Secondly – I would still like to see hughes vs gracie but inside a ring this time .I believe a true BJJ practitioner would be a force inside any arena today . I see most of the guys lately using the techniques but in poor fashion . Most just have the locks but really dont have the smooth transition game . Just ask jiu jitsuman he probably see’s the same thing I do .the setups are there they just concentrate too much on the obvious and dont go for the off guard sub .

And when I said that Dan Severn, Ken Shamrock, Kimo, Keith Hackney, and all the rest that Royce beat weren’t significant I mean that as far as a record of who’s who in the world of MMA the only reason those guys were significant is because of their time frame. I personally think that all of them (except Kimo) played a huge part in bringing the UFC to what it is today. I remember watching them all fight. Severn was my fav but followed closely by Keith Hackney, I loved that fight with him and the sumo guy that he pretty much karate chopped to a victory! was great. But all of them were completely one dimentional, thats why I mean they weren’t anybody of significance, and when multi dimentional fighters came into play , Hughes beat Gracie, Tito beat Shamrock, Severn is still out there but he’s not really fighting anybody of significane, Tank gets beat by everybody, and even Oleg Taktarov is losing fights to new breads. Yes there age plays a factor for sure, but also the fact that the sport has evolved.

I doubt that the rules were created to hinder Royce’s performance. At the time of the superfight, the Gracies still ran the show, why would they intentionally try to handicap their fighter? I remember in either the second of third UFC they stated that the Gracie family was undefeated in fighting for decades, if that was the case, why would the Gracie family make a decision with the goal of jeopardizing that record. If my family had that kind of claim, and I ran the organization in which that record was being put on the line, I would do everything I could to keep that record in tact, not put it into more jeopardy.

if tanner were to have started his carrer today using the same methods he wouldnt have made it into the UFC let alone a championship, but thats because of the diversity of the sport now…

if he had as much training as “the greats” the only people who say he doesnt deserve to be in the HOF would be people who didnt like him because he beat there fav fighter… because with that training he would have been, no question, one of the greats….

and someone mentioned j.horn…. he deserves it too

As far as Royce not beating anyone… Dan Severn, Ken Shamrock, Pat Smith, Kimo. I know it was 15 years ago and the fighters are entirely different today than they were then. But don’t try to say that guys like Shamrock, Smith, and Kimo were insignificant.

And there is an ‘old’ vs ‘new’ in MMA. Yes boxing and Bernard Hopkins have been around a long time. But look at boxing pre and post Muhammad Ali, Are you going to tell me that Lenux Lewis or Roy Jones Jr would have been killed by such boxers as jack dempsey or joe lewis, or rocky marsiano? No way and simply because fighting and fighters evolve.

Every fighter in the UFC today would have ran through the fighters of UFC 1, they simply know more about a broad range of styles and that is what separates them and makes an old v young mentality. The time frame isn’t as important as the evolution of the fighter.

As for the old rules not being safe …I agree but it’s not like what they do is safe either . It would be like saying let’s fight just no hitting in the face or stomach .A true fight has no rules PERIOD …its you and him until its over .The best UFC fighter is not truely the best in the world , just the best at the UFC/MMA way to fight . You even had a proper finger joint lock applied ? thats why that was one move banned from the first UFC’s…. the fights would have been over in a minute . Its purely a life or death kinda move .picture an arm bar but one hand on the wrist the other bends your middle two fingers backwards until they break or submission