Merab has great cardio and good enough striking to not get blown out on the feet. He's a certified beast but I think people REALLY exaggerate how well he did in this fight with Umar. He landed what, one good right hand in the 4th? And spammed takedowns that were largely ineffectual while Joe and Cormier were giving him sloppy, drooling, dome and cradling his jewels for getting stuffed and making Umar tired. Did he even keep Umar on the ground for more than 20 or 30 seconds of control when Umar was utterly exhausted? He didn't win by a large margin, he wasn't rag dolling Lil Khabib.
While Merab's cardio is insane, he does slow and start eating shots in the fif round, at least his last two fights anyway. Showboating can be fun to see in fights but it annoys me when the guy showboating has mainly beat up the other fighter's lungs more so than the rest of them, especially when they're stalling and moving away in the final round to secure the win.
I've seen shit loads of posts talking about the fight like it was some blowout and questioning Lil Eagle's heart, but it's like, chill dudes. Merab won and is probably gonna hold on to the belt for a while from the looks of it, but lets stay in orbit of the planet here. This wasn't GSP/Penn 2 or some shit. He put on a good performance and wore Umar down. He's world class, Umar isn't a scrub for losing to a machine like Merab.
