Bellator 205: McKee vs Macapa 9/21 7PM Prelims/9PM ET Main Card PBP Discussion Thread

On top of all of that he trains under his dad, whom he seems to take pretty seriously, and with a bunch of animals.
and SBG is an okay school depending on who you ask
But you want to accuse me of bias lmao. It’s a big deal that AJ trains with his mediocre fighter father and their mediocre gang but Gallagher training under Kavanagh and Roddy with Conor McGregor and Gunnar Nelson is just “okay”.
As for the rest of your post, yes AJ has the superior athleticism and, as of now, superior all around skillset. But Gallagher’s submission game is better than any one aspect of AJ’s and despite what you say, his training environment is far more likely to benefit him better in the long run. AJ’s problem is that he’s very good at striking, wrestling, okay at submissions, etc, but that’s all by Bellator standards, against alright Bellator fighters. It’s a basic bitch skillset that will not carry him as far as Gallagher’s supremacy at JJ which is only increasing. You’ll note that all the best fighters are specialists. And as I said, training regularly under Roddy with Conor will shore up his striking deficiencies. It’s really not hard to see what I’m saying unless you do indeed have a bias against SBG.
 
I definitely understand this and expect most people feel this way, it’s just my personal take. I know AJ’s doing well right now and Gallagher just got embarassed, but I just see Gallagher having the superior IQ, skillset, training environment, and eventually ending up a UFC champ, whereas I see AJ peaking now but struggling against UFC level competition.
It’s like the kids who are super hot shit in high school but end up blue collar versus the quiet kids that at the time were losers but end up with the superior lives in the end.
Don’t think this is the case

I’d love to see Gallagher become Bellator’s Conor McGregor, but I truly don’t see anything in which he is outstanding. He is a good grappler with decent striking. Trains at a good but overrated camp.

I do think that AJ is due for a loss seeing how he is relying solely on raw athletic ability and throws caution to the wind, but learning to not fight as if you are shot out of a cannon is something that can be worked on.

As I look at James’ style and build, I just don’t see him getting good enough to challenge the best. He doesn’t have raw ko power, he doesn’t have a mauling style that would rob guys of their will to fight. He isn’t overly strong.

My feeling has been obvious for a while. James will fail everyday me he starts nipping at contendership.
 
Don’t think this is the case

I’d love to see Gallagher become Bellator’s Conor McGregor, but I truly don’t see anything in which he is outstanding. He is a good grappler with decent striking. Trains at a good but overrated camp.

I do think that AJ is due for a loss seeing how he is relying solely on raw athletic ability and throws caution to the wind, but learning to not fight as if you are shot out of a cannon is something that can be worked on.

As I look at James’ style and build, I just don’t see him getting good enough to challenge the best. He doesn’t have raw ko power, he doesn’t have a mauling style that would rob guys of their will to fight. He isn’t overly strong.

My feeling has been obvious for a while. James will fail everyday me he starts nipping at contendership.
I think you’re underrating his grappling. He’s not a straight Jits phenom, but he’s an exceptional MMA grappler and only 21 and improving. For an example of how that would matter, at the beginning of this video when AJ throws the bad spin kick and homeboy caught it and took him down by his whole leg and then did nothing with it, if that were Gallagher the odds of him pulling a submission out of that situation are very good.

And that’s why Gallagher’s ceiling is higher. The reason specialists tend to go farther is because it’s like shooting arrows through the slots (I used a more apt word but Sherdog thinks I’m insulting Asians) in the armor, where the armor is being well rounded—look at Aldo vs McGregor: on paper there’s very little chance McGregor should win since all he really has is his left, vs Aldo’s GOAT-tier wellroundedness. But in practice, the odds of the left finding the “slot” in his armor are very good, as we saw. Gallagher’s Jits is similar. But it’s not merely that, in the same way that in actuality Conor isn’t merely his left. There are many other less obvious factors, such as the right mentality, the IQ to develop skills specific to your style (for instance, Conor’s inventive posting of the hand on wrestler’s shoulders)—which is why Gallagher will go farther than, say, Danis, who’s the far superior grappler: because Gallagher is an MMA fighter, has been since he was 13, and is habituated to thinking like one, whereas Danis is only recently training in MMA. So Gallagher is an MMA fighter specializing in subs, Danis is BJJ coming around to MMA. Little things like these accumulate to make a big difference.
 
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But you want to accuse me of bias lmao. It’s a big deal that AJ trains with his mediocre fighter father and their mediocre gang but Gallagher training under Kavanagh and Roddy with Conor McGregor and Gunnar Nelson is just “okay”.
As for the rest of your post, yes AJ has the superior athleticism and, as of now, superior all around skillset. But Gallagher’s submission game is better than any one aspect of AJ’s and despite what you say, his training environment is far more likely to benefit him better in the long run. AJ’s problem is that he’s very good at striking, wrestling, okay at submissions, etc, but that’s all by Bellator standards, against alright Bellator fighters. It’s a basic bitch skillset that will not carry him as far as Gallagher’s supremacy at JJ which is only increasing. You’ll note that all the best fighters are specialists. And as I said, training regularly under Roddy with Conor will shore up his striking deficiencies. It’s really not hard to see what I’m saying unless you do indeed have a bias against SBG.
I don't have a bias against SBG, though. I typically root for Conor and enjoy his fights. I like Kavanagh. They just haven't churned out too many great fighters and I doubt Conor is going around playing mentor to everybody. I'm not saying AJ's environment is perfect, but his dad is a long time veteran and was in the game long enough to be a great trainer. If you know anything about combat sports you know a mediocre veteran oftentimes makes the best sort of trainer. And he has talented and hungry training partners pushing him on the regular. Certainly not calling it the best team in the world or anything like that.

Sorry man, I think you really just want Gallagher to be better. His Jiujitsu has been good against nobodies, but there's nothing to indicate he can do that against high level guys, and there is evidence to indicate he can't hang when he's not in top position on the ground. AJ, on the other hand, has proven he can win anywhere, and against better competition. I'm just not seeing what you're saying.

Also, you speak as if AJ is a 30 year old that's entirely set in his ways. He's like a year and a half older than Gallagher and already significantly better.

If I'm proven wrong, though, I'll owe you coke.
 
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