me threeI hate this place.
costa and whitaker were coming after him looking for the finish and leaving themselves way more open. Vettori was just jabbing and setting up the TD.Somebody didn't read my actual post. One of the first things I said was "He won the fight comfortably", but there's zero doubt in my mind he should have finished Vettori. When others pressured Izzy, they got countered to pieces, yet he wasn't having much luck here. And Vettori is known for his wrestling and grind, not his technical striking
Reading into it too much imo. Maybe he wasn't as motivated for this fight or just didn't go for the kill for whatever reason. I don't fault him. You can't have an amazing performance every fight. Now if the next two or three fights look the same I might say he's lost something. For now though he took an easy win against a guy that should have been an easy win. Meh.
Verorri doesn't get enough credit because his game is simple, that said he doesn't really put himself in bad positions and he can take a lot of damage. What he lacks in offensive flash, he makes up for with positional soundness. Verorri himself isn't a high level striker, but he trains with some of them, and because of this he has good vision, kick defense, understand of range etc. Not an easy guy to finish.
me three
First off, most certainly not a hater. I've been swinging from Izzy's nuts since he got in the UFC, but I also know how to be objective.
He won the fight comfortably, but Vettori was about tailor made for a highlight reel win. A solid wrestler, but not able to really utilize it effectively against Izzy, which left us with a serviceable, but not great, striker with questionable fight IQ. He was running straight in, and yet Adesanya struggled to find solid connection with any of his shots. Sure, he landed a lot of leg kicks and several jabs, but struggled to put together effective combinations or land anything with real power to the head or body. I think Bobby or Costa would put away Vettori in short order.
I'm not sure if Vettori's defense is way better than I realize, or if izzy is starting to slow down a hair, or maybe he's just fighting down to his opponents level ala Jon Jones, but what I am sure about is that wasn't the same Adesanya that toasted Costa and Whittaker.
Somebody didn't read my actual post. One of the first things I said was "He won the fight comfortably", but there's zero doubt in my mind he should have finished Vettori. When others pressured Izzy, they got countered to pieces, yet he wasn't having much luck here. And Vettori is known for his wrestling and grind, not his technical striking
We saw this happen with Anderson periodically as well. On paper he could easily finish Maia and Leites but he just fucked around and played air guitar the whole time. He was also just casually outpointing Cote until Cote blew his knee out.
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Izzy started fighting dirty eye poke and nut shot. Bad fight
His buddeh got killed just recently, his focus could probably have been better.
Vettori is an MMA generalist who favors grappling. He doesn't have wrestling background (like college D1 or D2 in the U.S., Dagestanian, Iranian, etc.) and he's not even a highly-regarded BJJ or judoka. He's a good fighter but not the kind of "wrestler test" that a prime Weidman or Chael would be.