Can't help but feel awesome for Varner, Duffee, and Gonzaga

I was just thinking back about what was the feel good story of 2013, and I think it might be a 3-way tie between these 3 guys.

Especially when you consider that 2 of them had actually announced their retirement, and the other was so inactive that he took to twitter and the UG to ask FANS if they know of any good promoters.

But here we are a year later, and Gonzaga has posted a dominant win in his home country, and is now looking at a main card spot.

Varner got in THREE epic wars, and took out two of the guys that were probably the two hottest prospects at the beginning of the year, and had a potential FOTY performance against Lauzon.

And finally, Duffee came back and picked up right where he left off by blasting another HW in the first round, and reclaiming his spot as the HW prospect with maybe the most potential in the division.


Anyways, I never really like to hear about guys getting cut who are clearly UFC talent, as was the case with these 3 guys, and I'm loving how they all had awesome comebacks in 2012.


Will 2013 feature any comeback stories like these 3 guys?




EDIT: Adding GIFs for better feel-good effect...

 

a bit of an exaggeration with respect to duffee, but congratulations to them nonetheless.

 

never really like varner but he did step his game up big this year plus that jlau fight was just fucking sick. dudes drawing jim miller at ufc158, mark my words!

 

I watched Varner get beat in 2011 by Dakota Cochrane and thought he was never going to get to UFC again, I was wrong, he did great this year.

 

I completely agree with TS. They are honestly great stories and I'm super happy for them. They are all very talented and deserved to be in the UFC.

 

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Duffee has the most potential of all of the top HW prospects. Miocic, Browne, and SDR definitely still have big potential, but of the lot, I would say that Duffee has the highest ceiling.

This is assuming that you acknowledge that Cormier has long since dropped the prospect tag once he ragdolled Barnett for 25 minutes...

 

the way he got taken down by defries, then gnp'd really left a question mark. i can see about a dozen hw's doing that to him, probably guys with better td's and gnp too.

 

Same here, man...

It was actually pretty sad, I thought to myself, "Who has ever declined so hard, so young, other than Varner?"

If you would've told someone that Varner was going to comeback in 2012 and take out BOTH Barbosa and Guillard (the two guys who at the beginning of the year were on the cusp of title contention), AND have that ridiculous war with Lauzon where he showed so much heart by fighting through the broken hand and proceeding to blast JLau with ridiculous amounts of elbows... Guys would've said you were nuts.

Hell, if you even insinuated that Varner could even ever fight in the UFC again, that was pretty crazy, in itself...

 

Gonzaga prtolly had the biggest drop, going from a title fight to out of the UFC with several KOs to being back on a nice win streak

 

I'm more inclined to give props to PDF (who I still think could turn out to be a decent HW) for the strong takedown and aggressiveness than to focus on the one single flaw of the fight for Duffee and use it against him. Hell, I'm not even sure if we've EVER seen Duffee give up a TD before, let alone the fact that he's training daily with the two best wrestlers in the division...

I guess we'll just have to wait and see in 2013, but I still stand behind my statement. As far as potential goes, you're hard pressed to find a prospect in that division with more of it in than Duffee.

 

Yeah well said, I was so happy he came back to beat Barbosa, just like the Melvin fight we was taking some nasty leg kicks there as well but he did not let it (at least what I saw) effect him much. Truly the knockout of Barbosa could be considered a huge upset, UFC should have awards for comeback fighter of the year.

 

I've always liked Gonzaga. I think he's in the top 5 of all HWs in the world as far as skill sets go, but has always had difficulty putting it together mentally. For almost two years he forgot he has world class BJJ because he KOd Cro Cop. It's nice to see him putting together wins again.

 

Whoa, an original thread followed by positive discussion. I'm blown away.
I agree, it's been nice to see these guys rack some W's and not give up on their careers.

 

which one was on the UG etc. i didnt see this

 

One of the most notable things I saw with Varner, is that dude can take a leg kick like nobodies business, and still move forward.
He took 4-5 nasty ones from Edson and the better part of a dozen from Melvin and just kind of went with it.
Props.

 

maybe he had no respect for defries's gnp because he did absolutely nothing to defend himself when he was working his way back up. it could have been by design, i'm not sure, but it's something to think about.

 

i can never forgive gonzaga. he ruined everything

 

Yeah, watching the grapplers dilemma unfold after they have some success on the feet can be really frustrating.
Gonzaga can give anyone fits, i'm far from a coach, but I think if he just:
Opened up with a few of his legs kicks, which are always solid, and will help him measure the distance.
Get the guy thinking about defending against strikes and try to back him against the cage.
Drag him to the ground.
Work BJJ.
I honestly think if he can get top control with some time to work, he beats a large percentage of the division. The fact he is a strong puncher too really opens up opportunities for subs.

 

Duffee.

And now that I think about it, I remember that he also made a thread about selling his UFC gloves, and then Nate Quarry came in and pretty much told him that he had been in his same position before, and consoled him on whether to sell the gloves or not...

 

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