Khalidov turns 43 next month and he just KOed Askham in their trilogy fight that headlined a big card in front of 50k fans.
46 year old Romero goes for gold next weekend vs 30 year old Nemkov.
I carried on in regional Judo (In UK) to 50 years old.
These guys who are fighting MMA in their 40’s are incredible.
I’d like to think people like Fedor are doing it for the love of the sport but I suspect a lot of his money was snaffled by management.
So yeah you know how hard judo is at 46…just imagine getting through a camp to fight 30 year old Nemkov.
Romero is a freak of nature. Even his loses in his 40’s were all close decisions vs the very best fighters on the planet. Nobody has been able to dominate or finish him.
True , he is on an excessive amount of gear though too. Probably helps give him another 5 years.
Yeah it would not shock me if he was but at the same time he is one of the best athletes the sport has ever seen. His half brother won a world title in boxing.
Never pissed hot while wrestling that I have heard of.
His one issue with USADA it was found to be a legit tainted supplement situation where USADA and the superior court ruled in his favor.
Im an old curmudgeon, but yoel romero is a “freak of nature” the same way Brock was.
While I agree, has Romero ever had a questionable test?
When your body in your 40s looks better than the top natural bodybuilders in the world… That’s questionable enough
He had one that he won his appeal showing a tainted supplement. Brock never pissed hot until his hunt fight. Neither of them pass the smell test.
Brock still hasn’t gotten to the bottom of that either.
To be fair to Brock he lost like 40-50 lbs and got super soft during his time at UFC vs WWE prior to that. So totally possible he cycled off. He got busted when he came back and maybe he didn’t cycle off or didn’t do it properly.
This is what he looked like on gear in WWE before he started his MMA career.
This is lesnar in UFC… seems much more natural here
Brock also had a guaranteed purse instead of win/show money. That way the commission couldn’t take away his win money when his win over Hunt was overturned. He knew he was going to fail, and so did the UFC. They even gave him a USADA exemption.
Edit:
To be fair, even Hunt knew. Hunt didnt care until he lost, then it became an issue.
But u know he’s not natural now natural now , don’t cha
Imanari is perhaps not done fighting yet. He is 47 now and just fought Suzuki in 2022 who is 24 and just KOed Patricio Pitbull up at LW this summer.
How many 47 year old BW’s are willing to fight very good 24 year olds up a weight at FW and can take them the distance like Imanari did.
Imanari has been fighting since 2000. 39-22–2 in MMA. Only a singe KO win in his career and it was an upkick, 28 subs. Never been submitted himself and only KOed 4x and three of those KO loses happened when he was fighting up at FW and LW despite being a BW.
When Imanari started fighting and was at LW he actually fought Marcus Aurelio to a split decision loss and Aurelio was one of the very best LW’s in the world. 26th is the best Imanari was ranked at LW while at that weight.
When Imanari dropped down to FW and he won the ZST tournament by beating Mello by UD and then submitting Mike Brown and Yoshiro Maeda in the same day he was actually ranked the #1 FW in the world for a brief time after that. He was 29 years old.
Upon dropping to BW he was for a time ranked 5th in the world.
Now at 47 years old and with his last fight at FW, Imanari is the 636th ranked FW as of his last ranking.
If he does take more fights at this point, I hope its at BW and I hope he goes out on a win. Its a shame we never got to see him in the UFC who did not even have a BW class until he was 34.
Romero turns 47 in April. He returns on Feb 24th vs Thiago Santos on the PFL vs Bellator card.
46 year old Oleynik beat Rodriguez Jr. in Dec in RCC. 80 pro fights since the late 90’s and 61 wins.
Apparently 49 year old Mark Hunt is returning to fighting via BKFC soon.
He fights about 1 round out of 5, so he’s actually pretty young in fight years. The rest of the time he stands there.
If that’s his actual strategy, I have a new appreciation for his style 