Rickson fighting Oleg, Kerr, Frank Shamrock, Saku or Ruas would have told us all we needed to know. I still say I didn’t need to see him fight those guys — he was above average in mma but would have lost badly to any of the elite . He cared too much for his aura or mystique
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50-50 with Oleg
Kerr would have tapped
F. Shammy would have been very competitive
Saku would have won
Ruas would have tapped
all opinion on who would have won.Rickson would have been tough for anyone IMO.Too bad it never happened.If Rickson faced Ruas ,Kerr,Sakuraba it would have been the biggest MMA fight of all time
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There were rankings compiled by a dozen or so of the “top” journalists and published in several different Places. Fightsport, and submission fighter were a few
great mags at the time
Rickson had a huge weakness— his takedowns. He had very weak takedowns so guys like Ruas would have hurt him
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Ruas vs Severn would have been interesting
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One of the great fights that was signed but didn’t happen was Ruas vs Frye. I think Dan wrestle fucks Marco.
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Rickson offered Marco to fight for free. Face to face and Marco said no, he needed three months to train. He fought Hugo twice instead.
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I enjoyed many parts of the book but a lot of it was “cringe” for me. Especially the part about Mark Kerr smashing the soul out of one of his top students (Fabio Gurghel) and then wondering “How would I deal with such an opponent” and then playing a positional game with Rockson because the weight difference between him and Rockson would be about what it would be between him and Kerr and figuring out how to defeat Kerr.
Now, I’m not saying that Kerr necessarily beats Rickson. I think Kerr would but who knows, right? It’s just the concept of figuring out the gameplan with your son at your house that is going to solve the riddle of ground and pound from Kerr or Coleman.
A lot of the spiritual stuff and the breathing makes a TON of sense to me but I know a lot of people will think it’s bullshit.
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All of the Shooto fighters were the best below 170 for years.
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I still say Nakai at 154 had no chance against Rickson and he did not give Rickson a tough fight.As soon as weight classes came to USA they were no longer the best and a few came to USA with mixed results at best
I remember hearing about this but about what year did this take place? Do you remember?
Did Rickson want to fight Ruas full vale tudo rules(no rules) in the street or dojo? Very ballsy of Rickson nonetheless
I agree, he had no shot against Rickson. No argument there.
Even when there were weight classes, for a long time Shooto had the best fighters below 170. Genki Sudo, Rumina Sato, Sakurai, Trigg, Anderson Silva, etc were head and shoulders above UFC 155’ers until well into the 2000’s.
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Ufc 9 Frye/Ruas would have been amazing … I give the edge to Frye at the time but very hard to call
Ruas got passive fairly quickly, even in his prime, so yeah I would give the edge to Frye but man, two of the most well rounded fighters of that time…JUST missed each other.
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sounded like street fight
they for sure had some good fighters and exciting ones especially Sato.Sakurai Id have said was one of the best besides Silva.Sudo was up there too and had 1 or 2 fights in UFC .Sakarai didnt do welll in UFC I thought he would though at the time
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Sakurai had one fight in the UFC and lost to probably the 2nd greatest WW of all time. No shame in that. He beat a former UFC Champ, Shinya Aoki twice, Hellboy and Pulver back to back, beat Luiz Azeredo just after Luiz had beat Anderson Silva, beat Frank Trigg when Trigg was undefeated etc. Sakurai was an absolute stud.
He went unbeaten in 20 fights until he ran into some guy named Anderson Silva. In those 20 fights he beat Cal Uno, Jaturo Nakao (who two fights after losing to Sakurai subbed UFC Champ Militech), Kato who was 11-1, Frank Trigg, and Azeredo. After the win streak is over at one point he fights Ayoki, Hellboy, Pulver and Gomi and only loses to Gomi when Gomi was on his run and past Sakurai’s prime.
The more I look at the Shooto organization the more I am absolutely convinced they had the best 170 and under fighters for a long time.
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