I like Ismagulov but tbf Joel was on his debut fight, was called in very short notice which is awful on a guy who needs to cut a shitload of weight and he was totally off on that fight. Never have I seen Joel throw like 5 punches and a kick on each round.
Rashid was fuckin good! Gave Burns his first loss, and only lose to Dariush, who's wall-and-stall him.
He retires after every loss. Is normal.
none of them lived up to their hyoe because they all got matched up against each other in close fights, so the winner didnt impress and the loser is a loser. meanwhile, gaethje, chandler and poirier all rank squat and still have upcoming matchuos against each other. crazyy shit
I'm just looking at that and seeing my point proven, Elves is dangerous and he's another new comer 25 years old with a good camp behind him. Grant is a member of the "new guard" as you are putting it and he took Damir out which is exactly what I said. Gaethjes the only 1 that has defended his spot and then he went right into a rematch with poirier, which isn't the worst fight but it doesn't help any of the new guys which is the current subject of discussion.
Gaethje has wins over T-ferg, Cerrone, Barboza, MJ, Chandler, Vick (Damir level at the time IMO) and Fiziev all guys arguably still in their primes.
It's criminal how much people were looking past Grant considering he's been around as a prospect for like 5 years or so, and is undefeated in the UFC with some great performances.
Remind me again how many fights Askarov has had since leaving the UFC.
Grant was certainly on the radar being unbeaten with close to 10 fights in the UFC before sending Damir home. Grant beat an olympic wrestler who was undefeated in MMA before facing Damir and Grant was favored against Damir in the books too. You also see what you wanna see so it must be close enough on both sides, but that doesn't help with chandler and poirier rank squatting specifically, even if Gaethje gets a pass for now.
