He would still be a top guy. Tito had sick ground game that woupd transition well. The top guys at LHW now are strikers and Tito would no doubt give them trouble.
I think he’d still be top 5. He’s a solid clinch grappler, has great top control and endless cardio. With that talent in a better suited camp he’d be a monster.
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Not Rampage, imo
Glovers chin is good. If Anthony Johnson hit Tito with that shot, we would still be looking for his head too.
Glover is clearly more durable and evolved his game to still compete. Tito had too many injuries to know what he COULD have ended up looking like but what we know for sure is that when he ended his career, he was no longer competitive.
Nostalgia is a bitch. I’d like to believe Randy and Matt Hughes could hang today too but they couldn’t. The game as it stands today is deeper.
It’s not just a matter of “Well back then there were so many great fighters and today there’s not”
I promise you. Back in the day a guy like Tito had a gigantic advantage because he understood how to cut weight and most fighters didn’t. He was massive at the time. Today he might be bordering on average or undersized against the 205 lbers.
His wrestling advantage would exist to some degree but nobody is sitting in closed guard eating elbows anymore. People aren’t accepting the takedown and using the cage to get up much more frequently.
It’s factors like this that would make it difficult for me to believe Tito would handle guys in the top 10 today and even if he could scratch by with a win it wouldn’t be dominant.
Forrest Griffin gave Tito all he wanted, Rashad Evans gave Tito all he wanted. Do you also think they would be top 5 today? If so, I think you just preferred the fighters of that era for emotional reasons more than anything else.
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Tito went from wrestling in school right into the ufc and had to learn skills like striking while already facing the top guys.
In 2023 a 20 year old Tito would need a couple years training then to have some ammy fights and go pro at 25. He’d have developed more striking that he ever had in this world and hed maybe make the ufc around 30. I’d bet against it but maybe,
But he’s be a different fighter.
He was a very good wrestler but not a great one.
The last few years even elite wrestlers like ed Ruth, Downey, fortune and more have done well for sure but it’s clear that wrestling alone wiomt consistently win at the highest level. Wrestlers now have legit striking skills.
Guys like Tito and Hughes really just needed enough to impose their wrestling.
Cejudo has said this recently to elite wrestlers going into mma
(Paraphrasing)
“You need either excellent boxing or bjj skills to win in the ufc now if u come from wrestling”.
Seems like now wrestlers don’t just learn enough bjj and Thai to survive.
Bo Nickol clearly seems like I realize it’s smarter to actually do the art for offense than to learn enough to defend.
No wrestlers would be throwing up triangles in the ufc in generations past
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To be fair, Tito did have offensive submissions. He was a great fighter. It’s not a slight to say if you put him in a time machine and put him against today’s fighters, he would struggle. Today’s fighters are better because they had the chance to learn from guys like Tito
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He was actually doing a lot of damage to rampage before forgetting Rampage is a human powerbomb factory
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He made a good showing before he lost via knockout to a prowrestling finisher.
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Thats a tough one, but more in the 90s to 2000’s. Royce and Severn would have gotten murdered if they fought in the 2000s. Look at Royce vs Hughs
Harold Howard and Keith Hackney would be sending fools to the morgue today, good sir.
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Become champion? Probably not.
Be a threat? Yes.
Prime Tito would be a champion. He would physically be the biggest and strongest light heavy. Plus he isn’t afraid to go to the ground and grapple like all the current cardio kickboxers… He would go for the takedown and ground and pound.
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43 year old Glover becoming champion
Anthony Smith going from journeyman to title contender
Blachowicz going from journeyman to arguably the best LHW in the division in his late 30s.
People are seriously underestimating how bad the dividion has gotten in the past few years. Jones, DC, Rumble, Bader, Davis, Anderson, all leaving. We are in a transitional period until new elite fighters have a chance to emerge. Surely a prime Tito could hang in this division that has only one good wrestler.
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Yeah sure, KO’d multiple times, gets wobbled in every other fight and basically only used his wrestling to become champ. And Tito is better at doing that.
Overall mma obviously gets better over time but we are talking about one specific division that has seen all of its elite fighters leave and get replaced by gatekeepers and journeymen. Its a unique scenario.
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These kids dont know… Tito Ortiz was a human bulldozer with an unlimited gas tank in his prime.
In his prime he would murder the current division. He has the style to beat everyone in the division. All these glass chins and no ground games, man Tito would steamroll all these guys.
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I don’t think Tito beats Glover
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Tito puts Glover to sleep in 1 round. It would look like the Igor Zinoviev fight
Yep. The division has regressed massively. These guys couldn’t fill a Pride undercard 20 years ago
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Good but not as good as prime Liddell would do today. Prime Liddell would be champ easily
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Holy shit imagine lhw Jones obliterating Tito.