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- Apr 18, 2019
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Yeah, when Ngannou hit that scissor sweep I got so excited and started yelling. We were watching a stream on a phone at this party and the girl next to me is like "what? what happened?" And I had a hard time explaining why I was excited.Very impressed by Ngannou's grappling, though. Everyone calls me crazy but I think Moldavsky has an excellent chance at beating Gane. This next fight might help my point.
The thing is, the UFC has built their upper divisions in such a way that, for the most part, you don't have to fight any wrestlers on your route to the title. In the past what that might allow is for a mediocre or an adequate grappler to make it up the rankings. But now, since it's such an inbred meta, you see fighters with very little TDD and probably blue belt level bjj in the upper echelons of the league. And it's by design, but this heavily favors veterans. Because a veteran with perhaps no serious wrestling background, but who has just been training wrestling and jiu jitsu longer will have the ability to take down and grind out a newer fighter who just doesn't have the experience.
So, I do think Moldavsky would beat Gane. And perhaps others too. Again, I don't dislike Gane. But I was watching the James Lynch podcast and Lynch was saying, "no, Gane wasn't exposed, he only got taken down 4 times"...which would make sense if he was getting back up but those were round ending takedowns", and "no, Gane wasn't exposed, Francis is just that strong and heavy, I mean imagine having Francis Ngannou on top of you." But what's worse than having a really heavy and strong guy on top of you is having a guy who is also pretty heavy and strong but with good technique on top of you. I also hate using the word "exposed." But there will be this narrative coming out of 270 that "oh, Francis is a world class grappler now" and...believe it or not there might be a couple guys who do it better... Francis basically took Gane down at will, with only one knee allegedly as well. You know, that is an actual problem.
But if you think of it in the context of the rest of the division. Gane outgrappled Don'Tale Mayes. And Mayes wrestled Josh Parisian. It's like...how did we get Josh Parisian in the league... Oh right, because he knocks out the bums on contender series.