"Khabib Only Fought Strikers"

[MarioLemieux]

What grapplers did Gaethje fight in the UFC? Gaethje grabbed the cage like crazy against Firmino.

Chandler, and Eddie... both wrestlers, both attempted and failed to secure TD's and gain top control. Ferguson on his prime run as well, who couldn't do dick and got his career ended by Justin.

 

[Tito Tapped]

I had a good laugh at the first example of powerhouse MMA wrestling that Khabib has seen in the octagon was from Justin Gaethe.

 

[FlyingDeathKick]

Chandler, and Eddie... both wrestlers, both attempted and failed to secure TD's and gain top control. Ferguson on his prime run as well, who couldn't do dick and got his career ended by Justin.

Who did either of those guys dominate with wrestling? Eddie did his best to wrestle Pettis but Pettis has no TDD.

I haven't seen all of Eddie or Chandler's fights but Eddie has 1 submission win in the past 14, years. Who has he beaten with this grappling in that time? Pettis?? How about Chandler... Chandler has 1 submission win in his last 16 fights and who is he dominating with grappling? Both Chandler and Eddie are known for getting into slugfests, not for being amazing grapplers.

Now onto Tony Ferguson... Tony has landed a total of one takedown in his last 15 fights and that was on Nate Diaz. We all know how good Nate's takedown defense is...

Chandler has landed 5 takedowns in his 6 UFC fights, 3 were against Poirier who he lost to, 1 against Gaethje who... Again he lost to and 1 on Tony.

Eddie failed to tale Conor down on 3 attempts and Cerrone on 5 attempts. Both Conor and Cerrone have decent takedown defense but if Eddie was really that good he would have been able to take them down.

Oliveira landed 5 takedowns in the 2nd Chandler fight alone and has the record for most submissions in UFC history, most submissions in Featherweight history and most submissions in Lightweight history.

 

[Luckyme]

He's a classic sprawl and brawler who uses d1 wrestling to stuff opponents and knock them out. It's not an opinion. It's a fact. Like Chuck, or Carwin for example.

This.

Defensive wrestling is real and Gaethje does in fact still train wrestling with guys like Usman (his BJJ is another story). Plenty of collegiate and Olympian wrestlers choose to use their wrestling only defensively in MMA. That doesn't negate their ability to wrestle.

Besides Gaethje, Khabib also fought and beat Abel Trujillo, Pat Healy, Shalarous, Tibau and Iaquinta all of whom had wrestling backgrounds. Tibau is the only one who made Khabib look human but in fairness, he was a skinny 23 year old fighting a dude roided to the gills.

 

[mister piscadinha]

This.

Defensive wrestling is real and Gaethje does in fact still train wrestling with guys like Usman (his BJJ is another story). Plenty of collegiate and Olympian wrestlers choose to use their wrestling only defensively in MMA. That doesn't negate their ability to wrestle.

Besides Gaethje, Khabib also fought and beat Abel Trujillo, Pat Healy, Shalarous, Tibau and Iaquinta all of whom had wrestling backgrounds. Tibau is the only one who made Khabib look human but in fairness, he was a skinny 23 year old fighting a dude roided to the gills.

tibau beat khabib
trujillo, healy and shalorus are weak to mid competition
this is not helping ur case

 

[KillerIsBack V2]

Keep seeing these comments and people saying Islam is a better wrestler/grappler than Khabib. Justin Gaethje is a Division 1 wrestler, he began wrestling at the age of four and was a four-time finalist and two-time state champion in high school. Gaethje also competed at the NCAA Division I level at the University of Northern Colorado, where he was the wrestling program’s first NCAA All-American. Also, if you watch gaethje's wrestling matches, his style of wrestling was very defensive and he was able to shut down people's wrestling at a D1 level. People acting like he's just a striker when he's likely one of the hardest guys to takedown in the entire lightweight division considering his background is hilarious. Chandler got flipped over and outscrambled whenever he shot on Justin, justin has great hips and reactions to takedowns. Khabib took him down easily.

Khabib also outwrestled prime RDA, who later went onto become LW champ when Khabib got injured. RDA has gotten outwrestled in a few fights but when you consider that Khabib wasn't even in his prime when he dominated RDA it is a testament to how good he was. Imagine if Islam had to fight prime RDA when he wasn't in his prime, he could easily lose that fight. Islam was going to close decisions with Chris Wade prior to hitting his prime whereas khabib was making prime rda look easy

In the past few years people have forgotten how good this guy was, I think he's better than Islam

Justin is your first example? Seriously? Have you followed any of Justin’s career or heard Justin describe how he trains and the way he fights?

 

[Luckyme]

tibau beat khabib
trujillo, healy and shalorus are weak to mid competition
this is not helping ur case

The discussion is about whether Khabib was ever tested against other wrestlers. Some people have claimed that Khabib never fought any wrestlers besides Gaethje.

Healy was a D-2 wrestler, Trujillo was a collegiate wrestling champion, and Shalarous had completed in and won freestyle wrestling championships in Europe.

Interestingly enough, Khabib fought mostly grapplers early on in his career. It was only towards the end that he faced strikers like Connor and Dustin.

 

[mister piscadinha]

The discussion is about whether Khabib was ever tested against other wrestlers. Some people have claimed that Khabib never fought any wrestlers besides Gaethje.

Healy was a D-2 wrestler, Trujillo was a collegiate wrestling champion, and Shalarous had completed in and won freestyle wrestling championships in Europe.

Interestingly enough, Khabib fought mostly grapplers early on in his career. It was only towards the end that he faced strikers like Connor and Dustin.

neither of this guys amounted to anything in the ufc, so their MMA grappling is lacking
being a D1 wrestler means nothing in mma if u cant impose it
look at jones, he was a junior college wrestler who became good enough to outwrestle a olympian(who actually used his wrestling)
when we say khabib faced no good grappler, we talkin about top guys like edgar, maynard, benson, eddie

 

[TheBulge]

The narrative of Khabib never facing wrestlers isn't just based on who could defend against his TD's best. So your whole point with Gaethje is irrelevant.

Facing wrestlers means guys who don't just defend but will also have great Offensive wrestling with the proper background, who can reverse you at any notice and keep you down as well.

None of Khabib's opponents fit that bill(other than maybe the unknown Russians he fought early in his career), in fact one of them even defended everything and took him down several times in Tibeau.

 

[rjmbrd]

Gaethje is by no means a wrestler in MMA. He self admittedly hates wrestling in MMA and barely trained it for years and is a blue belt at best in bjj.

RDA has been outwrestled by just about every wrestler he's ever faced and was even outwrestled by evan dunham like 12 months before facing Khabib. He is still probably the best all around grappler that Khabib has faced other than tibau, though.

It boggles my mind when people like TS write this hilariously inaccurate stuff about JG. Forget that he himself says he doesn't work on his offensive wrestling (which in turn makes you a more well rounded fighter) but he absolutely sucks at submission grappling. Surely by UFC lightweight standards. Absolutely no one is afraid of meeting JG on the ground.

RDA is a excellent overall grappler and completely mid wrestler, and this is Khabib's signature win by a mile. Many other fighters also own this win.

Regardless, Khabib is the LW goat in my opinion. Islam takes that mantle with one more win, though.

Count Khabib's UFC fights and divide it by his years under contract. He never fought, even as champion he was spacing them one per year. Much easier to maintain your record when you are inactive over years.

Islam IMO is legitimately the 'next generation' has a much higher quality signature win wrecking 12 fight win streak Charles and shows an overall sophistication in striking that Khabib simply couldn't touch. I presume if he fought more risk averse he could have taken less overall damage but he seems eager to close the show and make a point in a way Khabib didn't often turn on.

 

[FreddieRoachsVoice]

This.

Defensive wrestling is real and Gaethje does in fact still train wrestling with guys like Usman (his BJJ is another story). Plenty of collegiate and Olympian wrestlers choose to use their wrestling only defensively in MMA. That doesn't negate their ability to wrestle.

Besides Gaethje, Khabib also fought and beat Abel Trujillo, Pat Healy, Shalarous, Tibau and Iaquinta all of whom had wrestling backgrounds. Tibau is the only one who made Khabib look human but in fairness, he was a skinny 23 year old fighting a dude roided to the gills.

Again, saying someone "comes from a wrestling background" doesn't make them a successful MMA wrestler.... nor does listing off names make these credible opponents. Khabib took Abel Trujillo down 21 TIMES IN A 15 MINUTE FIGHT and STILL couldn't get a finish... in what world would this be considered an impressive performance against a competent wrestler? But hey.... skew your narrative any way you want. That same "skinny 23 year old" was significantly missing weight less than a year after that so I guess Khabib just hit puberty that year

I don't know what hypnotizing effect an undefeated record has on people but Khabib had strengths and weaknesses just like anyone else and the idea that he was "undefeatable" and able to "outgrapple anyone" is just silly comic book shit. Smashing some absolute bottom feeders before facing a slew of strikers (aka his only credible opponents) doesn't at all indicate how Khabib would do against an actual elite wrestler. Khabib's striking was still incredibly awkward in his prime and I genuinely question his cardio when he's not able to coast out from top control but oh no... let's all just ignore logic and assume he would beat any fighter ever regardless of style. Wow the UFC marketing did a number on you LOL Have any Renan Barao merch still kicking around in the closet? LOL

 

[AndrewGolota48]

Justin Gaethje could have been an olympic gold medalist for all I care... this is MMA. At no point in ANY of his UFC fights did he display ANY level of grappling ability and we've seen countless competitors with elite credentials have their skills not translate at all into MMA. Should Fedor be credited as the best MMA striker of all time because he sat in Semmy Schilt's guard for 20 minutes? Does Ben Rothwell become a K1 calibre kickboxer because he KO'd Reem who KO'd Badri Hari?? Of course not.

Gaethje is a striker who overcommits to strikes frequently and has faced nothing but fellow strikers in his career just to set up entertaining brawls. The minute he fought someone who was a threat to him on the ground, he was tapping like there's no tomorrow. If this is the best MMA Grappler you can come up with, wow you are desperate.

Also, genuine LOL @ the hype of RDA who struggled with wrestlers HIS ENTIRE UFC CAREER. Should Tyson Griffin be listed as one of the best MMA grapplers of all time considering he was actually able to keep RDA down without the fight getting stood up unlike Khabib? How about Michael Chiesa??

Khabib can't control who the top contenders were in his brief time as champion but the fact remains that he was in the UFC for a decade and missed out on the majority of the top fighters from 2 completely different eras. He blanketed RDA and then sat on the shelf for 2 YEARS skyrocketing up the rankings while absorbing the hype of RDA's success despite them being 2 completely different styles of fighters.

So Khabib comes back, is comfortably ranked in the top 5, and he fights.... a UFC newcomer? Then Michael Freakin Johnson who was outgrappled by Jonathan "Vision Quest" Brookins and never beat a top 10 opponent again for the rest of his career? He had one of the easiest runs to the title OF ALL TIME and people are right to criticize him.

Benson Henderson, Eddie Alvarez, Charles Oliveira, Frankie Edgar, Gray Maynard, Josh Thompson, Gilbert Melendez, Gilbert Burns, Michael Chandler hell even Clay Guida and Kevin Lee would skyrocket up his list of best MMA grapplers ever faced. I'm sure glad we saw one dimensional strikers like Edson Barboza and Al Iaquinta fight Khabib instead of literally any of these other possible opponents I mean wow... we learned so much that we didn't already know from these match-ups!

I can soundly believe that Khabib would just default out-wrestle anyone who ever lived because styles don't matter in MMA at all and some fighters can't be beaten because they wear funny hats and wrestled bears growing up! Who cares how awkward and amateurish his striking looked, bears guys! He wrestled bears!

Yeah if we just going by credentials then Grant Dawson outwrestling Madsen would be more impressive....

 

[Strijfy]

The narrative of Khabib never facing wrestlers isn't just based on who could defend against his TD's best. So your whole point with Gaethje is irrelevant.

Facing wrestlers means guys who don't just defend but will also have great Offensive wrestling with the proper background, who can reverse you at any notice and keep you down as well.

None of Khabib's opponents fit that bill(other than maybe the unknown Russians he fought early in his career), in fact one of them even defended everything and took him down several times in Tibeau.

Tibau took him down only once I do believe

 

[ferrisjso]

Theres a shitton of UFC fighters who were division I wrestlers who seldom attempt a takedown professionally. This means nothing.

 

[MarioLemieux]

It boggles my mind when people like TS write this hilariously inaccurate stuff about JG. Forget that he himself says he doesn't work on his offensive wrestling (which in turn makes you a more well rounded fighter) but he absolutely sucks at submission grappling. Surely by UFC lightweight standards. Absolutely no one is afraid of meeting JG on the ground.

RDA is a excellent overall grappler and completely mid wrestler, and this is Khabib's signature win by a mile. Many other fighters also own this win.




Count Khabib's UFC fights and divide it by his years under contract. He never fought, even as champion he was spacing them one per year. Much easier to maintain your record when you are inactive over years.

Islam IMO is legitimately the 'next generation' has a much higher quality signature win wrecking 12 fight win streak Charles and shows an overall sophistication in striking that Khabib simply couldn't touch. I presume if he fought more risk averse he could have taken less overall damage but he seems eager to close the show and make a point in a way Khabib didn't often turn on.

Islam's striking is actually a weakness because the longer time he spends standing, the more he gets touched up, dropped, rocked, loses rounds and struggles. Which has happened several times.

If he focussed on the grappling portion of his game like Khabib and simply used his strikes to set up td's he would never had an Adriano Martins moment... but he's too in love with his boxing which will get him clipped, plus he's not as dominant a grappler as Khabib. He doesn't have Khabib's chin either.

Strikers in MMA always eventually get knocked out, even much better strikers than Islam like Pereira or Anderson Silva.

 

[MarioLemieux]

It boggles my mind when people like TS write this hilariously inaccurate stuff about JG. Forget that he himself says he doesn't work on his offensive wrestling (which in turn makes you a more well rounded fighter) but he absolutely sucks at submission grappling. Surely by UFC lightweight standards. Absolutely no one is afraid of meeting JG on the ground.

Do you understand the concept of what a sprawl and brawler is? It boggles my mind that watching MMA this long that you don't know about the Chuck Liddell's, Shane Carwin's and Justin Gaethje who are great at using to their wrestling to avoid getting taken down and scramble to their feet so they can keep the fight standing.

 

[Doctor Grudge]

Like his best 6 wins are against strikers. So yes, it is true. Gaethje being an all american doesn't mean he's not a striker, that does not make sense. Striking is a preference, not a background.

 

[fizzlehiss]

Keep seeing these comments and people saying Islam is a better wrestler/grappler than Khabib. Justin Gaethje is a Division 1 wrestler, he began wrestling at the age of four and was a four-time finalist and two-time state champion in high school. Gaethje also competed at the NCAA Division I level at the University of Northern Colorado, where he was the wrestling program’s first NCAA All-American. Also, if you watch gaethje's wrestling matches, his style of wrestling was very defensive and he was able to shut down people's wrestling at a D1 level. People acting like he's just a striker when he's likely one of the hardest guys to takedown in the entire lightweight division considering his background is hilarious. Chandler got flipped over and outscrambled whenever he shot on Justin, justin has great hips and reactions to takedowns. Khabib took him down easily.

Khabib also outwrestled prime RDA, who later went onto become LW champ when Khabib got injured. RDA has gotten outwrestled in a few fights but when you consider that Khabib wasn't even in his prime when he dominated RDA it is a testament to how good he was. Imagine if Islam had to fight prime RDA when he wasn't in his prime, he could easily lose that fight. Islam was going to close decisions with Chris Wade prior to hitting his prime whereas khabib was making prime rda look easy

In the past few years people have forgotten how good this guy was, I think he's better than Islam

Because Justin only had the credential before mma, not anything to show for in mma. He got dominated by a pressure wrestler before ufc, he never used wrestling in ufc. Making him out to be an elite mma wrestler is a ridiculous cope but that's expected from Khabib fans.

 

[Squarechoke]

None of the mentioned fighters are standout wrestlers looking at their MMA careers. The LW division hasn't had any standout wrestlers for a long time, save for Khabib and Islam.

 

[Alpha_T83]

I get that Khabib is clearly one of the great MMA fighters, but don't let yourself be deluded. If we rank grapplers relative to their eras, Khabib NEVER fought any championship grapplers as good as Jon Fitch, Johnny Hendricks, Jake Shields, or even wrestlers as good as Josh Koscheck. Same thing when you look at Anderson Silva. Maia had better grappling than RDA, Chael Sonnen and Dan Henderson had FAR better grappling than Gaethje did. I would even say Yushin Okami's wrestling was better than Gaethje's.

When you look at the actual championship level opponents Khabib faced, it's only Gaethje, Poirier, McGregor, and Dos Anjos. That's it. Four opponents that actually matter and all of his other opponents are irrelevant non-championship level (as only championship level opponents matter in the context of "GOAT" discussions). Two of them were strikers, RDA was never a great wrestler (he only had BJJ which can't compete with good wrestling), and Gaethje was a so-so wrestler that had worse grappling than basically all the major grapplers GSP and Anderson Silva faced.

So no, Khabib never faced a great* grappler, and certainly not to the same level other UFC greats did within their respective divisions/eras.