But it's not. We have just seen Tyron Woodley lose a dominant decision to someone who is a well rounded fighter who mixes things up. He lost the same way against Rory Mac in the past, but we treated him differently as a champion. He faced killers, but the matchups were favorable since he only usually had to worry about 1 dimension or so.
Max Holloway has grown leaps and bounds, I'm not taking that away from him. But he has had favorable matchups in the sense that the problems that have caused him to lose in the past have not been present in the streak of fighters he has beat. This is not to say that his fights have been easy. I'd say Aldo is a more favorable matchup for Conor than Edgar, but that doesn't mean Aldo is in anyway an easy fight.
Conor, Dennis (although that win is meh), and Dustin all mixed it up. Conor struck with Holloway and took him down because of the fact that Holloway tends to commit a lot into his punches.
Aldo isn't the kind of guy to shoot heavy on takedowns. Ortega's takedowns are nothing too great and he prefers to use clinch work. Pettis's takedowns are not good. Jeremy Stephens prefers to strike. Lamas is the closest thing but I wouldn't really consider him that great of a benchmark.
People are misinterpreting my title as saying Max Holloway had it easy which is not what I am saying. I am saying that his streak is not necessarily a guarantee that he has patched the holes in the game. Whether he was 18 or 5 years old, there are certain avenues you must train for and some people always have an issue thats inherent in their style and we don't know till we see evidence. Conor lost his first few fights by submissions and ground work has still been his major downfall to the end. Barboza has had issues with pressure fighters, and still does. The fact that Dustin is the underdog in this fight is confusing considering he did implement a good mix of takedowns and strikes against Holloway, like Conor. He will likely do it again.
Sorry, but you are blatantly wrong. You can't simply change data to suit your narrative.
I don't mean to be mean, but as an example, Woodley lost to a wrestler, not a "well rounded guy".
Usman is an NCAA Division II All-American and a member of the University World Team for freestyle wrestling.
Conor is a striker.
And like I said, he beat Max at a time Max used to coast and not train properly. Watch Max's interviews from that time! He himself said that multiple times.
And as I noted, he was supposed to fight Frankie. The biggest danger for him (style-wise) but he got injured and Ortega replaced him & KTFO Frankie.
That is the only reason he didn't fight him.
So I disagree he had only favourable matchups. he faced everyone put in front of him. Even trying to hint it was an easy path is ridiculous.
UFC does give easy paths to fighters who makes them money (i.,e. Conor and how he jumped the line bypassing all to 10 & only faced one wrestler who had no camp).
So I think it is a huge disfavour to even hint Max got this treatment. He didn't.
he had to earn his title shot and had to fight a lot of folks, FW GOAT included (twice!!).
