Is Frank Mir the biggest disappointment in MMA?

[Ensane]

I don't know why it took me so long, but...

Lee Murray

/thread

 

[HoseEmDown]

Donald Cerrone. He looks confident and lethal almost every time he steps in the octagon, but if there's a belt on the line he looks completely frazzled and a shell of himself.

 

[Rocko604]

I don't know why it took me so long, but...

Lee Murray

/thread

Yes. Can't believe I forgot about him.

 

[Wood Stick]

Granted his UFC release. Agreed to not fight until his USADA suspension is over. I'm guessing Bellator or ABC in Russia.

 

[kurt]

Granted his UFC release. Agreed to not fight until his USADA suspension is over. I'm guessing Bellator or ABC in Russia.

Huh? Oh, Mir released? Good for him. Rizin!

 

[The Kingslayer]

Erick Silva. Hes like the Jason King of MMA

 

[Lord Helix]

Penn, AINEC.

 

[KapG]

Kid Yamamoto disappointed me during his UFC career.

 

[TheGoldenJet]

If not for the accident Mir would have put together a rest reign as champ.

 

[SuperScript29]

Frank Mir is one of those guys that benefited from a thin division. Don't get me wrong, he's a great fighter and possibly the best HW BJJ fighter in his prime behind Werdum, but overall he lacked the power to deal with the real heavyweights and was never going to be a dominant champ or anything like that.

I'd say he did quite well and had a great career overall given his status after the injury he had. The one guy I feel could have done more is BJ Penn.

 

[Linda Bacon]

Cro cop in the UFC. That was hard to watch. It was like he forgot how to kick or was too scared to get hit or taken down.

 

[MD thaivuN]

Will Brooks is a massive disappointment for me. Athletically and skill-wise, he looks like a legit top 10, if not top 5, lightweight. But his decision making in the cage is just so brutal.

 

[m9]

Another name that pops up for me is Phil Davis. It's hard to consider a top-ten LHW who has only lost to Bader, Rashad, and Anthony Johnson as that guy but I thought he was going to be a long-time champ or top contender. This is a guy whose 5th fight was beating Brian Stann, and 6th fight was subbing an undefeated (9-0) Gustafsson.

Once he lost to Rashad in a really boxing Fox fight he just never got things back on track.

Jake Ellenberger, too. There was a time when the list of guys that I thought could beat GSP at 170 was Anthony Johnson and Jake Ellenberger.

 

[YNWA14]

I don't see how you can really class Frank Mir as a disappointment. I think he would have been viewed with a similar aura to Fedor had he never had that motorcycle accident. The Mir pre and post injury was just so much less explosive, and you could see that it definitely took a toll on him. If anything he overachieved considering they told him he'd never be able to fight again when it happened.

I agree with most people that he really hurt himself by thinking he needed to bulk up. If he could have been disciplined enough to make 205 he could have dominated that division.

 

[kurt]

I don't see how you can really class Frank Mir as a disappointment. I think he would have been viewed with a similar aura to Fedor had he never had that motorcycle accident. The Mir pre and post injury was just so much less explosive, and you could see that it definitely took a toll on him. If anything he overachieved considering they told him he'd never be able to fight again when it happened.

I agree with most people that he really hurt himself by thinking he needed to bulk up. If he could have been disciplined enough to make 205 he could have dominated that division.

Yes and no...when he went on gear he bulked up, but PEDs also improve cardio. It's hard to say whether he would have performed better at HW if he didn't bulk up the way he did. I think the bigger issue was his wrestling and striking wasn't quite on the same level as some of his opponents.

Suggesting he would have been better if he fought at LHW is really hard to say too. There have been a lot of absolute killers at LHW, and the speed of that division is a whole different animal than HW. Fighters at LHW tend to be a lot more well rounded, too. There are a whole host of guys that certainly could have transformed their body to fight at LHW (Fedor, Hunt, Nelson, Big Nog, Stipe, Werdum, Cro Cop, etc), but who knows how well they would have done. It didn't necessarily go so well for Overeem at LHW.

 

[Byron Bitz]

Brandon Vera and Sokoudjou to me are the biggest disappointments, both those guys looked like future champs early in their careers.

 

[1specter]

Nobody mentioned Houston 'For real' Alexander?

 

[Ensane]

Nobody mentioned Houston 'For real' Alexander?

Really? I never saw much potential. His half-a-dozen bouts in the UFC was probably more than anyone could have expected out of a rigid, athletic powerpuncher with a tendency to leave his jaw wide open.

 

[1specter]

Really? I never saw much potential. His half-a-dozen bouts in the UFC was probably more than anyone could have expected out of a rigid, athletic powerpuncher with a tendency to leave his jaw wide open.

Did you forget how much hype this dude got after he KO'd Jardine and Sakara in the first round in his first 2 UFC fights? Jardine had just come off a 1st round KO of Forrest Griffin and also beat Liddell after losing to Alexander. Going into the Silva fight he had 8-1 record.

In the grand scheme of things though you're right, Alexander was more of a flop than a disappointment, doesn't really belong in this conversation cause he never really had much of a UFC career anyways (and made his debut at age 35).

 

[Ensane]

Did you forget how much hype this dude got after he KO'd Jardine and Sakara in the first round in his first 2 UFC fights? Jardine had just come off a 1st round KO of Forrest Griffin and also beat Liddell after losing to Alexander. Going into the Silva fight he had 8-1 record.

In the grand scheme of things though you're right, Alexander was more of a flop than a disappointment, doesn't really belong in this conversation cause he never really had much of a UFC career anyways (and made his debut at age 35).

The bolded part of your quote is really why most saw him as having having limited potential. Agreed that he got a good amount of hype following the Jardine KO, but I still think most people saw him as having a ceiling as an exciting brawler that the UFC liked to fill their under/mid-card with in exciting matchups--especially during 2005-2010. Keep in mind, this is around the time when guys 10 years his junior were coming into MMA in droves already armed with multidisciplinary skillsets that he was trying to learn on the fly. I think the UFC saw it this was as well since they matched him up with guys like Sakara and Irvin, before throwing him to the "wolves" (lol) in his bout with Eric Schafer--his first with a somewhat legitimate grappler.

I also think most saw his victory of Jardine as a fluke considering how cocky Jardine approached that fight. Even then, drafting off the fact that Jardine beat Griffin shouldn't have amounted to much considering that KO was an upset as well (one I remember fondly since I cashed in on Jardine being a +350 dog), despite being one of the worst matchups stylistically for Griffin.

Fighter hype back then was often severely out of whack with reality since there was so much information asymmetry due to the lack of footage and coverage of the indy promotions. It led to MMAth as one of the main methods to evaluate fighters and matchups (see comments above regarding Sokoudjou; his stock may have benefited the most from this phenomenon). Also, an appearance on TUF gave a nice boost regardless of the individual fighters actual underlying skillset, which led to even further distortions in evaluating fighters.