the person gaethje lost to in a title fight is the undefeated goat of the division who isn't even in the ufc anymore and he did the absolute best of anyone that fought him in the last 5 years. Gaethje deserves it the most. It'd be an absolute joke if he didn't get it.
See, respectfully, I couldn't disagree more with this statement. I agree Khabib is the GOAT and that makes perfect sense. I loved this fight. I literally rewatch it probably every two-three weeks before the gym to get me fired up to go train. It is one of my favorite fights of all time.
I simply don't see it, and the reason I say this is because a lot of people hold your viewpoint that Gaethje did really well. Why exactly did Gaethje do better? As far as I can tell upon countless rewatches, he landed about 15 hard leg strikes which is commendable, and landed two solid punches in the first round that didn't even begin to hurt Khabib, who never took a step back as a consequence of anything Gaethje threw or landed. Khabib was the aggressor the entire first round and ended the round with Gaethje saved by the bell.
In the second round, Khabib ate a few more leg kicks, got an easy-ass takedown and within 15 seconds or so, Gaethje was unconscious.
In contrast to previous opponents, Gaethje actually got handled so badly on the ground that he was basically submitted two times in about 60 seconds of total ground control time. So he didn't survive long enough to take the beating that Khabib's previous opponents took. In addition, Gaethje and Poirer offered
by far the least resistance to Khabib's takedowns.
In my opinion, this whole narrative that gets pushed, including by Justin, is a matter of two things. Number one, as mentioned, Gaethje didn't survive long enough on the ground to get smashed as we are accustomed to seeing. For example, guys like Poirier, Barboza, or even MJ, they got smashed and took a ton of damage
because they survived long enough on the ground. Khabib had a brief back take on Edson in the first round of their fight. If he got tapped in 15 seconds like Justin, he obviously would have taken far less of a beatdown and it wouldn't have served as one of the more one-sided fights in recent memory. It would just give been a:
"Well, I guess that's how it went, Edson landed some kicks, stopped a few TD's, and then got submitted quickly when Khabib implemented his game. That's Khabib's level for you".
The fact that he survived actually feeds the narrative that he did worse. The same is true with Dustin, and with MJ, but should Justin really be given more credit for not being able to survive on the ground at all?
Number two, Khabib's dominance was at such a climax that we come to expect more from him over time, and to see his opponent land kicks was enough to have people greatly overestimate gaethje's performance.
Again, this is my opinion, and I am open to a peaceful discussion.
