Ok I'll be the one to say it - Pantoja's fighting style is utterly awful

Lights Out 101 said:
He was much more exciting before he became champ. I don’t know wtf happened. Hell of a chin on him though.
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He's 34 years old at flyweight fighting the best guys out there. It's normal that he'll have a tougher time running through them than when he was younger
 
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HHJ said:
I love his grappling. I don't care about the submission as much as you do. His takedowns and scrambles are incredible to behold. Standing up when he gets tired can be hard to watch.
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Same his skills are undeniable but god he opts to stay safe way too much, lets see some sub attempts or GnP for crying tou loud.
 
He's a champ, so he's fighting the very best guys in the world on a consistent basis and he has to train for 5 rounds now every time. He's also relatively ancient for his weightclass. Actually makes what he's doing really impressive.

I actually find him fun to watch, it's like controlled chaos. He looks totally gassed a minute and a half in to round 1, but keeps landing his shots and coming out on top in every scramble anyway. He looks sloppy as fuck, but he can't be, otherwise it wouldn't be so damn effective against everybody.
 
OldBoy91 said:
He's a champ, so he's fighting the very best guys in the world on a consistent basis and he has to train for 5 rounds now every time. He's also relatively ancient for his weightclass. Actually makes what he's doing really impressive.

I actually find him fun to watch, it's like controlled chaos. He looks totally gassed a minute and a half in to round 1, but keeps landing his shots and coming out on top in every scramble anyway. He looks sloppy as fuck, but he can't be, otherwise it wouldn't be so damn effective against everybody.
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Yes he gets tired but doesn't give up on himself.
 
How many times did he go for the back in this last fight?

There was actually very little lnp. What we saw was scrambles, guard passing, trying to take the back, really effective grappling.

I would understand the criticism if he would have been just sitting inside the closed guard or max half guard, like some fighters like to do, or even just backpacking, but there was a minimum of that, he was always advancing.
 
Steve Erceg was a tough matchup for him especially when we found out that he can hang on the mat enough to avoid being submitted. Pantoja is fun to watch usually. While his striking can get a bit too wild, I think his overall style is very technical and his ability to mix in grappling with striking is some of the best in all divisions. He’s very slick with his transitions and imo very fun to watch.

I can see Steve Erceg being a future champion. He got taken down and out scrambled a bit but that’s against the best scrambler in the division. And despite that, he fought a very competitive fight and likely lost due to questionable fight IQ but that is likely something that he will improve on.
 
Portland8242 said:
For his reptuation as a BJJ dangerous ground wizard guy, his ground game is actually LnP control based. he seems to have a big reliance on no damage grappling to win him rounds.

I'm about ready for a new champ at FLW.
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Pantoja is fine. The guy he was fighting was just the better fighter and the only thing Pantoja could do was maintain control and advance position at times. He was getting beat up and bloodied on the feet so he had to do something.
 
Pantoja is a dog, as long as his opponent can't stop his grappling I don't know why he should not use it. Taking someone's down his hard, the guy never gives up.
 
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