Biggest forgone conclusion/most unnecessary fight in your opinion?

After BJ Penn’s recent mental struggles, I began thinking about some of the beatings in his career. He was my favourite fighter growing up and I remember when his fight against Nick Diaz at 170lbs was announced, I thought it was an absolutely impossible task for BJ to win. This fight was before his big loss streak, but BJ was someone who could’ve fought at 145, and often had fitness struggles, with his main strengths being boxing and bjj. Nick was someone who could fight at 185, had better boxing than BJ, good bjj, was known for some of the best cardio in the business and had a reach advantage. The fight played out exactly as expected and I believe Nick made some kind of record for strikes landed (someone correct me on this if I’m wrong). This made me wonder, which fights were the biggest foregone conclusions in your opinions? I remember some fights at the height of Anderson’s career felt like obvious routine victories, but his opponents were at least worthy challengers so the fights didn’t feel as unnecessary as BJ vs Nick. Were there any examples worse than this of legit mma pro’s (not James toney or CM Punk) having completely pointless fights where they were destined to get hurt? submitted by /u/Due-Mango1379 [link] [comments]