Did Chandler get WORSE?

[egk]

The annoying thing about these arguments is that they can be made about every single fighter that has ever fought. List all the GOATs and we can easily pick apart those guy's records as well.

"That guy he beat was on a downslide"
"That was a short notice for that guy"
"That guy was getting older"
"That guy had only beat X, Y & Z"
"That was just a favourable stylistic matchup"

Nobody was ever any good.

It's the nature of sports in general. Young guys come up and take the place of the old guard. The argument comes in when people start wondering when the downturn starts for athletes. People acting like Chandler was never any good are fools but it's fair to judge him based on how he looks now and he looked terrible.
Paddy looked great though and he's a real big LW. He poses a problem for the guys at the top of the division.

 

[Last Falconry]

guy is looking eerily similar to late career frankie edgar at this point

 

[GluttonforPunishment]

He got old.

 

[Doctor Grudge]

You combine a BJJ black belt with a college or state champion level wrestling it's good night paddy is gonna be a problem.

A lot of guys in the UFC are BJJ blackbelts who can out wrestle state champs. Thats not that high of a bar.


Chandler was out wrestled easily by Oliveira in his previous fight. He's old. In his prime, those guys are not beating him via wrestling. Striking and ground fighting sure, but wrestling, not with Chandler from 10 years ago.

 

[VinceArch]

Nah, he was always that bad. Let me remind you that he was the only fighter that was getting outclassed by Tony Ferguson on a 10 fight losing streak. He's the definition of "having a punchers chance". Gasses hard, terrible striker, terrible wrestler, no ground game. He just tucks his head and throws a wild hook praying that it lands. For the rest of the fights he's just getting destroyed no matter where the fight goes. On top of all that he's small and weak. Paddy was throwing him around like a sack of potatoes...

Horrible take.

 

[Bend NvR Break]

Dude is about 80 in MMA years and in a class that doesn't do older fighters favors.

Not to mention he legitimately weighs between 195-205 out of competition. That weight cut probably started showing off diminished results.

 

[xhaydenx]

Tony was never elite? Delete your account, please.

He wasn't.

He had one good win against RDA after he eye poked him. Other than that, who did he beat who was good and not washed?

Cerrone and Pettis were both washed at the time. Lee was always a bum and was sick, and was still handling him until he ran out of gas. Edson was never elite.

Dude was getting ripped apart by Lando Vanata FFS and needed short notice debuting Lando to gas completely before he could find any success at all.

And when he finally started fighting elite guys they all beat him like he was a nobody.

 

[Smato_rules]

Robbie lawyer mentioned chandler had a knee injury when on rampages podcast weeks ago

 

[UWPguy]

How tf can you even say that?
He got outstruck by a grappler in Paddy frking Pimblett, hell even the dead corpse of Tony Ferguson outclassed him on the feet. He just ducks and throws a hailmaker praying it will land lol.
Charles took him down at will, Pimblett radgdolled him like a little girl. He also looks like a fish out of water on the ground, has no clue what he is doing.

He’s atrocious in every single aspect of mma…

I didn't say he was great at anything though in his younger years being explosive and athletic would be something he was great at.

Charles and Paddy are now elite fighters whereas Chandler is 2 weeks away from 39 and is FW size by modern standards.

Maybe we are looking at it from different points of view - you are comparing him to top 5 UFC LW's (besides Ferg though he once was one) whereas I'm comparing him to the overall UFC LW roster - which already means someone is a VERY good MMA fighter.

Chandler does tend to get wild and wing punches but it's not like he's clueless on the feet. He does throw combinations and mixes in some kicks.

HIs wrestling has declined but it still takes a high level guy to beat him there. I suspect he never rounded out his grappling game so the submissions he did get were "wrestler subs" like RNC's and arm-triangles but he never developed a good bottom game. His sub defense is at least decent as it's pretty telling that he'd never been subbed until he was gassed hard in the Porier fight. Even Charles didn't sub him after controlling long stretches of their 2nd fight.

He doesn't put the skills together like an elite fighter should. I get the feeling he doesn't particularly try to do so as he's just out there trying to entertain and make big flashy moves to impress.

So ya, he's decent to good at all aspects of MMA (or he wouldn't ever have made it to Bellator champ much less into the UFC) except fighting intelligently but he was never great at any other than may explosive wrestling in his younger days.

 

[marvinparsons]

Chandler looked washed and he fought like he knew he was washed.

I think it also exposed him as someone that isn't an intelligent fighter and frankly doesn't even have that much skill. He was purely an athlete, relatively speaking.

Even old ass Pitbull and Jim Miller got dominated by younger opponents, but you could tell they had a great skillset and it got them to the bell. They still showed some interesting techniques and had some moments.

Chandler on the other hand. Seems like his two moves are to pick you up and toss you with zero control, or to throw a haymaker. And he barely even threw a haymaker. I have no idea how he thought he'd win, especially over 5 rounds.

 

[Jaddy45]

Lets not forget he got a title fight with one victory in the UFC (over the mighty Dan Hooker).

I think Dana wanted a white handsome captain america type to be a champ, so he kept feeding Chandler huge fights. But as we've seen he just isn't good enough. Let's not forget he said "No Mas" against Ill Will Brooks in Bellator.

Ah yes bring race into it for no reason whatsoever based off nothing.

 

[bjjwar]

I didn't say he was great at anything though in his younger years being explosive and athletic would be something he was great at.

Charles and Paddy are now elite fighters whereas Chandler is 2 weeks away from 39 and is FW size by modern standards.

Maybe we are looking at it from different points of view - you are comparing him to top 5 UFC LW's (besides Ferg though he once was one) whereas I'm comparing him to the overall UFC LW roster - which already means someone is a VERY good MMA fighter.

Chandler does tend to get wild and wing punches but it's not like he's clueless on the feet. He does throw combinations and mixes in some kicks.

HIs wrestling has declined but it still takes a high level guy to beat him there. I suspect he never rounded out his grappling game so the submissions he did get were "wrestler subs" like RNC's and arm-triangles but he never developed a good bottom game. His sub defense is at least decent as it's pretty telling that he'd never been subbed until he was gassed hard in the Porier fight. Even Charles didn't sub him after controlling long stretches of their 2nd fight.

He doesn't put the skills together like an elite fighter should. I get the feeling he doesn't particularly try to do so as he's just out there trying to entertain and make big flashy moves to impress.

So ya, he's decent to good at all aspects of MMA (or he wouldn't ever have made it to Bellator champ much less into the UFC) except fighting intelligently but he was never great at any other than may explosive wrestling in his younger days.

I find him terrible in all aspects of mma, but i guess we just have a different point of view .

 

[gibson5413]

He has always had a hard time following a game plan, even in Bellator. He has pretty much admitted at this point that he likes to be exciting and get into firefights. I think he knows he's at the end of his fighting career and is trying to make bonuses instead of fighting for the title. I think he should retire and move to the commentator's booth. He still speaks pretty eloquently and looks good on camera. Could be a good spokeperson for the UFC and an ambassador for MMA in general.

 

[BigDramaShow26]

Paddy did a good job not letting Chandler get off. Paddy is huge. Dude looked bigger than Islam does in there.

Aside from that, how good was Chandler really? Home run vs. Hooker and a ton of losing since then. Just because he had moments doesn't mean much. Michael Johnson had moments vs Gaethje too.

 

[JustforBROCK]

He's not a very technically sound boxer and I think it just shined through a lot in the Paddy fight.

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

I will always be impressed with how thoroughly Chandler can disappoint me

 

[JKS]

This wasn't a long layoff. He fought Oliveira five months ago and didn't do terribly at all in that fight.

He didn't? He got pretty dominated start to finish and had one moment in the 5th round that was mostly illegal strikes.

He did pretty bad in that fight.