Just for matchup sakes it annoys me how often grappling based contenders are pulling the “best friend card” (I have no doubt the camaraderie made when sharpening each others skills in preparation for battle can be intense. It just has been the real life situation that these dudes have made good friends and fight this style.
It still does not ignore the fact that friendships like Lhabib and Islam, or Merab and Aljo have left us with them avoiding fighting eachother, which isn’t really so bad except we just lose the ability to observe and actually see some of these fights
Like I didn’t hate Aljo vs Henry actually, for the hell of it and for the matchups sake I want to see Islam get his title shot against Belal…like even irregardless of the title I want to see some of these grapplers fight eachother. I’d like to see Aljo vs Merabs gas tank too, see who would have been the best.
Khabib vs Islam would have been nuts.