When top fighters physically decline,and the methods they adopted to stay in the game.

HHJ

RIP Toriyama
@plutonium
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We saw Nogueira add bulk which actually did prove to be successful in giving him punching power he never had before (he koed schaub and dropped mir and herman) to offset his dimishing submission abilities,and he allways had to struggle to get guys with decent TDD down anyway..

Anderson Silva would use his taunts to mask the shrinking amount of output he was capable of,and the diminishing speed

Fedor seemed less capable of simply barreling his opponents to the mat and armbarring them in seconds,so he seemed to get takedowns only when the oppurtunity was there,and became mostly a striker,and also had degrees of success with that.He had trouble with bigger hws on the ground (Hunt,Rogers,Bigfoot)
 
Mir had this great strategy of getting hit as many times in the head as possible and fall over to catch his opponent off guard thinking that he was knocked out, and then grab them into a submission and murder them. It worked except for the times when the referee stopped the fight or when Mir went out cold
 
Hendo only relies on his H Bomb now.

It doesn't seem to work anymore.
 
Hendo only relies on his H Bomb now.

It doesn't seem to work anymore.

Because everyone knows about it now,except for tim boetsch. Leben used to win fights the same way till people FINALLY got wise to the fact that it may look like leben is done,but hes NOT. Dont brawl with the man.
 
Hendo only relies on his H Bomb now.

It doesn't seem to work anymore.
The ol' shuffle-shuffle H-bomb ain't quite as effective anymore.

The in-and-out Karate-style of attacking like Lyoto doesn't seem to go well with fighters aging either. Can't maintain the speed and reflexes necessary.
 
Wanderlei was cool cos even though he is an aggressive swarming pressure fighter,he can win fights being patient,and using only short bursts like he did against bisping,and cung le. He knows when to hang back and play the leg kick game,and that has extended his career.
 
Hughes' striking got much better late in his career, Tito developed KO power and better submissions late in his career, Couture's submission game improved late in his career. Mir's boxing got a lot better as he got older, Overeem's fight IQ, cardio and game planning have gone through the roof compared to what they once were.
 
Overeem didn't necessarily "decline", but evolving into Econoreem and not gassing out of his mind in 3 minutes has salvaged his career and probably saved a few years on his lifespan too
 
We saw Matt hughes try to fight GSP left handed,and up his boxing tech,which actually really flustered koschek for a while
 
Wanderlei was cool cos even though he is an aggressive swarming pressure fighter,he can win fights being patient,and using only short bursts like he did against bisping,and cung le. He knows when to hang back and play the leg kick game,and that has extended his career.

It's a shame he didn't do that more, when Wanderlei was technical and brutal he was at his best, Cro Cop 1, Rampage 1 and 2, Hunt, Bisping. He forgot he had a good jab to set up his hooks with for too many fights.
 
Royce Gracie went from a guard specialist to a muay thai machine for his comeback, dropping his opponents with laser precise knees in the clinch
 
not many fighter have the tools to change style at the end of their career.

I wonder what BJ could have done if he decided to become a grappler base fighter like let say Maia.
He could grapplef*ck most of the guy at 155 & 145 tbh...
 
We saw Matt hughes try to fight GSP left handed,and up his boxing tech,which actually really flustered koschek for a while

Yeah, if Hughes had any sort of KO power in his hands he would have wrecked Koscheck.
 
It's a shame he didn't do that more, when Wanderlei was technical and brutal he was at his best, Cro Cop 1, Rampage 1 and 2, Hunt, Bisping. He forgot he had a good jab to set up his hooks with for too many fights.

he tried in Rampage III...he was def having success with the leg kicks there,but he got caught in one of his tasmanian devil charges.
 
not many fighter have the tools to change style at the end of their career.

I wonder what BJ could have done if he decided to become a grappler base fighter like let say Maia.
He could grapplef*ck most of the guy at 155 & 145 tbh...

Most fighters tend to become more one dimensional as they age, Henderson, Rampage, Wanderlei, Cro Cop but there are some that do like Werdum.
 
not many fighter have the tools to change style at the end of their career.

I wonder what BJ could have done if he decided to become a grappler base fighter like let say Maia.
He could grapplef*ck most of the guy at 155 & 145 tbh...
BJ's main problem is not being able to really battle through adversity. He has the talent,esp at 155...but he just cant really battle from underneath,a quality a fighter really needs to have later in their career when they arent dominant.
 
he tried in Rampage III...he was def having success with the leg kicks there,but he got caught in one of his tasmanian devil charges.

Yeah, that's the problem that Wanderlei had late in his career, he wanted to throw flurries of hooks and get the thai clinch so bad that he forgot that his jab and kicks are what he used to set those up.
 
Yeah, that's the problem that Wanderlei had late in his career, he wanted to throw flurries of hooks and get the thai clinch so bad that he forgot that his jab and kicks are what he used to set those up.

He paid for it against Le too,but he was able to survive long enough to do critical damage,and if wanderlei hurts you than its over,he doesnt let you recover
 
We saw Nogueira add bulk which actually did prove to be successful in giving him punching power he never had before (he koed schaub and dropped mir and herman) to offset his dimishing submission abilities,and he allways had to struggle to get guys with decent TDD down anyway..

Anderson Silva would use his taunts to mask the shrinking amount of output he was capable of,and the diminishing speed

Fedor seemed less capable of simply barreling his opponents to the mat and armbarring them in seconds,so he seemed to get takedowns only when the oppurtunity was there,and became mostly a striker,and also had degrees of success with that.He had trouble with bigger hws on the ground (Hunt,Rogers,Bigfoot)
He do / Vitor adopted lots and lots of trt
 
Fedor seemed less capable of simply barreling his opponents to the mat and armbarring them in seconds,so he seemed to get takedowns only when the oppurtunity was there,and became mostly a striker,and also had degrees of success with that.He had trouble with bigger hws on the ground (Hunt,Rogers,Bigfoot)

Did Fedor go to the ground with Rogers?
 
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