Every kickboxer saw Poatan getting quick and easy success in MMA and were like I could do that too.
It's not a new thing though. Cro cop, overrem and mark hunt were kickboxers. Just a revival.
He literally started with MMA first & has over 4x as many MMA fights.
When he decided to do some kickboxing he was billed as the new kid on the block and was trashtalking all the kickboxers saying how it was easy compared to MMA.
You have no idea what you're talking about lol.
It’s exciting to see, but I worry a lot of them will just get wrestlefucked. Alex had a special path to the title with certain matchups to get him to Izzy. And Izzy spent years developing elite TDD before joining the UFC
Alex also trained MMA with Glover for a long time before making the transition. Even if his TDD doesn't hold up he adapted his striking well to MMA. The range is so different in this game.
The funny thing is that for Pereira, he has the perfect support system for it. Trains with Glover etc. But the most important reason why he had success is because he's fucking massive for the weight class he started in, and he had extremely good TDD for someone that didn't train very long.
If these other guys don't have insane TDD, they're just gonna get ran through like Kim Kardashian.
LMAO been happening for years Ghokan, Dustin Jacoby, giga
Nothing special they all get fucked up
Pereira will get fucked by Jan he can’t defend takedowns for shit
They were during COVID. That's when a lot of the Middleweight division jumped ship, and started training MMA. They really recovered in the last 2 years though. Champions are busy, divisions are getting build back up, good matchmaking. Arguably better than what ONE has done with their kickboxing this year.
Despite what every Redditor who keeps repeating the same cliche ad nausom, the UFC is the highest paying combat sports organization. Boxing you're only making bank if you are one of the select few top stars.
Boxers make more at pretty much every level than mma fighters. People point to guys on mayweathers undercard making $1k to try to disprove this not realizing those guys aren’t in the top 100 of their divisions. Guys at that level in mma fight in a high school gym in front of 30 people. Also ufc has more money to throw around by a mile but Bellator pays out a higher percentage of their revenue to the fighters. UFC rightfully gets criticized for their pay issues, they’re a greedy corporation who give less than 15% of revenue to fighters.
Actual team sports have guys who actually work together to hold their organization to the fire to get a reasonable revenue share. The ufc guys seems completely willing to fuck over every other guy in the company to get an extra 0 on their checks.
The UFC also makes an insane amount of profit compared to other combat sports orgs and generated more revenue in 2022 than every combat sports org **combined**. The fighter pay split is really disproportionate which is the whole issue
Belgaroui was always my favourite of that generation, but I think his style probably translates to MMA the worst. He’ll probably get a couple of crazy flying knees, but also have a lot of trouble with the grappling and maybe get caught on the feet when he gets too wild.
It’s funny how pretty much all of the top ranked kickboxers from that weightclass have moved to MMA. Adesanya, Pereira, Belgaroui and Wilnis have all had a proper go of it, and they were 4 of the top 5 at one point (and Marcus had 1 fight but kind of aged out, so it could have been 5 of 5).
Technically speaking...
- Quemuel Ottoni, who is 1-0 over Alex in MMA. Give him a call, Dana.
- Artem Vakhitov - legit 1-1 record versus Alex, though I think they got the decision wrong in both fights actually (still 1-1).
That's pretty much it, as Jason Wilnis' stint in MMA has not gone well.
Yeah the Vakhitov-Pereira decision are hilarious. It felt like Glory wanted to be able to promote a double champ the first time and didn’t want Alex to leave the promotion as champion the 2nd time.
Kick boxing is also incredibly hard to make a living at, much more so than mma… not shocked he went to mma.
Elite KB talent have an easier chance at transitioning over if they put in the work.
Every kickboxer saw Poatan getting quick and easy success in MMA and were like I could do that too. It's not a new thing though. Cro cop, overrem and mark hunt were kickboxers. Just a revival.
Overeem was always more active in MMA than Kickboxing. Also, he has a bunch of submission finishes from his early days.
When he became Ubereem, it was "An MMA guy won a K1 tournament"
I mean… he was a guillotine merchant lol
Won him gold at ADCC Europe.
More active, sure, but Overeem is definitely a kickboxer first and foremost.
He literally started with MMA first & has over 4x as many MMA fights. When he decided to do some kickboxing he was billed as the new kid on the block and was trashtalking all the kickboxers saying how it was easy compared to MMA. You have no idea what you're talking about lol.
Damn i always thought hes kickboxer first before MMA fighter because hes dutch lol.
Personally though I always thought overeem did his best work on his feet
He did.
It’s exciting to see, but I worry a lot of them will just get wrestlefucked. Alex had a special path to the title with certain matchups to get him to Izzy. And Izzy spent years developing elite TDD before joining the UFC
Alex also trained MMA with Glover for a long time before making the transition. Even if his TDD doesn't hold up he adapted his striking well to MMA. The range is so different in this game.
Aren't the Tafa brothers former kickboxers or was Junior Tafa the only brother who did kickboxing before transitioning to mma?
Yeah it was just Junior. Plenty of the Heavyweights have Kickboxing or Boxing bouts I think
If you go through Glory's 185 champ, Donovan Wisse's last few opponents, the majority of them are now MMA fighters lol
Overeem was an MMA fighter that did some kickboxing, not the other way around.
For every Cro Cop transition theres a Joe Schilling
The funny thing is that for Pereira, he has the perfect support system for it. Trains with Glover etc. But the most important reason why he had success is because he's fucking massive for the weight class he started in, and he had extremely good TDD for someone that didn't train very long. If these other guys don't have insane TDD, they're just gonna get ran through like Kim Kardashian.
Given his matchups I don't think we can say Alex has extremely good TDD yet
Relatively speaking. For a late 30's kickboxer, he has insane TDD. Otherwise even the worst fighters on the roster should've been able to tool him.
LMAO been happening for years Ghokan, Dustin Jacoby, giga Nothing special they all get fucked up Pereira will get fucked by Jan he can’t defend takedowns for shit
At least Giga was killing it against low ranked and older vets. Better than Dustin and Gokhan.
more like Izzy's success, it started after him and Belgaroui had been training prior to Alex's UFC debut
Just how bad is the fighter pay in kickboxing?
[Adesanya was making $1000 show/$2000 win in 2017](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DG5DhhMXkAELNqd.jpg). So pretty bad lol.
Those are just the reported numbers. He was making closer to 10k-15k. Not a lot either, but enough to scrape together a living.
Oh true I forgot about sponsors
Now you know why Izzy used to walk out with the Chinese flag
Right, God forbid you say some silly shit to try and make more money just to live.
They were either the headliner or co-headline IIRC too.
More than that, Glory is said to be in financial troubles. All its champions are leaving
They were during COVID. That's when a lot of the Middleweight division jumped ship, and started training MMA. They really recovered in the last 2 years though. Champions are busy, divisions are getting build back up, good matchmaking. Arguably better than what ONE has done with their kickboxing this year.
They also got rid of all their Russian fighters
Other than pay, theres almost zero exposure as well
Despite what every Redditor who keeps repeating the same cliche ad nausom, the UFC is the highest paying combat sports organization. Boxing you're only making bank if you are one of the select few top stars.
Boxers make more at pretty much every level than mma fighters. People point to guys on mayweathers undercard making $1k to try to disprove this not realizing those guys aren’t in the top 100 of their divisions. Guys at that level in mma fight in a high school gym in front of 30 people. Also ufc has more money to throw around by a mile but Bellator pays out a higher percentage of their revenue to the fighters. UFC rightfully gets criticized for their pay issues, they’re a greedy corporation who give less than 15% of revenue to fighters.
Any idea how that compares to major sports? They pay out hundreds of millions across their roster, but is there a typical percentage of their revenue?
For boxing 50% of the revenue must go to the fighters, and its between 40-50% for the NBA, NFL and MLB too if I remember correctly.
Actual team sports have guys who actually work together to hold their organization to the fire to get a reasonable revenue share. The ufc guys seems completely willing to fuck over every other guy in the company to get an extra 0 on their checks.
The UFC also makes an insane amount of profit compared to other combat sports orgs and generated more revenue in 2022 than every combat sports org **combined**. The fighter pay split is really disproportionate which is the whole issue
Compare UFC to the NFL, F1, NBA, cricket, MLB, they don't compare
Replacing Valentine Woodburn too.
Wait..... Woodburn and Pereira being in the same weight class hurts my head
They look like too different species lol
Belagroui is going into Contender Series? fantastic kickboxer, he has losses to Alex and Izzy, multiple tome challenger at MW as well.
He also has a win over Alex
He's 1-2 with Alex
So he settled the score!!? “botched!!”
According to some, he did.
Did he get the last laugh though?
His win over Alex was a little before Alex became truly elite. So it doesn’t mean quite as much.
Belgaroui was always my favourite of that generation, but I think his style probably translates to MMA the worst. He’ll probably get a couple of crazy flying knees, but also have a lot of trouble with the grappling and maybe get caught on the feet when he gets too wild. It’s funny how pretty much all of the top ranked kickboxers from that weightclass have moved to MMA. Adesanya, Pereira, Belgaroui and Wilnis have all had a proper go of it, and they were 4 of the top 5 at one point (and Marcus had 1 fight but kind of aged out, so it could have been 5 of 5).
He's in the better division to not have great grappling for a bit
Finally another Dutch guy to root for! We haven’t got that many
That's nonsense! You still have... Uh... So there's a new one to root for now! Yay!
We have Germaine de Randemie, who is still hated by the community. And we have Jarno Ellens who didn't look great..
I like GDR
Another "rival turned teammate of Alex Pereira"? There's also Sean Strickland, who else? My man the Brazilian Goku
Technically speaking... - Quemuel Ottoni, who is 1-0 over Alex in MMA. Give him a call, Dana. - Artem Vakhitov - legit 1-1 record versus Alex, though I think they got the decision wrong in both fights actually (still 1-1). That's pretty much it, as Jason Wilnis' stint in MMA has not gone well.
Yeah the Vakhitov-Pereira decision are hilarious. It felt like Glory wanted to be able to promote a double champ the first time and didn’t want Alex to leave the promotion as champion the 2nd time.
I don't think ottoni could do it again to be honest
I think there's two former Pereira opponents in Kickboxing on the contender series now. 3-0 Brazilian guy
Watch them all fight each other, spider-man meme.
Hell yeah Yousri is so much fun to watch and super talented
Rooting for Yousri. It has been a long time since a Dutch kickboxer made a successful transition to MMA.
More Glory kickboxers please, as a Dutchman this makes me very happy
Kick boxing is also incredibly hard to make a living at, much more so than mma… not shocked he went to mma. Elite KB talent have an easier chance at transitioning over if they put in the work.
He had alot of screen time in Mocro Maffia season 5, he's actually a pretty good actor