We have been told on the net that Khabilov has never faced the wrestling caliber of Bendo. I tend to agree that as far as the UFC is concerned. However, I think The Tiger was one of the top Combat Sambo fighter in his category, if not world champ at some point. Though there probably no high school wrestling where he is from, at the end of the day, there are some tough-assed grapplers coming from those Russian mountains. I am sure that's a hell of a curriculum in itself. Based on the fact Josh Thompson was able to trip Bendo fairly easily with one hand and a half, do you see Bendo having the upper hand in the grappling department? I respect Bendo's talent but it seems that there are more and more *****s in his armor. I would not be surprised his fancy kicks will be caught here and there and he will have to spend some time on his back. I am rooting for the Tiger on this one. Looks like a fairly humorous and humble dude though he is pretty vicious when the closes in the cage.
Bendo's wrestling is overrated for a start. His well roundedness, craftiness, stamina and durability are what make him special. I think he'll likely get the better of Khabilov as the fight goes into the deeper rounds. It's a rather difficult fight to handicap, though.
He placed 2nd in a state tournament before he did jiujitsu and was a 2 time All-American while wrestling for (... NAIA school) Dana College. He is a wrestler.
Like Mark Munoz, Bendo is that breed of mma wrestler who is consistently underrated due to his over-reliance on half collar ties in college. They are both excellent scramblers.
His fighting style in mma says otherwise. You know what I meant. I can read someone's credentials off their wikipedia page too.
Well you can also look at his scrambling in fights and tell where his base in grappling is. Here is Bendo competing at the highest levels of nogi in the 2013 ADCC: Clearly winding up with back control off getting body slammed is typical bjj.
Maybe point out the fact that rolling into sprawl position (where he also could have got a front headlock if he had cinched up the chin to go along with his bicep control) before moving around to the back while switching grips to control the armpit is an extremely wrestler-esque tendency.
He's going to post a gif that's not even from a mma fight, which was my point. His background is definitely wrestling, but he uses that wrestling as a submission grappler type style; by going for submissions and shit. Source: His WEC fights and shit.
That makes no sense. The grappling he does in his fights is clearly oriented around coming out on top in scrambles for superior position. Submission grappling is essentially synonymous for nogi, and if he was as focused on that as you claim then he would be pulling a lot more guard and hunting for triangles, which I have never seen him do and in fact he gets caught in armbars from guard all the time. Beyond this his guard passing does not appear particularly strong. Weakness in guard work and passing the guard are both grappling traits typical of wrestlers. I don't know what you mean by "going for submissions and shit" because that is extremely vague, but I do know that you can use wrestling to gain superior position from which to apply submissions while only having a relatively basic knowledge of submission technique. For example, from the front headlock position (generally hit off sprawling or head control as shot defense), the Japanese necktie, d'arce choke, and gator roll to anaconda choke are all viable offensive techniques, that can be hit as part of winning a grappling exchange using techniques that are clearly oriented in wrestling. Bendo's wrestling colors every aspect of his BJJ not the other way around.
the fact that he is fighting BJJ people with what is clearly oriented in wrestling is enough to dispel the inane presumption that his grappling instincts lie in BJJ. Many wrestlers transitioning to mma who rely on pulling on someone's head to get a takedown because they are not particularly strong in shooting find that it's easy to get jabbed in the face before you ever get that close. I have also posted the fact that he has placed in the top 8 of two NAIA tournaments, which was dismissed. I then posted a .gif of Bendo doing rassler stuff in the ADCC, and the fact that he shows excellent scrambling ability in most of his mma fights is pretty self-evident. What more do you want?
Considering he spent many years growing up and training with Khabib nurmagomedov, I'd say that Rustam has faced someone with better wrestling than Henderson's.
I used to call Bendo the "anti" wrestler, but when I look at him now I feel his overall wrestling has gone into decline or something. Getting thrown to the ground by Frankie and getting taken down and back taken by one-handed Thompson at will.
I expect Bendo will dominate every facet of the fight. Mostly because he is more proven. Rustam threw around a bottom tier guy and has everyone praising him for having a sambo background. He had little to no success grappling against Masvidal while Bendo has bested wrestlers like Jim Miller while making him look amateur. Make no mistake, Bendo would be the stiffest test for either Rustam or Khabib so far. Before you all jump in and say Khabib would destroy Bendo, remember that the best wrestler he faced was Tibau and look what happened, he went 0-13 in takedowns.
