some of the best in the game. Although he's not in my top five, I think he definitely deserves some props for being a "real" fighter.
It's great that you are also a Urijah Faber fan. I'm down with the California Kid. He's a real tough kid, and a kid he is. So young yet so talented. Mike Brown set him back some. He was put on a pedastal for quite a while and then Mike brought him back down to mortal form. He's had his troubles, but I can't help but love him for his attitude and pure raw talent. He's a fighter period!
~ Shane
Keep in mind Urijah was fighting at 145 for 3 years and decimated his division. He had to move up to fight at Browns weight cuz there was no competition. AT like 5'3" ish, he packed on some punds to fight outta his already less than natural weight. Brown caught him clownin in the first fight and couldnt ko Faber in the second fight despite Faber having two broken hands. He the real deal. And I gotta send props to Jason Dent. Another Ohio fighter who made semi-finals on Ultimate fighter last year. My kids have autographed hats and actual fight gloves of his. We follow these local dudes and spend our money on them and their sponsors. Genuine good hearted small town dude who made the UFC the hard way. He didnt rock the world at 13-7, but guys like him make it all come together. Peace CUZ
ReplyDeleteDan,
ReplyDeleteI love your grass roots home town attitude toward fighting. That's where it's at. The best fights aren't always hosted on PPV.
Here in CT, we don't have it. This damn state doesn't get it. There aren't any fights within two hours drive nor are there any fighters coming out of CT that I know of anyway. Other than me that is...LOL.
I agree Faber is the real deal. He did decimate his division. He moved up a class for real competition, probably what Anderson Silva will end up having to do. I've logged many of hours watching Faber in WEC. I watched the Mike Brown fights and Faber's fights since. He's no joke. I just had a discussion with one of the other forum users about this today. Sometimes it takes a loss to awake the inner deamon that makes a fighter fight for real.
I have to say, I'm not a big Dana White fan. Not that I'm a hater, but he's just a marketing engine. He's to UFC and fighting what Bill Gates and Microsoft are to computers.
Actually, I'm not a big fan of over priced fights and big marketing dollars. I like fights, technique and skill. If it wasn't for "The Ultimate Fighter (TUF 1) and the first reality fighter show....yeah right...reality TV about fighters and fighting, there's a good chance that the UFC wouldn't be what it is today.
Problem is, people hear UFC and they think that's all there is. They have no idea about WEC, Pride, Vale Tudo, ADCC submission fighting, StrikeForce, etc. Every joe and their brother wears fight T's and thinks their a Jiu Jitsu black belt.
In all actuality, it's not Dana White that made the UFC, it was the rise of MMA that made the UFC. And what made the rise of MMA was Tapout, in my opinion. Charles "Mask" lewis, "Punk Ass", and "SkyScrape". Those boys made MMA back in the day. Back before Dana White saw $$$$
Straight out of the garage to the cage, ring, whatever. When nobody knew what MMA and sport fighting was, these boys believed. They hit local Jiu Jitsu competitions selling T-shirts. A buddy of mine goes way back with this stuff and met the boys from Tapout before they were anything. Just you're average joes who believed in the sport and liked to bang. Here's a good link...
http://breakingdownmma.blogspot.com/2010/07/who-are-your-favorite-five-mixed.html#comments
Here is another good website for fights and dates:
http://www.adcombat.com/
Peace Cuz!
I do have to say that I love some of the fighters that these big box fight engines like UFC, Pride, and WEC brought up. Without them we might not have had an Ice Man, or an Anderson Silva. Or we might have had to look a lot harder to find them. We might not have the pleasure of being able to see them fight as often as we do. That I guess is some good that has come out of the Markeing Machines....
ReplyDelete