Curtis's takedown stat tonight was 14/25.

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FedorGOAT

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Appreciate it people, That man is legit skilled. It takes a massive amount of energy to takedown someone 6'7'', 285 lbs while being a 265 lbs himself.. Anyone saying Khabib or other fighters from lighter weight fighters are better for this type of gameplan, know this; It's a different ball game doing it against a lighterweight fighter who usually weigh at 175-180 lbs compared to doing it in heavyweigt.

Besides Blaydes has many exciting finishes in his career. One relatively boring performance doesn't erase all his past exciting performances.
 
That was a crotch sniffing masterclass.

I don't hold it against Blaydes because he's put on as many exciting wins (and losses) as he has stinkers, and at the end of the day he's fighting to double his paycheck, not just to swing for the fences for our amusement, but that fight was so boring I actually drifted off to sleep while it was on. He didn't try to finish the fight once.
 
Lord Ashley Barnes said:
Appreciate it people, That man is legit skilled. It takes a massive amount of energy to takedown someone 6'7'', 285 lbs while being a 265 lbs himself.. Anyone saying Khabib or other fighters from lighter weight fighters are better for this type of gameplan, know this; It's a different ball game doing it against a lighterweight fighter who usually weigh at 175-180 lbs compared to doing it in heavyweigt.

Besides Blaydes has many exciting finishes in his career. One relatively boring performance doesn't erase all his past exciting performances.
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Folks that have never wrestled are going to shit on Blaydes for sure. However, once you get to 190ish pounds and above, hitting double legs on bigger dudes gets exponentially more difficult. Having that amount of weight on your back while driving into their legs is incredibly exhausting and leaves you very vulnerable. To do it at a lighter weight is hard enough, but the risk is significantly less.

The frustration of grabbing a dude's legs and feeling them sprawl out and then getting your face pushed into the mat takes a lot to overcome at the heavier weights; hitting that reshot after the first entry is significantly more taxing than it looks. Blaydes has a great ability in transitioning into takedowns. Taking down dudes in a fight is not easy. He still has a lot to refine, particularly in his standup, but I was impressed. I don't feel many others will share my opinion.
 
lyndon955 said:
That was a crotch sniffing masterclass.

I don't hold it against Blaydes because he's put on as many exciting wins (and losses) as he has stinkers, and at the end of the day he's fighting to double his paycheck, not just to swing for the fences for our amusement, but that fight was so boring I actually drifted off to sleep while it was on. He didn't try to finish the fight once.
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That's fair enough -- as a former wrestler with an incredible bias, I can respect this. It's definitely not the fight that many folks are doing to enjoy. It's definitely a fight for wrestling nerds to watch and take note of things like the 2 on 1 wrist control and other subtleties, not show to a mainstream audience and expect them to be entertained. I'm definitely glad I watched this fight by myself instead of listening to my friends/family bitch the whole time haha
 
Lord Ashley Barnes said:
Appreciate it people, That man is legit skilled. It takes a massive amount of energy to takedown someone 6'7'', 285 lbs while being a 265 lbs himself.. Anyone saying Khabib or other fighters from lighter weight fighters are better for this type of gameplan, know this; It's a different ball game doing it against a lighterweight fighter who usually weigh at 175-180 lbs compared to doing it in heavyweigt.

Besides Blaydes has many exciting finishes in his career. One relatively boring performance doesn't erase all his past exciting performances.
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People here are way too fickle and just like to shit on guys. Blaydes looked beastly against Overeem and JDS. Here he showed huge holes though. In that criticism I agree. But people are now saying he's an absolute scrub and every fight of his is boring shit lol.

The thing is, while his wrestling is impressive at HW, if he can't implement his wrestling gameplan in a 5rd fight against a pure striker, then he needs to make some major changes in his style/training. He was dominating the first rounds but expending way too much energy. Even to the point that he got taken down by Volkov himself and could barely punch and was riding the clock at the end because he was so tired. Maybe he was scared of the striking of Volkov, not sure. He needs major improvement if he plans to compete with Francis or Stipe, this won't cut it.
 
When I wrestled I found it easier to take the bigger guys personally. Less overall body control. Heavyweights have less maneuverability and a much higher center of gravity.
 
Damn people have short memories. I remember after Matt Hughes' fights in the early aughts how people came on here and bitched and moaned and complained about how boring he was. After Matt Hughes fought Hayato Sakurai people on SD were talking about how they fell asleep and how the only exciting thing was when Mach landed a right cross on Hughes and stunned him only to get taken down again. Curtis impressed me with his top game and takedowns. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't a slugfest, but he gutted out a tough win especially in a 5 round fight against a tough opponent.
 
Blaydes was (imo) enjoyable till the end of the 3rd. He was exhausted and couldn't deliver much if any output. However it still also falls on Volk who was neutered, ever after getting back to the feet his output was barely above Blaydes.

Man did what he had to do after not securing it in 3 and even if it wasn't pretty it took him to victory. Only caveat I have is I would have liked to see more stand ups and what impact they would have on the overall encounter. It was likely rinse and repeat for Curtis as Volk just had no real answer.

He isn't sniffing the title any sooner after the outing but is still a top competitor with room for growth.

Still walkin the Razors-edge here....
 
NHBfilipino222 said:
Damn people have short memories. I remember after Matt Hughes' fights in the early aughts how people came on here and bitched and moaned and complained about how boring he was. After Matt Hughes fought Hayato Sakurai people on SD were talking about how they fell asleep and how the only exciting thing was when Mach landed a right cross on Hughes and stunned him only to get taken down again. Curtis impressed me with his top game and takedowns. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't a slugfest, but he gutted out a tough win especially in a 5 round fight against a tough opponent.
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The recency bias is strong on Sherdog. To listen to some tell it, he's a wet blanket 100% of the time who only ever wins by decision. Ignore the fact that he has finished his opponent in over 70% of his wins -- more than two current champions who rely heavily on offensive wrestling -- and that his last victory was a TKO on the feet in Round 2 against JDS.

His performance in tonight's fight in a vacuum is fairly indefensible and revealed a lot of very troublesome things about Curtis that he needs to work on if he ever hopes to be a serious contender. However, the people retroactively applying it to his entire career are, to say the least, misguided.
 
That was a stinker of a fight. Blaydes gassed out walking into the ring. He doesn’t deserve any title fight any time soon. He should go down in rankings.
 
In all seriousness, I respect the ability that Blaydes has to take people down and control them with his wrestling. I don't think anyone should knock him for that, because that's incredibly valuable. The problem with him that I have is (he didn't really do this in other fights) there were multiple moments in each round that he literally just laid on or sat in volkov's guard and did absolutely nothing. I just want to see the fighter work. ESPECIALLY when you're talking shit and want to prove yourself for a title.. Blaydes legit took more damage than Volkov
 
Lord Ashley Barnes said:
Appreciate it people, That man is legit skilled. It takes a massive amount of energy to takedown someone 6'7'', 285 lbs while being a 265 lbs himself.. Anyone saying Khabib or other fighters from lighter weight fighters are better for this type of gameplan, know this; It's a different ball game doing it against a lighterweight fighter who usually weigh at 175-180 lbs compared to doing it in heavyweigt.

Besides Blaydes has many exciting finishes in his career. One relatively boring performance doesn't erase all his past exciting performances.
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You know what would be actually impressive? 1 takedown, 1 submission attempt,1 finish.

14 takedowns means your opponent got up like 9 times.
 
NicholasJBasile said:
That's fair enough -- as a former wrestler with an incredible bias, I can respect this. It's definitely not the fight that many folks are doing to enjoy. It's definitely a fight for wrestling nerds to watch and take note of things like the 2 on 1 wrist control and other subtleties, not show to a mainstream audience and expect them to be entertained. I'm definitely glad I watched this fight by myself instead of listening to my friends/family bitch the whole time haha
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That's true, I enjoy all facets of mma and I appreciate a good wrestler, but I'm from the UK where wrestling just isn't a thing basically so I definitely don't appreciate things like that as much as an American fan would. For that reason I actually really enjoyed Cruz's commentary in that fight as he was breaking it down technically while it was happening.

Cruz is one of my favourite commentators for that reason. I think he's quite robotic like Anik, but whereas Anik is giving us useless information and adverts, Cruz's explanations of the techniques is actually very interesting to hear.
 
Volkov has been taken down his whole career, worst possible matchup for him
 
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