Limelight My big stupid hype trains thread.

[Koala]

PFL MENA: All 4 tournament favourites won. The best prospect is Salah Hamli (27 yo 11-0 Moroccan LW training in Topuria's former team), who won his three tournament fights with submissions (even if the competition wasn't very good). I hope he will switch to the PFL main roster or maybe fight last year's tournament winner, Mohammad Seifi
WAR (Spanish show): On a hiatus from PFL, Gino van Steenis got an easy win. I expect to see both of those guys on the PFL Spanish card next year

Cage Warriors:
23 yo Scottish fighter Sean Clancy Jr got the interim WW belt and improved to 8-0 with a nice combo against a good regional vet. I think he will be in the next season of DWCS if he doesn't get into the UFC on short notice


French flyweight Nicolas Leblond (13-4) submitted Shaj Haque, who hasn't lost fr 5 years. He was dominated for 4 rounds and a half before finding a solution. He's managed by Graham of Cage Warriors and has been a replacement in case of short-notice replacements in several UFC cards


George Staines (Paddy's teammate) TKOs a good regional fighter and improves to 8-0 (finally gets a finish in CW)

Swiss LW Daniel Konrad upset George Hardwick by a flying armbar. Hardwick is now 2-3 after a loss in DCWS and for the CW belt


Shooto Brazil: Paulo Victor (22 yo, 10-1) won the 130-pound belt by SD vs Francisco Flavio (27 yo, 8-3)
LUX: Brayan Zurcher (DWCS 2025) got back on the win column by submitting Roa, on an 8-fight losing streak
EFC: Tumelo, South African flyweight, from the last TUF season, got back in the win column by R1 KO
BetCity FN: Bagratunyan (22 yo Armenian LW, former ACA Young Eagles) moves up to 10-0 by can-crushing KO

 

[HuskySamoan]

View attachment 1124381
Justified 3.

Chain wrestling and weight distribution compact as a stick.

Real bad list.

 

[Marko Atanasovik]

Real bad list.

A hot take is Habirora, but i put him there because I believe he can achieve a lot if he’s developed the right way in the gym.
Usman Nurmagomedov is here as the second because he has already achieved a lot, but I believe he can become a UFC champion.
The rest is all 10/10. Im curious how you would rank it from this list, excluding Usman, and order them by who you think has the highest ceiling.

I intentionally left out some fighters because I don’t believe they have a high enough ceiling.

 

[HuskySamoan]

View attachment 1124381
Justified 3.

Chain wrestling and weight distribution compact as a stick.

Habirora has had his last 2 fights at 170lbs. I agree hes best suited for 155 but I dont think hes on Usman or Amrus level yet.

Parnasse is more of a natural 145er who ran out of fights to have at 145 in KSW, dont think his potential in the UFC is at 155 nor do I think hed fight at that weight, similar to AJ McKee in this regard.

Akbar Abdullaev is a career 145er and fighters tend to scale up a weight in ONE due to their hydration clauses. He would not be a 155er in the UFC i can almost promise it.

Gitinov is getting old and is really inactive.

Bojkovic has been exposed..

Amru Magomedov is better than basically everyone on your list.

Eduard Vartanyan might be a little old now but ge dominated Raisov.

Christian Lee is better than most people on your list.

Magomed-Girl Umarkhadziev is someone you need to check out. He beat the Welsh guy that defeated Habirora in the IMMAFs and Giri is just generally a real talented, 23 year old out of a good gym.

The FEN champion Rzepecki is clearly at the very top of 155 prospects the UFC should sign. Has better wins, is younger and cross trains at ATT. Very good.

Adam Masaev just broke his streak of inactivity, Kade Ruotolo must be mentioned and Juan Pablo Viera (i think Viera will be a bust but hes earned being on a list at only 21 with good wins, undefeated).

 

[Marko Atanasovik]

Habirora has had his last 2 fights at 170lbs. I agree hes best suited for 155 but I dont think hes on Usman or Amrus level yet.

Parnasse is more of a natural 145er who ran out of fights to have at 145 in KSW, dont think his potential in the UFC is at 155 nor do I think hed fight at that weight, similar to AJ McKee in this regard.

Akbar Abdullaev is a career 145er and fighters tend to scale up a weight in ONE due to their hydration clauses. He would not be a 155er in the UFC i can almost promise it.

Gitinov is getting old and is really inactive.

Bojkovic has been exposed..

Amru Magomedov is better than basically everyone on your list.

Eduard Vartanyan might be a little old now but ge dominated Raisov.

Christian Lee is better than most people on your list.

Magomed-Girl Umarkhadziev is someone you need to check out. He beat the Welsh guy that defeated Habirora in the IMMAFs and Giri is just generally a real talented, 23 year old out of a good gym.

The FEN champion Rzepecki is clearly at the very top of 155 prospects the UFC should sign. Has better wins, is younger and cross trains at ATT. Very good.

Adam Masaev just broke his streak of inactivity, Kade Ruotolo must be mentioned and Juan Pablo Viera (i think Viera will be a bust but hes earned being on a list at only 21 with good wins, undefeated).

It's not that hard to see when the list was made.
When I made the list, everyone was a lightweight.

Vartanyan is a prospect?
Christian Lee is already a champion in ONE, and I don't believe he can go beyond that, which is why he wasn't on the list.

Looking back at when I made the list, my only mistake is that Amru wasn't on the list, but I dont believe in him at that time.
Even so, he wouldn’t have ranked above Akbar.

 

[HuskySamoan]

It's not that hard to see when the list was made.
When I made the list, everyone was a lightweight.

Vartanyan is a prospect?
Christian Lee is already a champion in ONE, and I don't believe he can go beyond that, which is why he wasn't on the list.

Looking back at when I made the list, my only mistake is that Amru wasn't on the list, but I dont believe in him at that time.
Even so, he wouldn’t have ranked above Akbar.

Akbar is a 145er, hes 5'7 and fought his entire career at 145, its just the ONE hydration shift. Christian Lee fights at 170 and they call that the LIGHTWEIGHT division.

Is Raisov a prospect? Dudes like 21-3 and pushing 30. I found your criteria a little off. Definitely a lot of mistakes but youre trying.

 

[Marko Atanasovik]

Akbar is a 145er, hes 5'7 and fought his entire career at 145, its just the ONE hydration shift. Christian Lee fights at 170 and they call that the LIGHTWEIGHT division.

Is Raisov a prospect? Dudes like 21-3 and pushing 30. I found your criteria a little off. Definitely a lot of mistakes but youre trying.

To you, prospects are only those who have a 0 on record.
Raisov would easily beat all fighters outside the UFC top 15.

What it means is that if Akbar moved to the UFC, he would be in the lightweight division.
That gap of 4 kg is not as big as for Lee, who would have to go to WW
5'10* average lightweights are 5'9.

You triggered all of this yourself because your rant about the categories didn’t go through, when you saw that the rankings were released long before some had moved to other divisions.
No worries, you’re trying. Next time, at least check when the ranking was made.

The only thing I agree with is that Amru should have been there, and not that high.
It’s obvious you’re a bandwagoner. You can’t see the depth and skill in the cage, you just stick to Sherdog.

As soon as someone has a loss on their record, that immediately means they have no potential to achieve anything else, according to 'fun fact experts’ like you.

 

[Marko Atanasovik]

Akbar is a 145er, hes 5'7 and fought his entire career at 145, its just the ONE hydration shift. Christian Lee fights at 170 and they call that the LIGHTWEIGHT division.

Is Raisov a prospect? Dudes like 21-3 and pushing 30. I found your criteria a little off. Definitely a lot of mistakes but youre trying.

First, you didn't see the date the list was released.

Second exposed are all those who have one defeat or more.

Third, you manipulatively reduced Akbar's height to 5'7.

Fourth, my argument about Lee was not about the weight, but rather because he has reached his ceiling in terms of success.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Alvi Dasuyev

Country - Belgium
Weight Class - Welterweight
Age : 23
Promotion - AEC
Team - Team Deathrow
Record : 8-0

This kid deserves a post. I've caught three of his fights now and I've been really impressed every time.

He's just a spectacularly calm striker. The way he kind of chills out while throwing great looking offence is a pleasure to watch. He's got great timing and incredibly dextrous legs and gets pretty complicated kicking techniques off out of nowhere.

He can wrestle too and has very nice ground and pound. His main weapon takedown wise are beautifully timed trips. His recent title defence against Kevin Ruart was a great performance and finish of a tough and experienced journeyman.

One of my favourite prospects to watch and I think the closest thing I've seen to Zabit since Zabit fucked off to be a doctor.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Sean Clancy Jr

Country - Scotland
Weight Class - Welterweight
Age : 22
Promotion - Cage Warriors
Team - Higher Level Martial Arts
Record : 8-0

Another guy who's overdue a post but because I've been slacking he hasn't had one until now.

He picked up the Cage Warriors Interim title at the weekend in a fight I went to live. His brutal knockout of Melvin Van Suuijdam will stick with me for a while as it's the worst one I've ever seen in person.

Prior to brutally KOing people in his previous fights he'd been showing a really good grappling game too, going back and forth with some decent Brazilian BJJ black belts and managing to finish them.

Really young for his experience level, really exciting on the feet and on the ground. Seems like he should be a shoe in for Contender Series at a minimum.

 

[Koala]

Alvi Dasuyev is part of Team Deathrow, Sint Truiden

 

[BoxerMaurits]

Sean Clancy Jr

Country - Scotland
Weight Class - Welterweight
Age : 22
Promotion - Cage Warriors
Team - Higher Level Martial Arts
Record : 8-0

Another guy who's overdue a post but because I've been slacking he hasn't had one until now.

He picked up the Cage Warriors Interim title at the weekend in a fight I went to live. His brutal knockout of Melvin Van Suuijdam will stick with me for a while as it's the worst one I've ever seen in person.

Prior to brutally KOing people in his previous fights he'd been showing a really good grappling game too, going back and forth with some decent Brazilian BJJ black belts and managing to finish them.

Really young for his experience level, really exciting on the feet and on the ground. Seems like he should be a shoe in for Contender Series at a minimum.

That knockout of my man Melvin was some brutal shit.
How were the other fights on the card?

 

[Richard Fannin]

That knockout of my man Melvin was some brutal shit.
How were the other fights on the card?

I've only watched my countryman Nicolas Leblond win the FW Cage Warrior belt from Shajidul Haque who was defending his belt for the 4th time.
Good job by Nicolas, in only a couple days 2 of my favorite French fighters will compete on the PFL Europe 4 card, my man Kevin "Air" Jousset and the one and only Taylor "Double Impact" Lapilus

Dang it, if I were still a betting man I'd bet a good chunk on "Air" Jousset, and make it a parlay since Lapilus is such a big favorite, I'd make enough to buy random crap. But my betting days are behind me, I've always said that if I lost twice in a row I'd stop, and after losing 2 extremely close decisions (hailed as robberies by 50% of the people on MMA decisions) I became jaded.

Still, Jousset is facing a 7-0 Belgian prospect Patrick "The Belgian Bomber" Habirora, and Belgium has been pissed at France for generations because (long story, be prepared)

Spoiler: France/Belgium "friendly" rivalry, good natured ribbing.

in our jokes, the Belgians are easy targets between their hilarious accent and... that's pretty much it.
Also, we like to pretend that we lost WW2 because of them, since after the Germans tried to attack France a few times and were repelled by the mighty Maginot Line, the German Army decided to forget the problem and travel through Belgium so they could attack the French soldiers by the rear and steal their badass tanks
(according to my old history teacher the German Tiger tanks were crap and the French tanks were much better; 15 years later, history would prove him right, and the myth of the invincible tiger tank was officially debunked).

If both Frenchies win, I'll sing the Marseillaise drunk on fresh baguette dipped in a bowl of fortified red wine for all of Sherdog to see... wait no, I'll be wearing my collector Hammer House red shirt, I can't sully it with red wine and French debauchery.

VIVE LA FRANCE

 

[Trupsi]

I've only watched my countryman Nicolas Leblond win the FW Cage Warrior belt from Shajidul Haque who was defending his belt for the 4th time.
Good job by Nicolas, in only a couple days 2 of my favorite French fighters will compete on the PFL Europe 4 card, my man Kevin "Air" Jousset and the one and only Taylor "Double Impact" Lapilus

Dang it, if I were still a betting man I'd bet a good chunk on "Air" Jousset, and make it a parlay since Lapilus is such a big favorite, I'd make enough to buy random crap. But my betting days are behind me, I've always said that if I lost twice in a row I'd stop, and after losing 2 extremely close decisions (hailed as robberies by 50% of the people on MMA decisions) I became jaded.

Still, Jousset is facing a 7-0 Belgian prospect Patrick "The Belgian Bomber" Habirora, and Belgium has been pissed at France for generations because (long story, be prepared)

Spoiler: France/Belgium "friendly" rivalry, good natured ribbing.

in our jokes, the Belgians are easy targets between their hilarious accent and... that's pretty much it.
Also, we like to pretend that we lost WW2 because of them, since after the Germans tried to attack France a few times and were repelled by the mighty Maginot Line, the German Army decided to forget the problem and travel through Belgium so they could attack the French soldiers by the rear and steal their badass tanks
(according to my old history teacher the German Tiger tanks were crap and the French tanks were much better; 15 years later, history would prove him right, and the myth of the invincible tiger tank was officially debunked).

If both Frenchies win, I'll sing the Marseillaise drunk on fresh baguette dipped in a bowl of fortified red wine for all of Sherdog to see... wait no, I'll be wearing my collector Hammer House red shirt, I can't sully it with red wine and French debauchery.

VIVE LA FRANCE

La tâche semble ardue pour Jousset...

 

[Hellowhosthat]

That knockout of my man Melvin was some brutal shit.
How were the other fights on the card?

It was good cheers buddy. There were two guys I trained with since they were young lads on the card in George Staines and Joe Fields and they both picked up round two finishes so I was over the moon with that.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Dzhamaludin Aliev

Country - Turkey/Russia
Weight Class - Bantamweight
Age : 26
Promotion - Core FC
Team -
Record : 11-0

I thought I'd already done a post for Aliev but apparently not.

Anyway he's on quite the run at the moment with three consecutive finishes of decentish regional Brazilians. First he knocked out UFC vet Francisco Figuiredo, then he ran through ACA vet Cleverson Silva and now he's subbed LFA vet Michel Lima who hadn't been finished in nearly 10 years.

He's a well rounded guy who's athletic and explosive on the feet and absolutely loves a flying knee which is of course exciting. He's a good grappler too, works well in the clinch and stays on top of guys comfortably. When Lima tried to turtle and come up he slapped an instant D'arce on and got a quick panic tap so he must have a solid squeeze.

At 11-0 with a win over a UFC vet under his belt and a finishing streak he should probably be under consideration for this early year Contender Series we're apparently getting.

 

[BoxerMaurits]

It was good cheers buddy. There were two guys I trained with since they were young lads on the card in George Staines and Joe Fields and they both picked up round two finishes so I was over the moon with that.

Very cool. Must be awesome to see those guys compete and rise to the occasion.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Very cool. Must be awesome to see these guys compete and rise to the occasion.

Yeah, it's getting to the stage where they're getting close to the UFC which would be surreal. George being Paddy Pimblett's main training partner and having him in his corner is surreal enough.

 

[Marko Atanasovik]

Temirkhan Temirkhanov 15-1
Only defeat against Islam Omarov.

 

[Richard Fannin]

*La tâche semble ardue pour Jousset...

Indeed, and despite his first 2 wins in the UFC, I think he might have been thrown to the wolves a bit too early...
Still, when we looks at his early career, he went 2-0 as an amateur and then before getting into the UFC, his only 2 losses were
-a doctor stoppage to future UFC champ Jack Della Maddalena (who was already 6-2, while Jousset was 2-0, and was a last minute replacement for Jack's original opponent, Glen Pettigrew),
-and a 5 rounds split decision loss (I would have scored it a draw, or even a win for Kevin, but it was in Australia on Kaleb's turf, so...) to Australian journeyman Kaleb Ridebout ...

Kevin "Air" Jousset has high level Judo, so he might have been performing better back in the days of old when you could wear your Gi during MMA bouts, but no needs to delve on the past =(
He started well in the UFC with 2 wins, but sadly he lost 2 in a row afterwards... Patrick Habirora will welcome him to PFL, and I hope that Jousset will show him which French-speacking country is the superior one... But Patrick's teammate as Team Sendo, Boris "Modern Gladiator" Atangana is also fighting on this card (he racked victories at PFL Europe 2&3 beforehand) so I'm afraid that their moral is going to be through the roof


PFL might be a better fit for "Air" Jousset while he gains experience, but his Belgian opponent won't do him any favor; Just a few hours left before the event starts, and Kevin is definitely my MVP of the day/night

Taylor "Double Impact" Lapilus


doesn't need me to root for him, he'll TCB as usual... in his last UFC stint, he went 3-1 and his only loss was to 11-0 [at the time] Farid Basharat from ATT, who has since improved his record to 14-0 and before that he was 4-0 in amma MMA, so no shame in losing a pretty exciting decision to another surging elite...
it was an entertaining decision, lots of cool kicks, and everytime Farid took Taylor down the Frenchman found a way to get back up pretty quickly; I ain't contesting the decision, every round Farid did just a bit more than Taylor, so there's no space to complain this time.... But if Lapilus & Basharat meet each other again down the road I wouldn't be opposed to a rematch)

Anyway, what was I talking abou... oh yeah, Liam "Nightmare" Gittins from England

He might have won his last 6 bouts against competent journeymen, but Lapilus is on another level.

Plus, wrestling, France's weakness because the only combat sport we learn at school is Judo, and to be frank (and I don't agree with this stereotype at all, since when I studied in the US I had a blast rasslin') we're still very immature about wrestling and how "lame" it looks.
It sucks because sometimes we breed a great talent in the Hexagone, like the talented' Steeve Guénot


who got France the first gold medal in greco roman wrestling in 2008 at Beijing, the first gold medal France got for wrestling since good ol' Émile Poilvé back in 1936 in the brand new stadium built by Hitler.


Can Trump out-do Hitler with the White House Octagon? The friendly rivalry continues in 2026!

Ha, I just realized that Steeve's brother, fellow (Bronze) Olympic wrestler Christophe Guénot has a Tapology page, because the guy he lost to in Greco back in 2012 Olympic games in London was future Silver medalist & UFC rassler Mark "The Olympian" Madsen

I used to root pretty darn hardcore-like for this guy when he entered the UFC, because, I can admit it now, I was salty that some other wrestler (Bo Nickal or Khamzat Chimaev maybe?) was hogging 100% of the attention when it came to "WAT IF DIS RASSLER TRANED UFC??,," daily discourse.

... but sadly, while Madsen's strategy of fighting once a year worked well enough for him at first since he won his first 4 UFC bouts from 2019 to 2022, dude wasn't getting any younger, and that accursed Grant "KGD" Dawson crushed my dreams for the second time in as many years (in 2021 he had put a stop to my man Leo Santos' winning streak in brutal fashion, and in November 2022 he also finished Mark Madsen Lemme tell ya, at UFC 323 last week, my happiest time of the card was when Manuel "El Loco" Torres bagged his 5th POTN bonus in as many UFC wins [which might be some kind of record?] by brutalizing the poor Dawson into a living death 2min in =>press play, enjoy finish)

Soooo yeah I guess Mark "The Olympian" Madsen was my big stupid hype train... can't win them all, eh?