Ankalaev is far from being your typical Dagestani fighter

[ViD]

Everyone’s used to seeing Dagestanis as purely wrestlers and grapplers, but he’s not any of that.

Surely, Ankalaev has done wrestling, but he couldn’t land a single takedown out of 12 attempts against a kickboxer. 0/12 in takedowns is rather unprecedented for a Dagestani fighter.

But I think the aura is there and Poatan was extremely cautions because of the takedown threat and it definitely affected his fighting.

 

[TriangleMonkey]

It is known the TD threat will cause great strikers to suck at striking, and grapplers great at striking


With lots of variations and intangibles in between

 

[HHJ]

His grappling is there enough to keep Poatan honest. And his striking is great and very fast. He also has great defense. Made Poatan biting on feints. But also he just kept calm. Technically picking him apart and dictated the pace. None of the nervous energy of Rountree in the previous fight.

 

[Phisher]

His grappling is there enough to keep Poatan honest. And his striking is great and very fast. He also has great defense. Made Poatan biting on feints. But also he just kept calm. Technically picking him apart and dictated the pace. None of the nervous energy of Rountree in the previous fight.

I had to mute the commentary after the part where Rogan and Cormier went into mental gymnastics to deny how fast Ankalaev is.

A lot of people only assessed the guy in terms of his brain farts against Craig and Jan while ignoring his overall skill set.

 

[HHJ]

I had to mute the commentary after the part where Rogan and Cormier went into mental gymnastics to deny how fast Ankalaev is.

A lot of people only assessed the guy in terms of his brain farts against Craig and Jan while ignoring his overall skill set.

It's the same with Belal.


People say he's so basic and boring but I'm like ok but then why can't anyone beat him?? He has to be doing something right. There has to be an insane focus and dedication to game planning to keep winning at the elite level like that.

People think boring means they should lose to a more exciting fighter.

 

[Sean Chowdhury]

His wrestling was worse than I thought, I thought he could take alex down and land ground and pound to win rounds. But who needs wrestling when you can outstrike the boogeyman of the division

 

[Kung Fu Kowboy]

 

[HHJ]

His wrestling was worse than I thought, I thought he could take alex down and land ground and pound to win rounds. But who needs wrestling when you can outstrike the boogeyman of the division

He doesn't need to take him down. If he can make him work, he takes the steam out of him