His age is an issue, but again, that’s not a universal thing. When people want Nog and Wand retired in their early 30’s, but say Couture is at his best at 40+ it’s obvious that “age” isn’t a guaranteed deterministic factor. Age is just one of those red herrings at this point and I kinda figured some people would realize it’s more about the fight and the results.

He isn’t in the UFC now, but he was, and that’s part of what I find so interesting. When we look at not just him, but also his opponents we see a lot of people that are “UFC” kind of guys. Boetsch was big for his win over Heath, and although he’s lost a couple more Vlad gave him his first loss.

We see wins against Pedro (Bigger deal back then), and even Lambert (Win over Sobral), etc.

It’s not just who Vlad beat, but who those people beat. He really has had just a solid career against solid people. Do you really think the fact that those wins didn’t all take place in the “UFC” makes that big a difference? Even when he’s beating still beating “UFC” fighters?

Sadly, I have seen him called a can, and I have had people claim he’s not even “top 20″. That is always amusing because most can’t name me 20 other light heavies to put ahead of him, but oh well.

I don’t remember ever seeing 145lb fights until a few years ago. There were no names fighting each other consistantly. They wern’t getting featured like the heavier weightclasses. I think that made it harder for the light weight classes to consistantly have the level of opponents that the LHWs were able to achieve and that is why they in general have a much lower career strength of schedule.

Some things that work against Matyushenko

-His age
-Slightly one dimentional
-He isn’t in the UFC – It is amazing how strong this plays into peoples minds. If Matyushenko had recently fought the exact same people in the UFC people might have had a much better opinion of his abilities when he was on his 8 fight win streak.

I don’t think most people consider him a “can”. More like just a solid fighter, who can beat other good fighters but probably not great ones.

What gets me about Vladimir is that his only losses are to: AA, Tito, Nog (whom he’d previously beaten) and Vernon (whom he’d previously beaten).

I just feel that if I were a new fighter starting out in MMA and someone told me I’d go 22-4 against *SOLID* competition overall I’d be pretty happy with that. Yet somehow Vladimir seems to remain mostly unnoticed.

Faber obviously has the title defenses and is a bit higher profile from being at the top of a division, but looking at the overall numbers both of their careers are pretty impressive in my opinion.

Vladimir has been around for awhile (97), but the only year he didn’t have a fight was 04. He was 5-0 in 07 with a couple decent wins (gave Boetsch his first loss).

He’s just one of those fighters that makes me wonder how some can look at “Top 10″ and act like no one else exists. What is it about him that makes him a “can” to some?

That eliminated Fedor, GSP and Silva since they are usually considered the top 3, and eliminated Penn, Rashad, Machida for no belt defenses, and left possibly Brown, Torres, and Faber.

I could eliminate Torres because I know no one with a 37-2 record.

I could eliminate Brown for not having a recent loss.

Then I just had to use the List Builder to find someone within a 2% strength of schedule of Faber who has a 22-4 record, the same KOs and less Subs.

Did you figure out Faber first and then work from there?

Fighter A = Urijah Faber
Fighter B = Vladimir Matyushenko

One fighter is basically synonymous with a particular weight class, the other seems to almost never get mentioned.

There’s no doubt a lot of people know Fighter B and some give them credit, but a lot of people have no clue who they are. Even worse, there are some that have gone so far as to call them a “can” and that seems beyond ludicrous to me. I’m not advocating Fighter B as “top 5″ here or anything silly. Just that they appear to have a solid career, beat some solid people, lost to some great people, and maybe just maybe “can” is a bit too harsh a term. *shrugs*

*sigh*

Aside from that, I think your hints are fine, so I’m not asking for further elaboration.

Not sure how I missed Pyle…