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[Lazarus]

Originally Posted by YukonJordan

As had been pointed out above GSP is clearly the greater WW of all time.
-GSP beat Penn, once in the very close fight and once in dominating fashion whereas Hughes has lost twice to Penn and was well on his way to losing the second match before BJ's freak rib injury.
-Hughes edged Sherk in a decision, GSP mauled Sherk.
-Hughes beat Trigg twice but GSP again absolutely dominated.
-Hughes outpointed Serra but GSP tko'd him.
-GSP has two dominant victories over Hughes whereas in the fight Hughes won he was in trouble before pulling of the nice armbar counter. A good win but left room for questions unlike GSP's wins.
-I think GSP's other victories and the opponents he has them against are more impressive than Hughes' but I'm going to focus on dominance here. GSP has only lost two rounds in his career 1 1/3 to Penn and 2/3 of a round to Koschek and more importantly has never really looked to be in trouble with the exception of round 1 versus Penn. Hughes on the other hand has been in trouble plenty of times during his victories. He was out cold when he slammed Newton, Penn was outworking him prior to seperating his rib and Trigg had him in trouble.

Now all that being said we should keep in that when Hughes was champion the new version of MMA was in it's infancy. The sport and it's fighters have grown leaps and bounds since Hughes was champion last. While not the greatest WW of all time Hughes certainly deserves and asterisk next to his name as the first great welterweight to come around.

Let's not forget this was in the 2nd fight between the two. In the first one, well...I think we all remember who tko'd who

[stpierrecanada]

Originally Posted by rivethead

Again, if you're talking about the WW GOAT, I'd say GSP could work there.

But if you're talking GOAT, it's Fedor, hands down.

rh

Another great post rh.

End thread, no more needs to be said.

[Fedorlei Gomipierre]

As stated several times above, Hughes is a legend in his own time, but there's really no contest IMO. I have maaaaaad respect for what Hughes accomplished, but end of day, I think one could surmise that while Matt Hughes was a wonderful wrestler who BECAME a wonderful MMA fighter through his gift, GSP is a wonderful MMA fighter whose only becoming a greater all around fighter.

A big issue for me with regards to Hughes and his "greatness" also goes back to level of competition. I mean, if you look at alot of those 40-however many wins over his career, there isn't alot of sizzle to those foes. In short, his record's pretty damn padded. Then you get into his WW title run and while it's impressive that he held the belt for so long, I take issue with the quality of some of his challengers at the time, as well as alot of the UFC's weightclass organization at the time and the amount of solid potential challengers that were at PRIDE instead. Also, people can harp on GSP "not finishing", but Hughes too has gone to some decisions over his career against some fellas who weren't world beaters.

I think that GSP right now is fighting the best that the WW division has on the planet(sans a few expections) and is completely dominating, whereas Hughes dominated, but I don't think they were the greatest the world had to offer, which again all goes back to the era.

[hot_rod1886]

GSP point blank period!