Each UFC division has it's own goat, however in some divisions it's much harder to become the greatest than others. This may be because the current Goat has acheived so much, or because the division isn't competitive enough
Heavyweight does not have the same talent as other divisions, but it has much more lethality statistically. So the probability of being knocked out and ending the streak is much higher than in other divisions. The problem of this division is that outside of the top 7, they are all just fat, slow and flatfooted fighters
Agreed but when Tom Aspinall reaches HW goat status people better not discredit him because of the weightclass. I mean, if you took all of that guys skills and threw him in any weight class he'd be champion at some point of his career. The fact he cuts DOWN to 265 is fucking insane too considering he's one of the quickest in the division.
HW is hard to maintain the streak because of HW KO power, BW and LW is hard to maintain the streak because everyone at the top level of those divisions are skilled and well rounded for the most part as well have a variety of fighting styles that make it hard to stay on top
I agree. Also its tricky for some fighters such as Khabib because ufc didn't give his title shot in 2016 because of Conor and made him wait 2 years since Conor fighting Floyd, he would have 5 title defenses minimum otherwise. He had to beat 4 top 10 ranked fighters (no.10 Healy, no.6 Johnson, no.4 Barboza and no.5 RDA) to get his first title shot which was more difficult than others did, Oliveira got title shot with only 2 top 10 ranked wins, it was easier for him.
@@timurjack8773wdym oliveira got a title shot with only 2 top 10 ranked wins, he was climbing from more than 100 rank into top 10 so probably take him more than 20+ fights to get him a title shot.
You’re kinda right but I think it’s easier to become the goat in WW than light heavyweight. Can’t imagine someone ever beat the achievements and the opponents Jon beaten. Plus we already seen great champions in WW after GSP (some fans and commentators even said kamaru is already the goat). In the LHW it’s kinda the opposite.
@@ogichhh There is no way Usman is the WW goat ahead of GSP. Absolutely no way. F those commentator bullshit, they all say sensational stuff to promote the fighter.
@@ogichhhi think the heavyer you are, the hardest it is to keep winning. Jones and DC were just freaks of nature, tooday's lhw situation is more normal
Stipe has leg reach of 39 and he is 6'4 which means he can't use leg kicks for striking in the heavyweight division. he accomplished everything with just clean boxing. He deserves to be called heavyweight goat.
Winning despite odds doesn’t make you the goat. Standing at only 5 feet 3 inches (160 cm), Tyrone "Muggsy" Bogues is the shortest player in NBA history. Micheal Jordan, Kobe are goats but not him. Same with Stipe, there are better ones out there
@@erikask6156 4 title defences, Only person other than Jon Jones to beat Daniel Cormier, Beat Francis after already being past prime. He accomplished a lot. He deserves to be called the greatest UFC heavyweight.
Who gives a fuck. Every fighter has disadvantages. Stop glazing. He has 1 more defense than every body else lol. Only fought same 2 fighters since 2016. About to be starched by the real goat real soon
Yeah WEC was the home of the lighter weight classes and the ufc took over their roster. It was the same devision before and after they went to the ufc. But dont expect HopperoMMA to have any mma knowledge beyond what every casual knows
@@phobosex7504I mean tbf tho he is only talking about UFC goat. which honestly makes sense. Cruz only defended his belt 3 times in the UFC. If this was all time then yeah it would be very difficult to surpass Cruz.
@@VazmanianDeviI WEC record is included in a fighters UFC record (on the official ufc website for example). It was the same division in the WEC and it basically just got renamed when the ufc bought them because obviously the ufc didnt have the lower weightclasses. To not count WEC makes no sense. Even if we ignore his WEC fights, insinuating that his 3 title defenses are Cruz' only accomplishments as the BW goat is wild. If all he had was those 3 title defenses maybe Aljo would be the BW goat
@@phobosex7504 If you’re talking about just UFC not other organizations they acquired. then yeah what he is saying makes sense. If this was the mma goat convo or said Zuffa then yeah it would 100% make sense to bring up WEC, Strikeforce, PRIDE, but since it’s not. the vid is clearly strictly just UFC. I know UFC purchased WEC and kept it as its own thing for 145 and 135 for years.
This subject is very relative. If you have a perception that heavyweight is the easiest, but heavyweight has a huge detail that makes this category the most dangerous. With each heavier category, the damage factor increases, the less you can suffer hits Especially from the middleweight category onwards, if it becomes difficult to suffer blows, anyone can be fatal for defeat. And the peak of this is at 120kg, it's a category where a single blow, a single mistake and the fight is over, you fall asleep with just one blow
Lightweight should be higher. Theres always a handful of pure murderers in the division, thats the reason why no one could stack more defences than Khabib. Once Makhachev retires, the record will be night impossible to break.
Using title defenses as the main measure of a GOAT claim is such an incomplete approach. Certainly, title defenses hold serious weight, but more than anything, the pure quality and quantity of wins and losses in a fighter's career is really the only objective measure of greatness.
Of course, context matters. Fights very early / late into a fighter’s career can have lessened value and importance. I don’t hold it against Jose Aldo tremendously that he lost one of his very first fights, nor do I hold it against Fedor tremendously that he got KO’d by Bader as a 43 year old man, 24 year veteran of the sport.
loses in some ways makes them more better, depending on who they lost to though (like if a fighter lost to a future champ or a previous champ, thats still a good resume because that fighter was an elite fighter)
@@mayjahdixson997 For sure, all fights need to be considered in their proper context. I don't hold against Holloway that he dropped decisions to Poirier and McGregor, super early into his career, before he hit his prime. Nor do I hold against Fedor that he got KO'd by big punchers very late into his career, after a decade of unmatched dominance. With that said, the quality and quantity of wins and losses truly is the only way to objectively measure a fighter's career.
Conor's an easy first. He takes a year off, loses and suddenly he's out of his prime. Other fighters take years off for injury and come out strong. Macgregor was at his peak with Khabib/Dustin, but his power didn't carry over as hard in lightweight
I think flyweight and light heavyweight are basically tied but I’d put light heavyweight under flyweight bc DJ has 11 consecutive defenses and jon only has 8 due to him being stripped and he popped.
Hoppero honestly one of the best MMAtubers Though I will say that Bantam should be seen as harder to be GOATed in because Cruz does have an extra couple of defences from WEC
Hoppero is legit not one of the better mma channels. He says so much stuff thats just false, misinterpreted or completely lacks any nuance. he sometimes just copies stuff that other casuals say and it really shows his limited knowledge about the sport
There are zero reasons to not consider the WEC defenses. The UFC didn't have a featherweight division (or bantamweight) at the time so when ZUFFA bought the WEC and merged it with the UFC the entire WEC FW division became the UFC FW division, just with a different name. There is a reason Aldo was promoted to champion "without" a single fight in the UFC, he was already the champion of that roster of fighters. Aldo has 9 title defenses.
The thing is with heavyweight, the chances that you are 245-260 and actually in shape, athletic with good cardio and skills is extremely rare. That’s what makes it difficult, whereas most guys are around welterweight and can het in good shape for the weight class, but people are extremely skilled
The way you treat title defenses is too highly. It’s not only about title defenses, it’s about the competition you face. For example, Volk beat Holloway, Yair, Ortega, Aldo. Aldo, on the other hand, beat Kenny Florian. It’s not the same.
The obsession with name value is gonna go away because of the attention span of mma fans. In ten years no one is gonna remember how good volks competition was in the same way new fans don't remember Aldo's competition. It's all just recency bias
People always think that newer guys are 100% better competition just because they don't actually remember the old guys. Ortega and Yair wins aging like milk btw.
@@s66s46you can’t say he’s a casual who acts likes he’s smart and then say Aldo fought nobodies Aside from the 4 fighters that somebody else mentioned and Kenny Florian he also fought Mike Brown, Renato Moicano, Ricardo Lamas, Jeremy Stephens, and Frankie Edgar (X2)
Tbf, between Chuck Liddell and Jon Jones, 205 has always been a hot tater. Sure, you had guys like Rampage and (controversially) Lyoto that would defend the belt once. But the belt has always just hopped around to a new challenger. Post Iceman/Pre Jonny Bones was a landscape of chaos.
@joshxip Aldo out of his prime? That ain't the same thing. It's why people clarify "prime __". Aldo got KO'd by McGregor and then got older. You can't compare him being a dominating champ and trendsetter for FW for a decade, to him being beat by newer talent. Thats like saying Izzy is better than Silva because Izzy beat an older Silva
I Think I agree with you overall but you are only going with one metric . I am wondering if people like gsp, Jon Jones and Anderson started their title run early? In other words wasnt it “easier” to have a long title run back then because it only tool a few fights to become a champion? Or No?
Yes, it took them less fights to get to the title than most of todays champions but look at it this way: what matters is wins over high level competition. Its about great wins and title defenses. For the goat discussion it barely matters weather you beat 5 lower level ufc fighters or 10 lower level ufc fighters.
@@phobosex7504 that makes more sense to me than the metric used in the video. And the level of the fighter at the time rather than name alone should also play a role. Also proven PED usage ought to play a role to some extent without disregarding all of fx Jons wins of course. I guess Jon would still be most impressive given Victories over Rampage, Shogun, DC, Teixera, Machida and Rashad
@@CrayonsYummyYummy Idk, people say that but their records aren't too different. Both beat Max and TKZ as title defenses. Aldo lost to Max later in his career, but Volk arguably lost that 2nd fight too. The only people Volk has defended against that Aldo hadn't are Ortega and Yair, who are great but I wouldn't say good enough to surpass Aldo's opponents, which include Mendez twice (Volk beat him once too), Faber, Edgar, Florian, Lamas, Swanson.
@@justasmartguy7299 Ciryl has pillow hands for a heavyweight. He won't knock fedor, but fedor will get a takedown at least once at some point and Gane will tap. Juts like what Jones did to him
Yeah bro, lets just skip over how Stipe knocked out Werdum, Overeem, JDS consecutively in the first round, then beat Ngannou (The only person to do that decisively), then rebounded off a KO loss and beat DC twice. And before his title reign he knocked out Hunt and Arlovski to secure his title shot. Kind of arrogant to just say, "All you need is 4-5 title defenses" when Stipe finished 3 of the greatest heavyweights of all time in the first round, then went on to beat Ngannou and DC twice.
@@balajivenkateswarar4111 Reem was on a 4 fight, 3 knockout win streak and Werdum was literally the champ on a 6 fight win streak lmao. You have no idea what you're talking about.
@@blacksanta7367 Reem wasn't juiced and werdum isn't even a top 10 heavyweight of all time cope let's not forget that dos santos literally bitch slapped him in a first round knockout Try your filthy tricks elsewhere casual
Yeah, put in max effort in heavyweight just to get cracked one time and dropped against Derrick Lewis and nownyoure concussed and your chin is never the same
You have to count Dom and Aldo's WEC defenses for them as well since they were fighting the best 135 and 145 im the world there too. Plus Dom's win over TJ is the best win in 135 history IMO. The goat reclaiming the title he never lost over the new guy who pretty much copied him
You used the word "easy" too much. Don't forget that there is 99% chance that if you and 5 of your friends get trapped in a room with 1 of those guys and it's kill or die, that guy is gonna kill you all.
I think you get some of your info from movies and not actual training. Even 2 men are gonna be a steep challenge for any fighter no matter how trained. Fighting one full grown man is difficult as is, and here you are getting offended on the behalf of these fighters' divisions being called easy and trying to pit them against 5 😂
@@theflashfan3234man honestly you make good points but most men cant fight for shit, unless they had some group coordination they would just get in each others way and the fighter could kill one at a time
Although it is easy to say the being the lightweight goat doesn’t require as much wins to become the goat, winning those fights can will be difficult considering how stacked the lightweight division is. Islam just saying if he doesn’t defend the belt too often and let the division progress and don’t defend against the current top 5, he’s going to have a high chance losing to these up and comers.
I understand why Heavyweight is the easist but i don't think so, anybody can knock you out, the worst of the worst can knock you out in heavyweight, i know that's MMA in general, but in heavyweight it applies way more. There's a reason nobody had a long title reign while defending multiple times in heavyweight, it's beacuse it's hard af to not get knocked out
If you’re counting just UFC and not WEC then you definitely have to have Aljo and Volk over Cruz and Aldo. Aside from having an equal or close to equal amount of defenses, they on average has much tougher competition during their come ups and title runs specifically. But if you do count the WEC then Dom and Aldo make sense
You also have to consider how Cruz and Aljo looked in their title defenses. I like aljo but if you look at it, 1 of his title wins was by disqualification, 1 was TJs shoulder Injury and the other 2 were controversial decisions. That wasnt the case for cruz. Also, dont expect Hoppero to know these fighters records. Hes not a hardcore fan.
If you actually watch UFC, you would know lightweight is easily top 3 in this regard. So many fighters cut weight to fight in that division and stacked top to bottom with some killers, also featherweight is right along with it
Being the GOAT isn't the same as having the longest tittle reign, though Of course, they correlate quite a bit, but we've got to consider levels of competition. The sport will continue to evolve, and some of these records will look up like we look at Pele's record
If people acknowledged Fedor as the greatest HW it would be a lot harder. He beat prime Crocop, Big Nog, Mark Hunt, Arlovski, Sylvia, Randleman, Coleman twice…I don’t think anyone is close. Also, while I like Aljo more than most, he wouldn’t have been the GOAT at 135 even if he had beaten O’Malley. Cruz also beat DJ at 125, beat Benavidez twice in WEC, and he had to drop the belt in the middle of his prime. I think 135 is harder than people make it out to be. And Middleweight is the second hardest (though I appreciate the DJ love). Prime Silva was the best fighter to ever touch the cage.
I've always thought this argument was incredibly stupid... By far the hardest division is heavyweight then light heavy and so on. If HW was easy mode then welters and MW would be ok with getting fat and 205ers wouldn't care to diet.
You seriously can’t put LHW that high. Because the division is… pretty rough skillwise right now. Every guy is very beatable. You can wrestle Pereira. Jiri’s defense is bad. Jan is old. Ankalaev is just kind of well rounded but not great. I like to watch the division, but you can’t say that there couldn’t be a Tom Aspinall equivalent to come up and tear through the division rn.
Its not just about how good the devision is right now. If you want to be the next LHW goat you have to beat Jon Jones' legacy. Thats the main thing bro
@@phobosex7504 Yes. But so is beating the legacy of Anderson Silva, the man with the most title defenses ever. But he put MW much lower because of level of competition. The same thing applies for LHW. So while it’s hard to beat Jon’s legacy, it’s also hard to beat GSP or DJ’s legacy but their divisions are far more competitive. So probably WW would be no 1. imo.
Bro said the featherweight division today being competitive is why aljo is the greatest because if he had shown when Aldo was champ it would’ve been far less impressive. The division caught up in skill to Jose Aldo
Well, having more title defenses is easyer when the punches you are eating aren't landend by a 260lbs guy.. Dc only got finished by jon Jones in his lhw career, and it was from a nasty high kick he wasnt expecting.. and then he got finished 1 time and save by the belt a second time against miocic. If it wasnt hw, someone like curtis blaydes wouldnt have been defeated by lewis, never, but in hw, every error you make can end your run.
I do think goat convos do need to take into account how long ago they were champion, the sport has evolved so far so fast the competition is far beyond what it was even 10 years ago. Its a lot easier to be the greatest when surrounded by mediocrity.
@andy2641 lmao im obvs not saying i could beat them, dont be so silly andy. Just saying a lot of the co tenders from back then wouldnt get a title shot today, competition is just much harder by comparison. Sorry if i hurt your feelings though bud
I think some Context and the overall career of these fighters does also matter as well as the Defences which is why i think Bantamweight is by far the easiest division to become the Goat in. TJ has a far more flawed career than Stipe with him losing the title for Anabolics then coming back and getting TKOed by Sterling. One of the reasons Sterling was close to becoming the Goat of the division (still is i guess) is because he straight up beat the 3 previous champions. Lightweight is very difficult because you need a career almost as flawless as Khabibs but Islam happens to have that. I think Volk or Max have a good chance for Featherweight just because of the quality of fighters they have beaten.
I'd argue this is slightly flawed analysis. There's a reason fighters don't have many defences in lightweight....it's really difficult because everyone is so damn good. So if everyone is so damn good, that it makes it near impossible to get a few defences in, does that not mean it's a difficult weight class to become a goat of?
tbf though, Jones dominated in a different era where fighters didn't have to be so well rounded to win. Jones became one of the first guys to be a complete fighter he was ahead of the game at the time at least in LHW.
Yes because Perreira is "well rounded" and Glover wasn't champion 1 year ago (and utterly dominated Jiri) at +40 yo although getting destroyed by Jones while being in his early 30s, this whole "era" thing is BS, if anything LHWs became a shitty division.
@@heroe1486 LHW has always been a shitty division. The guys jones were fighting never were natural LHW middleweights who moved up or old men who wanted a big name. When Jones fought guys of his size he got whooped. Gustafsson, Reyes, and Santos
@@crackermc he didn't whoop either of them. In his 2nd fight with Gus you could argue but 1st fight jones got humbled by him and Santos beat him with a torn ACL MCL and meniscus in his left knee.
The same people who claim Khabib isn't great because of title defenses, never seem to count losses as well. Oliveira lost 9 fights, how do you name someone the greatest fighter when they have lost 9 fights? If Khabib had the privilege to fight for the title as early as Jon did, he would've fought Bensen for the LW title in 2012 and would've had 10+ title defenses by the end of his career. Your criteria is simply based on a myth.
Nobody serious would claim that, some people are watching MMA like they watch football, they don't even watch matches and just check scores. The dude who made the video is clueless and just reasons in terms of title defense without caring about any context, any random at a bar could come up with more convincing arguments.
Fedor is the heavyweight goat not to sound like a JRE YT shorts casual Werdum submitted cain and if you count his robbed wins he is top 4 heavyweight Bigfoot silva was a doctor stoppage Henderson got rocked and fluked a slugfest and won via back of headshots
The Aldo disrespect is insane, people act like he only fought bums when he killed Faber and beat a prime KZ. I wouldn't be surprised if people don't even know who Frankie Edgar is anymore. 100% sure most guys that say he ain't the FW GOAT just look at his resume in wikipedia and have never watched his fights.
Watched a lot of his fights but can’t be FW goat when you’ve lost to every other guy in the discussion when he was in prime. Edgar is good, but not as high level as a lot of guys Volk and Max fought
If Aldo was the goat why’d he loose 4 times in his prime were the division is way more stacked now then it used to be and guys like max and volk are dominant volks first loose at featherweight was at 35 while aldo lost at 29 ,31 and 33 he lost to every champion besides ilia Conor McGregor knocked him out in 13 second and when he had the chance to fight him again he turned it down Aldo isn’t better than max either he’s not out of his prime cause he looses that just means his best isn’t better than max Holloway and if you say that Aldo was old he was only 31 when max beat him max is 33 and besides volk has destroyed everyone else at featherweight and volk at 34 destroyed Yair that just makes them that much better than Aldo
@@Red-mc5ee okay that just makes max and volk that much better than him 💀 you act like he ever went on a loosing streak and he fought a lot when he was young Aldo fought once sometimes twice a year he wasn’t old he was 29 when Conor beat him and if you still think he was old that just makes volk that much better for better far better guys (Brian Ortega is better then anyone Aldo ever fought) in his 30s while Aldo got destroyed by max Holloway twice you can’t be the goat and loose to every other champion and I don’t give a shit about his plumber wins volk destroyed chad mendes and the Korean zombie like they were nothing and beat Holloway 3 times you can’t say max who beat aldo twice isn’t better than aldo. Aldo is the most overrated champion there is beating a bunch of shity plumbers when he was young then loosing to every other elite featherweight
Title defense doesn't mean anything. Fighting style is for me to determine the goat. Khabib style is the goat. Nobody in any division or weight class can repeat his style. Khamzat is not the same he gets tired and gets hit. Islam is close to khabib if we put 1v1, Khabib will smash islam makhachev. Khabib style is the goat for getting less damage, not much health implication. As a fighter, that's what ultimate goal is.
Please explain to me how Khabib is more dominant that jones? Jones was even more terrifying on the ground when he was younger in terms of finishing ability. Most fans such as yourself experience a logical fallacy because you have never seen khabib hurt. Well jones was never hurt either before the gustaffson fight, so he racked up more top wins before he was even in any sort of trouble. his road to the title has been more dominant and he was simply a more unstoppable force. Try to do this, measure their opponents one by one and see who was more dominant. but stop counting for jones after his 3rd defence Jones also took less damage arguably ^^. Just try to apply whatever logic you have and bias to jones. exactly the sames ones
khabib at #6 is insane, the manner in which he won his fights was menacing. plus the opponents he faught were really really good, he was the start of mcgregors downfall, he beat both the BMFs gaethje and porier. had he faught and beat tony ferguson he would probably be more of a goat than jon jones.
Some things about BW 1. To become BW goat you need make 5-6 TD. Because Cruz has 3 title deffence in UFC and 2 in WEC. And massive he has 7 title wins 2. Aljo not even close to be BW goat. Second BW goat is TJ Dillashaw. He has also 3 TD and massive 5 title wins
Think you got it wrong on BW on the next GOAT. Believe it's likely Sean or Umar, one of those two. Say Sean beats Merab, if he does Sean doesn't have to see him again in his career. If Merab does win I think Umar will beat him, especially if he fights Sandhagen next which if he does he's getting the next title shot. My prediction is Sean wins against Merab and the Sean vs Umar will decide on who will reign BW for a long time. Easiest divisions to become the GOAT is HW and BW for sure, you just need to break 4+ defenses to be considered it. For LW, Islam still has a lot of work. He has 2 title defenses but has like 5 contenders that deserves title shots. He hasn't defended against anyone ranked at LW yet, so his next fight will be the start of his reign as the LW champion.
Horrendous take for heavyweight. You know how easy it is to get caught once and get knocked tf out at heavyweight with 4 oz gloves. That’s why Stipe’s 3 defenses are historic
Jone will be always the greatest and also the scariest fighter ever walked into octagon, no one ever surpass him, even with PEDs scandal but i believe more than a half active fighters intake that sh*, so it's not that big deal. but imo lightweight is always the toughest division, all the most skilled and toughest fighter are there, and Islam potentially become the greatest ever
