some historical context (on Khabib)

[RDUBYA]

His striking is terrible. His wrestling is amazing.

Both of these statements are true.

His crash is coming. He's the male Ronda except he begs oponents to quit and she finished them in seconds.

These are facts.

Khebob is going to beat the piss out of Tony. Fact.

 

[Dionysian]

I don't know if he wins or loses to Tony and those other guys. I just think they will be biggest tests rather than competition thus far. His last two were complete style mismatches I knew he'd dominate so I can't wait until he's fighting guys who won't be so easy to TD.

A little bit revisionist history there. Most predicted Barboza's TDD would "expose" him. Don't know if you personally said this but I know sure as hell people were not painting Barboza as a "style mistmatch" and the likely Khabib detractors were predicting the exact opposite. Of course they disappeared after the fight but yeah.

I've written before about some of the opponents Khabib's beaten in his earlier career:


He beat Oleg Bagov who's a multiple time Russian Combat Sambo champion, 3x Russian UWW Grappling champion, 2011 UWW World Grappling champion, 2013 World Combat Games gold medalist. He placed 3rd just this year alone at FIAS Russian Combat Sambo championships, all while he's an active MMA fighter.

He beat Vadim Sandulsky, who's a multiple time Moldova Combat Sambo champ, decorated in Judo.

He beat Eldar Eldarov, multiple time Russian Combat Sambo champ and World medalist. Now works as the national coach for MMA in Bahrain.

He beat Shahbulat Shamlaev, winner of the Bellator 2012 Featherweight Tournament, decorated in Sanda.


These aren't taxi drivers. These are guys who legit trained for martial arts their entire life. The Russian MMA scene is filled with talent with extensive amateur backgrounds. People try to downplay the guys Khabib fought. Assuming all his opponents records are even well-recorded (Many fighters from Asia/Russia don't have complete FF records). Its not like the UK/Ireland scenes where people watch MMA on TV think its cool and decide to have a go at it. At least in the US, you have wrestling in high school and half the guys getting into MMA have amateur experience.

Great points, thanks for posting

His striking is terrible. His wrestling is amazing.

Both of these statements are true.

His crash is coming. He's the male Ronda except he begs oponents to quit and she finished them in seconds.

These are facts.

A Conor AV painting Khabib as the "male Ronda" without a sense of irony is too much lol.

Ronda was the most hyped fighter on the roster
Conda is the most hyped fighter on the roster
Ronda was accused of cherry-picking/UFC doctoring
Conor is accused of cherry-picking/UFC doctoring

These are facts. In fact an objective person could very well argue the cherry picking has been much stronger with Conor never facing a full-camp wrestler in his ENTIRE UFC career. Ronda only can be accused of ditching 145 Cyborg, and at least she defended her belt multiple times.

The reason Khabib is very dangerous is that he is one of the few great fighters who was not rushed to a title fight -- thrown to the wolves, so to speak. He has had a lot of time to see different styles and refine his game. There are a lot of other fighters whom I believed were sent to a big payday by El Douche who weren't ready. Not Khabib.

Interesting position. I disagree a bit in that I worry about the opposite more. I legit think it's possible that we'll be robbed of 4 of the most amazing primes the sport has ever seen in Romero/Jacare/Tony/Khabib. For example, if Alvarez defended against undefeated #1 contender Khabib instead of cashing the paycheck to lose against a 0-0 at LW / 0 title defenses at FW "superfight" with Conor. Khabib, as dominant champ, would have much more hype behind him now of course.

Likewise with the rest. Most of us in the know saw what was going on with Francis... multiple threads were made about it before that fight. That's natural with an untested guy whose marketing was based on "he isn't real/he worked in a salt mine!" with a dose of semi-obvious homosexuality used to promote the guy. The opposite extreme is when a guy's prime is squandered like those 4 have been for the most part. Jacare was world class and spent his time on the shelf/fighting Camozzi multiple times instead of anything meaningful. Now, YEARS later, with him out of his prime.... we'll never know. All so we could see a bullshit money "superfight" of a retired 0-0 MW vs the only 185 champ in MMA history that would have likely gotten obliterated by anyone top 5 and lose to anyone top 10.

 

[HHJ]

2014 injuries omg lol
2015 khabib sux lol tibau lol
2016 lol thats best u can do after years off ? Lol
2017 damn... uhm well...yo but he got rocked though. Dead on his feet! Joe rogan said!!!

oh shit ! Tiramisu!!! Yeaaaaaa
2018
Yo,one day he gonna lose though. For real.

 

[TDD]

The reason Khabib is very dangerous is that he is one of the few great fighters who was not rushed to a title fight -- thrown to the wolves, so to speak. He has had a lot of time to see different styles and refine his game. There are a lot of other fighters whom I believed were sent to a big payday by El Douche who weren't ready. Not Khabib.

Its the Dana curse. You know this kid, Doho Choi he is the next big thing you know...if he wins his next fight this could be big he could be a megastar...same with Nganou seems to fire back a lot xd

 

[Dionysian]

2014 injuries omg lol
2015 khabib sux lol tibau lol
2016 lol thats best u can do after years off ? Lol
2017 damn... uhm well...yo but he got rocked though. Dead on his feet! Joe rogan said!!!

oh shit ! Tiramisu!!! Yeaaaaaa
2018
Yo,one day he gonna lose though. For real.

Haha great recap in keeping with the thread's title from the other point of view.

 

[HHJ]

His striking is terrible. His wrestling is amazing.

Both of these statements are true.

His crash is coming. He's the male Ronda except he begs oponents to quit and she finished them in seconds.

These are facts.

Not really. Ronda had no shot which prevented her from closing the distance,cos her knees were bad from judo. Key component to losing to holm. Khabib dont got that problem.

He is also facing much more difficult opposition than ronda,so really your comparison is a particularly foul wet shit other than that ronda and khabib are awesome and that grappling is the strongest.

 

[datsyuk]

His striking is terrible. His wrestling is amazing.

Both of these statements are true.

His crash is coming. He's the male Ronda except he begs oponents to quit and she finished them in seconds.

These are facts.

His striking isn't terrible.
Also, there's a difference between begging someone to quit and telling someone to quit.

 

[Wicked_1]

Rhonda is a joke compared to Kahabib. Sbe was fed opponents because she was way cash cow. Kahabib is the real deal. His striking is unorthadox sure, but so were lots of great fighters. Even when his takedown were stopped, he still won every round. He's a beast and definitely legit top fighter. The ufc hadn't pushed him like they did Conner or Honda. When Rhonda fought a great striker in Holmes uusee what happened. Kahabib has not had that problem with strikers. He wins by what he's best at... Constant pounding to the head from top position. This should not change. He doesn't need to be Anderson silva..

 

[Sakuraba7]

The reason Khabib is very dangerous is that he is one of the few great fighters who was not rushed to a title fight -- thrown to the wolves, so to speak. He has had a lot of time to see different styles and refine his game. There are a lot of other fighters whom I believed were sent to a big payday by El Douche who weren't ready. Not Khabib.

He was stacked against Tibau in his second fight. Then RDA a few fights later.

He did well IMO because he was young and entering his prime. Zabit is the same. Most of the Russians they sign tend to be near or in their 30's and exiting their primes. Salikhov and Aliev for example, 33 and 31, and not even full-time MMA fighters most of their career.

 

[Dionysian]

Rhonda is a joke compared to Kahabib. Sbe was fed opponents because she was way cash cow. Kahabib is the real deal. His striking is unorthadox sure, but so were lots of great fighters. Even when his takedown were stopped, he still won every round. He's a beast and definitely legit top fighter. The ufc hadn't pushed him like they did Conner or Honda. When Rhonda fought a great striker in Holmes uusee what happened. Kahabib has not had that problem with strikers. He wins by what he's best at... Constant pounding to the head from top position. This should not change. He doesn't need to be Anderson silva..

This hits it. Ronda was the biggest cash cow UFC ever had when they had her. She was the template for super-marketing prior to Conor. Conor is Ronda 2.0, with much more favorable matchmaking. They learned their lesson with Ronda 1.0.

Khabib has the biggest string of anti-marketing against him, second only to Fedor historically. While Fedor's decade of intense character assassination was in an effort to promote one organization over all others, Khabib's anti-marketing is based solely on protecting one fighter (Conor).

This is a fact... if Khabib gets the belt it will BY FAR BE THE SINGLEST HARDEST ROAD TO A TITLE IN THE HISTORY OF THE SPORT. It will require being 27-0 and and 11-0 in the UFC and beating RDA + Johnson + Barboza + Conor + Tony. It will be the first and only instance of someone getting a belt and simultaneously cleaning out their division at the same time. That fact should sink in... it is no coincidence it'll be the hardest road to a title (BY FAR) in the sport's history. And it is due to what I said... they learned their lesson with Ronda 1.0.