- Joined
- Aug 17, 2006
- Messages
- 20,387
- Reaction score
- 19,397
-Goes life and death with Kelvin Gastelum to win the interim belt
-Has an impressive knockout of Whittaker to unify the title
-Has an absolute stinker against Romero that shouldn't even be counted as a win
-Runs through some weird timid version of Costa
-Gets beat by Jan Blahowich at 205
-Gets a forgettable decision over Marvin Vettori
-Wins a close decision over Whittaker
-Has another stinker for a decision against Cannonier
-Gets TKO'd by Poatan
-Pulls off a knockout over Poatan in a fight he was soundly losing
-Gets practically shut out by Sean Strickland
So in 11 fights, 3 are losses.
Of the 8 wins one is basically a draw, and 2 others are very close competitive decisions where he took no risk. 2 more are lame decisions where he also took virtually no risk.
He's got a few finishes in there that give the impression that he's more of a killer than he really is, but realistically and statistically most of his fights against the top guys are either close competitive fights, boring decisions, or him on the losing end.
People were already comparing him to Anderson after like 2 title defenses, but he's nowhere close to him or Jones, or GSP, or even Marty.
Looking back Izzy's title reign is most comparable to that of say Tyron Woodley, which is a very respectable accomplishment so no shame in that. Dude was still a very good fighter, just not that elite level type that could stand the test of time and many different types of opponents.
GSP, Anderson, Bones, Fedor.... those dudes were really special man.
-Has an impressive knockout of Whittaker to unify the title
-Has an absolute stinker against Romero that shouldn't even be counted as a win
-Runs through some weird timid version of Costa
-Gets beat by Jan Blahowich at 205
-Gets a forgettable decision over Marvin Vettori
-Wins a close decision over Whittaker
-Has another stinker for a decision against Cannonier
-Gets TKO'd by Poatan
-Pulls off a knockout over Poatan in a fight he was soundly losing
-Gets practically shut out by Sean Strickland
So in 11 fights, 3 are losses.
Of the 8 wins one is basically a draw, and 2 others are very close competitive decisions where he took no risk. 2 more are lame decisions where he also took virtually no risk.
He's got a few finishes in there that give the impression that he's more of a killer than he really is, but realistically and statistically most of his fights against the top guys are either close competitive fights, boring decisions, or him on the losing end.
People were already comparing him to Anderson after like 2 title defenses, but he's nowhere close to him or Jones, or GSP, or even Marty.
Looking back Izzy's title reign is most comparable to that of say Tyron Woodley, which is a very respectable accomplishment so no shame in that. Dude was still a very good fighter, just not that elite level type that could stand the test of time and many different types of opponents.
GSP, Anderson, Bones, Fedor.... those dudes were really special man.