Brock75thRanger - Fedors biggest wins were Crocop and Nog
Mir beat both those guys in much more dominating fashion,Mir isnt considered top 5 in the ufc hw,maybe 5th if he is
Yes i expect the typical Nog and Crocop walked through a post prime time warp the minute they entered the ufc
fact is Brock,Crocop,Nog,and Fedor are all within 2 years of each other in age.Funny how that post prime thing seems to coincidentally happen when the 3 pride guys leave japan,like they old got old on the same day or sumthin
Oh man. More of your typical newer-fan perspective (or rather, lack of perspective). But it really is amusing to see the newer fans generally fall for, and collectively, eagerly cling to the notion that fight age does not exist, that declines don't sometimes happen quite precipitously in combat sports (especially after YEARS of accumulated wear-and-tear) - and thus that the fighters whose primes they actually missed out on as they happened, are still the same today as they were back then. (And it's just that the new generation of fighters - i.e., the only ones you have actually been familiar with - is just sooo much better than them now.)
Laughable.
The bottom-line fact is that Mir beat Nog and Cro Cop 4-5 years after Fedor had already done so - which is an eternity in MMA, where even just one year alone can already be enough for a fighter to suddenly pass well out of his prime (just see Chuck, whose trajectory and abrupt decline were actually almost parallel with Cro Cop's).
(And btw, truly LOL @ claiming that Mir beat Cro Cop in "much more dominating fashion" than Fedor did - unless by "dominating fashion," you mean doing NOTHING even against a passive and gunshy Cro Cop for the majority of the fight, before finally doing something and catching him with a knee at the end, after 2 full rounds of mind-numbing ineffectiveness. The final moment was decisive - but overall, Mir hardly outfought Cro Cop in "much more dominating fashion" at all.)
It's true though that Cro Cop and Nog were not considered to be already past their primes when they first entered the UFC - especially Cro Cop, who was actually coming in on a high, and definitely perceived to be still at his peak (and was in fact universally considered the #2 or #3 HW in MMA at the time, along with Nog).
But by the time they faced Mir?
Nog was still considered a top HW, and Mir's win over Nog was big. But after his preceding performances against Herring and Sylvia - even though he still beat both of them decisively - given how he had looked (i.e., the one bad moment against Herring, and the first two rounds against Sylvia), there were already definitely whispers that Nog might be physically past his prime by the time of the Mir fight.
(And btw, Herring was a guy that Nog had already twice beaten more impressively, with even less trouble, years earlier, when Herring was still a top HW - and according to Herring himself, when Herring had still been training more seriously for MMA as well [where Herring himself claimed going into the Brock fight that he hadn't really trained seriously in years]. So the version of Nog in 2007 had more trouble beating a past-prime version of Herring than he had, 3 and 6 years earlier against the prime version.)
And Cro Cop? Cro Cop was not even close to what he once was, by any standard of measure.
By the time Cro Cop faced Mir - again, 5 years after Fedor had already beaten him - it was a virtually universal and established conclusion that Cro Cop was well past his prime, and had substantially deteriorated BOTH physically and mentally (where Cro Cop seemed like he couldn't even pull the trigger any more, and would rather just try to lamely push away instead of even punch). Cro Cop had not looked good in YEARS - even in his wins, even against opponents like Al Turk and Anthony Perosh - and was far, far less than the physically dominant force he once was (with no snap and explosiveness any more), and psychologically broken-down as well (with no more killer instinct and unwilling to even engage any more).
Actually, just look at how Nog and Cro Cop have looked even in their WINS - and even against LOWER-level competition in the last few years (e.g., past-prime Herring, Al Turk, Perosh) than what they had previously dominated more easily and impressively, years earlier. Just looking at their performances themselves, they are so conspicuously slower and duller-reflexed than what they used to be.
You (and the other conclusory newer fans) should really go back and actually watch Nog's and Cro Cop's fights from earlier in the decade - especially from around the time they faced Fedor - when they were both still on dominant streaks going into the Fedor fight, AND were still dominant forces after their Fedor fights as well.
Even without considering the accumulated damage, the numerous injuries and surgeries they have been through in the 4-5 years since then - from just watching their performances alone (again, even against LOWER level of competition, even in their wins) - I don't think any reasonably knowledgeable or long-term observer would conclude that Nog and especially Cro Cop were still at the same physically-prime level that they were several years earlier, when they faced Fedor.
