Rank Performances against Khabib (Who did the best and why)

legkicktko

Only the Strong Survive
@Black
Joined
Jul 13, 2015
Messages
6,602
Reaction score
2,129
Let's rank Khabib's opponents by who you think did the best against Khabib looking back in retrospect and why. I know Gleison will be most's answers, but let's rank them anyway based on:

Takedown defense
Submission defense
Ability to get back to their feet
Striking
 
Depends on what you're looking at. Conor won a round, Dustin threathened with some stuff, Al went the distance.

Aside from Tibau they all got dominated anyways
 
Depends on what you're looking at. Conor won a round, Dustin threathened with some stuff, Al went the distance.

Aside from Tibau they all got dominated anyways
This is 100% correct.

On the flip side, Al did the least to me personally.

If any of the rest decided to stand in the middle of the cage and eat jabs and not attempt anything, they may have not gotten beat as bad.
 
1. Tibau *roidhead, but didn't cheat in the fight*
2. Conor *cheated multiple times throughout the fight and IMO, would have been finished in RD 2 without cheating*
3. RDA
4. Poirier
5. Healy
6. Iaquinta
7. Johnson
8. Barboza
9. Gaethje
10. Trujillo
11. Shalorus
12. Horcher
13. Tavares *roidhead and still got destroyed*
 
Last edited:
Tibau did the best. Conor second best, he won a round but got dropped by Khabib which is one of the most embarrassing things I've ever seen. Al Iaquinta stuffed some takedowns but still lost every round
 
1. Tibau
2. RDA
3. Healy
4. Iaquinta
5. Dustin
6. Conor
7. Gaethje
8. Barboza
9. Johnson
10. Trujillo
11. Shalorus
12. Horcher
13. Tavares
 
Iaquinta wins all of these. Or Tibau.
But Iaqunta was also the only one who had enough heart to fight out of a fully locked-in submission from Khabib.
That's interesting. I respect the opinion, but the stats would make this a controversial statement.

He is the only guy since Tibau to get two full rounds to stand and he got sounds outstruck in both of those rounds. His TDD was 60% against Khabib which is behind a lot of guys he fought. He landed less than 10 strikes in 3 of the five rounds, etc.
 
id say Macron seems to be living in his head rent free atm
 
1. Tibau
2. Conor *cheated multiple times throughout the fight and IMO, would have been finished in RD 2 without cheating*
3. Poirier
4. RDA
5. Healy
6. Iaquinta
7. Johnson
8. Barboza
9. Gaethje
10. Trujillo
11. Shalorus
12. Horcher
13. Tavares
Taveres deserves to be last on this list,only guy to get finished by strikes lol.
 
That's interesting. I respect the opinion, but the stats would make this a controversial statement.

He is the only guy since Tibau to get two full rounds to stand and he got sounds outstruck in both of those rounds. His TDD was 60% against Khabib which is behind a lot of guys he fought. He landed less than 10 strikes in 3 of the five rounds, etc.

It's more about how he came up with the best gameplan against Khabib imo on 24h notice. Would be a huge text to explain exactly what I mean by that and I really don't have the motivation for that right now.
Part of the gameplan was to disregard striking defence and thus make Khabib more eager to stand for Al to get his chance to land a hail-mary shot he didn't find.
Notice he kept his hands at his waist and a lower stance (unsuited for striking) exactly because he was ONLY worried about takedowns and purposefully disregarded Khabib's strikes and didn't even try to dodge or defend most. It was calculated, playing with Khabib's ego so he could have more time in the stand-up. Unfortunately we didn't yet know at that point that Khabib's chin, striking defense and heart is elite.

Real brooklyn gangster. Also it feels like it was one of the only fights where Khabib actually was exhausted and actually had to use his full strength and full arsenal. Meanwhile when he fought Conor and Gaethje it looked like he was toying with them - not even taking them serious at times, but at the end of the Iaquinta bout even he looked a bit winded, whereas after the Conor bout Khabib wanted to fight another 20 men and looked fresh as fuck. ;)

Khabib-And-New.gif

(notice Al acting like he's surprised by the decision for comedy LMFAOOO)
No bitterness in that man's heart, gave Khabib full credit and criticized (analyzed) his own performance instead of saying hurrrrr I hurt him like Gaethje said.
 
Last edited:
Conor, by far.

Inb4 Tibau:

Gleison Tibau admits EPO use: 'I took it without imagining I was doing something wrong'
 
Khabib used Al for kickboxing practice.
This. I know it's just an opinion, but I think Al's performance was one of the worst. Considering he had the element of surprise and stood for the most time out of everyone and fought the most docile version of Khabib, he had an embarrassingly non-existent amount of success.
 
It's more about how he came up with the best gameplan against Khabib imo on 5 days notice. Would be a huge text to explain exactly what I mean by that and I really don't have the motivation for that right now.
Part of the gameplan was to disregard striking defence and thus make Khabib more eager to stand for Al to get his chance to land a hail-mary shot he didn't find.
Notice he kept his hands at his waist and a lower stance (unsuited for striking) exactly because he was ONLY worried about takedowns and purposefully disregarded Khabib's strikes and didn't even try to dodge or defend most. It was calculated, playing with Khabib's ego so he could have more time in the stand-up. Unfortunately we didn't yet know at that point that Khabib's chin, striking defense and heart is elite.
I fully understand the point you're making. It is feasible.

I also think that Khabib fought differently though. Like the other dude said, it was a sparring match to him. He did what he felt like I think. He took him down early easily to test the waters. Late when his coach yelled, he took him down at will again. In the meantime, he outstruck him without breaking sweat. It made me sad that Felder or Pettis didn't have the opportunity to fight Khabib short notice. They may have gotten beaten to a pulp, but they would have taken chances and tried to win. I think I counted at one point that Al didn't throw a strike for two minutes despite Khabib standing in front of him. In the end as well he did nothing to go for it being down 4 rounds. He was happy to participate.
 
No way in hell did Conor do better than RDA. Conor committed the most fouls in ufc history and still got destructed, knocked down, smashed and almost subbed if not for the foul in round 2.

RDA never looked that bad in any round, he had the most defensive grappling resistance against Khabib IMO.
 
Back
Top