from when he’s being lowered into the molten metal to be destroyed? Wait… I get it now. The only way to stop Fedor is to drop him into molten metal!

well, Fedor lost once also, but if Brock loses twice, thats game over!

I then provided what I felt were very tenuous reasons each of them could be discounted as best. All three reasons were supposed to be untrue, and thus a humorous and slightly mean-spirited way to disprove the argument that Anderson is not considered the best due to his past losses. In other words, it was a joke.

Sure, but the joke only works if all three are actually untrue. Only one of them was!

Forrest is a very good fighter. A name fighter. People know him for what he does: fight. They know him because of the reality show; because he’s had some pretty darn good success in the cage. But, even when he was champ, I don’t think too many people were lining up to say that Forrest was among the most skilled fighters in the world (a group I would say consists of the Fedors, Silvas, GSPs, BJ Penns, Big Nogs, etc). Rather, it was, as I think you rightly alluded to in your prediction, that Forrest achieved his success largely through having incredible determination to go along with the skills he does have.

That isn’t to say Forrest is some terribly unskilled guy who just lucked into everything. He’s a very good fighter. It’s just that no one should be surprised if Forrest were to get embarrassed by an elite fighter. If Machida, or the rejuvenated Shogun, clowned him, would you be shocked? Let’s suppose Lil Nog finished him in 45 seconds. Shocked? Let’s go down a rung or two on the LHW ladder. What if Thiago Silva walked across the cage and dropped him instantly? Or Jon Jones did some ninja shit and put his lights out? Would those outcomes really surprise anyone?

Hindsight is a major part of these silly GOAT debates we fans have. When considering the records of fighters, what we know after the fact is every bit as important as what we were thinking at the time. Was Griffin/Silva a big fight? Yep. Were we watching Anderson Silva demolish someone who, in reality, posed any real danger to him? Nope. We shouldn’t exclude the latter simply because we were excited to see a fight.

Perhaps, as you said above, more time is needed. Maybe Forrest will do some things in the future that prove my opinion of his limitations incorrect. It just doesn’t seem that likely.

The same can be said about Franklin as Griffin in my tl;dr post above. What we learn after the fact is every bit as important. Franklin and Griffin just don’t measure up. Not even close.

Hendo is someone we could make a case for. If they fought again, I wouldn’t be 100% convinced that Anderson would win.

I just want Anderson to have a victory over someone who poses a serious, serious threat to him before he enters GOATdom. Someone who’s skills don’t instantly tie one arm behind his back before he even steps into the cage with Anderson. Maybe Vitor is that guy. Beating Rich Franklin, Hendo, and Forrest Griffin, no matter the level of domination, doesn’t scream GOAT to me.

As for Machida fighting Anderson, Lyoto’s dad seems eager for it to happen. So, who knows on that one. We can hope.

Just to add some more fun…Herschel Walker is over-rated… ;)

What we’re saying is that of all the weapons in his arsenal, his greatest weakness is on the ground. I don’t think anyone will dispute that.

And against best-in-the-world competition, a weakness that someone like Travis Lutter can expose is a serious concern, and warrants further discussion.

Personally, I think he’s a dangerous fighter off his back, but he can be controlled there by a reasonably good wrestler. The problem, as you say, is getting Andy on his back in the first place.

It’s not exactly the same, but this is almost a repeat of the Chuck Liddell situation. The guy simply never got taken down, and the few times it did happen, he popped right back up to his feet, where he was most dangerous. Andy is probably similar, but he did get worked over by Travis Lutter. You can’t just throw it out the window, but the further away from that fight we go, the less importance it has. I’ll give you that.