Do most believe that Ben is not that skilled?

[Rockman14]

Ben is on a great streak right now but many still say things like "its sad how Ben is a contender in the HW division" "You know its time to retire when you lose to ben rothwell" "its sad that we are giving ben a chance in this fight"

I kinda get these sentiments but lets not pretend that ben is a push over either, he obviously gets by a lot on toughness but so did hendo, shogun etc, not saying he is in those guys level but im making a point, leonard garcia is tough as hell but he was never a contender.

I feel like he could be champ and people would just blame a weak division.

Im rooting for the guy.

 

[Chad The Limey]

Me too. WAR Big Ben.

I feel like he's got over the mental and training problems that lead to such lackluster performances against the like of Hunto.

 

[Fight Professor]

I expected this to be a thread about Rogan saying Bendo is a top 15 fighter.

I do think Rothwell has decent skills for the hw division.

 

[Lovestorm]

He has some natural talent, it's just not that obvious lol. Guys don't get by on size alone anymore in the heavies, so he must have the extras needed to hang in the upper tier in the division and beat other seemingly superior guys at their own game.

 

[NatoHoro]

The man is working hard. War Big Ben. He has Skill.

 

[Tony_Clifton]

He's been on a tear and obviously working extremely hard over the last few years to improve as a fighter.

 

[TheLuckiest]

I absolutely believe he got by up until recently on his size, toughness, power, and heart, but recently you cannot deny that he has really been developing some technical abilities. Thankfully he's not one of those guys who just give up once they can't just win by overpowering their opponent.

 

[screaminleeman]

My biggest issue with Ben was his POOR grappling that he did precious little to improve for the first decade of his career.

I am one of his biggest critics! With that said, I am glad that he DID finally decide to become a true MMA fighter (As in not one of the most one dimensional professional MMA fighters) in the last two years.

Toughness with ZERO grappling resulted in the AA highlight reel tooling. With his improvement in the past two years, I don't see AA getting the win anymore.

The bright side of Ben is that he is younger than the majority of the top 15 UFC HW's. A decade of ignoring Grappling should have been kryptonite to any fighter. Ben likely has the most successful years in his HW career ahead of him, even at 34!

 

[Exarch01]

He's currently my favorite fighter who has failed a drug test.

 

[Crusader666]

Cain Junior Werdum an Hunt (on a good day) all kill him

 

[LilNubi]

I'm rooting for him, but at the same time I think we can all agree that the current heavyweight division is one of the weakest divisions. It's never been the deepest pool but it was a lot better some time ago. It's just hard to really get into these 30+ year old fighters slugging it out. They're recruiting a lot of new heavies though from Europe so we'll see what happens.

 

[milenss]

He subbed Josh Barnett. JOSH BARNETT!!

 

[bufetadanacara]

Many on here believe that only little guys have skill. HW's get shit on here all the time, despite it being the only real division

 

[WalkenWouldOwn]

Can't argue with the guy knocking out a K1 champion, and submitting an elite grappler. That is fucking impressive.

BUT it's also hard to forget him getting absolutely dominated on the feet and tapped on the ground by Gabriel Gonzaga lol. Don't get me wrong, I love Napao but that was a bad bad night for Rothwell and it's not the only time we've seen him look terrible (Hunt, Cain) so I'm not seeing him as champ, but would still love to see him get a shot at it.

 

[invalidor]

He stumbles around like a drunk cirkus bear.

 

[M Raid K]

People still don't realize that Rothwell actually has skills in fighting and he doesn't rely on literally blocking punches with his face. Quite the opposite. Mitrione didn't hit him cleanly for the most part due to a mummy guard and double forearm blocks. And now he added a submission game which suits his strength. Come on, give the man credit where credit is due.

 

[SteelHeems]

He's pretty light in his loafers. Up there with Michael Jackson at dancing.

 

[Th3Sav4ge]

ben needs hollywood bad guy roles.

See no Evil with ben rothwell

 

[jonathan274]

I think he is good and I am a fan, but I don't think he is top 3.

 

[BisexualMMA]

I thought this was going to be about Michael Jackson's rat.