Media Badboy Junior Tafa will fight today

[Koro_11]

Junior Tafa shares his Samoan heritage with legendary fighters such as Ray Sefo and Mark Hunt. The latter is a close friend and training partner of his, aswell as his older brother and future HOF’er Justin Tafa.

He’s a total madman #TafaGang

Back in 2018 Tafa participated in a GLORY 8-man heavyweight tournament at just 22-years of age. The idea of matchmaking for this tournament was to let the four "new" names choose one of the established names as their opponent for the opening-fight.
The young Junior Tafa was the first one to choose an opponent, and he got right at tournament favorite Jamal Ben Saddik, who stands 6’9”.

Here is their staredown and altercation right after Junior choose Ben Saddik, Tafa kinda being dressed like a gangster, and their pre-fight interview afterwards where they look ahead at the fight:



Here’s their fight:



View attachment 980044

Tafa came short against JBS, but no shame in that (though the problem with his cup was very amateurish) as Jamal is one of the best heavyweights in the world and went on to win the whole thing (and with just one hand in the final, because he broke his right/dominant hand in the semi-finals):



A year before this, Junior Tafa fought against Benjamin Adegbuyi in the final of a 4-man heavyweight tournament at just 21-years of age.
Benny hurt Junior’s legs and ultimately stopped the fight with Tafa unable to continue:




Imo Junior Tafa got himself in the mix with the big names way too early in his career (he went 3-4 (3KO’s) in GLORY), probably as a result of having an impressive first round finish in his GLORY-debut at his young age:

Justin Tafa is a future hall of famer?

 

[The_Renaissance]

He looked fucking awful. His striking looked sloppy as fuck and he has zero ground game. He'll be gone soon, there's not many guys they can realistically match him up with. Disappointing.

 

[BoxerMaurits]

Justin Tafa is a future hall of famer?

Loll, was a bad joke bro<45>

 

[textwarrior]

Junior Tafa shares his Samoan heritage with legendary fighters such as Ray Sefo and Mark Hunt. The latter is a close friend and training partner of his, aswell as his older brother and future HOF’er Justin Tafa.

He’s a total madman #TafaGang

Back in 2018 Tafa participated in a GLORY 8-man heavyweight tournament at just 22-years of age. The idea of matchmaking for this tournament was to let the four "new" names choose one of the established names as their opponent for the opening-fight.
The young Junior Tafa was the first one to choose an opponent, and he got right at tournament favorite Jamal Ben Saddik, who stands 6’9”.

Here is their staredown and altercation right after Junior choose Ben Saddik, Tafa kinda being dressed like a gangster, and their pre-fight interview afterwards where they look ahead at the fight:



Here’s their fight:



View attachment 980044

Tafa came short against JBS, but no shame in that (though the problem with his cup was very amateurish) as Jamal is one of the best heavyweights in the world and went on to win the whole thing (and with just one hand in the final, because he broke his right/dominant hand in the semi-finals):



A year before this, Junior Tafa fought against Benjamin Adegbuyi in the final of a 4-man heavyweight tournament at just 21-years of age.
Benny hurt Junior’s legs and ultimately stopped the fight with Tafa unable to continue:




Imo Junior Tafa got himself in the mix with the big names way too early in his career (he went 3-4 (3KO’s) in GLORY), probably as a result of having an impressive first round finish in his GLORY-debut at his young age:

Tafa at 170 will be interesting, I look forward to it.

 

[colorles]

These Polynesian fighters are tough as nails and thick boned, but more often than not it looks like their diet consists of canned spam ham and beer. wild, party animal fighters

 

[fita]

There's only one guy dressed like a gangster in that staredown and it's not Tafa.

 

[BoxerMaurits]

There's only one guy dressed like a gangster in that staredown and it's not Tafa.

Well, I would say Jamal Ben Saddik was the one dressed somewhat classy right? Compared to Tafa<45>

 

[Benoitthegr8]

I had to comeback and change my vote, a feeling that Usman gonna win.

 

[HeffDoesWant]

Need to eat and sleep TD defenses for the next 6 months

He defended 83% of TDs in that fight.

What he couldn't shake was usmans gentle embrace.
No pass attempts, no submission attempts, and a grand total of 5 significant strikes during his 12 minutes of control time (roughly one sig strike every 2.5 minutes).

Shitty reffing to let that continue.

 

[BoxerMaurits]

Uso gonna shadowrealm Usman.

Tafa has a beautiful left hook and crazily enough his offence looks as sharp as the world class kickboxers he's facing once he's in his range.
But Tafa's footwork which seems to cut his own combinations short and defence almost doesn't exist it's almost like he just thinks he can eat everything and once both Saddik and Adegbuyi realized this Tafa was pretty much completely picked apart.

I haven't seen Tafa's MMA fights but his game might translate like Rountree's. Rountree struggled early with the same issue of elite offence and below average defence.

He's in miles better shape, he's fought at 205 before and he's cutting down there again after this fight.

Really good LHW prospect.

In a couple hours he rolls again #TAFAGANG

 

[Bobby Boulders]

In a couple hours he rolls again #TAFAGANG

Let's go Uso!

 

[BoxerMaurits]

Let's go Uso!

Tafa steamrolled Porter, USO!

 

[Bobby Boulders]

Tafa steamrolled Porter, USO!

He's gonna have a fun career in the UFC. Idk that he'll ever sniff a title shot, but he's gonna produce a ton of violence.

 

[BoxerMaurits]

He's gonna have a fun career in the UFC. Idk that he'll ever sniff a title shot, but he's gonna produce a ton of violence.

Hell yeah, it’s quite a long shot but I wanna see him vs Rozenstruik.
Although both guys aren’t super accomplished kickboxers, I think Tafa fought far tougher opposition in KB than Jairzinho and has the edge on the feet.
Bigi Boy is more of a counterstriker and Junior would bring it to him, which makes for a great fight

 

[Bobby Boulders]

Hell yeah, it’s quite a long shot but I wanna see him vs Rozenstruik.
Although both guys aren’t super accomplished kickboxers, I think Tafa fought far tougher opposition in KB than Jairzinho and has the edge on the feet.
Bigi Boy is more of a counterstriker and Junior would bring it to him, which makes for a great fight

Idk that Junior really knows anything save offensive striking lol. He's just kinda relentless and has so much power it's hard to overcome. He's the Juggernaut for a reason.

 

[Ace70 V2]

MDe Porter look like the gatekeeper he is. Good shit. Definitely needs to work on his grappling. Would have been taken down by a rocked Pprter if there was no fence grab.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Still don't get why he isn't fighting at 205 like he was in most of his pre UFC fights.