Belol lost because he was delusional

rjmbrd said:
He tapped Moicano in the first round in a 4 minute fight. Setting aside the fact that he immediately tapped a world class MMA submission grappler (10 of Moicano's 20 career wins are subs) he did it with complete impunity.

This feels like a bizarre thing to pick highlighting Islam's striking. He head kicked KO'd P4P great Volk and his brilliant counter striking dropped Do Bronx on his historic 12 fight win streak, setting up his finish.

Islam has had some objectively spectacular striking exchanges against the literal best fighters in the world.
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it's not that bizarre. you just highlighted everything that happened ON THE GROUND. on the feet he squared up with Moicano too much and tried to force landing his right hook instead of setting it up and reading Moicano for the correct time. why do you think he fell down? it wasn't Moicano striking him, it was him getting scared because he knew he was forcing something and was out of position, he panicked covered up and that's when he fell down. plus he looked slow. notice how after falling down, he immediately started backing up and shot a takedown a little while later. he had had enough of the striking and knew it looked bad.

like i said, it would be 1 thing if he was facing Justin Gaethje or Poirer and he fought like that, but he fought like that vs Moicano. Moicano isn't some KO artist.

i don't really rate the Volk knockout. he was literally coming off the couch. Do Bronx was an excellent performance but that was years ago and it was vs Oliveira who was completely baffled by Islam's conventional southpaw style. JDM isn't going to just stand there confused vs a southpaw stance.
 
HP_Nut said:
He attempted 4 td in the first 3 rds. I will have to rewatch rd 2 where he supposedly had 3 TD attempt, i only remember 1 real TD attempt in rd 2. Really seemed like he drank his own koolaid eg Canelo hands (to be fair, I don’t think his striking is bad, but its clearly not on jdm level)

Edit: I don’t even think Belal deserved rd 1 (not a blowout rd but JDM won rd 1). So the judges were a bit lenient towards Belal surprisingly. I do believe if he went for more TD it is very possible he could have got rd 2 or rd 3. 2 judges gave him 2 rds (i do think he won rd 4 but thats it)
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After getting nowhere with his first four takedown attempts, it would be foolish to keep spamming them nonstop. He doesn't have endless conditioning. He shot 4 takedown attempts in the first half of the fight, and 5 takedowns in the second half of the fight. He didn't wait to wrestle. 9 takedown attempts for a 5 round fight is only considered a small amount if we're talking about Merab. Look at how tired Belal was by the end of that fight. You really think spamming more failed takedown attempts early would have helped?

Belal simply got beat.
 
fortheo said:
The guy shot a lot of takedowns. This "belal didn't mix it up" narrative is overstated. 9 takedown attempts is decent amount of takedwn attempts for most fighters. He shot a similar amount against Luque in that 5 round fight and everyone complained about all the wrestling in that one.
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It is almost a decade since he became TFC Welterweight Champion after going 0-9.
His 36 now and very much not in his prime anymore wearing a lot of damage. Still put up a great fight against a young lion in his prime doing everything right. I am a Belal fan and thought it was a great fight for both of them. Hard to not like the young lion too since Ozzies are so goddam down to earth and lovable!
 
fortheo said:
After getting nowhere with his first four takedown attempts, it would be foolish to keep spamming them nonstop. He doesn't have endless conditioning. He shot 4 takedown attempts in the first half of the fight, and 5 takedowns in the second half of the fight. He didn't wait to wrestle. 9 takedown attempts for a 5 round fight is only considered a small amount if we're talking about Merab.

Belal simply got beat.
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The striking stats for rd 3 were close, but i do think JDM took it. I absolutely believe a few more TD attempts couldve swayed the judges. I do not think Belal deserved rd 1 yet 2 judges gave it to him. So I don’t see how you think it’s inconceivable that more grappling based approach couldve swayed a rd for Belal
 
HP_Nut said:
The striking stats for rd 3 were close, but i do think JDM took it. I absolutely believe a few more TD attempts couldve swayed the judges. I do not think Belal deserved rd 1 yet 2 judges gave it to him. So I don’t see how you think it’s inconceivable that more grappling based approach couldve swayed a rd for Belal
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I do think it is conceivable he could have had a better round 3 with more grappling, but at the expense of doing worse in the later rounds. If he did what you wanted in round 3, I don't think he'd have the juice left to do it in round 4. I think more failed takedown attempts would have zapped belal's gas tank even quicker. He was dead tired by the end of that fight and Jack was still throwing 5 punch combos by that point.
 
fortheo said:
I do think it is conceivable he could have had a better round 3 with more grappling, but at the expense of doing worse in the later rounds. If he did what you wanted in round 3, I don't think he'd have the juice left to do it in round 4. I think more failed takedown attempts would have zapped belal's gas tank even quicker. He was dead tired by the end of that fight and Jack was still throwing 5 punch combos by that point.
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Were just gonna have to disagree, i see it as a very winnable fight for Belal with those judges. I think he got caught up on the koolaid, i remember thinking even the TD attempts, probably near the end of rd 2 seemed like a cheap attempt to “steal the rd” rather than a genuine TD where a guy does damage (i will need to rewatch, not sure if my memory is right about it being near the end of rd 2). Not saying he would have deserved the decision even if he swayed the judges in rd 3 (because i do not think he should have won rd 1)
 
Motivated BJ Penn said:


It seems Belol really drank the "Canelo hands" koolaid and wanted to prove his haters wrong instead of mixing it up with wrestling vs the obvious better striker.

Oh well cant complain when fighters want to lose more braincells for our entertainment, it was a great fight.
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He lost because he decided not to vacate and take the time off to recover from his infection.
His stamina wasn't there, his strength wasn't there, he let the pressure to fight get to him.
 
HP_Nut said:
Were just gonna have to disagree, i see it as a very winnable fight for Belal with those judges. I think he got caught up on the koolaid, i remember thinking even the TD attempts, probably near the end of rd 2 seemed like a cheap attempt to “steal the rd” rather than a genuine TD where a guy does damage (i will need to rewatch, not sure if my memory is right about it being near the end of rd 2). Not saying he would have deserved the decision even if he swayed the judges in rd 3 (because i do not think he should have won rd 1)
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It just seems like in your scenario belal has better cardio than he does in reality.
 
Pancake Sprawl said:
except he tried to take him down in rds 1 AND 2. i don't know how fights JUST HAPPENED and mofos be bullshitting about what happened.
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Chill ma man, I'll have to rematch, but I swear he didn't attempt anything until the last minute of the 1st and even in the 2nd how many did he attempt. Compare and contrast that with his gameplan against Leon where he was manhandling Leon from the first bell, it looked a different representation of Belal, to me at least.

Belal came in looking to outstrike JDM, sort of like he did against Brady, BUT JDM was way too slick and the wrestling from Belal looked forced in this one.
 
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fortheo said:
The guy shot a lot of takedowns. This "belal didn't mix it up" narrative is overstated. 9 takedown attempts is decent amount of takedwn attempts for most fighters. He shot a similar amount against Luque in that 5 round fight and everyone complained about all the wrestling in that one.
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People are going to complain about Belal no matter what he does.
 
fortheo said:
It just seems like in your scenario belal has better cardio than he does in reality.
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Belal was known for his cardio & relentless pressure, i think jdm busted him up good in that 5th rd & zapped him. No, hes not Merab but no one is. For a WW, his cardio going into the fight was considered a positive
 
Söze Aldo said:
Few UFC fighters in history have properly melded their wrestling with boxing. Most can either box or wrestle but struggle with the transition from one to the other. GSP was the master at that, using his striking to lead into his takedowns.
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Something the legendary fighters (Fedor, GSP, Silva) had that separated them from the pack was timing. GSP's timing on his blast doubles was incredible.
 
don't ask said:
Something the legendary fighters (Fedor, GSP, Silva) had that separated them from the pack was timing. GSP's timing on his blast doubles was incredible.
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Exactly, what I was thinking of. The jab or superman punch to disorient and then boom the double blast.

Even Usman, when he picked up a jab didn't properly mix that with his takedowns imo.
 
Söze Aldo said:
Exactly, what I was thinking of. The jab or superman punch to disorient and then boom the double blast.

Even Usman, when he picked up a jab didn't properly mix that with his takedowns imo.
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Fedor and GSP were the best I'd ever seen at flowing between striking and takedowns. And it's fascinating to watch becaue they did it in two completely opposite ways.
 
fortheo said:
The guy shot a lot of takedowns. This "belal didn't mix it up" narrative is overstated. 9 takedown attempts is decent amount of takedwn attempts for most fighters. He shot a similar amount against Luque in that 5 round fight and everyone complained about all the wrestling in that one.
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Exactly…not like BeLost’s “D-1 takedowns” were working…JDM either stuffed or got right back up.
 
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