I’d rather see Gary/Brady with the winner fighting Buckley. Shavkat is already number one contender and I hope he is healthy enough to fight the winner of Belal/JDM in the fall.
this doesn’t look bad. I have to try really hard to look past Ryan Bader playing Mark Coleman though lmao
I just saw a depressing post that said that there are only four active fighters left from the entire WEC roster. Dustin Poirier (has his retirement fight coming up) Cub Swanson (had his retirement fight already but seemingly changed his mind immediately after lol) Jose Aldo (retired and unretired already) Rani Yahya (unranked, hasn't fought in a year). I looked at a few different rosters, and I realized that at least within the UFC, there are single-digit fighters left from WEC, PRIDE and Strikeforce combined. Miesha Tate and Michael Chandler are the only two fighters who fought in Strikeforce (now that Anthony Smith retired). 0 from PRIDE, IIRC. Beyond that, you have a few random people like Aoki, Yoel and Mousasi who are floating around looking for fights elsewhere. Anyone else still "active" are basically the washed up guys signed up for this old-man Global Fight League that will honestly probably fold before anything happens. I know we've been slowly moving into a "new era" for quite a while now, but having no one left from these three major promotions that got absorbed into the UFC once upon a time will be a truly major milestone.
Bo needs to go down to 170 if he thinks he can grapple his way to success in the Octagon. RDR looked massive compared to him.
Im not going to hate on him too much because I do think he’ll get better, but yeah all this talk about wanting Khamzat had me a little puzzled lol. RDR was a terrible stylistic matchup for him though. Big, strong grappler who could neutralize the wrestling but also had the striking style and fight IQ to work his body and drain his gas tank. I thought Paul Craig could have done something similar but I think his grappling is too accepting of bottom position and his striking doesn’t have enough impact.
After his lackluster fights with Brundage/Craig I think this performance is pretty bad. His striking just isn’t there and after last night, I’m going to call it an huge liability. Anyone that can defend the takedown in the top 10 is going to piece him up.
Yeah, I just mean that I don't really think he's like a fraud or anything but maybe that's just because I didn't buy into the hype. He looks like a guy who is still learning but has one tool that is elite enough to put him ahead of anyone else who has only been fighting for four years. RDR is a two-weight champion in ONE and has UFC wins over Holland and GMIII so no shame in losing to him. I just don't really think any different of Bo after Saturday. We all knew that the primary reason his striking worked against lower-level opponents was because they were scared of the takedown, but that doesn't work against better competition. Even though he was yapping about feeling like a natural striker, we all knew that he would need more than a few years to become competent.
As an Aussie it pains me to say it, but I'll be very shocked if JDM pulls it out this weekend. In fact, I think he gets smoked.
It will be interesting, I dont think Belal will be able to pressure him the same as he did as Leon by staying in range and jabbing because JDM should be able to punish that with superior boxing and an output level that leon is afraid of. Thing is Belal always comes in with a great plan and sticks to it, while JDM does dumbshit :(
Yep. I just don't think he's anywhere near championship caliber (yet). He barely beat Hafez and Hollard and was on his way to a loss against Gilbert.
Cannot find the tweet from yesterday but someone said Bo was to fight Rob if he won and when RDR won he told the UFC give me that mother fucker instead then probably bullshit but I’ll believe it cause it sounds like Bobby Knuckles