And was submitted and KOed by fighters most people have never heard of like Ralph Kelly and Tracy Willis
If itās UFC 1 and Kerr just comes in as a wrestler, Royce wins. If itās in Pride when Kerr was in it, Royce would get obliterated.
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Yeah they were signed to fight at Pride 2 in 98. Royce got injured and Kerr fought Branko Cikatic instead. Iād expect Mark to control that fight, but not finish. However, itād be interesting if they did the unlimited rounds like in the first Saku fight.
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when kerr lost to arona he was fat and likely off roids, just showin up for the $
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Set the hypothetical time machine to 1993 and put kerr in UFC 1, I think Royce would pull it off. He submitted a better wrestler in Severn before severn knew submissions. He could do the same to kerr.
Kerr in his prime absolutely mauls Royce.
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Kerr could strike thoughā¦Severn was a slapper
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True, Kerr did have nasty ground and pound, his first fight vs Varelins I just rewatched.
I donāt think he would have much for Royce though. Not back then.
He never had great submission defense. He just didnāt fight a lot of submission specialists.
When he did, he got submitted.
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Kerr had 70 lbs on Gurgel and still couldnāt finish him in 30 minutes. Gurdel was great at sport BJJ but very mediocre at NHB/MMA even losing to Jerry Bohlander in the same weight class in the UFC
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1993, royce. Every year thereafter, kerr would have mangled royce.
Who submitted Kerr? He didnāt get subbed until 2008 by Oleg Taktarov which was way past his prime.
Mark Kerr definitely aged worse than Royce.
That was also the 3rd fight of the night.
Yep, those shitty dudes like Ricco and Barnett suck at submissions
That wasnāt the real Mark Kerr give him painkillers and steroids and hes unstoppable.
I think that makes the 70 lbs lighter guy look that much better.
I wasnt able to find the entire match, but I watched the first 17 mins. Not a lot happened. Kerr shucks him into a few front headlocks, gets taken down once briefly, then a lot of shoving each other. He also avoided a lot of Aronaās td attempts. Definitely diminished from his peak, but he didnāt look terrible
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This really was a huge unofficial world title fight at the time IMO or at least should of been the fight PRIDE created a PRIDE HW title for. Sep 99, PRIDE 7. Igor went into that fight on a crazy 33 fight win streak and had just beat Barreto. Kerr was 11-0.
Bas had won the vacant UFC title in controversial fashion vs Randleman a few months before that.
I considered Igor the uncrowned champ of the world at that time, the end of 99.
A GP in 99 with Igor, Bas, Smith, Barreto, Erikson, Kerr, Coleman etcā¦would have been great.
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Royce via suplex ko
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Could say the same about Coleman vs Igor.
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In 2000 I still would have considered Igor the favorite to beat Coleman in a single fight but that night Igor had already fought Goodridge and Saku for 25 minutes while Coleman had only fought Shoji.
Coleman still won of course.
Coleman vs Fujita would have been another great single fight in 2000. Fujita a good wrestler himself was a real killer vs other wrestlersā¦ Kerr, Karam Gaber, Eldar Kurtanidze. Freestyle world champ, Olympic medalists, Greco Olympic champ and NCAA champs and Fujita just destroyed them. Especially Gaber and Kurtanidze. Took him like a combined 3 minutes.
Iāve been waiting for Japan to produce another Fujita or a TK and the best they have done is Ishii. Very disappointed.
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