Josh Thomson knows how to get the media and fans talking as much about his actions outside the cage as about his actual fights. Never one to shy away from his sharing his opinion, "The Punk" is back at it again.
Speaking to Damon Martin of Fox Sports, Thomson basically said that anyone who fights above 155 pounds isn't as good as everyone who fights in the lighter weight classes:
You hit 185, 205 and heavyweight, those guys are always just good at like one thing, two things, but they're not great all the way around. There's ways to finish them. So if you're a well-rounded athlete, you can finish those guys. You can find ways to finish those guys.
With 55-pounders and below, good luck, man. Everybody's good all around -- they're good wrestlers, they're good jiu-jitsu guys, they're good stand up guys, they're game to throw down and they're always in shape. ...
You start getting in the 185's, 205, heavyweight, they start being one-dimensional, two-dimensional fighters. They're not mixed martial artists. They're not as good as the 55-pounders and below. They're just not. To me that's just a fact.
Thomson would add that the welterweight division was his cutoff point (or the division in "limbo," as he put it) for deciding when guys stop being mixed martial artists.
It's a notion that Thomson expressed due to fans (and likely UFC President Dana White) calling for Thomson to finish fights rather than head to the judge's scorecards. The outspoken fighter shared his thoughts on lighter weight classes and scorecards in the aforementioned Fox Sports piece.
What's surprising (or I guess it shouldn't be considering Thomson's past) is that Thomson would use such a blanket statement to cover everyone who fights above lightweight.
You're telling me that guys like Jon Jones, Chris Weidman, Cain Velasquez, Rashad Evans, Gegard Mousasi, Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza, Lyoto Machida and others aren't well-rounded? Sure, they may excel in typically one or two areas, but they also aren't completely inept in others.
There are plenty of guys who have risen to the top 10 in their respective divisions despite a glaring weakness that opponents can key in on.
If you look at the pound-for-pound rankings you'll also notice that three out of the top five and five out of the top 10 come in weight classes that Thomson isn't fond of.
Thomson will also likely have to do some clarifying to his American Kickboxing Academy teammates as well. The aforementioned Velasquez, Luke Rockhold and light heavyweight contender (and former heavyweight contender) Daniel Cormier all train with Thomson.
