Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira is my all-time favorite fighter, and watching him lose on Saturday was pretty difficult.  Thinking about Nogueira’s legacy, I looked up the top-ten heavyweights as ranked by fightmatrix.com.  This site uses a statistical formula to determine rankings, and is quickly updated.  While I don’t exactly agree with the order of the top ten, this looks like a pretty accurate picture of who is in the current top ten.

·         Fedor Emelianenko

·         Brock Lesnar

·         Cain Velasquez

·         Frank Mir

·         Junior Dos Santos

·         Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

·         Josh Barnett

·         Brett Rogers

·         Fabricio Werdum

·         Shane Carwin

Nogueira has fought 5 of the men currently in the top ten—Emelinenko, Velasquez, Mir, Barnett, and Werdum.  He’s beaten two of those 5.  And everyone else?

·         Emelianenko has fought two—Big Nog and Rogers.

·         Lesnar has fought one—Mir.

·         Velasquez has fought one—Nogueira.

·         Mir has fought two—Nogueira and Lesnar.

·         Dos Santos has fought one—Werdum.

·         Barnett has fought one—Nogueira.

·         Rogers?  One—Emelianenko.

·         Werdum?  Two—Nogueira and Dos Santos.

·         Shane Carwin has never fought a heavyweight currently ranked in the top ten.

 

I wonder.  If all these other dominant heavyweights had fought 5 other heavyweights in the current top ten, how dominant would they look? 

After Nogueira’s loss to Velasquez, it was clear to everyone that he does not have the striking necessary to compete with the top heavyweights in the world.  Big Nog has never had serious knock-out power, and he can no longer afford to simply trade blows expecting that his chin can take it.  So what comes next for a man who has built his legacy, not by always winning, but by constantly fighting the best?

If Nogueira wants to remain competitive, he must completely change his approach to fighting mixed martial arts.  He has to realize and accept that his boxing is no longer competitive against top competition, and that he must win fights with grappling, conditioning and will.

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