How delusional are fighter's really?

HuskySamoan

HuskySamoan

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Bo Nickals loss had me thinking about this, but there's no shortage of examples. To some extent, bring delusional is necessary or potentially beneficial for competitors and athletes, perhaps especially fighters. On top of this most fans know nothing about this sport and just listen to the UFC narrative. How many of you guys knew Val Woodburn to be a 7-0 prospect? In reality he was a full time landscaper training out of Apopka Florida, a 30 year old 5'8 MW who had never fought relative to even regional scenes...anyone decent and clearly lacked any real talent or ability, was a guy whod never get signed, hundreds of better candidates, they brought him in especially for Bo to slaughter. The contender series was similar, the guys he faced weren't fit to be on but were brought just to give Bo easy wins. Zack Borrego is a 6-5 regional fighter and Donovan Beard is an 8-5 regional fighter...those are his two contender series wins.

Bo talked about Beard and Woodburn like they were legitimate contenders and big tests, "hey man I'm fighting a guy who's 7-0 he could be the next ranked UFC fighter if it wasn't for him fighting me" I get hyping yourself up, but did he really believe this? Did he not look into their records, opponents they fought, gyms they trained out of, fight tape? They were literally awful. He said he performed perfectly vs Paul Craig and anyone criticizing the performance doesn't know anything about MMA and only people with more experience than him in combat sports can have an opinion that matters. Dude got thrown head over heels by Brundage and barely scraped by Craig, Craig and aging butt scooper with 0 striking as the perfect style for Bo. I'm hearing how RDR was a dream matchup for Bo, another dude known for bad striking and a significantly lesser takedown ability on paper was a cherry pick to favor Bo while still being a noticeable step up.

Also all this shit about Bo being so green, he's not, it's context guys. He began training out of ATT in 2019 to help Jorge Masvidal with his wrestling and then full time for MMA in 2021 after losing in the Olympic trials....Bo is a better wrestler than you guys think, he's beaten Worlds gold medalists, Asian games medalists, fellow U23 worlds gold medalists over a short span of time in international freestyle, he just couldn't get past Olympic Gold medalist David Taylor in his home country. Izzy came to MMA at 22 and became champ at 30, Romero came to MMA at 32 and by 36 knocked out a prime Brunson to be top 10, Weidman came to MMA at 23-24, champ by 29. Bo is 29, he came to MMA at 23-24.
 
EndlessCritic said:
Romero was down two rounds against Brunson before a miraculous third round comeback.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that critique would mean something if it wasn't for the fact that he kept doing that. Kennedy, Brunson, Markes, Weidman. Within 4-5 years in MMA Romero was definitively a top 10 guy and on his way up he wasn't pampered and fed cans under the guise of them being legit competition.
 
HuskySamoan said:
Also all this shit about Bo being so green, he's not, it's context guys. He began training out of ATT in 2019 to help Jorge Masvidal with his wrestling and then full time for MMA in 2021 after losing in the Olympic trials....Bo is a better wrestler than you guys think, he's beaten Worlds gold medalists, Asian games medalists, fellow U23 worlds gold medalists over a short span of time in international freestyle, he just couldn't get past Olympic Gold medalist David Taylor in his home country. Izzy came to MMA at 22 and became champ at 30, Romero came to MMA at 32 and by 36 knocked out a prime Brunson to be top 10, Weidman came to MMA at 23-24, champ by 29. Bo is 29, he came to MMA at 23-24.
Click to expand...
the difference is being a sheltered white boy and taking your first punch ever at age 24. I got punched 5 times in a row by my russian friend on the playground when we were 8 and it gave me a hematoma.
 
my mom beat me when I was 2 years old cause I cried when my grandma carried me instead of my mom. I even still remember it.
 
u kinda have to be to as a fighter.
 
Bo's problem is his mouth writing checks his ass can't cash. if he would just stfu and say "i'm working hard and we'll see what happens" nobody would give a shit. but when you say you can beat Pererira and Adesanya in 1 night or whatever the fuck, people are EXPECTING big spectacular things from you. don't hype yourself until you're ready to produce.
 
Bo knew that he was the best wrestler in the world, or one of the very, very best, and thought that this basically meant he would also be the best MMA fighter if he trained striking for a bit.

Sadly for him, he didn't start fighting in 2003.
 
Go back and watch the look on Bo’s face at the end of round 1.

He knew he was helpless. He had tried his entire bag of tricks and game plan and was checkmated and out of gas.

People always use the word “exposed” when a bloke loses.

Bo was exposed.
 
Hopefully this was a eye opener for Bo and he’ll either put serious effort into improving or walk away
 
It seems strange how cocky he was after seeing fellow Penn State Ed Ruth's MMA career.

Does he believe his wrestling style is better suited for MMA than Ruth's or did he let the Olympic trials prestige get to his head?
 
It can go both ways. How many people here think Paddy would have gotten as far as he did? Every paddy fight, this forum always say “ this will be the one he losses”

It hasn’t happened yet
 
The whole house of cards would collapse if they (fighters as a whole) were ever to scale back on gassing themselves up to the levels that they do.

As you get older, the immensity of the mass delusion dawns on you as a viewer who loves to watch fights but still sees the widespread bullshit for what it is.

Modesty, reflection and self awareness are antithetical to the attributes prize fighting requires.
And it's not just fighters who traffic in bullshit, it's the whole casino guys.
From the players to the pit bosses to the owners.

The Machine only runs if there's able bodies to exploit and paying customers to rope in in the hopes they'll keep coming back even if it's no longer fun.

Gamblers go out of a sense of habit more than bc it's profitable or enjoyable, same as how so many sherdoggers make threads about how mma has lost something and now it sucks, but still come here to talk about it.

It's no wonder a guy like Bo could be that oblivious to the game he's playing. The sport relies on the cognitive dissonance to be upheld.
 
m249viking said:
Hopefully this was a eye opener for Bo and he’ll either put serious effort into improving or walk away
Click to expand...

I think he has been putting serious effort. It just looks like he's not a natural fighter and his wrestling doesn't translate super well. He also seems to have a fragile ego, which can't be good. But the dudes been at elite gyms with the first class treatment from the start, I don't think people realize that 5-0 fighters usually don't get that kind of treatment at big gyms lmao. Kids privileged as fuck and was living MMA for years now. He's also well off and doesn't need it like others though.
 
I think wrestling like ju jistsu only goes so far now. You have to have a couple tricks in the bag. Defending ju jitsu and wrestling is a lot easier then learning to wrestle offensively. So many guys just train defense
 
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