“Every Heavyweight Sucks!” MMA's Big Guys and Their Fans

In every combat sport, it is always the Heavyweights that capture our greatest attention.  Weight classes exist to allow smaller fighters to compete.  These big guys don't need a weight class. 

But in the world of MMA, the Heavyweight division is a convoluted mess, more often than not.  A lot of the best big men in the world scatter to the four winds, and are divvied up by all the MMA promotions out there. 

So where are the best Heavyweight MMA fighters in the world, and who are they?  Virtually every discussion about ANY current promotions Heavyweight fighter and Heavyweight division out there draws the same reactions from your more Hardcore MMA fans. 

“They have a shallow talent pool!” 

“No good Heavyweight fighters in that promotion!” 

“Their Heavyweight talent pool sucks!” 

“They need to do something drastic to build up their Heavyweight Division!” 

We could be talking about DREAM, Strikeforce, the UFC, K-1, the recently deceased Affliction or any other MMA promotion.  No matter which fighters and which promotions we’re talking about, there is always some self-proclaimed MMA expert saying that their Heavyweight division sucks. 

In the humble opinion of some MMA “experts,” the missing ingredient is for any promotion to say they’re the best is Fedor Emelianenko.  But there’s just as many “experts” who say that Fedor is washed up, over-rated and that he hasn’t fought anyone good since he left PRIDE. 

So even at the very top of the heap, we see the same thing.  The same broken record:

“Every Heavyweight sucks!!” 

I wholeheartedly disagree with that assessment, but that’s where the hardcore MMA fans seem to be at.  That’s what they think of the big guys of MMA. 

Personally, I think there are a lot of good Heavyweights out there.  And yes, most assuredly, there is more than one good Heavyweight in MMA.  So why is it so hard to give a few of them the credit they are due?

We can go to the MMA ranking systems.  This one is Fight Matrix, but yes there are plenty of others. 

http://www.fightmatrix.com/mma-ranks/heavyweight-265-lbs/

1    Fedor Emelianenko (Strikeforce)

2    Brock Lesnar (UFC)

3    Frank Mir (UFC)

4    Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (UFC)

5    Josh Barnett (TEAM STEROIDS)

6    Randy Couture (UFC)

7    Gegard Mousasi (Strikeforce - but currently fighting at Light Heavyweight)

8    Junior dos Santos (UFC)

9    Brett Rogers (Strikeforce)

10   Shane Carwin (UFC)

11   Andrei Arlovski (Strikeforce)

12   Fabricio Werdum (Strikeforce)

13   Cain Velasquez (UFC)

14   Mirko Filipovic (UFC)

15   Jeff Monson (DREAM/independent)

16   Alistair Overeem (Strikeforce)

17   Ray Mercer (Adrenaline)

18   Heath Herring (UFC)

19   Gabriel Gonzaga (UFC)

20   Cheick Kongo (UFC)

Now throwing out Mousasi, who will be fighting for the Strikeforce Light Heavyweight belt this Saturday, the best represented promotion in the top 20 is obviously the UFC with 11 of the top 20 fighters. 

This shouldn’t be too surprising, since most other promotions are just too new to have had a chance to build up a strong catalogue of Heavyweight fighters. 

After the UFC, we have Strikeforce with 5 of the top 20 fighters, as well as having the No. 1 Heavyweight, and all the bragging rights that go with it. 

Here’s the sad part.  Just about every single one of the 20 people on that list has no shortage of people saying that they suck. 

Some are called “Unproven.” 

Others are called “Over-Rated.” 

And others are “Washed up” and “Need to Retire.”   

But if everyone on that list sucks, then will somebody please point me in the direction of MMA Heavyweights that don’t suck?  Perhaps they’re hiding somewhere?  We don’t see the same phenomenon in other divisions.

In the end, I’d love to know this much:  Why do the big guys get no respect?