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And the BMF belt of course. But just on paper. Jorge KOed two guys who he was an underdog against, in brutal fashion. Darren Till and then Ben Askren. And then brutalized and injury TKOed a legend in Nate Diaz.
Cannonier came in as the underdog against formally ranked fighter David Branch and the surging, highly dangerous Jack Joker Hermansson. KOed both guys while fighting a legendary GOAT in between time and injury TKOing him.
But enough about that. Let's talk a bit about this Whittaker vs. Cannonier matchup. As dangerous as Jared has been looking, this is the first time at 185 where he is fighting someone who actually is a threat to KO him. No disrepect to his former opponents but the threat was much smaller tbh.
I'm confident that most people weren't overly impressed by Rob's fight against Till, but I think it was a stylistically tough matchup to look great in for Rob. Especially with the millions of feints Till uses for no reason lol.. Rob actually looked faster against Israel but that's probably just because he was attacking so much more.
Some good things Rob did show was that he's still more than ready to go at it for 5 rounds. We haven't seen Jared gone 5 rounds yet and its been a while since he's went the full 3. Maybe it won't matter much as this will be a 3 rounder. Whittaker showed that he's willing to mix in the takedowns to keep his opponents honest. He's not the strongest offensive wrestler but he'll go for it. He also showed a bit of his legendary recovery when Till caught him.
Rob is covers ground fast and his blitz is still his go to move. That can either win him the fight by KO or be his brutal demise. Rob moves around a lot more on the feet than Jared, and he tries to use more trickery and mix up.
But Jared IMO is probably better at making defensive reads. He doesn't use a lot of wasted movements. It seems he takes the first few minutes to try and download your patterns of attack. He finds his range well and has decent head movement. The raw power advantage goes to him and his chin is solid as well. His offense is more basic than. Rob's but Jared is powerful with laser sharp power and precision on those leg kicks. Most of his punches go straight down the pipe.
If Rob gets too repetitive or predictable than Jared can definitely make a read and counter him. I don't believe Rob's grappling will be too much of a factor here. One x factor might be that Rob has been keeping busy while Jared was sidelined with the injury.
I expect Whittaker to look a bit better than he did against Till. Hopefully Jared will be in peak form as well. I have to admit that I'm pulling for Cannonier here. He's and underdog story similar a bit to Masvidal and Jan in that they are guys in the mid 30's, whoa out a year and a half ago, no one looked at as serious title contenders. Then they went on KO streaks but are still considered underdogs to top guys.
Of course Masvidal gets lot more hype and talks a lot more than Jan and Jared but I'm strictly talking about the performances. Plus I'm not much interested in Adesanya vs. Whittaker 2. I'd rather see Adesanya vs. Cannonier and the maybe The Joker if Israel wins.
Cannonier came in as the underdog against formally ranked fighter David Branch and the surging, highly dangerous Jack Joker Hermansson. KOed both guys while fighting a legendary GOAT in between time and injury TKOing him.
But enough about that. Let's talk a bit about this Whittaker vs. Cannonier matchup. As dangerous as Jared has been looking, this is the first time at 185 where he is fighting someone who actually is a threat to KO him. No disrepect to his former opponents but the threat was much smaller tbh.
I'm confident that most people weren't overly impressed by Rob's fight against Till, but I think it was a stylistically tough matchup to look great in for Rob. Especially with the millions of feints Till uses for no reason lol.. Rob actually looked faster against Israel but that's probably just because he was attacking so much more.
Some good things Rob did show was that he's still more than ready to go at it for 5 rounds. We haven't seen Jared gone 5 rounds yet and its been a while since he's went the full 3. Maybe it won't matter much as this will be a 3 rounder. Whittaker showed that he's willing to mix in the takedowns to keep his opponents honest. He's not the strongest offensive wrestler but he'll go for it. He also showed a bit of his legendary recovery when Till caught him.
Rob is covers ground fast and his blitz is still his go to move. That can either win him the fight by KO or be his brutal demise. Rob moves around a lot more on the feet than Jared, and he tries to use more trickery and mix up.
But Jared IMO is probably better at making defensive reads. He doesn't use a lot of wasted movements. It seems he takes the first few minutes to try and download your patterns of attack. He finds his range well and has decent head movement. The raw power advantage goes to him and his chin is solid as well. His offense is more basic than. Rob's but Jared is powerful with laser sharp power and precision on those leg kicks. Most of his punches go straight down the pipe.
If Rob gets too repetitive or predictable than Jared can definitely make a read and counter him. I don't believe Rob's grappling will be too much of a factor here. One x factor might be that Rob has been keeping busy while Jared was sidelined with the injury.
I expect Whittaker to look a bit better than he did against Till. Hopefully Jared will be in peak form as well. I have to admit that I'm pulling for Cannonier here. He's and underdog story similar a bit to Masvidal and Jan in that they are guys in the mid 30's, whoa out a year and a half ago, no one looked at as serious title contenders. Then they went on KO streaks but are still considered underdogs to top guys.
Of course Masvidal gets lot more hype and talks a lot more than Jan and Jared but I'm strictly talking about the performances. Plus I'm not much interested in Adesanya vs. Whittaker 2. I'd rather see Adesanya vs. Cannonier and the maybe The Joker if Israel wins.
