Cung Le, Legend or not?

Last night I watched Frank Shamrock vs Cung Le again (Great fight!!) And I was thinking was Shamrock much better back then than he was when he fought Diaz or will Cung Le also look out of his depth against the younger generation of fighers?

Its interesting that Jake Shields is convinced that Cung dropped his belt rather than fought him. Scott Smith is a good fighter but not exactly top 20 or anything. This should really show were Cung is at, if he doesnt win this and look good perhaps he isnt as good as his hype suggests, after all Frank was the only good MMA opponent he has faced.

How do people think he will stack up to the Current Mw devision? could he cope with Diaz's reach and speed? Does he have a groundgame or good enough Td defence to fight Shields? Could he beat Lawler? Would Jacare tap him?

I really hope Hendo joins Strikeforce as a Mw because a fight with a legend like Hendo would really put him to the test and Id imagine it would sell a lot of tickets!

Do people see him as a part time fighter and nothing more or does he have the potential to be one of the top Mw's around? He certainly has an akward style, Like Machida he probabally is hard to prepare for.

Cung's still got a lot to prove. I don't think his heart is in the sport so we might never find out just how good he could be. His victory over Frank Shamrock, who unfortunately was past his best, is his only real achievment in MMA so far. I'd like to see him fight Jake Shields, it would give him a real test and hopefully answer some of the questions about his ground game etc...

I don't like him personally, overated. I was never a huge Frank Shamrock either and thats his biggest win. He is exciting to watch IMO not that great he is like 37 and more intrested in making shitty movies. I like Scott Smith, he was top 20 for a while but he isn't the greatest fighter in the world. Lawler is very overated IMO, he has lost to plenty of average fighters and still has a terrible ground game. I think Shields could easily defeat Le by taking him down and controlling the fight. Jacare would tap him with little problems and Diaz's energy and versitility would be too much. Lets not even get into what Hendo would do to him, he would either KTFO of him ala Bisping or take him down and GnP his ass. There are plenty of other MWs who could beat him as well, ofcoarse A Silva would wipe the floor with him, and Belfort & Nate would have little problems as well. Even guys like Sonnen, Maia, Wandy (right now) Sexyama and Belcher could beat him. I just don't really like him and I hope he fights Shields soon.

He's too small to be seriously competitive with top middleweights on a consistent basis. He weighed something like 178lbs for his fight against Shamrock. And he hasn't really fought any top middleweights, Shamrock hasn't been relevant since 2000. And he's too old to make some kind of big middleweight run against legit competitors.

hasnt really proved anything to me i think if shamrock had gone for more takedowns he would have beat him and thats his only good win i think he will beat smith but its after that where it gets interesting he will have to face one of the top fighters and cant see him beating Jacare,Shields or if hendo signs him id like to see a match between cung le/lawler if he gets past smith

Shanemc wrote:hasnt really proved anything to me i think if shamrock had gone for more takedowns he would have beat him and thats his only good win i think he will beat smith but its after that where it gets interesting he will have to face one of the top fighters and cant see him beating Jacare,Shields or if hendo signs him id like to see a match between cung le/lawler if he gets past smith

Shammy just wanted to put on an entertaining fight/couldnt shoot for takedowns anyway, otherwise why would he have stood with Baroni (poor ground game) and Le (unknown ground game, but has to be a weakness)?

I think its safe to say that a prime shamrock would have destroyed Le.

check this out:

manschesthair_utd wrote:

Shanemc wrote:hasnt really proved anything to me i think if shamrock had gone for more takedowns he would have beat him and thats his only good win i think he will beat smith but its after that where it gets interesting he will have to face one of the top fighters and cant see him beating Jacare,Shields or if hendo signs him id like to see a match between cung le/lawler if he gets past smith

Shammy just wanted to put on an entertaining fight/couldnt shoot for takedowns anyway, otherwise why would he have stood with Baroni (poor ground game) and Le (unknown ground game, but has to be a weakness)?

I think its safe to say that a prime shamrock would have destroyed Le.

check this out:

agreed prime Shamrock would stopped Cung

Prime Shamrock would IMO beat any MW or WW not named GSP, Hendo or Anderson Silva.

Shamrock doesn't fight to win. He fights to entertain and to make money.


As for Cung Le, Martial Arts Legend = Yes. Mixed Martial Arts Legend = No. But still a good fighter and hugely exciting to watch.

Apart from Bas Rutten I think Frank Shamrock is the only figher from the 1st generation of MMA fighters who would cut if if they were around today, I think he could have won that figth with Cung had his arm not broken, he looked to be on the offence in the 3rd ever wobbling Cung.

I love Cung Le's slams and suplexes in Sansho, He has a good wrestling background so maby he has a groundgame, and he does BJJ according to good ol Wikipedia! I wonder how good? I guess we wont know untill he is tested but at his age I suppose its a bit late to carve out a legacy even if he does well.

I think he might be in it for Big name fights after this if he doesnt want to go after his old title. Maby a fight with Sakuraba? Maby Minowa in Japan would be cool to see? I think young guys like Diaz would put a beating on him.

I have to come to Cung's defence here, he's probably my absolute favourite fighter, despite appearing less often than Haley's comet.....

He has probably the most extreme style of any fighter, and it can never be said that he doesn't come to fight hard every time. He has probably the hardest leg kicks in MMA, I've often read that people in his gym refuse to hold the pads for him because he hits so hard that he's broken ribs and forearms through the pads in the past. He has a solid chin, he might not have faced the heaviest handed guys out there, but he took the best shots of Shamrock and laughed them off.
He was never beaten in Kickboxing, never beaten in MMA, all wins by TKO.

There might not be any evidence that he's top 10 currently, purely becasue of inactivity and quality of opponents, but there's absolutely no evidence that he isn't. His record literally couldn't be any better!

I think Scott Smith is his 2nd toughest MMA opponent to date, I think we wont really know untill he steps up against better opposition. Id like him to fight Lawler, Jacare, Shields or Diaz if he won one of those fights he would be top 10 assuming he gets past Smith, but I cant see him not winnin there. I do have doubts wether he can beat the 4 mentioned and im a big fan of Cung as well.

Like Paulo I'm a huge Cung fan his style is just so unorthodox his Kicking is absolutely deadly plus he has great take down defence i really hope he fight Shields as i see The Blanket being put to sleep by Cung very early as Jake has horrible stand up.

The Scott Smith fight has stand up war all over it I like Smith he has had 2 FOTY contenders this year in the Diaz and the fucking brilliant Radach fight.

Hope this Event is on TV but I doubt it sadly

ID say it will be, the last Strikeforce was on TV, I was expecting to see thais one as well.

rudeboyben84 wrote:ID say it will be, the last Strikeforce was on TV, I was expecting to see thais one as well.

I hope so but the last event was Co Promoted by M-1 who have a deal with Bravo already so I'm not too optimistic

Looks a solid card with Thompson & Melendez rematching and Jacare vs Lindland plus King MO and Robbie Lawler in action too I'm staying up for this even on a shitty stream.