John Danaher: “Khabib thicker, bigger, and heavier than GSP throughout career”.

[Mammothman]

Khabib looks like a bully here.

There doesn't seem to be any weight disadvantage for Khabib.

If Conor can fight at 170, then so can Khabib.

Who Conor fought at 170? All career LWs that didn't wanted to cut to their real weight 155

 

[Mammothman]

Muscle on the frame, sure, but bone structure, I can see Khabib being as big or bigger, that way.

Khabib cut more weight and went through a lot more hell to get down to his weight limit that GSP generally did, so I can see this being true, though, not by a large or significant amount, so this doesn't jump out at me as all that big a deal.

Khabib wasn't able to cut weight very good, once Islam started to help him he made weight without much trouble.

 

[BEATDOWNS]

Khabib was always a weight bully ducking welter. His "legacy" is a farce.

 

[StonedLemur]

Khabib has a large neck. He's also taller than Conor.

That pic is Conor just coming out of the cage, and Khabib between fights....and Khabib is only slightly bigger lol.

 

[Mark McMichael]

Probably more of an excuse on why GSP wouldn't fight him.

GSP never wanted to fight anyone bigger than he was. I still remember laughing at an interview GSP gave saying Anderson was much bigger than him and that he was risking literal death in a fight against someone that size if the wrong thing happened. He was being serious...

I've never seen a guy that is so good at MMA have such a lack of confidence as GSP. All of the odd have to be in his favor.

^this nonsense.

Anderson never wanted to fight GSP any more than GSP wanted to fight Anderson. Every time a microphone was put in front of his face during his prime run and he was asked he would say "no, i am happy in my category', or 'that fight does not interest me'. He was focused rightly on building his MW GOAT record.

That only changed for Anderson after his LHW fight and when he was talking retirement and legacy fights. First he only wanted those fights against top MW and LHW, and that ONLY changed once Shogun took the LHW and called out Anderson for a Super fight and then Jones took that from.

Then and ONLY THEN did Anderson backpedal and say he would never fight outside MW again and focus on GSP for a fight. He wanted GSP and wanted him to move up so he would have a substantial size advantage.

Unfortunately for him GSP was not at the same place as he had Hughes title defense record in his sights (something many used to say Hughes was still WW GOAT) and he has Shields, Condit, and Diaz and a spiking Hendricks in his sights.

So whereas Anderson only started to look at super fights when he felt he was basically done with MW, GSP was no where near done with WW.

 

[StonedLemur]

Fuck him, motherfucker talking shit about Khabib just to make GSP look good.

Khabib is clearly smaller than GSP, not by much but still, Khabib almost never had reach or height adventage over his opponents.

Lol

 

[Han]

GSP was jacked, way bigger on fight night.

 

[Daelh]

People intuit what they think regardless. But as far as I know, it's all guesswork at this point.

I’m not sure if we know this to be true. In terms of internal information, GSP was 190 on fight night when he fought at middleweight, according to his coach.

According to Khabib's coach at one time, Josh Thompson, he said on fighter and the kid that khabib was 190+ on fight night.

I don't think it's necessarily fair to say khabib was the same size as his opponents. I never worried about Gaethje, Dustin, Conor, Edson, or or Al having seizures making 155 or missing weight. How many times did he miss? There was a time when it was touch and go and his weigh ins could have been a PPV event, similar to Kevin Lee.

Khabib has only missed weight one, against Trujillo. Then he was hospitalized once to but that's not an official weight miss.

I know he's had weight issues throughout his career but he only ever missed once officially and people put this way out of proportion.

 

[GeneTunney7]

This has been well documented for some time now, especially after Josh Thompson revealed Khabib walked at 195, but bringing it up became a hot button topic for Khabib loyalists as it made Khabib seem like he was a weight bully. Khabib missed weight three times for a reason, ended up in the hospital once, and had the Dubai commission not hooked him up in the Gaethje fight it would have been a 4th miss. It was not like he lacked discipline, he was just a big man for the weight class, but so was Chiesa, Burns, Tibau and Tony.

Overall weight classes are now two classes above what they used to be. BJ Penn was an old school welterweight and ended up a modern featherweight, whereas Frankie was an old school lightweight and ended up a modern bantamweight. It's no knock on Khabib, it is just the way the game is. Heck, in combat sambo, Khabib competed at 180 pounds, and that is when he was much younger and less thicc. It is just too bad that we never got to see him fight for a belt at welterweight or even middleweight......call me crazy, but his style would have been really interesting for Izzy, and seeing Colby expose some holes in Usman's wrestling and clinch game could have made it a potential win for Khabib. And dont let the size fool you, Khabib was one of the most gifted tacticians we have ever seen, the Mayweather of our sport and dominance not ever seen since Khamzat came along.

 

[fzoid4454]

Khabib wasn't able to cut weight very good, once Islam started to help him he made weight without much trouble.

My perspective in saying that was more how it didn't seem like GSP ever had any bad weight cuts or difficulty, moreso than Khabib's issues.

 

[DLX]

But GSP has more functional strength.