As someone who titled their MMA show Dissension, I’ve heard a plethoria of MMA opinions, but now I’m calling BS on a recent MMA article. Anyone who Dissension’s MMA predictions knows Josh Leduc and myself have poked fun at Bleacher Report for some of their articles, but it was all in fun for the most part. After reading an article titled “MMA Contenders and Pretenders That Will Be Revealed in May”, I almost couldn’t believe what I read. The article more or less stated that Rafael dos Anjos, Costa Philippou, Khabib Nurmagomedov, TJ Grant, Bigfoot Silva, Mark Hunt, and Gray Maynard weren’t contenders in their respective weight classes.
First of all, can you even fathom an MMA writer with half a brain saying such nonsense? Gray Maynard isn’t a lightweight contender? Are his wins over Kenny Florian, Nate Diaz and Clay Guida not enough for contender status? Even if Maynard losses to TJ Grant later this month, that still won’t take away the fact that he’s at least in the top ten of the UFC’s lightweight division. And Mark Hunt isn’t a heavyweight contender? Why? Because he might lose to Junior dos Santos this month? Since when has losing to the former champion been frowned upon so much. If you say Cheick Kongo isn’t a real contenders, that’s fine, but Hunt KO’d Stefan Struve and Kongo, so maybe MMA writers shouldn’t putting them on the same level.
It’s easy for anyone to say that Bigfoot Silva is overrated. Personally, I’ve heard things like “Alistair Overeem only lost to Bigfoot because he dropped his hands, or Fedor Emelianenko was washed up Bigfoot beat him, and both of those arguments are weak. With the exception of a few, everyone had Travis Browne destroying Bigfoot, and that’s not at all how the fight played out. The bottom line is Bigfoot has legit wins over three former heavyweight champions, and has lost to Fabricio Werdum, Daniel Cormier, and Cain Velasquez; elite UFC heavyweights. I rest my case.
Why so quick to overlook Costa Philippou? Does he have multiple wins over the biggest names? No, but if you’re going to downplay Philippou, the same goes for fighters such as Tim Boetsch, Hector Lombard, and Alan Belcher; yet you have nothing negative to say about them. Before Philippou pulled out of his bout with Ronaldo Souza, I was predictiong Souza to get the victory. That doesn’t mean that Philippou can’t still be considered a contender. We’re talking about a guy who finished off Tim Boetsch, who was undefeated at middleweight. Not even Yushin Okami or Hector Lombard could hand Boetsch his first loss.
Like Costa Philippou, UFC lightweights TJ GRant, Khabib Nurmagomedov, and Rafael dos Anjos haven’t fought the best of fighters, but they’ve shown that they are the just outside the top ten (of the world, not UFC). Between dos Anjos out grappling a Jiu-Jitsu black belt, to Grant and Nurmagomedov scoring devastating knockouts in their last fight, it’s foolish to think that anyone of these three lightweights couldn’t be the next to break into the top ten. Yet for some reason Nathan McCarter is confident that this will not happen. It’s difficult to understand why, seeing that Rafael dos Anjos was equally dominating in his fight against Mark Bocek as the current champion was in his bout with the Canadian. But maybe I’m just weird and think of things like that… No, definitely not.
– Ryan “Fight Freek” Poli
@FightFreek