@Soldier_of_god
I will answer your question here so we don't go too OT in the commode.
@Curupira
fedor was way before my time, was he really that good? Like best ever at his peak?
Depends on your definition of the "Best Ever". Despite the "founding principles" of fighting remaining constant, the "metas" and skillsets are ever changing. So if we are talking about "Best Ever" in a sense of "technically and strategically most advanced" then I believe it will always favor the fighters that come along later. There may be stagnations where you don't see anyone surpass a certain person for a while, like Jon Jones now (and you can say for Fedor back then), but eventually newer guys will come around and will surpass their predecessors in terms of "techniques + strategy".
Now I will give you my definition: I like to compare people with the level of competition, and what judge what they have done. During his peak, Fedor beat all of his toughest competition, IMO, and very convincingly. And the one's he missed from UFC (Arlovski, Sylvia), he KTFOed them while they were all only slightly over their prime. So I don't know how you would rate him "all times" based on that, but he definitely was the best.
Skillset wise, Fedor had mean boxing but he was always a bit wild, so you'd see him get caught. Same with his grappling, he had slick moves but he didn't really possess a system where he suffocated people (like Khabib for example). What set him apart is his timing and his ability to not be restrained by the guard and basically punch a hole in people's head while they hold close guards (BJJ world champs at that - though there are asterisks here as well).
what about cro cop. Cro cop was old when he came to to ufc.
Cro Cop was a lot more one dimensional. He originally made his name in K-1 and K-1 started doing MMA/kickboxing crossover events on their New Year shows (K-1 Dynamite, Pride Shockwave). So he was always a kickboxing guy just doing enough to not get taken down or submitted while he tried to KTFO people.
In general, HWs are the least skilled groups because just throwing wild punches with their weight behind them can KTFO people, so you have a lot of Brett Rogers type of fighters, these are easy money for Cro Cop until he got old and injury prone. You have fighters who were grapplers making transition to MMA, these are the tricky fights for Cro Cop like Nogueira and Fedor. So to answer your question, even in his "PRIME" when he won the PRIDE Absolute tourney in 2006, he had favorable draws against smaller fighters and didn't have to fight Fedor. So at his best he was never Championship tier.
I know cage vs boxing ring can make a difference too. Guys like miocic, Cain and dc would be even more scary in a ring.
For sure. Ring favors grapplers a lot more
