Damn, that's close. Crazy that they were both only 24 (though I guess Shogun was only 23 for all of the fights).
You forgot Hiromitsu Kanehara for Shogun, lol. I think that pushes him over the top
. Complete and utter can of an opponent, but there is something to be said for getting 5 wins inside a calendar year. Hell, he got them by the end of August.
The Overeem win probably seems better now than it was at the time, while Lil Nog and Arona have probably lost a bit of shine, yet those wins are top quality.
Rampage and Rampage kind of cancel each other out. I'd give an edge to 2005, just because he was in his prime, but he wasn't in particularly good form at that point in time, so it's not a huge edge.
Can I just say how ridiculous that bracket was for the MW GP? Maybe it didn't look as bad at the time, but that was some shady ****. Can't find a picture of the bracket, but one side had Sakuraba vs. Yoon Dong-sik, Arona vs. some god damn Dean Lister, Randleman vs. Nakamura, and Wandy vs. Yoshida, while the other side had Overeem vs. Belfort, Igor vs. Kondo, Hendo vs. Lil Nog, and Shogun vs. Rampage.