Better fighter losing due to overlooking

[BowserJr]

Examples of fights were the better fighters lost cuz he overlooked and underestimated his opponent.

Cro cop v Gonzaga (literally won the rematch while more shop worn/old)

Reem v Big Foot
Crocop v Randleman
Werdum v Stipe
Rockhold v Bisping 2
Silva v Weidman
Shogun v Forrest
Hendo v Misaki 2
Hendo v Sheilds
Mir v Brock 2
GSP v Serra
Rampage v Forrest

 

[Shaolin Alan]

McGregor VS Khabib
(Just kidding; wanted to see his butt huggers agree)

 

[Shaolin Alan]

Sakuraba vs Nino Schembri

 

[XThe GreatestX]

do people still try to justify that cro crop gonzaga thing as overlooking?

i just think he got taken down, hit with elbows that stunned him a bit, and then got knocked out

 

[jitzmonkey]

Honorable mentions to Santos and Reyes who could’ve very realistically been awarded decisions over JBJ.

*Also Jose Aldo thought that he could get away with running straight at Conor while both of them were as fresh as they possibly could be.

 

[McSpikes]

I think the “ overlooked” excuses is one of the dumbest things in MMA.

I’d say Mir vs Brock 1 would be a better example than Mir vs Brock 2

 

[Get To Da Choppa]

Examples of fights were the better fighters lost cuz he overlooked and underestimated his opponent.

Cro cop v Gonzaga (literally won the rematch while more shop worn/old)

Reem v Big Foot
Crocop v Randleman
Werdum v Stipe
Rockhold v Bisping 2
Silva v Weidman
Shogun v Forrest
Hendo v Misaki 2
Hendo v Sheilds
Mir v Brock 2
GSP v Serra
Rampage v Forrest

The Werdum vs JDS fight always stuck out to me as a prime example of overlooking your opponent. Werdum is on the cusp of a title shot and the JDS fight was supposed to be a keep busy fight while JDS was an unknown at that time and didn't even have a Wikipedia page.

This was the time when the "new breed" of super heavyweight were all the rage, like Brock and Carwin. To prepare for a potential fight against Brock, Werdum decided to bulk up going into the JDS fight. He was also a -600 favorite I believe. JDS then proceeded to knock his fat ass out and kicked off an incredible run to the title

 

[Elegant]

Ngannou vs Stipe 1 where Ngannou took off the last 2 weeks of his camp to go party in France

 

[loisestrad]

Cro cop v Gonzaga (literally won the rematch while more shop worn/old)

Gonzaga had 16 fights between the Cro Cop fights, Mirko had 15. And I'm pretty sure they both got older by pretty much the same amount of years.

 

[gentel]

Jones vs Reyes, I'll admit Jones is the better fighter, but he was complacent and didn't train hard and lost the first 3 rounds

 

[ejazahmednit]

Championship level fighters dont overlook anything
Fighting is a sport in which even the best can lose to the worst on a given day, and that's what happened in many cases
Plus some of the fights you mentioned , the fighters got out skilled.
Werdum vs Stipe, Weidman vs Silva

 

[sonhow]

Amanda Nunes vs Julianna Pena

 

[volcom5]

Maldonado vs Emelianenko

 

[d0g]

do people still try to justify that cro crop gonzaga thing as overlooking?

i just think he got taken down, hit with elbows that stunned him a bit, and then got knocked out

He said he didn't prepare for elbows and he also didn't prepare in a cage. Doesn't that count as overlooking? Not saying he would've won if he did prepare correctly.

 

[BigTruck]

do people still try to justify that cro crop gonzaga thing as overlooking?

i just think he got taken down, hit with elbows that stunned him a bit, and then got knocked out

That's exactly what happened

 

[haj02]

Rockhold vs Bisping 2 and he got KTFO for it.

 

[Th3Sav4ge]

Michael johnson vs Josh Emmet

the second you arnt 100% locked in, you lose. dosnt matter how much of a lead u had.

 

[CobraCobretti]

Frank Mir vs Cruz

 

[Tweak896]

Arlovski vs Datsik

 

[Deleted member 110072]

do people still try to justify that cro crop gonzaga thing as overlooking?

i just think he got taken down, hit with elbows that stunned him a bit, and then got knocked out

To be fair it sounds like he didnt really put much effort into UFC specific training generally, either elbows or dealing with cage clinching(not helped by Big Jon letting a dozen Kongo low blows pass) and he did look pretty helpless to them. The leg injury he picked up LHKIng Wand maybe a factor there though, he didnt do much training at all between that and his UFC debut I believe then of course had another injury against Gonzaga before Kongo.

As with Randleman though I do think its also the case that he fought a dangerous but flakey opponent who happened to give a near perfect performance and also fought in a very high risk fashion depending on reactions to avoid offence rather than disrupting opponents with smaller strikes meaning he was more of an upset risk.

The rematch was arguably an upset in the other direction, ironically with Gonzaga not being well prepped for elbows standing up.