Media Luke Thomas: You Won't See Another Fighter Like Khabib in Your Life Again

[Ackmed]

How many fighters in the ufc were told to listen to there fathers plan. His dad came up with a formula to win with minimal damage. Was it exciting? Not necessarily in my opinion. Was it dominant? Absolutely.

Oh yeah its not 100% his own accomplishment. He always humbly pointed this out by saying "Everything i have God gave me", his famous self-finger point with a "nothing" signal followed by pointing above, giving credit to his coaches and teammates...after the Dustin fight he literally said something like "I don't understand why I have so much in life"

His style was exiting enough to become the #1 draw. Even though he's asking to be stripped Dana still refuses to take his belt back.

 

[Spiritual Sight]

No way Islam lives up to Khabib's level of dominance.

 

[Ackmed]

@Ackmed You just crashed the Islam hype train, if there was ever a train build on his hype in the first place.
But then when you look at Khabib's credentials he just has so much more experience in other forms of grappling and combat sports compared to Islam, so the techniques from those martial arts/sports that he integrated into his arsenal directly translated towards his fights in the ring, even though Khabib (or any of us) may have missed it during his fights seeing it for the first time.

With Khabib, I don't think it's a matter of fight IQ, but rather extensive experience in dealing with various scenarios in a combat situation/fight that allow him to figure out how to get himself into an advantageous position over his opponent compared to someone else who may be unable to create that opportunity to do so.

That being said, give it a couple years time (or maybe 10), and we could be seeing fighters in that division whose skills are great enough to rival Khabib's (or even better) since this sport seems to evolve further with every passing year.

Not at all - Islam is future LW champion, but he isn't "like Khabib" in that he's been dropped before.

That said Islam also has some strengths that Khabib does not have - for example at AKA they say his grappling is on par with Khabib while being the better striker. He also has better striking defence.

 

[IsNormal]

I dunno, in just 1/4 of a lifetime we've had a few "one in a lifetime" fighters. I think they'll keep coming.

 

[Ackmed]

I literally see guys that look like Khabib every week.

 

[Mahkor]

Agreed, especially given that his heir apparent has been KOd cold by some prelims fighter already.

 

[Ackmed]

Anderson wasn't knocked down, hurt or cut in his first three defences either.

No one said "three defences" is the criteria. Anderson lost a lot of rounds. Khabib can chose to continue dominating, he's so far ahead of his competition. He also would have had more defences by now if UFC didn't slow-track him to a TS.

 

[Ackmed]

Now we know you're lying...

Lol "unbiased" is debatable but no I've never used a different account and will keep it that way.

 

[Ackmed]

There are so many arguments for and against statements like this though.

Guys like Nate, or GSP bleed from getting a punch to the face. So what does that really mean? I've noticed many black fighters that show no affects of a fight on their appearance. Even if they got beat up a bit. Silva never bled according to a recent thread until his last fight.

Anybody can be knocked down, or finished. A lot of that could have to do with the level of competition one has faced. Being a long time reigning champion means you fight the best guys in the world every single fight. Sooner or later something is going to happen. Just because it hasn't happened yet. Doesn't mean it never will. This is something we haven't seen from Khabib. 3 defenses, and a handful of top 10 wins doesn't compare to the numbers the consensus GOAT candidates have put up. And all of them have bled, or been knocked down, etc. No matter how good you are there is always someone that could have your number on any given night. Let's see Khabib have 20+ UFC fights. Especially now that his fights would be as a defending champion. All it takes is a good elbow to cause a cut. A great punch on the button can cause a KD. And those can lead to a loss.

I think Khabib is great. But his resume works against him in certain arguments. He is undeniably the P4P 1 right now if you ask me. He may even be the best fighter ever. But, he just doesn't have the resume to back certain claims. And these claims don't hold a lot of weight with me. Being undefeated is his biggest claim to greatness. Not stupid shit like this.

He's what 13-0 in UFC, and Gaethje was stylistically his worse matchup who would definitely make him bleed? Anything is possible but I find it extremely unlikely that Hooker, Oliveira, Tony Chandler etc would hurt him had he decided to get more defences.

 

[kingmob6]

Fedor was way better. Much better record against better opponents. Much wider skill set. Khabib isn't on Fedors level

Not true. I am a big Fedor fan, and consider him the GOAT, but what Khabib did in a much shorter UFC run was more impressive. Fedor was put through some wars during his era, and had a lot of inferior competition. Also, people discount Khabib's pre-UFC record, but he had some decent competition there as well, and was beating them at a very young age.

 

[NoStoneUnturned]

Have you seen another UFC champion who has never been knocked down, hurt or cut in a fight?

Your criteria may suggest this isn't very important, fair enough, but the point still stands we will probably never see another champion with this incredible trait.

You don't understand the word "never". MMA isn't going anywhere and is an extremely young sport. There will undoubtedly be another. There will in fact be many assuming man kind marches on...

 

[The Chosen]

Khamzat Chimaev is the only one I can see surpassing Khabib’s legacy

 

[ineverpost]

He's right about that. He fought almost exactly like Fedor but was better at everything. The closest you could get to a real life video game character ranked 10/10 in every skill.

 

[wbubbles]

Lol if someones 20 and lives another 80 years hell yeah they will see fighters much better than khabib. Think about it.. ucf started in 93. So weve seen 27 years of modern mma. You think in the next 80 years we wont see anyone amazing? Gtfo

 

[Ackmed]

honestly kahbib is no different than askren....both guys had top notch wrestling to negate there opponents weakness/strengths.

so honestly it would take someone who could negate kahbib's td's, and be able to have the stronger stand up with the ability to finish via strikes.

Or land something like masvidal did an unexpected flying knee to surprise and finish kahbib.

There's already been guys past, present, and future who will be like kahbib....honestly the only thing going for him is his undefeated record, other than that guys like silva or gsp already are ahead of kahbib, they both have way more title defenses than kahbib which in my opinion supersedes kahbib's perfect record.

Your Contardism has been noted

 

[NoStoneUnturned]

Lol if someones 20 and lives another 80 years hell yeah they will see fighters much better than khabib. Think about it.. ucf started in 93. So weve seen 27 years of modern mma. You think in the next 80 years we wont see anyone amazing? Gtfo

There is obviously an incredible amount of really young people (or really dumb old guys) in this thread who haven't yet realized there is more to this earth than the heroes of their youth.

Never is a long long long long time and as you pointed over many here have many decades to live.

 

[podsox]

usman is on his way there

 

[Based and White Pilled]

That have never been dropped or shown blood?

Yeah. I'm pretty sure Rousey, Jones and Weidman all made it to 3 defenses without ever being dropped or cut. I don't think being cut is particularly significant, though. I'm not sure why it's being included like it's a big deal.

I didn't see all of Joanna's fights, so I'm not sure if she got hurt before achieving 3 defenses.

Obviously Anderson and GSP's UFC win streaks were way more impressive than Khabib's. How much you want to detract for their losses outside of the win streaks is up to you, but I don't think losses outside of their peak mean much when looking at greatness. Aldo's combined WEC and UFC streak is also way more impressive. I'm pretty sure he made it way past three defenses without ever being hurt, but he has that one early loss that is a disqualifier.

 

[frontkick1]

Khabib is incredible but he only fought elite competition for a short run, and most of the higher level guys he faced were strikers, essentially tailor made for him. All time great for sure, not the GOAT

Let's see Jones top comperition.
Washed up shogun, washed up Jackson, MW Belfort, MW Sonnen, Smith, ST Preux,

Also bla bla bla peds and whatever but Jones is basically 28-0 with but with triple the world titles and better resume than Khabib. Jones is also the better fighter.

Better resume? Besides of Cormier Teixeira Gustavsson and maybe evans at that time who was supposed to come out as a real threat to Jones?
MW Belfort, MW sonnen, Machida, kneeless shogun, washed up Jackson, st Preux, Smith....?

Let's be honest, In terms of resume Khabib has at the very least as good a resume as jones or silva,

 

[The XL]

Let's see Jones top comperition.
Washed up shogun, washed up Jackson, MW Belfort, MW Sonnen, Smith, ST Preux,


Better resume? Besides of Cormier Teixeira Gustavsson and maybe evans at that time who was supposed to come out as a real threat to Jones?
MW Belfort, MW sonnen, Machida, kneeless shogun, washed up Jackson, st Preux, Smith....?

Let's be honest, In terms of resume Khabib has at the very least as good a resume as jones or silva,

DC is a way better win than anything Khabib ever did, even if you don't count the 2nd fight. Shogun was so washed that he was the LHW champ and had just beat Machida.