Can 'Cigano' get gold once again?

[Ken Fresno]

@cigano

i believe

 

[Andre Xiong]

Never good when a contender lose to a chinny Overeem

 

[TJH Exitium]

You think he's better, even though JDS got KO'd by Econoreem. Ngannous is durable, powerful, quick, a good striker, decent TDD. Technique-wise I might agree with you, but Ngannou is far superior as a fighter overall.

JDS never got KO'd by Reem

He got dropped, he saw a followup shot coming and blocked it, then ref stopped the fight

 

[Jackonfire]

I don't see why not. I mean, I'd probably pick DC to beat him but I wouldn't be confident about it.

And its funny how people talk about how Cain ruined JDS but you look at the 2 of them now and which one is a win away from a title shot...

 

[Jackonfire]

I dont understand what people are seeing in JDS in this Ngannou match-up.

Sloppy Tuivasa was landing bombs with zero set-up at will. The much faster and much more powerful Ngannou is only gonna need one of those to land.

Ngannou lost a staring contest with Black Beast. JDS knocked him out. People talk about Junior being gun shy against Overeem, Ngannou nearly pissed himself against Lewis.

 

[Stalingrad9]

Ngannou lost a staring contest with Black Beast. JDS knocked him out. People talk about Junior being gun shy against Overeem, Ngannou nearly pissed himself against Lewis.

It cancels itself out since Ngannou sent Overeem in the 6th dimension.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

Damn, his first run to gold was one of the most dominant in UFC history. Can he do it again?...

I think it’s very unlikely but not impossible. He’s most of the way to a title shot at this point, and on paper he would “only” need to beat Francis and the winner of the Cormier-Miocic rematch. But those are very tough matchups, and there are also several potential hiccups that could derail those plans, such as (i) Miocic wins the rematch in a fashion that stirs demand for a rubber match; (ii) Brock Lesnar decides to return; (iii) Cormier wins and Jon Jones jumps up to heavyweight (or DC drops down to LHW) to complete their trilogy; (iv) somewhere along the line an injury is suffered by JDS, Francis, Cormier or Miocic that derails the timeline.

I think Junior should be a material underdog against any of the three men, two of whom he will need to defeat. When the Ngannou fight was announced a couple months back the odds I saw had Francis installed as approximately a 2-to-1 favorite over Junior. For the sake of argument let’s say he’d be the same against Cormier (I think it would be slightly worse). That gives him maybe a 10% chance to win both fights, assuming nothing goes wrong and jacks the whole thing up.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

Ngannou lost a staring contest with Black Beast. JDS knocked him out. People talk about Junior being gun shy against Overeem, Ngannou nearly pissed himself against Lewis.

That fight was bizarre, and Ngannou has shown he’s got a streak of mental midgetry in him for sure. He’s still a man who you cannot allow to touch you.

If we want to play MMA Math, Overeem seems the most relevant to me.

And personally I didn’t think Junior looked all that great against Lewis. More than once he left himself WIDE open to getting blasted and Lewis barely missed. And we’re talking about a man who was barely able to move his feet.

 

[Iron Wolf]

I think JDS is better than Francis, but damn its so hard to not get hit by one of those nuclear bombs.....He could fight the perfect fight for 14 min and if Francis lands one its over. I favor JDS if he can get out of the first. I could even see him knocking out Francis if he actually commits to a power shot. But if he is hesitant it will go just like the Overeem fight.

As far as being able to beat DC, I dont think so. But if Stipe wins or DC retires you never know.

What would your prediction be for a pre-Cain-Loss JDS vs. Francis?

 

[blaseblah]

I highly doubt it and I think retirement soon is much more likely. Having said that, I hope I am wrong as it would be awesome to see him get that belt again before retirement.

He is like the Nogs, he will have to be forced into retirement.

 

[NationWideNinja]

Ngannou lost a staring contest with Black Beast. JDS knocked him out. People talk about Junior being gun shy against Overeem, Ngannou nearly pissed himself against Lewis.

Sure, and after that he went to destroy Blaydes and Cain within like a minute.

 

[Paynebringer]

I just don't see it unless some scrub happens to get the title by chance and JDS takes him on, but from the current stock from the guy holding the belt to those in waiting I just don't see it...