Quote Originally Posted by rjj tszyu View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Bilbo View Post
Quote Originally Posted by rjj tszyu View Post

I don't know about that as best switch over. What about a 48 year old, fat, Ray Mercer, who was "never" the top man at HW in boxing by quite a distance, knocking the fuck out of Sylvia in 7 seconds who was only 33 and was just 2 years earlier the UFC HW champ??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fme4CDQC26w
Yeah the Slyvia ko was embarrassing for him most definitely, but he had already been dominated by Randy Couture who almost blew him away in the first round and then got destroyed by Fedor, he was hardly the main man at heavyweight.

The UFC is just one organisation within MMA it's not that the only MMA heavyweights fight in the UFC so Slyvia was never top dog in the MMA world either, no more so than Mercer ever was.

His loss to Mercer was an embarassment to himself but these things can happen with 4 oz gloves in a no holds barred contest.

Mercer himself was completely embarrassed by Kimbo Slice, who in turn was embarrassed by Seth Petronelli and Roy Munson, that's part of the nature of MMA, anything can happen.

If you are trying to claim that Mercer would go further in the UFC than Skelton did in world heavyweight boxing however you are completely delusional, Mercer I believe is about 1-4 in the MMA or something like that.
As far as I know he has only had 2 MMA fights, Kimbo and Sylvia and I thought he was paid to throw the fight with Kimbo!! Might be wrong but they were the rumours flying around at the time.

And what has Skelton done in boxing? Fought at british level been whupped off a taxi driver and got a undesrved shot at the WBA belt?? wow!

Mercer is also 48 and should not be in any kind of fighing game let alone knocking out 33 year old ex champions at their own game.

Also is UFC not the most elite org in MMA? I agree maybe they don't have ALL the best fighters (Fedor) but they do have most of them, do you not agree? Also did Sylvia not beat Arlovski twice? I thought Arlovski was supposed to be the dogs bollocks at one point.
Mercer has been ko'd a couple times in K1 as well, both in the first round I believe.

Skelton was the British number 1, has been British, Commonwealth and European Champion and fought for a legit world title belt, not bad for a guy who started in his 30's.

Incidently he also forayed into MMA and fought in Pride. He lost his only fight in the first round.

I'm not arguing that boxing doesn't have a greater strength in depth than MMA, it does, there has been well over 100 years put into this sport.

But the best MMA practitioners are simply masters of their craft. I'm sure the world's best of each sport don't fight in MMA, i.e the best Ju Jitsu guys compete soley in Ju Jitsu, the best wrestlers in wrestling etc.

But taken as a whole, the entire skill set these guys have (at the top) is formidable and in an absolute sense you would have to consider guys like Silva and Fedor as the best fighters in the world, as their total skill sets are vast.