RealGM

I'm bored at work, so I decided to throw together a HW GP just for fun. I took the seedings from FightMatrix's rankings (they may not be the best, but at least they are unbiased). I took out Mousasi, because I don't think a fight against Mark Hunt in a freak show tournament makes him a top 10 HW. Next on the list would be Ray Mercer, and, well, just...no. So I put in Heath Herring, who ranks 18.

Anyway, here is the bracket

#1 Fedor Emelianenko
#16 Heath Herring

#8 Brett Rogers
#9 Shane Carwin

#5 Josh Barnett
#12 Mirko Cro Cop

#4 Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera
#13 Cain Velasquez

#6 Randy Couture
#11 Fabricio Werdum

#3 Brock Lesnar
#14 Jeff Monson

#7 Junior Dos Santos
#10 Andrei Arlovski

#2 Frank Mir
#15 Alistair Overeem

First guy in each matchup to get 5 votes wins and moves on.

Forgot my own picks....included a little reasoning, just for the sake of discussion

Fedor (a walk)

Carwin (kind of a tough call...I've been more impressed with Carwin, but AA is a bigger win than Gonzaga)

Barnett (even though Cro Cop is 3-0 against him, I'd still pick Barnett today)

Velasquez (I'm not sure if the Nog that fought Mir is the real one, but that one gets smoked by anyone in this tournament...if the old Nog shows up, then it's a fight)

Werdum (I think Randy is done, and Werdum is a top fighter)

Lesnar (Monson's ground game makes this closer than it should be, but if I'm picking Brock over Mir, I have to stick with him over Monson)

Arlovski (Junior has a lot of potential and could put AA to sleep, but I still think AA is the better fighter right now)

Mir (strange that the 2 vs. 15 fight was so tough to call for me....I think Mir has been kind of lucky and is way overrated right now, but I think I'd still have to pick him in a fight against Overeem at this point)

As irrelevant as Cro Cop has become, 4-0 is where that's going.

Fedor
Carwin
Josh
Big Nog
Couture
Lesnar
Arlovski
Overeem

CPT wrote:Forgot my own picks....included a little reasoning, just for the sake of discussion

Fedor (a walk)

Carwin (kind of a tough call...I've been more impressed with Carwin, but AA is a bigger win than Gonzaga)

Barnett (even though Cro Cop is 3-0 against him, I'd still pick Barnett today)

Velasquez (I'm not sure if the Nog that fought Mir is the real one, but that one gets smoked by anyone in this tournament...if the old Nog shows up, then it's a fight)

Werdum (I think Randy is done, and Werdum is a top fighter)

Lesnar (Monson's ground game makes this closer than it should be, but if I'm picking Brock over Mir, I have to stick with him over Monson)

Arlovski (Junior has a lot of potential and could put AA to sleep, but I still think AA is the better fighter right now)

Mir (strange that the 2 vs. 15 fight was so tough to call for me....I think Mir has been kind of lucky and is way overrated right now, but I think I'd still have to pick him in a fight against Overeem at this point)

I am in agreement with all of your picks except the Arlovski one. Dos Santos has mad power in his hands and we all know about Arlovski's chin. Dos Santos by KO in the 2nd.

Fedor
Carwin
Barnett
Nogueira
Werdum
Monson.....sorry, Monson would tap Lesnar almost as fast as Mir did.
Dos Santos
Mir

Update...

Fedor 4
Herring 0

Carwin 4
Rogers 0

Barnett 4
Cro Cop 0 (Cammo, if you want to vote for CC, you might as well make picks for the other fights as well)

Velasquez 2
Noguiera 2

Werdum 3
Couture 1

Lesnar 3
Monson 1

Arlovski 2
Dos Santos 2

Mir 3
Overeem 1


I`d like to stick with the original plan of having the first guy to 5 votes advance, but maybe it should just be a best of 5, given the size of this board, and the level of interest.

Either way, a few more votes would be nice.

crap, i want to change josh vs cc to CC winning not Josh. Winning or having won against Josh 3 times has got to count for something even though Crocop's sucking hard now.

How are you basing these rankings? Overeem at 15?

Phil Jackson wrote:How are you basing these rankings? Overeem at 15?

Like I said in the OP, I used the rankings from FightMatrix. They are computer-based rankings, so while they may not be perfect, at least they aren't biased.

I don't see much problem with Overeem's ranking either. Based on what he could do, yeah, he should be higher. Based on his actual results at HW, he's around the right spot IMO.