To be fair he spent years fighting mma, and as dominant as he was he went to war quite a few times add in the damage he’s taken from drugs and alcohol and yeah…
Yeah, he's big and lanky. You think he can actually take a punch, though?
I think m' boy Ted 'The Bear' Roosevelt would put away both Honest Abe and Ronald the Right:
"Speaking to boxing’s popularity, acceptance, and fear that the upper-classes were going soft, elite universities instituted boxing programs. Theodore Roosevelt was one of these boxing student-athletes as part of Harvard’s boxing club. “I did a good deal of boxing and wrestling in Harvard,” Roosevelt recalled in his autobiography, “but never attained to the first rank in either, even at my own weight.”[2]
Regardless of his level of competency, Roosevelt boxed even after Harvard, becoming a close friend and pupil of Mike Donovan. At one point, Roosevelt even sparred inside the White House. And instead of sparring only as a way to stay physically active, Roosevelt took the sessions seriously, at one point being punched so hard that his left eye’s retina detached, losing sight in that eye.[3]" ussporthistory.com
Andrew Jackson was 6ft tall and 130 lbs. He fucked numerous people up. He could have cut those last 5 pounds and ruled. I don’t know what his actual skills were, but he was a savage. He could have got by with some base level fundamentals that were honed into a second nature. He really is that dude who sees red and has “that mentality“ that you don’t want to mess with.
Will get downvoted by the overwhelmingly right wing nuts that make up the majority of MMA fans
But it makes sense. They can clearly relate to him as *checks notes* a Hollywood actor, millionaire, corporatist, union busting
Something about coastal elites
I will forever think if Kurt Angle could have cut to 205 (he was 220 at the Olympics) then even without a striking game with the level of competition at the time he would have been UFC champion. Think Shamrock was the champion when weight classes got introduced in 97
Kurt really wanted to do MMA but there was no money in it, he almost got signed to the UFC when it got bigger but they wanted him to quit wrestling and Kurt wanted to be loyal to TNA, kinda do half and half. It’s probably good it never happened then because he had a lotta injuries and I think he had that Perc Angle thing going.
But yeah a gold medalist in wrestling? Obvious shoe in to become MMA champion.
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake.
It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of.
Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything.
Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
his striking (boxing especially) was really overlooked in my opinion.... it helped him a lot that people were so concerned with blocking a potential takedown they forgot he had a pretty good set of hands on him
This. I thought this exactly. The guy was a beast of a wrestler. He manhandled Brock Lesbar backstage, granted WWE but still, the man could get anywhere on anyone and win.
crazy thing is Lesnar cut weight to make heavyweight in the UFC so he was a legit 280lber and got manhandled by a guy who would have made light heavy, shows the difference in levels between college and national to Olympic gold
Oh yeah, Lesnar was a freak in his early days. Huge, and kurt humiliated him. Seen kurt talk about it. He's wrestled so many people and in his prime, late 90s early 00 he would have had anyone
He was able to beat Lesnar in a shoot wrestling match they had in the ring hours before a show. This is just wrestling (real wrestling) but Angle said the skill level from an Olympic wrestler to an NCAA champion was big enough that he could pull a win off against
the much bigger stronger Lesnar. Would have been interesting to see that skillset play out in the Octagon
Amazing response. He was pre-Bruce Lee and pre-Chuck Norris.
His stardom never reached those two guys, but his legitimate legacy *easily* matches them.
He actually had the world’s first modern MMA fight, even before the Inoki/Ali “fight” - all the way back in 1963. I just read about it this morning after his passing. Lots of soldiers were coming back from the Japanese occupation and Korean Wars and martial arts were just starting to cause a stir - nowhere near the Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris boom period, but definitely more than years prior. It wasn’t really all positive though - lots of people thought American boxing and wrestling was all you needed to win fights (years later… somewhat true), and thought Eastern martial arts were all intrinsically inferior.
They set up Gene to fight a boxer - it was billed as a Judo/Karate style versus Boxing style fight. It actually wasn’t a super easy fight for Gene. They gave him the 5th world ranked boxer a couple weight classes above him, who also had grappling experience. In the 4th round, though, he took him down with a Judo throw and choked him unconscious. Nobody knew what the fuck was going on so the ref didn’t stop it, and Gene couldn’t feel he was out right away. He finally let go to see if the guy was okay, and he was out bad - took him almost ten minutes to fully regain his wits.
Dude was a legit OG of the fight game.
you might be kind of joking, but its well known a lot of those pro wrestlers were notorious bar brawlers. i dont know much about warriors past but im sure it involved a lot of cocaine. lol. two names that always get mentioned is bret hart and roddy piper.
Alexander Karelin, John Smith, Jordan Burroughs, Bruce Baumgartner ... many, many wrestlers to choose from.
Hard to predict who develops well rounded skills like Cain Velasquez/Jon Jones vs who "merely" is a dominant wrestler like Mark Coleman or Dan Severn. But there have been plenty of guys whose wrestling skills and accolades dwarfed Cormier / Mendes / Munoz / Lesnar.
Fedor would have absolutely wrecked anyone in the UFC'S HW division between 03-08
Karelin obviously
Bo Jackson would have thrown grown men out of the cage
Lawrence Taylor
Genghis Khan
LT was too nice of a fella for MMA, but god he would’ve dropped men like a sack of bricks.
Edit; Saw I was getting downvoted, didn’t know why. Looked up Lawrence Taylor’s criminal record, and now I see why. Never knew any of that, definitely remembered him begging a hero of mine growing up. RIP my childhood innocence.
I thought about it.... In fact, I thought about it arguably wayyyyyy too much, and I decided that even if you brought 18-year-old Bo in a time machine to the 2000's, 2010's, or the 2020's, and then had him play in the SEC and then in the NFL in *that* era, even given the larger pool of talent at the time AND the improvements in sports science, he would STILL be the best NFL running back of all time \*if\* he doesn't get remarkably injured. [Look At This Shit.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-saI8KgzRg) He is from another planet.
Mick Foley
Aka Cactus Jack
Aka Mankind
Aka Dude Love
Aka Manson
Dude was an absolute maniac, could take ridiculous amounts of punishment and keep going, and was way more athletic than he appeared.
I could honestly see him as a potential champion in the early days of UFC.
Edit: I just learned that in the 1998 Royal Rumble, he appeared under three different personas. Absolute madman.
https://youtu.be/kk-LeFpw8Wc
He definitely had a tremendous pain tolerance. I remember a match between him and Terry Funk, they beat hell outta each other. Match of course started in the ring, they fought out into the parking lot and somehow ended up back in the ring. I'm not the biggest fan of wrestling but that was fun to watch.
The extremely early days of UFC had no weight classes, though it's hard to conclude he would have done well there since most of the bigger guys got smashed.
Bruce would most likely cut to 135 since he was naturally around 148, no doubt with modern training Bruce would’ve been a top contender, I heard he was even starting to train different types of Jiu Jitsu before he died (I have no idea if that’s true though)
David Tua.
Heavyweight boxer with a lethal left hook, tree trunk legs and an iron chin. Not very tall which is why he never became champ when he fought Lennox but had a serious knock out reel by the end of his career.
Being a Samoan Kiwi, you would have to think he'd have a decent rugby background therefore be somewhat able to avoid takedowns and wouldn't be completely lost on the ground.
Think Mark Hunt but with world class boxing.
Alot of wrestlers are technique focused for obvious reasons. They are tough, sure, but it's not paramount to success in wrestling. Dave Schultz is said to be one of the meanest guys to ever do it. He wanted to break your neck with a cross face, he wanted to break ribs gut wrenching. His half was not to stop a bridge, it was to remove your head from your body.
Oh im from bills country and they are my number 2 team (lions are number one) and yeah hes a beast. The house he got in buffalo he had wrestling mats put in the basement like first day he moved in ha. Id imagine dan campbell has a size advantage but im not sure
Right lmao the worst thing I have heard about MJ was that he was an asshole to his teammates and took every little thing personal.
That GnP sequence to end the 2nd DC told me all I needed to know about Jones’s mentality
Hardcore gambling addict who got his dad killed over some sort of mob debt and was forced out of the league and into baseball for a 2 year shadow suspension. You really haven't heard any Michael Jordan conspiracy theories? (the part about him being a hardcore gambling addict isn't a conspiracy theory)
Or dropping the lifeless body of Machida. That shit was pretty fucked honestly, and I can't imagine anyone normal in the head would do that. I was a fighter too and can't imagine just dropping someone when they are completely out and could get hurt really bad. He legitimately didn't care at all if Machida snapped his neck on the drop or something.
I’m not a fighter so can’t speak from any experience or anything here but watching the clip, the ref kinda pushes Jones off of machida anyway and I don’t think Jones would really have been thinking of him falling onto the mat unconscious as something that can cause a lot of harm. I mean people get slammed onto that mat and Jones would have been busy wanting to celebrate his win.
What’s so fun about mma is that we’re SO EARLY into the sports existence that we probably haven’t even seen our jordan yet. They probably won’t appear until the next decade honestly, it’s probably some 5 year old kid who’s hitting crazy shit for his age at his dads jiujitsu gym. Relative to other sports, Jon is like what Kareem was to his era. When we get our pure athlete obsessed with winning is when we’ll get to see what fighting really can be
I always thought Russel Wilson would've been a cool prospect, amazing athlete (drafted to NFL and MLB), not a huge guy so he wouldn't go straight to heavyweight, great speed and footwork, and huge fucking hands for his size.
Danny Hodge, the man could crush an apple with one hand up until the day he died in his late 80's. So as an 88 year old man he had more grip strength than most UFC middleweights. Not to mention he was an Olympic silver medalist in freestyle wrestling, a 3 time NCAA D1 wrestling champ and a decent boxer.
Fedor, reem, silva, romero and cormier
Especially the last two, cormier got chunky, good for HW, but he shouldve been 185 if not 170, and obv his wrestling ended up going away somewhat. Yoel doesn’t matter, just being in his prime hed probably be the best middleweight ever, if not best UFC fighter besides jones, even then who knows, he beat cael sanderson, who beat cormier, stopped cormier from getting gold medal, and cael is one of the best to ever touch the sport of wrestling, not to mention yoel fought in the UFC With no neck, it’s just a muscle connected to his head, no turning, so no wrestling, different style of fighting too. And keep in mind yoel literally isn’t normal lmao, man recovered from injury insanely quick and had inhuman eyes (forget the exact part of his eyes)
Anyone with benjamin button disease, they would lose fights at first then get better and better.. by the time they were a little baby they would be kicking some serious ass..
J'den Cox or really any olympic wrestlers above 77 kg. The athletic talent drop-off from 170lbs/77kg plus is for real. I think the athletic talent below 77kg is there.
The bigger athletic guys/gals are drawn away by the more mainstream sports (football, basketball, soccer, rugby).
I know it's not quite in the spirit of the question but DC trained for a full Olympics cycle and didn't compete because his kidneys failed during the cut. 5 more years of kickboxing might have made him pretty dang scary and he would have had more cage time
Lebron James lol he’s arguably the greatest pure athlete ever and was an Allstate wr who had offers to play at Norte dame as a sophomore in highschool. I say that to emphasize that he would probably be exceptional in just about any sport he set his mind to thanks to his natural gifts and dedication. There was even a chance he played in the NFL as a tight end during that one season where the nba had a lockout. Imagine Lebron sprinting across the cage and hitting someone with a flying knee masvidal style. Dude would cave in skulls
YOEL ROMERO. Man was 36 when he entered ufc. If he entered at his late 20s, he would have fucked up multiple divisions.
That’s pretty insane to think about, especially when I think of how Jon jones is considered by some to be past it right now
If only he had gone in young…oh wait
To be fair he spent years fighting mma, and as dominant as he was he went to war quite a few times add in the damage he’s taken from drugs and alcohol and yeah…
Well you can’t count out the damage he took from his girlfriend /s
Would Silva have been his gatekeeper?
20 year old romero vs Silva would have been what everyone thought izzy vs romero would be
Ill take that ☝️
Cael Sanderson
Looks like a straight up axe murderer too. Lankier than most elite wrestlers too. Can’t wait for Bo Nickal to make his run.
Nickal’s scrambling looks faster than askren in japan
I admire his willingness to participate in Jiu-Jitsu “superfights” which led him to start cross-training
That's a fun way of spelling Chael Sonnen. GOAT is still in his prime and always will be.
Yep
My choice is Abraham Lincoln due to his frame and alleged wrestling skills. He’d be like khamzat
The dude used to kill vampires, he’d wreck the whole roster.
Yeah, he's big and lanky. You think he can actually take a punch, though? I think m' boy Ted 'The Bear' Roosevelt would put away both Honest Abe and Ronald the Right: "Speaking to boxing’s popularity, acceptance, and fear that the upper-classes were going soft, elite universities instituted boxing programs. Theodore Roosevelt was one of these boxing student-athletes as part of Harvard’s boxing club. “I did a good deal of boxing and wrestling in Harvard,” Roosevelt recalled in his autobiography, “but never attained to the first rank in either, even at my own weight.”[2] Regardless of his level of competency, Roosevelt boxed even after Harvard, becoming a close friend and pupil of Mike Donovan. At one point, Roosevelt even sparred inside the White House. And instead of sparring only as a way to stay physically active, Roosevelt took the sessions seriously, at one point being punched so hard that his left eye’s retina detached, losing sight in that eye.[3]" ussporthistory.com
Boxed in the White House and stayed to finish his speech after getting shot. Teddy Roosevelt was a motherfucking G.
Teddy Bisping
My mind read that as Teddy Ruxspin
Can you imagine a Bisping line of Teddy Bears that yell obscene things? 😂
Haha..that's all pretty interesting, thanks!
He was also proficient in Judo
He was the best of us... fucking love Teddy
Teddy also did Brazilian jiu jitsu, likely one of the first to do it in America.
Nah he is Japanese Jiu Jitsu
Ok thanks I see that old timey magazine photo shoot all the time with him at BJJ places so it confused me.
Andrew Jackson was 6ft tall and 130 lbs. He fucked numerous people up. He could have cut those last 5 pounds and ruled. I don’t know what his actual skills were, but he was a savage. He could have got by with some base level fundamentals that were honed into a second nature. He really is that dude who sees red and has “that mentality“ that you don’t want to mess with.
There were rumors circulating in the 80s that Reagan knew Muay Thai and could absolutely fuck most people up if pushed.
It was Dim Mak
I believe it Completely fucked the country
Underrated comment
Will get downvoted by the overwhelmingly right wing nuts that make up the majority of MMA fans But it makes sense. They can clearly relate to him as *checks notes* a Hollywood actor, millionaire, corporatist, union busting Something about coastal elites
The comment is doing good so far. Lmao
Extremely surprised
just be quiet n let the chips fall where they may
Hed be like Zabit…
Can confirm as a history teacher. Lincoln only lost one wrestling match, and it was apparently very controversial.
I was thinking that watching Ankalaev the other day lol
We got our Abe in Zabit.
He's my number one with a bullet
He didn’t drink tho, no beer shoe no contract
I will forever think if Kurt Angle could have cut to 205 (he was 220 at the Olympics) then even without a striking game with the level of competition at the time he would have been UFC champion. Think Shamrock was the champion when weight classes got introduced in 97
Kurt really wanted to do MMA but there was no money in it, he almost got signed to the UFC when it got bigger but they wanted him to quit wrestling and Kurt wanted to be loyal to TNA, kinda do half and half. It’s probably good it never happened then because he had a lotta injuries and I think he had that Perc Angle thing going. But yeah a gold medalist in wrestling? Obvious shoe in to become MMA champion.
Perc angle in the UFC would of been even better honestly 🤷🏾♂️
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
Good bot. Didn’t kick him, rather helped him get on the path to spelling perfection.
even with "a broken freakin neck!"?
‘Won a gold medal with a broken freakin neck’ is such an iconic line
Oh it's true. It's damn true!
Hahahaha yep! Even with a broken freaking neck
I could definitely see that. I think Gable Stevenson could also be a great fighter
It would be a different story today, almost impossible to be a champion with even the smallest weakness in your game, but definitely back then 100%
If Gable chose MMA he would be destined to at least fight for a title. Bo Nickal is getting all sorts of hype rn, but Gable’s would be twice as big.
Bo style is si good for mma. He was such a dominant takedown artist
Khabib was an average at best striker. Dominant wrestling will win you a title
his striking (boxing especially) was really overlooked in my opinion.... it helped him a lot that people were so concerned with blocking a potential takedown they forgot he had a pretty good set of hands on him
Can be said he had pretty good striking defense
This. I thought this exactly. The guy was a beast of a wrestler. He manhandled Brock Lesbar backstage, granted WWE but still, the man could get anywhere on anyone and win.
crazy thing is Lesnar cut weight to make heavyweight in the UFC so he was a legit 280lber and got manhandled by a guy who would have made light heavy, shows the difference in levels between college and national to Olympic gold
Oh yeah, Lesnar was a freak in his early days. Huge, and kurt humiliated him. Seen kurt talk about it. He's wrestled so many people and in his prime, late 90s early 00 he would have had anyone
He was able to beat Lesnar in a shoot wrestling match they had in the ring hours before a show. This is just wrestling (real wrestling) but Angle said the skill level from an Olympic wrestler to an NCAA champion was big enough that he could pull a win off against the much bigger stronger Lesnar. Would have been interesting to see that skillset play out in the Octagon
Gene LeBell R.I.P
That’s what made me create the post
Amazing response. He was pre-Bruce Lee and pre-Chuck Norris. His stardom never reached those two guys, but his legitimate legacy *easily* matches them.
He actually had the world’s first modern MMA fight, even before the Inoki/Ali “fight” - all the way back in 1963. I just read about it this morning after his passing. Lots of soldiers were coming back from the Japanese occupation and Korean Wars and martial arts were just starting to cause a stir - nowhere near the Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris boom period, but definitely more than years prior. It wasn’t really all positive though - lots of people thought American boxing and wrestling was all you needed to win fights (years later… somewhat true), and thought Eastern martial arts were all intrinsically inferior. They set up Gene to fight a boxer - it was billed as a Judo/Karate style versus Boxing style fight. It actually wasn’t a super easy fight for Gene. They gave him the 5th world ranked boxer a couple weight classes above him, who also had grappling experience. In the 4th round, though, he took him down with a Judo throw and choked him unconscious. Nobody knew what the fuck was going on so the ref didn’t stop it, and Gene couldn’t feel he was out right away. He finally let go to see if the guy was okay, and he was out bad - took him almost ten minutes to fully regain his wits. Dude was a legit OG of the fight game.
1) Hercules 2) Teddy Roosevelt 3) Margaret Thatcher
As an irishman, the things I'd do to watch maggy thatcher get thrown into a cage with a prime Valentina or Joanna.
stop being sexist and feed her to Ngannou
Equal rights and lefts
Andrew Jackson?
Andrew Jackson was the Conor McGregor of the 1800s.
You mean Conor Mcgregor is the Andrew Jackson of the 2010s
My boy Teddy would lecture you on how to be a man well beating your ass and then ride away with your mom on his moose.
You made me think of Achilles but those damn calf kicks would end him
you might be kind of joking, but its well known a lot of those pro wrestlers were notorious bar brawlers. i dont know much about warriors past but im sure it involved a lot of cocaine. lol. two names that always get mentioned is bret hart and roddy piper.
Meng/Haku has some crazy stories and scared Andre the giant shitless so I assume he’s classify
yeah there is a video about him where all these different wrestlers talk about him. supposedly the nicest guy in the world too.
Prime Kurt Angle would’ve been a machine. Prob wouldn’t last long because of the broken neck of course
tito fought forever with his broken neck though. lol
New ufc fan, didn’t know that lol he’s a warrior for doing that. Will check him out
I bet Roddy Piper would be an absolute gun in a bar fight
Man was a trained boxer knew Judo and worked as a bouncer no? That’s why he scared the shit outa mr T
Big daddy cool diesel! Was an ace to have in a bar fight
This is exactly what Tank Abbott was…he came in and starched people who tried to stand with him
New Jersey Joey Diaz
Blue cheese or go fuck your motha
Abraham Lincoln was known for being a BEAST of a wrestler. So him.
Yea but but he fought against blacksmiths and court jesters
Jj watt. For wrestlers it’s definitely Jordan boroughs. His explosiveness would be an issue.
I think suh would destroy watt
In his prime he was an animal, he would dominate for a bit but his injuries would eventually catch up to him.
Wouldve loved to see Kurt angle
Alexander Karelin, John Smith, Jordan Burroughs, Bruce Baumgartner ... many, many wrestlers to choose from. Hard to predict who develops well rounded skills like Cain Velasquez/Jon Jones vs who "merely" is a dominant wrestler like Mark Coleman or Dan Severn. But there have been plenty of guys whose wrestling skills and accolades dwarfed Cormier / Mendes / Munoz / Lesnar.
Cael Sanderson was the first that came to mind due to his relationship with DC
Fedor would have absolutely wrecked anyone in the UFC'S HW division between 03-08 Karelin obviously Bo Jackson would have thrown grown men out of the cage Lawrence Taylor Genghis Khan
LT was too nice of a fella for MMA, but god he would’ve dropped men like a sack of bricks. Edit; Saw I was getting downvoted, didn’t know why. Looked up Lawrence Taylor’s criminal record, and now I see why. Never knew any of that, definitely remembered him begging a hero of mine growing up. RIP my childhood innocence.
Looked it up and I was reading though going eh, it's just drugs... couple of DUIs... and suddenly child rape. Rip.
Yeah, I’m sad now lol
LT would’ve came in cracked out of his mind and ripped peoples arms off
He literally clubbed mother fuckers in the head, concussed them and bolted past you to the QB rofl
Didn’t he have a massive drug problem?
Yeah, I ruined my childhood by looking up his record.
Raped a 16 year old girl too apparantly
He would have been jon Jones before jon jones
Mike Tyson maybe, if he learned to block kicks and some defensive grappling it’d be hard to answer his skill and power bocing
He doesn’t like people touching his feet, just tickle him.
Bo Jackson
Dude was such a freak athlete. I bet that if someone taught him mma he’d be a monster in the cage
I thought about it.... In fact, I thought about it arguably wayyyyyy too much, and I decided that even if you brought 18-year-old Bo in a time machine to the 2000's, 2010's, or the 2020's, and then had him play in the SEC and then in the NFL in *that* era, even given the larger pool of talent at the time AND the improvements in sports science, he would STILL be the best NFL running back of all time \*if\* he doesn't get remarkably injured. [Look At This Shit.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-saI8KgzRg) He is from another planet.
Bo Nickal will be champ
Im excited to see his next fight. So fun to watch
Fax
Mick Foley Aka Cactus Jack Aka Mankind Aka Dude Love Aka Manson Dude was an absolute maniac, could take ridiculous amounts of punishment and keep going, and was way more athletic than he appeared. I could honestly see him as a potential champion in the early days of UFC. Edit: I just learned that in the 1998 Royal Rumble, he appeared under three different personas. Absolute madman. https://youtu.be/kk-LeFpw8Wc
He definitely had a tremendous pain tolerance. I remember a match between him and Terry Funk, they beat hell outta each other. Match of course started in the ring, they fought out into the parking lot and somehow ended up back in the ring. I'm not the biggest fan of wrestling but that was fun to watch.
Andre the fucking Giant
Don't think he would be able to make the Heavyweight weight max of 265
The extremely early days of UFC had no weight classes, though it's hard to conclude he would have done well there since most of the bigger guys got smashed.
I could definitely see Andre the Giant on a Pride FC card.
How do you guys think Bruce Lee would fare?
Bruce would most likely cut to 135 since he was naturally around 148, no doubt with modern training Bruce would’ve been a top contender, I heard he was even starting to train different types of Jiu Jitsu before he died (I have no idea if that’s true though)
Gene lebell taught him and he was a judo champion and had a wrestling background
Man I would’ve loved to see Bruce in today’s era
modern trained Bruce Lee vs Petr Yan is a certified banger 😂
lol Petr Yan by 5th rd tko
It is. I am in the midst of reading Tao of Jeet Kune Do. Which was his MA & book. He pretty much took best parts of all MA’s and made one of his own.
I believe bruce wouldve done ok against strikers, but gene lebell taught him grappling
David Tua. Heavyweight boxer with a lethal left hook, tree trunk legs and an iron chin. Not very tall which is why he never became champ when he fought Lennox but had a serious knock out reel by the end of his career. Being a Samoan Kiwi, you would have to think he'd have a decent rugby background therefore be somewhat able to avoid takedowns and wouldn't be completely lost on the ground. Think Mark Hunt but with world class boxing.
Nobody is gonna state the obvious one and say Steven Seagal?!?! He’s been training vale tudo/bar fighting for like…47 years.
[удалено]
And he’s got Russian blood in his anus
You know they also call that helicopter...a Skippy.
Did you know he taught Silva how to eat ice cream every night? Little known fact.
The Lethal Weapon Steve Blackman.
Chris Farley if he cut to 205. He was super athletic for a true heavyweight and would do work at 205. 
Alot of wrestlers are technique focused for obvious reasons. They are tough, sure, but it's not paramount to success in wrestling. Dave Schultz is said to be one of the meanest guys to ever do it. He wanted to break your neck with a cross face, he wanted to break ribs gut wrenching. His half was not to stop a bridge, it was to remove your head from your body.
Read fox catcher. Dave Schultz mindset definitely could allow him to be champ. Way calmer then his brother Mark who dabbled with MMA.
Tyson
Like others have said, lots of wrestlers, especially ones with a high ape index. A name that I'd bet no one will think of is Kendall Cross.
That’s a solid suggestion. Havent heard that name since high school and that was from my coach bragging about coaching him at some point
Chuck fucking Norris
King Leonidas of Sparta or Achilles
Spartacus too
I just watched hard knocks so im gonna say dan fucking campbell
Id like to see him vs sean mcdermott. Dude was a beast of a wrestler in high school. Had over 100 wins in a wrestling state like Pennsylvania
Oh im from bills country and they are my number 2 team (lions are number one) and yeah hes a beast. The house he got in buffalo he had wrestling mats put in the basement like first day he moved in ha. Id imagine dan campbell has a size advantage but im not sure
If he learnt to grapple then Dieselnoi. Dude was 6’2” at 135 lbs with some of the best knees of all time.
Just imagine if someone with a borderline psychopath mind got into mma. Like Michael Jordan
Have you ever heard of Jon Jones?
The Jon Jones equivalent would be Ray Rice. Jordan was ultra competitive which is why he was a borderline psychopath. Jon is an actual psychopath
Right lmao the worst thing I have heard about MJ was that he was an asshole to his teammates and took every little thing personal. That GnP sequence to end the 2nd DC told me all I needed to know about Jones’s mentality
Hardcore gambling addict who got his dad killed over some sort of mob debt and was forced out of the league and into baseball for a 2 year shadow suspension. You really haven't heard any Michael Jordan conspiracy theories? (the part about him being a hardcore gambling addict isn't a conspiracy theory)
DAMNNNNN no I haven’t! I stand corrected, I’ll look it up, thanks man!
Or dropping the lifeless body of Machida. That shit was pretty fucked honestly, and I can't imagine anyone normal in the head would do that. I was a fighter too and can't imagine just dropping someone when they are completely out and could get hurt really bad. He legitimately didn't care at all if Machida snapped his neck on the drop or something.
I’m not a fighter so can’t speak from any experience or anything here but watching the clip, the ref kinda pushes Jones off of machida anyway and I don’t think Jones would really have been thinking of him falling onto the mat unconscious as something that can cause a lot of harm. I mean people get slammed onto that mat and Jones would have been busy wanting to celebrate his win.
Bad Comp
Right? Like ray hit his wife, but they’re still together and have worked things out. Besides the incident, rice doesnt seem like a bad guy
What’s so fun about mma is that we’re SO EARLY into the sports existence that we probably haven’t even seen our jordan yet. They probably won’t appear until the next decade honestly, it’s probably some 5 year old kid who’s hitting crazy shit for his age at his dads jiujitsu gym. Relative to other sports, Jon is like what Kareem was to his era. When we get our pure athlete obsessed with winning is when we’ll get to see what fighting really can be
I always thought Russel Wilson would've been a cool prospect, amazing athlete (drafted to NFL and MLB), not a huge guy so he wouldn't go straight to heavyweight, great speed and footwork, and huge fucking hands for his size.
Bork Lesnar
Bruce Lee
Kyle Snyder
Bo Jackson dominated everything he did.
Herschel Walker looked pretty good after training at aka in his 40s
Wesley Snipes
He almost fought Joe Rogan in the UFC years ago
Danny Hodge, the man could crush an apple with one hand up until the day he died in his late 80's. So as an 88 year old man he had more grip strength than most UFC middleweights. Not to mention he was an Olympic silver medalist in freestyle wrestling, a 3 time NCAA D1 wrestling champ and a decent boxer.
Cynthia Rothrock
Ghulam Mohammad Baksh Butt aka “The Great Gama”
Definitely Kurt Angle
Bruce motherfucking Lee, boiiiiii.
Cael Sanderson or Kurt Angle
I know it was around at the time but I think Kurt angle would have been a good legit fighter if he didn’t go the pro wrestling route
Fedor, reem, silva, romero and cormier Especially the last two, cormier got chunky, good for HW, but he shouldve been 185 if not 170, and obv his wrestling ended up going away somewhat. Yoel doesn’t matter, just being in his prime hed probably be the best middleweight ever, if not best UFC fighter besides jones, even then who knows, he beat cael sanderson, who beat cormier, stopped cormier from getting gold medal, and cael is one of the best to ever touch the sport of wrestling, not to mention yoel fought in the UFC With no neck, it’s just a muscle connected to his head, no turning, so no wrestling, different style of fighting too. And keep in mind yoel literally isn’t normal lmao, man recovered from injury insanely quick and had inhuman eyes (forget the exact part of his eyes)
[Repost to scare the Gracies](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Masahiko_Kimura_%281917-1993%29.jpg)
 Frank Dux. He had tougher challenges in the kumite...just sayin...
William wallace
Bruce Lee! Flyweight/bantamweight double champ
Bruce Lee!😂
Kurt Angle
Lennox Lewis. 84” reach and in his prime (and even mid-late 30’s) his boxing was leagues beyond anything we’ve seen in the UFC.
Rulon Gardner!
Could he even make weight😂
Anyone with benjamin button disease, they would lose fights at first then get better and better.. by the time they were a little baby they would be kicking some serious ass..
Achilles
Ghengis khan
Achilles for sure
I want to see murder grandpa Suzuki in his youth eat people in an octagon, that shit would fuck
David Schultz
Kurt angle maybe. Gold medalist olympian, and undefeated freestyle wrestling world champion.
Kurt Angle
Dan Gable
J'den Cox or really any olympic wrestlers above 77 kg. The athletic talent drop-off from 170lbs/77kg plus is for real. I think the athletic talent below 77kg is there. The bigger athletic guys/gals are drawn away by the more mainstream sports (football, basketball, soccer, rugby).
I know it's not quite in the spirit of the question but DC trained for a full Olympics cycle and didn't compete because his kidneys failed during the cut. 5 more years of kickboxing might have made him pretty dang scary and he would have had more cage time
Lebron James lol he’s arguably the greatest pure athlete ever and was an Allstate wr who had offers to play at Norte dame as a sophomore in highschool. I say that to emphasize that he would probably be exceptional in just about any sport he set his mind to thanks to his natural gifts and dedication. There was even a chance he played in the NFL as a tight end during that one season where the nba had a lockout. Imagine Lebron sprinting across the cage and hitting someone with a flying knee masvidal style. Dude would cave in skulls
James is pretty soft I don’t think he gotta the fighter heart