does Umar lack heart or was it lack of experience?

[CC27]

Merab's pace is insane but he did kind of let up in the 5th a bit, I think Umar could have won that round until the last minute where Merab got some takedowns. That fight was super close, razor thin and Merab with his pace and cardio edged him in the last 3 rounds.

questioning his heart or skill or anything is insane, he broke his hand and put up a great BW title fight and lose a really close dec. He will be back and I expect him to be champ at some point.

 

[AL-Tappo McSnappo]

Relatively speaking, of course. Islam proved that he can keep moving forward in the first Volk and the Dustin fight even if he is tired but Umar was visibly exhausted, couldn't maintain a good poker face and he looked defeated, especially in the championship rounds. He beat Cory in a five round fight but he was mostly dictating the whole thing and was never pressured like he was this time.
Or was it just a lack of experience, against the worst fucking guy possible in Merab?
I like Umar tho. I can see him becoming champion as he is young but curious to see, now that he lost his 0, whether he will get better like Islam did or will this sorta damage him moving forward.

with a broken hand you can't really grapple well, and your body will fight against

 

[Greyscale]

Back to Bekzat Almakhan for Omar. No Al Iaquinta for this one for the title.

 

[Cartiac]

That is a great question. Out of those two I would have to say it is heart. Umar has all the experience he needed given what we know about him.. He had the first two rounds banked, but then his body language completely changed looking like a defeated fighter especially compared to Merab smiling and bouncing around.

The broken hand obviously had an impact, but I'll never forget Rich Franklin vs David Loiseau when Rich broke his hand in the 2nd and when he went back and told his coach, his coach told him he didn't care and to stop crying and go hit the guy with it so Rich went out the next 3 rounds and hit Loiseau at least a hundred more times with that broken hand. That is heart and Umar supposedly broke his in the 1st and then easily won the 2nd, he didn't need to do that much more to take the 3rd and win the fight.

 

[Motivated BJ Penn]

That is just sillly.

You know the drill

 

[Chama]

Umar has great cardio, I think it was arrogance (he even said after he thought he was winning), the hand injury, and underestimating Merab's cardio. No excuses for him. But I think if he squeezed out 1 more round of cardio he could've easily won 3/5.

Merab just melted him. I think he was putting more effort in throwing strikes to do damage than he should. Umar looked destroyed in the 4th round on, gasping for air.

Umar needs to win at least 2 more for a rematch and Merab will be "old" by then anyways. Good fight.

Long story short: Merab rode him.
Enjoy the Silence.

 

[Southpoor97]

Lack of experience. He's a fighter he's got heart he ain't no pussy

Lots of fighters show no heart. It wouldn’t even be something we discuss otherwise


Fighters can have no heart

 

[Ironheart]

It's been said already here, but Umar is absolutely elite. He is probably going to beat every other ranked fighter he fights in the near future. Merab is just something different and, is very special.

 

[rightfight777]

I think too much pressure on the guy from Khabib and everyone plus the injury hard not to give up.

 

[Superzorro]

I’m honestly surprised he didn’t attack Merab downstairs more. Round 5 against O’Malley showed that Merab can be weak to the body. Maybe it was for fear of the takedown but the few times Umar threw kicks Merab didn’t even try.

 

[Superzorro]

Agreed. He needs the top game of Khabib or the submission game of Islam to beat Merab. And a good boost in strength cause he wasn't able to overpower Merab even early on.

And then, Umar’s striking is tricky like Machida and Wonderboy but it’s not particularly deadly. He’s also completely disarmed when his back is against the cage. Merab was literally just closing his eyes and flailing his arms to win those exchanges they had there. I have a hard time imagining that would work against any other skilled striker.

 

[2009lurker]

Nah, Umar was fighting until the end. His gas tank was just empty after Merab’s infense pressure.

 

[Superzorro]

Weird to me that people could follow this sport closely enough to bother with being on a forum and not grasp the concept of cardio and pacing... it is such a fundamental aspect of combat sports.

MMA fights are only 15 - 25 minutes. So a lot of people don’t realize this. But to be fair, the fights being so short means cardio and pacing play a smaller role. Anyone can win in the beginning of a fight.

 

[OleBuffalo]

Are his only 5rounders the Sandhagen and Merab fights? If so, I think it’s just an experience thing and happened to be in there with a guy who will test your ability to manage energy. What I noticed is that Umar is a very wirey, almost quick-twitchy type of athlete, and that kind of dynamism comes at the cost of requiring more energy. For example, one of Merab’s early td attempts, Umar stops it then circles around to look for the back with crackhead-like quickness. I couldn’t believe how springy he looked for the first few rounds. Merab was like diesel while Umar was like nitrous oxide(idk cars, work with me here guys lol)’. He wasn’t spazzing out, but each of his movements just seemed to require more energy than someone with a steady style like Merab’s, and it added up eventually.

His striking tells the same story. He was almost falling over on some of his punches, throwing hard enough to end up off-balance, launching multiple big kicks in a row, bouncing around and just generally being a very dynamic athlete but maybe wasting energy in spots he didn’t need to. What should be reassuring to big Umar fans is that even when he was obviously losing energy, he still was able to thwart a lot of shots and never really get stuck on the ground. I honestly don’t know who besides Merab can beat Umar cus idk who else can make Umar work enough to lose his edge.

 

[ryun253]

Who doesn't have lack of cardio when facing Merab? Umar did better than all of Merabs challengers

 

[piropiro]

Merab’s nickname is the most appropriate ever in MMA … the guy has non stop cardio forever and that has a big genetic component, it’s not only a matter of more training, there are some genetic cardio freaks like current cycling world champion Pogacar who has VO2 and lactate metrics beyond “normal” elite endurance athletes, who simply cannot match him regardless of training.

So I don’t think the idea should be that Umar needs to develop Merab-level cardio because I’m quite sure that like all those Dagestan guys he already trains crazy hard and likely he’s near his physiological ceiling.

More probable in my opinion is to develop a more effective strategy (not easy of course): to defeat Merab you need to hurt him early and dictate your pace. If he loses respect for your ability to damage him that’s when he starts imposing his pace and that’s unsustainable for everyone else.

You saw in the fight, initially Merab was weary of Umar’s striking, which allowed for a milder pace and Umar having some success. But once Merab realized that Umar wasn’t hurting him, then he imposed his pace and Umar just couldn’t keep up.

Making him afraid of pressing on you is the way to beat Merab IMO, whilst trying to match his cardio is a fool’s errand.

 

[NenadRS]

Umar is elite. He just needs to work on his cardio for a 5 rounder. I knew going into this fight that he may have cardio issues because you can see him breathing heavily as he speaks during his post fight interviews against previous opponents

No, he cannot improve cardio much, Umar has amazing cardio, just Merab has better one - of course Umar worked on his cardio to be in the best shape he can be. Merab is also more efficient in his movements, uses less energy, Umar used much more energy defending takedowns.

 

[cheesus]

"That kids got heart" - Dana White...probably.

 

[Chayanne]

I think team Khabib made a mistake, Umar should have fought two more fights. They either underestimated Merab or overestimated Umar

 

[Greyscale]

Who doesn't have lack of cardio when facing Merab? Umar did better than all of Merabs challengers

Bekzat Almakhan did better against Umar than Cory Sandhagen