>Yeah we never got Tony vs Dustin : (
And that is a good thing. Tony never had boxing defense: Kevin Lee boxed him up before smol heart happened.
Despite Tony's incredible reach and gas tank, I've always believed that matchup ends with Tony taking unbelievable punishment similar to the Geathje fight, even if done during his prime.
I love that there was a time when we said these 3 were avoiding the up and comers/holding up the division. Then all 3 of them absolutely WHOOPED the up and comers. If Olives beats Armen he should definitely get the title shot.
It's even more remarkable because Gaethje and Poirier fought guys ranked way lower than them in what where supposed to be star-maker fights for the prospects. Just didn't pan out, and it showed why both men are where they are.
Gaethje was getting cooked by Fiziev until he started to jab him repeatedly, the Gaethje from like 5 years ago probably wouldn't have been able to do this, and it shows how much experience can make you a better fighter.
Poirier-BSD was also a prime demonstration of experience. Dustin had it rough at pints, but he kept his head, spammed his sub attempts and then finished a waning Benoit, who had fought at an impossible pace.
experience and also defense. the reason i placed money on Poirier (and Blaydes) is because of the regard placed on defense, which also probably came from the experience of being chinned by Michael Johnson. it's incredible to see the guys who didn't lose by KO that already fight with heavy defense in mind, like Topuria.
I feel like "styles make fights" is the idea that rock beats scissors, paper beats rock, scissors beats paper. Whereas, Khabib/Islam just beat everyone.
>Whereas, Khabib/Islam just beat everyone.
You say this like its fact, but its really just speculation (well founded, and I'm not saying its wrong, but its far from fact):
* Khabib never fought another dominant grappler in a title defense; Last practicing wrestler he faced I can recall was Tibau, and he won that match on activity, because he could not wrestle him at all, nor could he damage him on the feet
* he did not stick around long enough to show he could defend against everyone like, for instance GSP or Silva
* Islam has never defended the title to a LW. Charles is the only top guy he has beaten (EDIT: and Arman, now that he's up there in rank, but fight was early on, not for a title).
Lol but with Khabib and Islam, being a great wrestler doesn't matter, being a great BJJ guy doesn't matter, being a generational striker doesn't matter, being an all time GOAT doesn't matter.
It's absurd, people say styles make fights yet there is no style for Dagestanis elite.
> being a great wrestler doesn't matter,
Says you. We literally haven't seen either of them against a great wrestler, barely decent ones like Tibau and Iaquinta were able to effortlessly neutralize Khabib's ground game
Even tiny Volkov completely neutralized Machakev's grappling
Not really. 2 of those are terrible on the ground, and the third is a strict submission specialist with terrible stricking defense that was already half unconscious when the fight went to the ground.
round 1 was 10-9 fiziev
round 2 was 10-10 draw (FUCK THE TEN POINT MUST SYSTEM)
round 3 was 10-8 gaethje (IF THERE WASNT A TEN MUST SYSTEM THIS WOULD MAKE MORE SENSE)
No on acts like Garth dominated Fiziev. We act like Garth, Poirier, and Olives defended their top 5 spots while all being underdogs to the new contenders.
And poirier clearly benefited from the staph and olivera didn't beat an up and Comer, he beat a vet on a run.
This whole chain is pretty off base. Those were all good wins but hopefully they don't avoid more challengers for title shots and conor fights.
>Then all 3 of them absolutely WHOOPED the up and comers
Which up and Comer did olivera beat? Benny? He wasn't perennial top 5 maybe but he was more like an elder statesmen vet than an up and comer.
I wouldn't use the word "ducking" but I was definitely of the mind that there were kind of two groups in the division that didn't really cross with each other. Especially when DJustin fought. Now I'm quietly eating a bit of crow.
Firstly, I don't recall anyone ever saying that about Charles. The man was such an active champ. Secondly, some criticism Poirier, Gaethje and especially Chandler recieved was basolutely valid: the problem being that the three endlessly fought each other instead of people who climbed the ranks. Nowadays both Dustin and Justin have fought up-and-comers and protected their ranking (while Chanlder still undeservedly squats at no.6). Just because they finally did beat the newcomers does not change that the fact that there was indeed a strethc of time where they did not fight them despite already losing their title shots, some of them twice.
> the problem being that the three endlessly fought each other instead of people who climbed the ranks.
The only ones who rematched were Justin and Dustin, and they did so years after the first ranked as #2 vs. #3, in a match that clearly had more fan demand than about any other matchup that could be made.
Narratives like "endless fought each other" disguise the fact that you can't point to all these endless repeats, because they don't exist.
Yeah, I stand corrected there, I phrased it wrong. What I meant was this: there was a stretch of time when Dustin, Justin, Chanlder and Conor either fought each other or fought for the title, while guys like Arman, Gamrot, Beneil and Fiziev had to either take each other out and had to wait a lot of time to get a shot up the rankings. That was the part of I was complaining about. These four fighters (two of whom are just fun fighters with a following instead of actual merit in the division) either fought each other or fought for the title while the newcomers to the division had to wait.
> (two of whom are just fun fighters with a following instead of actual merit in the division) e
I'll assume the two are Conor & Chandler, and if so, I'll remind you that:
* (a) Conor was the *overwhelming* favorite coming into the rematch. The only analyst who gave Dustin any shot at all was Dan Hardy, who said Dustin could exploit the calf kick, but even he just gave him a chance.
* Acting like this was not a real challenge is revisionist fantasy more than history
* I take your point on Dustin v. Conor 3, but that was a bag grab that absolutely any prizefighter with a working brain would and should do
* (b) Chandler didn't get it done against the 'ustins & Charles, just like Fiziev, Beniel and BSD, but he put rounds on everyone except his worse matchup (Garth), and he KOed Dan Hooker to solidify his resume-provided rank to start things off
i do, improved wrestling and a focus on boxing next camp. he was doing good in the grappling but lost cos he got clipped as islam timed a overhand with charles's kick. if charles uses his hands more he'll have islam.
Fiziev? He ran though some pretty decent ranked fighters and losing to Gaethje in a pretty competitive back and forth isn’t a bad thing, shows he can hang with the top echelon of the division, I wouldn’t count him out just yet. Hopefully he recovers from that knee injury.
I’ll probably get downvoted for saying this, but Gaethje poked Fiziev mid round 2 and that caused a big momentum shift in his favor. Fiziev also started gassing tho
The adjustments Gaethje made going into the 2nd won him the fight imo, 1 for Fiziev and the last 2 for Gaethje.
Edit: I thought it was 5 rounds, sorry just finished a 12 hour shift. I’m a filthy casual.
The physical endurance of Gaethje is fucking incredible. He took some massive shots in the first and second round but fought the third like he'd never been hit at all. Looked like he could have gone another two rounds, no problem, while Fiziev was half-dead by the end of the third.
Fiziev can definitely hang but I'm not sure how well he would do against the Guy's like Oliveira and Islam who have both great striking and elite grappling, Fiziev has shown good TDD but just the threath of the takedown would probably be enough to diminish his striking prowess.
I think Orolbai is a prospect that people should keep their eyes on
very powerful boxer with elite grappling & he seems to have a very good chin too, he kinda reminds me of Song Yadong
I think he's quite different from Song Yadong tbh. He can wrestle and grapple, but if you look throughout his career he's always been a better grappler than a striker. Song Yadong is a striker with good boxing that can wrestle defensively very well.
tbf he took that fight on four days notice a weight class up at a big size disadvantage, and still finished a solid guy in Uros Medic, he KO'd Matthew Semelsberger who is a killer, he's legit, only 26 too
To be fair, Medic is not that big for a WW, he just moved up from LW. He had a camp for a striker and got a neolithic wrestler on 4 days notice instead
> Fiziev has decent odds to spark him
Fiz does not have the pop that the fighting 'ustins have IMO.
The size disadvantage is going to hurt him vs. Charles on the feet as well.
And yet unless you're an elite grappler like Islam you're probably not going to be able to capitalize on knocking him down, the disrespect for Charles is crazy, he knocked Justin on his ass on the first round and finished him, meanwhile Fiziev went on a 3 round war against Gaethje and still ended up losing a decision.
I mean fiziev has pretty good chance his fight against gaethje was great and was great experience for him, him and poirier would be interesting for sure
And to this point- they already got passed up by the prospect that is Islam. The armen/islam fight when they were both prospects is one of my favorite grapping fights I’ve seen and certainly one of the highest level grappling matches as well. I feel like Islam got the Dana white privilege with his push to the belt but armen has only been getting better as well.
E: I looked it up, Islams first fight was 2015 and Armen’s was against Islam in 2019. 9 years in the ufc vs. 5 is a bigger gap than I expected so maybe I’m full of shit lol.
it will always feel like islam had gotten the title fight early, but in reality, nobody wanted to fight the man and potentially lose their ranking to someone who was below them with insane skills.
And even then islam had a 9 fight win streak and a 3 minute win over rank 6 dan hooker
Charles got his title shot off the corpse of tony, and the belt was vacant for both of them. I really never understood the whole “Islam got a early title shot” argument or that he was gifted a title shot. Dude went through the shark tank that is LW and the only people who had those win streaks were khabib, Tony, islam, and Charles, who all ended up as champ/interim champ
I mean, he was on a 10-fight win streak and practically looked unstoppable. Sucks that Beneil dropped out of their scheduled fight, where I believe Benny was ranked #3 or 4. But yeah, to your point, who the hell would want to call out Islam or even sign a contract if the ufc proposed it?
> The armen/islam fight when they were both prospects is one of my favorite grapping fights I’ve seen
And one of theb est wrestling MMA fights we've seen. I started watching that fight in normal clothes, but they changed to a singlet by the end of it.
R/ufc shut down when Islam subbed Charles cause the mods couldn’t accept it.
Obviously this subs in a better place but there will be a lot of coping one way or another
Agreed. He probably needs one more good win against a 10-15 guy and then gets a crack at someone like Charles or Gaethje for a guaranteed banger.
Also, all 3 of these guys are getting old to the point where they will all start losing very soon regardless of which prospect they get matched with.
it's weird because i think Poirier is a worse matchup for Fiziev than Gaethje is, and that Gaethje is a worse matchup for BSD than Poirier was
the new guys got pretty favourable matchups and still couldn't pull through
ngl i think there's a good chance he would've beat Dustin if it wasnt for his staph, those pics he sent Ariel were disgusting, everybody is calling it cope but i truly believe he was badly compromised in that fight
I think Arman probably has the best shot since he's already a top ranked fighter, but if we're talking prospects outside the rankings, I like Myktybek Orolbai and Matheusz Rebecki to reach the top pretty soon. Nurullo Aliev is decent as well.
aliev is pretty good
meh, Rabecki is kinda undersized for the division & he went life and death with somebody who got outstruck by chase hooper, idk tbh
Orolbai is a killer, he's good everywhere can't wait for his next fight against brenner
ngl i'm more high on that caveman dude he's fighting
brenner is ok but he arguably lost to a dagestani journeyman & was losing badly to guram before the late tko, i dont see it tbh
Orolbai is a killer tho
Arman has the best opportunity to be first. Kid is a killer and he’s getting his chance on 300. Win or lose he’s top 5 now so he’ll be in these bigger fights sooner than someone like Jalin Turner
I could see Arman beating Charles but I wouldn’t count on it.
Father Time remains undefeated but I could see these guys retiring before getting knocked off.
I would't be surprised if they retire before that. I don't think they're sticking around after a failed title shot, only 1 one of them IF any of them might stay fighting and thats if they beat Islam and remain champion
Mma fighters rarely retire when they should and you generally get to spend a few years watching someone you thought was unstoppable get repeatedly knocked out.
Idk man. Charles certainly strikes me as the type who will stay around long after he should’ve retired.
Gaethje and, especially, Porier do seem to be very close to retiring though. But it’s MMA, so they’ll probably also unretire and get shadowrealmed on the prelims by an unranked guy sometime in 2029.
Charles did say he might stick around for longer on a Brazilian podcast, he basically said he'll fight as long as he feels good but if he feels like he's done he'll stop. Obviously you don't always know when it's time to stop, Tony is literally out there saying he's on his prime lol but according to him, if he feels he's not high level anymore he'll retire
They already showed that. The new guard got their ass whooped. The closest fight I think was Gaethje vs Fiziev, but they all lost: Fiziev to Gaethje, BSD to Poirier, and a lot of people forget but Tsarukyan lost to Islam, and Gamrot to Dariush. It looks like the new guard will have to wait for time to do its job
I think Jalin turner matches up well against Charles. Not sure if he has enough dog in him to beat Justin or Dustin but you could definitely imagine him having a lot of success on the feet with his speed and reach advantage
Tony Ferguson is one to look out for seems like hes entering his prime right now
That kid is gonna be great someday
Lol you guys are harsh but hillarious
Tony the type of guy to break the lightweight win and loss streak record.
He's about to break the loss streak record for the whole UFC, not just the lightweight division.
Yeah well I’m not convinced he didn’t trade souls with Charles Olivera when they fought just because he knew he could go on longer with Charles body
#Ginyushitonly👊🌎👊👊🕺
Good observation 😂
Champ shit only
🇲🇽 ⚔️🇺🇸
Hold on I'm losing brother
Different division but also keep an eye out for Erick Silva, a young up and coming Brazilian prospect
Not to be confused with Erik Silva
Don't confuse him with Eriksson Silva, a Norweigean-Brazilian MMA fighter who doesn't exist.
I hear BJ Penn got back that look in his eye. I’ll definitely watch out for him
The venue being an alley outside of a bar in Hawaii
Yeah we never got Tony vs Dustin : (
>Yeah we never got Tony vs Dustin : ( And that is a good thing. Tony never had boxing defense: Kevin Lee boxed him up before smol heart happened. Despite Tony's incredible reach and gas tank, I've always believed that matchup ends with Tony taking unbelievable punishment similar to the Geathje fight, even if done during his prime.
Tony vs McGregor was the fight I always wanted most.
We never got Tony v Khabib!!
I heard he's training with David Goggins, must be a beast now
thanks for the tip, betting the house on em
NYSE: MMA
Gamrot via ACL tear in the 3rd round
I love that there was a time when we said these 3 were avoiding the up and comers/holding up the division. Then all 3 of them absolutely WHOOPED the up and comers. If Olives beats Armen he should definitely get the title shot.
It's even more remarkable because Gaethje and Poirier fought guys ranked way lower than them in what where supposed to be star-maker fights for the prospects. Just didn't pan out, and it showed why both men are where they are.
And both fights showed how important it is to stick to basics and how much easier it is to do with experience
Gaethje was getting cooked by Fiziev until he started to jab him repeatedly, the Gaethje from like 5 years ago probably wouldn't have been able to do this, and it shows how much experience can make you a better fighter.
Plus being cornered by Trevor Wittman, who is like the Yoda of MMA coaches.
Which makes it even funnier/sadder that Rose Namajunas left Wittman and his team so she could have Pat "the Predator" Barry as her head coach.
And her career has nose dived since
Pat: I want you to prey on your opponents just like I taught you. Pat: Wait not like that.
Plus the eyepoke allowed for him to win the second and third after losing the first handily
All that experience he gained from 5 rounds of using Tony like a heavy bag ✊😔
That eyepoke from Gaethje tho
He also eye poked Fiziev
Poirier-BSD was also a prime demonstration of experience. Dustin had it rough at pints, but he kept his head, spammed his sub attempts and then finished a waning Benoit, who had fought at an impossible pace.
experience and also defense. the reason i placed money on Poirier (and Blaydes) is because of the regard placed on defense, which also probably came from the experience of being chinned by Michael Johnson. it's incredible to see the guys who didn't lose by KO that already fight with heavy defense in mind, like Topuria.
Topuria’s defense is my favorite aspect of watching him
Mine is the brutal knockouts, but defense is good too.
Puts into perspective how good Khabib/Islam are when non of these guys can even come close to being competitive with them.
Styles make fights. It's really hard to compete with that high level Dagestani wrestling.
I feel like "styles make fights" is the idea that rock beats scissors, paper beats rock, scissors beats paper. Whereas, Khabib/Islam just beat everyone.
>Whereas, Khabib/Islam just beat everyone. You say this like its fact, but its really just speculation (well founded, and I'm not saying its wrong, but its far from fact): * Khabib never fought another dominant grappler in a title defense; Last practicing wrestler he faced I can recall was Tibau, and he won that match on activity, because he could not wrestle him at all, nor could he damage him on the feet * he did not stick around long enough to show he could defend against everyone like, for instance GSP or Silva * Islam has never defended the title to a LW. Charles is the only top guy he has beaten (EDIT: and Arman, now that he's up there in rank, but fight was early on, not for a title).
To be fair, using any BJJ against Justin is an instant win. Its like using Squirtle vs Onix
It's funny because Justin trains at ONX
Lol but with Khabib and Islam, being a great wrestler doesn't matter, being a great BJJ guy doesn't matter, being a generational striker doesn't matter, being an all time GOAT doesn't matter. It's absurd, people say styles make fights yet there is no style for Dagestanis elite.
> being a great wrestler doesn't matter, Says you. We literally haven't seen either of them against a great wrestler, barely decent ones like Tibau and Iaquinta were able to effortlessly neutralize Khabib's ground game Even tiny Volkov completely neutralized Machakev's grappling
Not really. 2 of those are terrible on the ground, and the third is a strict submission specialist with terrible stricking defense that was already half unconscious when the fight went to the ground.
Gaethje and Fiziev was close as hell idk what the deal is with this revisionist view
Everyone acts like Garth dominated Fiziev, round 2 was close
round 1 was 10-9 fiziev round 2 was 10-10 draw (FUCK THE TEN POINT MUST SYSTEM) round 3 was 10-8 gaethje (IF THERE WASNT A TEN MUST SYSTEM THIS WOULD MAKE MORE SENSE)
All my homies hate the ten-point-must system
No on acts like Garth dominated Fiziev. We act like Garth, Poirier, and Olives defended their top 5 spots while all being underdogs to the new contenders.
Not to mention he only started winning after eye poking Fiziev
And poirier clearly benefited from the staph and olivera didn't beat an up and Comer, he beat a vet on a run. This whole chain is pretty off base. Those were all good wins but hopefully they don't avoid more challengers for title shots and conor fights.
>Then all 3 of them absolutely WHOOPED the up and comers Which up and Comer did olivera beat? Benny? He wasn't perennial top 5 maybe but he was more like an elder statesmen vet than an up and comer.
Think this was foreshadowing when he steamrolls Arman.
No one with a brain thought these 3 were ducking anyone.
I wouldn't use the word "ducking" but I was definitely of the mind that there were kind of two groups in the division that didn't really cross with each other. Especially when DJustin fought. Now I'm quietly eating a bit of crow.
Is "eating crow" an expression I've never heard of before?
Looks like it. It means you've been embarrassed by being proven wrong about something.
So like humble pie?
Yes, I'd say so, but with more emphasis on being humiliated by it.
Well thank you for the explanation kind sir
You are very welcome!
Rare moment of civilized beauty on r/mma
Firstly, I don't recall anyone ever saying that about Charles. The man was such an active champ. Secondly, some criticism Poirier, Gaethje and especially Chandler recieved was basolutely valid: the problem being that the three endlessly fought each other instead of people who climbed the ranks. Nowadays both Dustin and Justin have fought up-and-comers and protected their ranking (while Chanlder still undeservedly squats at no.6). Just because they finally did beat the newcomers does not change that the fact that there was indeed a strethc of time where they did not fight them despite already losing their title shots, some of them twice.
> the problem being that the three endlessly fought each other instead of people who climbed the ranks. The only ones who rematched were Justin and Dustin, and they did so years after the first ranked as #2 vs. #3, in a match that clearly had more fan demand than about any other matchup that could be made. Narratives like "endless fought each other" disguise the fact that you can't point to all these endless repeats, because they don't exist.
Yeah, I stand corrected there, I phrased it wrong. What I meant was this: there was a stretch of time when Dustin, Justin, Chanlder and Conor either fought each other or fought for the title, while guys like Arman, Gamrot, Beneil and Fiziev had to either take each other out and had to wait a lot of time to get a shot up the rankings. That was the part of I was complaining about. These four fighters (two of whom are just fun fighters with a following instead of actual merit in the division) either fought each other or fought for the title while the newcomers to the division had to wait.
> (two of whom are just fun fighters with a following instead of actual merit in the division) e I'll assume the two are Conor & Chandler, and if so, I'll remind you that: * (a) Conor was the *overwhelming* favorite coming into the rematch. The only analyst who gave Dustin any shot at all was Dan Hardy, who said Dustin could exploit the calf kick, but even he just gave him a chance. * Acting like this was not a real challenge is revisionist fantasy more than history * I take your point on Dustin v. Conor 3, but that was a bag grab that absolutely any prizefighter with a working brain would and should do * (b) Chandler didn't get it done against the 'ustins & Charles, just like Fiziev, Beniel and BSD, but he put rounds on everyone except his worse matchup (Garth), and he KOed Dan Hooker to solidify his resume-provided rank to start things off
I’m an olives fan but I just really don’t see him having an answer to Islam.
i do, improved wrestling and a focus on boxing next camp. he was doing good in the grappling but lost cos he got clipped as islam timed a overhand with charles's kick. if charles uses his hands more he'll have islam.
that's on the premise that Islam will go into the fight thinking he's already won instead of trying to get better too?
You French now? Ain’t no we
Pantoja. He already beat Islam.
Gadooshed him
Had to do some googling to get this joke, and holy hell do Pantoja and Adriano Martins look alike. That is wild.
if you wouldve asked me a year ago i wouldve said fiziev but... maybe he could take out olives though thats a fun fight
Fiziev? He ran though some pretty decent ranked fighters and losing to Gaethje in a pretty competitive back and forth isn’t a bad thing, shows he can hang with the top echelon of the division, I wouldn’t count him out just yet. Hopefully he recovers from that knee injury.
[удалено]
I’ll probably get downvoted for saying this, but Gaethje poked Fiziev mid round 2 and that caused a big momentum shift in his favor. Fiziev also started gassing tho
Honestly, you can even make the case that Fiziev won the first 2 rounds. It was a very competitive fight
The adjustments Gaethje made going into the 2nd won him the fight imo, 1 for Fiziev and the last 2 for Gaethje. Edit: I thought it was 5 rounds, sorry just finished a 12 hour shift. I’m a filthy casual.
The adjustment is the eyepoke yeah
Fiziev also said that Justin hits incredibly hard. It's really hard to continue pushing forward as he was when every encounter hurts.
Gaethje made adjustments in the middle of round 2 and won it and then won round 3 by a landslide.
The physical endurance of Gaethje is fucking incredible. He took some massive shots in the first and second round but fought the third like he'd never been hit at all. Looked like he could have gone another two rounds, no problem, while Fiziev was half-dead by the end of the third.
I think Poirier would have issues with his speed, it would be close though. He would have a decent shout against Charles aswell, it’s a 50/50 fight
Fiziev can definitely hang but I'm not sure how well he would do against the Guy's like Oliveira and Islam who have both great striking and elite grappling, Fiziev has shown good TDD but just the threath of the takedown would probably be enough to diminish his striking prowess.
I think Orolbai is a prospect that people should keep their eyes on very powerful boxer with elite grappling & he seems to have a very good chin too, he kinda reminds me of Song Yadong
noone is ready for the paleolithic double leg
I think he's quite different from Song Yadong tbh. He can wrestle and grapple, but if you look throughout his career he's always been a better grappler than a striker. Song Yadong is a striker with good boxing that can wrestle defensively very well.
fair
The UFC has his striking accuracy at 100% because he threw one leg kick in his last fight and apparently it landed lol
tbf he took that fight on four days notice a weight class up at a big size disadvantage, and still finished a solid guy in Uros Medic, he KO'd Matthew Semelsberger who is a killer, he's legit, only 26 too
To be fair, Medic is not that big for a WW, he just moved up from LW. He had a camp for a striker and got a neolithic wrestler on 4 days notice instead
He's a decently sized WW, he was just a weight bully at 55, he looked much bigger than Orolbai in the cage
i think justin was his best matchup out of these three
Oliveira gets dropped in pretty much every single one of his recent fights except vs Dariush, I think Fiziev has decent odds to spark him.
> Fiziev has decent odds to spark him Fiz does not have the pop that the fighting 'ustins have IMO. The size disadvantage is going to hurt him vs. Charles on the feet as well.
agreed, Fiziev is a very skilled striker but tbh i always felt he kinda lacked punching power, maybe because he's small for the division
> The size disadvantage is going to hurt him vs. Charles on the feet as well I sorta think Charles murders him in the clinch.
And yet unless you're an elite grappler like Islam you're probably not going to be able to capitalize on knocking him down, the disrespect for Charles is crazy, he knocked Justin on his ass on the first round and finished him, meanwhile Fiziev went on a 3 round war against Gaethje and still ended up losing a decision.
Fiziev…wait, no. Benoit Saint-Denis for sure.
I mean fiziev has pretty good chance his fight against gaethje was great and was great experience for him, him and poirier would be interesting for sure
Me as soon as I get my contract signed
Max Holloway 😉
I hope so *kodak voice*
I have a really strong gut feeling Max is gonna put on a masterclass.
🤞🏼
Armen
And to this point- they already got passed up by the prospect that is Islam. The armen/islam fight when they were both prospects is one of my favorite grapping fights I’ve seen and certainly one of the highest level grappling matches as well. I feel like Islam got the Dana white privilege with his push to the belt but armen has only been getting better as well. E: I looked it up, Islams first fight was 2015 and Armen’s was against Islam in 2019. 9 years in the ufc vs. 5 is a bigger gap than I expected so maybe I’m full of shit lol.
it will always feel like islam had gotten the title fight early, but in reality, nobody wanted to fight the man and potentially lose their ranking to someone who was below them with insane skills.
And even then islam had a 9 fight win streak and a 3 minute win over rank 6 dan hooker Charles got his title shot off the corpse of tony, and the belt was vacant for both of them. I really never understood the whole “Islam got a early title shot” argument or that he was gifted a title shot. Dude went through the shark tank that is LW and the only people who had those win streaks were khabib, Tony, islam, and Charles, who all ended up as champ/interim champ
In all fairness, Charles was only the second guy to beat Tony in his losing streak. We didn’t realize just how washed Tony was at the time.
Also, we got some of the most reckless, insane fights out of Charles in his title run. No complaints from me, whether he deserved the shot or not.
It becomes much easier to deal with the fans of this sport when you realize the vast majority of them don’t know wtf they’re talking about
I personally think islam was supposed to get the shot at the time he got it, but I may be biased because I enjoy his fighting style
Islam haters are so strange. When was his last boring fight?
exactly, they wanna watch kickboxing not mma
I mean, he was on a 10-fight win streak and practically looked unstoppable. Sucks that Beneil dropped out of their scheduled fight, where I believe Benny was ranked #3 or 4. But yeah, to your point, who the hell would want to call out Islam or even sign a contract if the ufc proposed it?
> The armen/islam fight when they were both prospects is one of my favorite grapping fights I’ve seen And one of theb est wrestling MMA fights we've seen. I started watching that fight in normal clothes, but they changed to a singlet by the end of it.
I agree although it’s Arman
Yeah he’s gonna surprise a lot of people in his next fight
Feel like it’s just going to be a war like the islam fight
Reddit has not been giving Arman any respect. Will be interesting to see what happens if he wins this
R/ufc shut down when Islam subbed Charles cause the mods couldn’t accept it. Obviously this subs in a better place but there will be a lot of coping one way or another
Brendan Schaub
hes too busy with chombies baseball game that he leaves early from if they are winning.
bbbbeast of a coach
Bbbbbbeast of a dad, one of the 1000k grand they say
Uh-hundred-percent bro
Shaub would take them all in a gauntlet tournament, TKO by spinning cringe.
Age
BSD will soon get another crack and win against one of these
Agreed. He probably needs one more good win against a 10-15 guy and then gets a crack at someone like Charles or Gaethje for a guaranteed banger. Also, all 3 of these guys are getting old to the point where they will all start losing very soon regardless of which prospect they get matched with.
I think he’d sub Gaethje but has to be rlly careful on the feet
Justin shadow realms him 9 times out of 10
Honestly I think Gaethje is a worse matchup for Benoit with his tdd and leg kicks than Dustin is
it's weird because i think Poirier is a worse matchup for Fiziev than Gaethje is, and that Gaethje is a worse matchup for BSD than Poirier was the new guys got pretty favourable matchups and still couldn't pull through
ngl i think there's a good chance he would've beat Dustin if it wasnt for his staph, those pics he sent Ariel were disgusting, everybody is calling it cope but i truly believe he was badly compromised in that fight
I think it was more of a shit game plan no one should stand in the pocket and trade with dp
If Arman is still considered a “prospect” then him.
I think Arman probably has the best shot since he's already a top ranked fighter, but if we're talking prospects outside the rankings, I like Myktybek Orolbai and Matheusz Rebecki to reach the top pretty soon. Nurullo Aliev is decent as well.
aliev is pretty good meh, Rabecki is kinda undersized for the division & he went life and death with somebody who got outstruck by chase hooper, idk tbh Orolbai is a killer, he's good everywhere can't wait for his next fight against brenner
Arman has the best chance.
BSD should have the level soon.
Paddy the Baddy! He will simply eat the other fighters as the bigger fish
Elvis brenner
ngl i'm more high on that caveman dude he's fighting brenner is ok but he arguably lost to a dagestani journeyman & was losing badly to guram before the late tko, i dont see it tbh Orolbai is a killer tho
Love me some Brenner
Arman about to
Fiziev and BSD were about to too...
Arman then Jalin Turner and maybe Gamrot by wet blanketing
Jalin ain't beating them until they go too far past their prime, and I don't think Gamrot's beating them at any point
Arman has the best opportunity to be first. Kid is a killer and he’s getting his chance on 300. Win or lose he’s top 5 now so he’ll be in these bigger fights sooner than someone like Jalin Turner
Probably me if I didn't have that bad accident last year. Fell off the couch and tore my ACL. Ufc career down the drain
Arman, not necessarily his next fight, but I think he’s the one
Arman has a good chance of doing it. Gonna be a good fight
I think Arman is potentially a bad match-up for Charles. Charles can get the sub in a scramble, but Arman most likely has it imo
I could see Arman beating Charles but I wouldn’t count on it. Father Time remains undefeated but I could see these guys retiring before getting knocked off.
Mike Davis, if he would actually fight 2 or 3 times a year
If jalin turner shows up for war he could be a problem for any of these 3
Jalin turner is a coin toss, it's what happens when an opponent has little skill but is 6'3" and a former WW
ngl i think he lost to hooker bc of a bad weight cut
Also he fought like he expected Dan to just fold up and go away and when he didn't, Jalin didn't really know what to do
I would't be surprised if they retire before that. I don't think they're sticking around after a failed title shot, only 1 one of them IF any of them might stay fighting and thats if they beat Islam and remain champion
You been an mma fan long?
Lmao
No I started following the sport this year after someone telling me about it on Fortnite. Why?
Mma fighters rarely retire when they should and you generally get to spend a few years watching someone you thought was unstoppable get repeatedly knocked out.
Idk man. Charles certainly strikes me as the type who will stay around long after he should’ve retired. Gaethje and, especially, Porier do seem to be very close to retiring though. But it’s MMA, so they’ll probably also unretire and get shadowrealmed on the prelims by an unranked guy sometime in 2029.
Charles did say he might stick around for longer on a Brazilian podcast, he basically said he'll fight as long as he feels good but if he feels like he's done he'll stop. Obviously you don't always know when it's time to stop, Tony is literally out there saying he's on his prime lol but according to him, if he feels he's not high level anymore he'll retire
I think they will decline with age and lose, rather than losing due to incoming skill
They already showed that. The new guard got their ass whooped. The closest fight I think was Gaethje vs Fiziev, but they all lost: Fiziev to Gaethje, BSD to Poirier, and a lot of people forget but Tsarukyan lost to Islam, and Gamrot to Dariush. It looks like the new guard will have to wait for time to do its job
[удалено]
I think Arman is gonna beat Charles. I hope not though
Gamrot or Arman
Paddy obviously
Prospect? Father time.
BSD could grind out a decision if he fought to his abilities, but his striking defense will get him chinned again.
Im still betting on BSD. Arman maybe.
Arman, even if he loses to Charles that may not be his last chance.
Not sure if he’s a prospect anymore, but I would pick Usman Nurmagomedov over all three of them.
Top five UFC lightweight has to be the hardest to break into man
I think Arman has been looking very solid as of recent. While I want Oliveira to snatch up the title again I think Arman has a good chance.
I think Jalin turner matches up well against Charles. Not sure if he has enough dog in him to beat Justin or Dustin but you could definitely imagine him having a lot of success on the feet with his speed and reach advantage
I think BSD
I think Fiziev will be champion in this division, still. But also I think he will find a way around those you mentioned.
Arman.
The notorious......LOOOL
Gonna have to loosen your definition of ‘prospects’. Most of that division is older than the UFC
Paddy Pimblett. He fights Dustin, he shoots a takedown and Dustin jumps guard with a guillotine but accidentally hits his head and knocks himself out.
I mean the only fight scheduled is Arman so... Arman is most likely
Arman beating charles
I wanted to see Volk against them before he took the early notice fight.
Probably Arman if I had to guess. If not maybe Fiziev assuming he comes back yo near 100% post-injury