Is Khabib's inability to finish fights bothering you?

[The Natural Born Runner]

Khabib also has a 40% finish rate in UFC.

If you want to ignore the stats that hints at a bias against khabib.

I think he is a little more likely to have decisions than the likes of Lee and Johnson because their striking has more finishing ability. But he more than makes up for it with his dominant 10 - 8 rounds and absolute mauling of his opponents. He's not what you think of when you say "decision machine".

And his finishing rate to decision is pretty good too.

Firstly, you have a Khabib AV, so yeah...

Also, 40% is 4 fights out of his 10 right? Who were those opponents; Shalorus, Tavares, Horcher and Johnson.

Is that impressive to you?

 

[The Natural Born Runner]

I remember when GSP retired and there was a slew of comments about how the WW division would return to finishes and exctiement because there was now a murders row of finishers at the top of the division. Hendricks, Condit, Lawler, Diaz...

And yet if you look at the combined fights of all of them post GSP retiring and as they only started fighting each other or other top 5 guys their combined finish rate was LOWER than GSP's.

it is the one thing shertards never consider and that Khabib is finding out now is that those top 5 guys in a deep divisions like LW or WW are all great fighters themselves and very hard to finish in a fight and that matters.

The fights got considerably more exciting though, Robbie Lawler put on 4 title fight performances for the ages, absolute wars.

 

[The Natural Born Runner]

Not at all.
His style has meant he doesnt even lose rounds. As someone with a wrestling background i enjoy watching him outpoint the everloving bejeezus out of these guys,and they still havent figured out how to stop it.

It's easy not to lose rounds when you're wrestling-centric. He's super talented in the grappling game, I cannot deny that, but if you're that good then you should be stopping some guys.

He's still awfully stiff on the feet, he has absolutely zero faith in his stand-up until the opponent is exhausted. The minute someone can stop a takedown he'll be in big trouble.

 

[HHJ]

he has absolutely zero faith in his stand-up until the opponent is exhausted. The minute someone can stop a takedown he'll be in big trouble.

This is simply nonsense and not at all true.

Fight starts and he uses his striking.His coach has said that he strikes more than he wants him too,which means he has alot of faith in his stand up. He had troubles getting Iaquinta down,and he was not in "big trouble"

The other stuff you typed that i didnt quote is completley baseless.

He should do this,he should do that. Khabib does how he wants to fuckin do it,what works for him. People say GSP shoulda done this and shoulda done that,but he did it his way and didnt lose.

 

[Sirwastealot]

Firstly, you have a Khabib AV, so yeah...

Also, 40% is 4 fights out of his 10 right? Who were those opponents; Shalorus, Tavares, Horcher and Johnson.

Is that impressive to you?

Yea i knew my av would come up, that's why i'm quoting numbers. My point is he has a good finishing rate, and the competition is decent. It's no secret that it's hard to finish top fighters in lighter division. Khabib does not have that KO power in his hands. But it also disqualifies him from being a decision machine.

So 40% against decent competition is pretty good. What's really impressive to me are the multiple 10 - 8 rounds against good opponents. Khabib is a grappling based fighter, he does that thing really really well. To judge him only on finishing ability, especially when he also has a decent finishing rate, doesn't make sense.

 

[bully4me]

There's a difference though.

I'm not denying that Khabib is "GSP'ing it", I actually agree and think that he's probably holding position and taking the W the easy way instead of pushing for a finish like Zabit does, even when he is winning easy. What I'm referring to is the ridiculous claim that he is deliberately not finishing the fight and he could if he truly wanted to, that is BS to me.

I don't give a shit if there is a finish or not as long as the fight is good. This new bullshit that it's only a great fight if there is a finish started with Conor's stolen line of Kenny Florian, " I finish fights".

Were fights like Mir vs CroCop and Conor vs Poirer great cuz there were KOs ? Nope ,both kinda sucked

Lawler vs Condit was maybe the best fight ever and NO finish. I always loved GSP vs Kos2. Georges put such a beat down on Josh his eyes were basically closed, orbitals busted up so bad he had to drive from Montreal to Boston to see some eye specialist after the bout. His face and eyes so damaged he couldn't fly cuz of the pressure . Kos had to drive back to California from the east coast. That fight was great, no finish buy did way more damage than any KO.

Ben Henderson was the epitome of a point fighter during his Championship reign. He had many wins by split dec. Khabib is fucking dominant. Beats guys asses bad. Don't give a shit if he finishes every fight, don't see how an undefeated fighter (if he keeps going the way he has) can have a tarnished legacy because lack o finishes.

Didn't hurt Mayweather

 

[The Natural Born Runner]

Yea i knew my av would come up, that's why i'm quoting numbers. My point is he has a good finishing rate, and the competition is decent. It's no secret that it's hard to finish top fighters in lighter division. Khabib does not have that KO power in his hands. But it also disqualifies him from being a decision machine.

So 40% against decent competition is pretty good. What's really impressive to me are the multiple 10 - 8 rounds against good opponents. Khabib is a grappling based fighter, he does that thing really really well. To judge him only on finishing ability, especially when he also has a decent finishing rate, doesn't make sense.

Who are these decent fighters you speak of?

Kamal Shalorus, who is now 9-5-2?

Abel Trujillo, who is 15-8?

Pat Healy, who is 34-24 (1)?

You cannot be serious dude. The guy has fought 3 tough fighters dos Anjos, Barboza, Johnson. I would typically count Al Iaquinta but I have a hard time counting Al when he had 1 day's notice and has been ridiculously inactive. You have to remember that Al's last two wins were Joe Lauzon and Diego Sanchez, you cannot possibly be serious when you're claiming that he's a top level fighter.

 

[HHJ]

, you cannot possibly be serious when you're claiming that he's a top level fighter.

yeah but Honest AL is Honest. That has to count for something.

 

[The Natural Born Runner]

I don't give a shit if there is a finish or not as long as the fight is good. This new bullshit that it's only a great fight if there is a finish started with Conor's stolen line of Kenny Florian, " I finish fights".

Were fights like Mir vs CroCop and Conor vs Poirer great cuz there were KOs ? Nope ,both kinda sucked

Lawler vs Condit was maybe the best fight ever and NO finish. I always loved GSP vs Kos2. Georges put such a beat down on Josh his eyes were basically closed, orbitals busted up so bad he had to drive from Montreal to Boston to see some eye specialist after the bout. His face and eyes so damaged he couldn't fly cuz of the pressure . Kos had to drive back to California from the east coast. That fight was great, no finish buy did way more damage than any KO.

Ben Henderson was the epitome of a point fighter during his Championship reign. He had many wins by split dec. Khabib is fucking dominant. Beats guys asses bad. Don't give a shit if he finishes every fight, don't see how an undefeated fighter (if he keeps going the way he has) can have a tarnished legacy because lack o finishes.

Didn't hurt Mayweather

I think you're getting my argument skewed.

I'm not saying that he's boring (even though he doesn't really excite me), I'm saying that it'll hurt his all-time resume when he isn't finishing fights and others are. I cannot understand this idea that finishing a fight is not more impressive than a decision, I'm not for one second claiming that a finish makes a fight exciting because it doesn't, look at Slice and 5000. This isn't an excitement thread, this is a all-time ranking discussion based off of the way he fights. His style appears to work, but will it continue to work against high-level wrestlers? You have to have a plan B.

 

[The Natural Born Runner]

This is simply nonsense and not at all true.

Fight starts and he uses his striking.His coach has said that he strikes more than he wants him too,which means he has alot of faith in his stand up. He had troubles getting Iaquinta down,and he was not in "big trouble"

The other stuff you typed that i didnt quote is completley baseless.

He should do this,he should do that. Khabib does how he wants to fuckin do it,what works for him. People say GSP shoulda done this and shoulda done that,but he did it his way and didnt lose.

Lol did you see how he dived half-way across the cage to grab Al's ankle?

The guy wants no part of the stand-up unless he's absolutely forced to. I have no doubts that he trains striking and at the first bell he wants to put it to the test, but the minute he gets caught he starts running at people for takedowns, that is nothing more or less than the truth.

 

[Sirwastealot]

Who are these decent fighters you speak of?

Kamal Shalorus, who is now 9-5-2?

Abel Trujillo, who is 15-8?

Pat Healy, who is 34-24 (1)?

You cannot be serious dude. The guy has fought 3 tough fighters dos Anjos, Barboza, Johnson. I would typically count Al Iaquinta but I have a hard time counting Al when he had 1 day's notice and has been ridiculously inactive. You have to remember that Al's last two wins were Joe Lauzon and Diego Sanchez, you cannot possibly be serious when you're claiming that he's a top level fighter.

How come you didn't mention michael johnson?

I see what style of argument you are going with here. You started by discrediting his overall finish rate of over 40% by saying he only fought cans outside UFC. You then discredited his 40% UFC record by saying the guys he did finish weren't very good.

Now you are nitpicking each of those fighters' records and leaving out ones that are good. You can nitpick like this on any fighters record to make them look bad, including GSP and Fedor the best of all time. Any time fighters start reaching that level someone has to nitpick out the smallest little things. I'm not going down that rabbit hole.

 

[BTard]

Where did you come up pussy? On the streets I came from up finish rate was all that mattered.

 

[HHJ]

The guy wants no part of the stand-up unless he's absolutely forced to.

That simply isnt true. It just makes his job easier.
He is NOT afraid of standing up. As i have already stated,his striking coach has said that Khabib is standing up too long with guys,even in the MJ fight. Its because he wants to stand up more. You saw against Iaquinta him trying some Ali shit. Its because he likes to strike,and is falling in love with it/getting more comfortable doing it to silence his critics.

 

[12ga.]

Not really he's the second best LW after Ferg who does finish fights. Someday maybe they will meet. Until then I'll enjoy Khabib mauling dudes.

 

[Zefram Cochrane]

Certain attributes and fight styles are better for being a finisher. Khabib is not a power puncher neither a headhunter. Under 5-minute-round rule his finishing rate will never be sky high, but most often than not he will absolutely beat the ever living shit out of his opponent for the duration of the fight.

 

[MusterX]

GSP goes to a decision in 46% of his wins while Khabib is only 38% for Khabib. I don't understand why they keeping being compared. Here are some notable fighters at LW:
Kevin Lee - 41%
Edson Barboza - 37%
Michael Johnson - 41%

Bottom line is that Khabib is not exactly a decision machine.

They keep being compared because this.

GSP, 28 fights, 12 decisions
Khabib 26 fights, 10 decisions

You understand the incredibly close similarity right?

 

[The Natural Born Runner]

That simply isnt true. It just makes his job easier.
He is NOT afraid of standing up. As i have already stated,his striking coach has said that Khabib is standing up too long with guys,even in the MJ fight. Its because he wants to stand up more. You saw against Iaquinta him trying some Ali shit. Its because he likes to strike,and is falling in love with it/getting more comfortable doing it to silence his critics.

"Ali shit" wow, they've got you by the balls.

 

[The Natural Born Runner]

How come you didn't mention michael johnson?

I see what style of argument you are going with here. You started by discrediting his overall finish rate of over 40% by saying he only fought cans outside UFC. You then discredited his 40% UFC record by saying the guys he did finish weren't very good.

Now you are nitpicking each of those fighters' records and leaving out ones that are good. You can nitpick like this on any fighters record to make them look bad, including GSP and Fedor the best of all time. Any time fighters start reaching that level someone has to nitpick out the smallest little things. I'm not going down that rabbit hole.

No no no, don't be so silly. I deliberately used some fighters that he didn't even finish to prove my point further.

He is fighting guys that he should be walking through and he can't even finish them. Dude, he couldn't choke Abel Trujillo even after taking him down like 20 times. If you have to complete 20 takedowns that means the guy is getting back up each time - that much cannot be denied.

If you want to talk about the quality of the guys he has finished then we can do that, because that's even worse.

Shalorus, Tavares, Horcher and Johnson.

Outside of Johnson, that is 1 fucking fighter, who on earth have the other 3 beat? The other 3 are low level Lightweights, guys who belong somewhere in the top 30-40. Come on Sunny Jim!

 

[The Natural Born Runner]

They keep being compared because this.

GSP, 28 fights, 12 decisions
Khabib 26 fights, 10 decisions

You understand the incredibly close similarity right?

You cannot possibly compare Abel Trujillo to Jon Fitch though, right?

 

[RoninJin]

People are discounting that at the level Khabib is fighting, all of his opponents are high level and ranked. Some time these fights don't end in 3 seconds. Also taking into consideration an degree of caution are exercise on both sides. One simple mistake and its back to the line with years of waiting for another shot.

On the flip side, Khabib is out there throwing strikes, getting TD, and GNPing. So it's not like a complete blowover like Tyrone, where fans are using phones to illuminate lights