Khabib fans, let’s be honest...

Hamm and Clov

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Khabib is my favourite LW by far but Gregor Gillespie is a REALLY difficult match for him. These so-so strikers like Canner, Cerrone, Ferguson, Poirier, Iaquinta, etc. are easy work for him but Gillespie is a real worry.
 
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Be specific. How does he beat him. I heard he shuts down the wrestling. Then what? KO? UD via striking clinic?

I hear bad matchup a lot. Never hear specifics as to what the logic is though.
 
please delete and save that post for when Gregor cracks the top 5.
until then, that's noise...
 
Gregor hasn't beaten a top 15 in his life but yea he'll trouble Khabib.
 
And you know this based off what? MMA wrestling and regular wrestling is extremely different, Gregor is smaller than Khabib with not as good of a ground game and is a worse striker. He's great but he's also only fought fringe top 50 cans with absolutely no wrestling at all.
 
Be specific. How does he beat him. I heard he shuts down the wrestling. Then what? KO? UD via striking clinic?

I hear bad matchup a lot. Never hear specifics as to what the logic is though.
Sherdog logic is simple. Any wrestler in UFC = Worst matchup for Khabib. And incase that wrestler loses, he was "never that good anyway" .
 
Khabib is my favourite LW by far but Gregor Gillespie is a REALLY difficult match for him. These so-so strikers like Canner, Cerrone, Ferguson, Poirier, Iaquinta, etc. are easy work for him but Gillespie is a real worry.
Difficult? Yes. Unbeatable? No. I've been saying for a while that Gaethje and Gillespie are Khabib's biggest threats at LW, but he's going to beat them both.

When it comes to Gillespie, he is smaller than Khabib and his standup is worse. Khabib also has a much better bottom game than Gillespie. While Gillespie might have a slight wrestling advantage (which is no more than a generous assumption from my side just to prove a point), Khabib is better at other aspects of MMA.
 
Sherdog logic is simple. Any wrestler in UFC = Worst matchup for Khabib. And incase that wrestler loses, he was "never that good anyway" .
Remember when Kevin Lee was gonna put on a K1 striking clinic on Khabib? Yeah me too. Why would he outstrike Khabib? Because Kevin... wrestled. It made absolutely no sense then. Less sense now. But the meme has somehow grown.
 
I am far from the Gillespie hype train but he'll just have to keep proving himself like many other fighters who didn't receive big pushes from the UFC
 
Once upon a time, khabib had never beaten a top 15 guy either
Gregor hasn't even fought or beat a top 30 guy or any guy with decent wrestling/TDD, all at the age of 32.

Khabib, at the age of 23, in his second UFC fight, fought a top 15 veteran on every steroid in the world with top 3 best TDD in UFC history.
 
Difficult? Yes. Unbeatable? No. I've been saying for a while that Gaethje and Gillespie are Khabib's biggest threats at LW, but he's going to beat them both.

When it comes to Gillespie, he is smaller than Khabib and his standup is worse. Khabib also has a much better bottom game than Gillespie. While Gillespie might have a slight wrestling advantage (which is no more than a generous assumption from my side just to prove a point), Khabib is better at other aspects of MMA.
Gillespie might have a wrestling advantage in terms of credentials, but id be surprised if his MMA wrestling is as good as Khabib's. Arguably the best MMA wrestler ever had no wrestling background.
 
Khabib is my favourite LW by far but Gregor Gillespie is a REALLY difficult match for him. These so-so strikers like Canner, Cerrone, Ferguson, Poirier, Iaquinta, etc. are easy work for him but Gillespie is a real worry.

he has to get there first.
 
how about Khabib is a tough matchup for Gregor?
at the end of the day it's a 5'7 wrestler vs 5'10 wrestler, grappler, judoka and sambo master
 
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These so-so strikers like Canner, Cerrone, Ferguson, Poirier, Iaquinta, etc. are easy work for him but Gillespie is a real worry.
Literally all the names you mentioned as 'so-so' strikers are better at striking than Gillespie lol...

I will admit Gregor is probably Khabib's 2nd worst stylistic matchup (the worst being Gaethje), but Khabib has a considerable size and strength advantage over Gillespie.

He still has not been tested, and all his wins were against unranked opponents with an average of 38% TDD.
Some of you guys flame Khabib for facing mainly strikers, but this guy is statistically almost twice as worse.
 
While I also believe Khabib would struggle with an elite mma wrestler and that he greatly benefits from being in a ridiculously striker-heavy era, I don't at all agree that Gregor would be a tough fight for him. Gillespie has beaten absolutely NO ONE of note for me to think he could hang with Khabib (even in the stand-up realm). This may change in the future... but he is 32 already so his ceiling isn't that high IMHO
 
Having watched Gillespie steamroll guys in a similar fashion to when Khabib was climbing the ranks I see it as a completely possible scenario. He might get exposed to some higher ranked opponent but right now I see him as a possible future contender.
 
He night be able to shut down khabibs takedowns, but khabib wins a sloppy kickboxing fight
 
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