Originally Posted by
Mik
I quite agree Mark.
Nash, bullshit. Nobody is calling Overeem the greatest heavyweight of all time.
Cain gets given a fantasy accolade because of things that he could may have done, but never actually did do in the octagon. Even if you take the context of who he fought out, he beat Brock Lesnar, Junior Dos Santos, Antonio Silva, Travis Browne, Ben Rothwell, Big Nog and Cheick Kongo.
He has wins against exactly 7 recognisable names to show for his career at heavyweight.
Werdum (Travis Browne, Cain, Fedor, Mark Hunt, Big Nog, Roy Nelson, Big Foot Silva, Overeem, Gonzaga, Brandon Vera), put him 100% undeniably ahead of Cain on the list.
Overeem (Werdum, Hunt, JDS, Arlovski, Nelson, Mir, Lesnar, Rogers, Kharitonov, Mir), put Overeem about level with Cain to me. He beat more top guys, including one that Cain beat, but he lost to more too.
Cormier (Bigfoot, Barnett, Mir, Nelson, Miocic), less wins than Cain, but his two best (Barnett and Miocic) are as good as Cain's two best (Miocic beat JDS and I think Barnett would've smashed Lesnar) and the fact that Cormier has never lost puts him ahead of Cain for me.
Miocic (beat Nelson, Gonzaga, Hunt, Arlovski, Werdum, Overeem, Dos Santos and big Francis)...beat two people that beat Cain, it's undeniable that his record is better than Cain's.
At this point here I'm struggling to justify Cain's inclusion in this modern generation's UFC top 5 heavyweights, let alone taking into account the likes of Fedor, Big Nog and Cro Cop who won fought more consistently, won more frequently, against arguably tougher competition (comparatively) and for a MUCH longer time.
Which other division is the person with arguably the 7th or 8th best record continuously lauded as the 'greatest of all time'?
In his PRIME, he got knocked out by JDS in under a minute and got pieced up by a beyond his prime Fabricio Werdum. The whole 'on his best day he could beat everyone', is not exclusive to Cain but to probably about 10 heavyweights in the history of the division.