Is Andrei Arlovski simply not a very good fighter?

[Your Paragon of Virtue]

I know people get tired of threads like these, especially right after a guy loses. Just go to Sherdog and everytime a guy loses it seems that there are a billion threads stating that he should retire. Still, I feel that for once that this is appropriate. Not that he should retire, but rather that he was not as good as he was made out to be.

 

He is an amazing athlete, and a lot of the fighters that he had faced he ran through. Part of the reason for that though was because they were all well suited to his style. After watching his fight with Sylvia I realized that in terms of official ranking of fighters, based on wins and losses, he's not looking too good. Wins over a washed up Vladdy and Freeman are not impressive. If you didn't think Cabbage was worthless after getting KO'ed by Tank, you might want to think so now after he was kimura'ed by Hamanaka. Eilers...well, he's Justin Eilers. Buentello might be credible, but again, a one-dimensional absolutely shitty grappler whose a poor athlete, which was easy for AA to exploit. He's a decent striker, but he's admittedly a shitty wrestler and seeing him try to armbar Aldana was painful to watch. The only real credible win is Sylvia, but now that he lost to him it makes him look worse. I know he dropped him and looked good at first but then he looked really bad after. Bottom line is that his biggest win to date was essentially overturned. While I think he should win a rematch, as of right now his ranking is not looking too good.

 

Now about his actual skills, well he's a great striker, and he's very athletic. However he couldn't capitalize on the ground like we thought he could, judging by his first fight with Sylvia. When he was on the bottom he didn't even know how to get off of his front and not have his back exposed. He doesn't seem to have discipline in fighting judging by this, and he seems too reckless as a result. His grappling seems very limited, but since the heavyweight talent pool is so shallow I doubt this will get exposed anytime soon.

 

At this point I would say that he should be on the lower part of the rankings if at all. I know he's got the skills to take out most people, but his record is unimpressive.

 

Flame away.

[Lord of The Curry]

Throw down your top ten HW's and we'll proceed from there.

[RavishingRickRudo]

It's tough with the heavyweight division in MMA because most guys who could be heavies can cut down to 205 or even 185. Like in Boxing, I believe, HW is 205. So the guys who DO fight at HW are typically just guys who don't want to bother cutting weight, which leaves lots of junk.

[AboveAverage484]

I think it's unfair to label him as "ungood." He has beaten decent fighters and the ones he lost to weren't cupcakes either. Throw in the fact that he is still fairly young and he could be on top in another two or three years if he doesn't break down before then.

[Lei Tong]

Even if Andrei lost to Sylvia again, he'd still probably be 7-8 by default, and is still in the Top 5 unless Overeem beats Werdum.

 

Scary thought: Sylvia has 2 wins over two Top 5 guys (Ricco Rodriguez & Andrei Arlovski).

[AboveAverage484]

Scary thought: Pedro Rizzo has wins over two top 5 guys (Ricco Rodriguez and Andrei Arlovski)

 

Wait, Ricco's still top 5?

[AmericanDragon]

Scary thought: Sylvia has 2 wins over two Top 5 guys (Ricco Rodriguez & Andrei Arlovski).

 

That's only if you ranked Arlovski in the top 5 to begin with.

[Lei Tong]

Considering Arlovski had arguably less competition from PRIDE's 2nd tier HW's than Ricco did when he won the UFC HW crown, I'd say Andrei was pretty much a concensus Top 5, mixed somewhere with Mirko & Kharitonov.

[AmericanDragon]

Well I never ranked Arlovski in the top 5 because my "top 10 HW list" is Fedor, Nogueira, and Crocop. That's it. There's really no other way to rank the others. Crocop might have fallen but at least he fought the top two.

[Lei Tong]

Eh. For a while 3-5 was also pretty rankable, with people alternating AA, Mirko & Sergei depending on what they looking for on each guy's resume. It wasn't until Mirko's second upset loss and Sergei's loss to Overeem that those spots became murky.

[Your Paragon of Virtue]

Ricco probably had LESS competition from PRIDE's second tier guys when he won. He was arguably second in the world at that point. Who would you place ahead of him? Fedor and Mirko were nowhere to be seen. Now you have a bunch of solid fighters in the HW division in PRIDE.

 

The HW division overall was worse at that time than it is now.

 

Cro Cop is no longer in the top three after the loss to Hunt.

 

Fedor, Noguiera, Mirko, Hunt, Sylvia, Overreem (which is tough considering he only had one fight) are six guys I could put ahead of Arlovski right now. The first five of those for sure, and maybe even Sergei and Werdum.

[Hawkius Maximus]

It wasn't that Arlovski was out gunned, it wasn't because Sylvia landed more shots, it was simply because Arlovski got careless. He thought Sylvia was done, and charged in for the kill. Sylvia happened to have his wits and blasted him with a short uppercut, combined with Arlovski's charging power and it was a KO shot. Had Arlovski not lunged in for another shot, that wouldn't have been a fight ender.

 

Arlovski by reports under-trained, and took Sylvia lightly. It happens. Does that mean Arlovski isn't top five HW? No, it just means he got stupid. In their rematch, Arlovski will probably kill Sylvia dead. If he doesn't win THAT fight, then yeah, he should be dropped in the rankings.

 

My own thing about HW's...How can you rank Hunt above any of the top five at this point? I mean, we all saw Hunt's industruciblity against Mirko, but the fact is he's only fought one grappler in MMA, and lost to him. I cannot fathom Hunt beating anyone who'd take him down at this point.

[AboveAverage484]

Ricco probably had LESS competition from PRIDE's second tier guys when he won. He was arguably second in the world at that point. Who would you place ahead of him? Fedor and Mirko were nowhere to be seen. Now you have a bunch of solid fighters in the HW division in PRIDE.

 

The HW division overall was worse at that time than it is now.

 

Cro Cop is no longer in the top three after the loss to Hunt.

 

Fedor, Noguiera, Mirko, Hunt, Sylvia, Overreem (which is tough considering he only had one fight) are six guys I could put ahead of Arlovski right now. The first five of those for sure, and maybe even Sergei and Werdum.

 

No way does Overeem go ahead of Arlovski.

[Your Paragon of Virtue]

I agree that that is the toughest choice, but beating Kharitanov is more significant than beating any of the guys Arlovski did, especially in the way he did it.

 

I agree that he's probably not gonna last very long there.

[Hawkius Maximus]

but you also have to take into consideration that Sergei got hurt almost immediately into that fight, and provided Overeem with problems even still.

 

I mean, I read people saying Shogun's ranking isn't effected due to the loss to Coleman due to freak accident, but Sergei suffered his own pretty major injury in that fight with Overeem, or went into the fight injured. I forget which. Why would they be different?

[Lei Tong]

My bad. I got the timeline of Ricco's win a slight bit mixed up, so I'll take that back.

 

However, Andrei is still as accomplished as Ricco was at the time, and considering that any number of the guys floating around the Top 10 have either done less or loss to worse guys than Sylvia, an argument could still easily be made for him being in the Top 5, especially with Hunt having only a single big win at HW to his name, and Kharitonov's stock dropping in loss to Overeem before he had a chance to get a Top 10 win.

[AmericanDragon]

I mean, I read people saying Shogun's ranking isn't effected due to the loss to Coleman due to freak accident, but Sergei suffered his own pretty major injury in that fight with Overeem, or went into the fight injured. I forget which. Why would they be different?

 

More people like Shogun than Sergei. Coleman should have ground and pounded Shogun for a few minutes after the injury so people would realize that it's just like Shogun beating up an injured Rampage in the fight that got him noticed.

[Lei Tong]

Shogun was fighting out of the weightclass he's ranked in, while Sergei wasn't. That's the main difference.

 

Had Coleman fought Shogun at 205lbs., then Shogun's stock would've fallen a good deal while Coleman would've gotten immediately ranked.

[AboveAverage484]

Here's my top ten:

 

1. Fedor

2. Nogueira

3. Cro Cop

4. Sylvia

5. Arlovski

6. Barnett (may be too high)

7. Kharitonov (I think even after the loss to Overeem he deserves to be here)

8. Hunt (he beat Cro Cop [i think Mirko should have won] and nobody else)

9. Werdum

10. Fujita/Mir/Overeem/Monson/Coleman

[Lord of The Curry]

If you've got Mir at 10 then shouldn't Cruz be at 9?

[AboveAverage484]

Well, I'm giving Mir the benefit of the doubt for having just come back from a long injury. Coleman probably doesn't deserve to be on there either.

 

Cruz would probably get wasted by any of the top nine, except maybe Werdum who would probably out grapple him.

[Lei Tong]

No way Werdum outgrapples him. Fabricio's best bet would be a flying sidekick/ Gunjack punchrush combo.

[AboveAverage484]

No way Werdum outgrapples him. Fabricio's best bet would be a flying sidekick/ Gunjack punchrush combo.

 

Why is that? I knew Pao de Pano was good, but I thought Werdum was the best in the world at HW BJJ.

[Your Paragon of Virtue]

Roger Gracie beat him, I know that much.

 

After training in mma for quite some time, he might be better suited for it. I mean he might be better at mma grappling, in terms of mixing GnP with top position, but in terms of pure grappling, I'm sure PDP is better.

[RavishingRickRudo]

Who thinks Arlovski or Sylvia could beat Hunt? Kharitonov?

[Hawkius Maximus]

I think at this stage of the game, any good grappler who can take Hunt down will beat him. You can't beat Hunt standing because he walks through EVERYTHING, but taken down you can control the match, and go for submissions. In their fight, I think Mirko should have used his ground training he's had and tried to take the fight there, instead of throwing shots that Hunt just ate with no side effects. The key will be managing to get Hunt down, which if he's been smart he'll have been working on his sprawl, and ability to escape the guard.

 

I think Sylvia would get his head knocked off. Arlovski would either try to bullrush and die, or be smart and take the fight to the ground.

 

I think Sergei, 100% healthy would probably beat both. I'd pay to see Arlovski/Sergei though.

 

Edit: And furthermore, the reason Andrei lost was because he cut his hair. That hair was godly.

[Lei Tong]

- I'd take Andrei against Hunt via submission, and Kharitonov via KO. I'm unsure about Sylvia/Hunt, but would pick Kharitonov via submission.

 

- I'd say both Napao & PDP are better HW grapplers in the BJJ world than Werdum. I'd say that Napao holds a slight advantage over both, as he injured PDP just last year at ADCC and was also easily outgrappling Werdum before he gassed in their Jungle Fight bout, plus is a better wrestler than either guy.

[Your Paragon of Virtue]

Kharitanov via submission against Sylvia? I don't know about that one. I don't know if he could take him down. I think he is a better striker though.

[AboveAverage484]

Kharitanov via submission against Sylvia? I don't know about that one. I don't know if he could take him down. I think he is a better striker though.

 

He could do it the same way Andrei did, knockdown leading to a sub.

[RavishingRickRudo]

Kharitonov was able to get Schilt down and put his nuts in his face.

 

I think the "Hunt is prone to submissions" is a bit premature of a statement to make. He got subbed in his first ever MMA match against a really good submissions guy, and still showed natural defending abilities. And that's it. It's not like he is Frank Trigg and gets subbed over and over again. If he gets subbed again, sure, but basing how he is on a fighter now just on his first match is absurd. It would be more likely for Hunt to KO Arlovski than for Arlovski to sub Hunt, IMO.