I've been saying it since the fight got announced , Cowboy is way more skilled than Al and he is gonna style on him , And it turned out to be just like i said with Cowboy completely out-classing Al . Most of people sucking Al nuts here were Kabob fans trying to make Khabib comp look better by hyping Al up , Dont get me wrong Al is a goof fighter who can beat guys like Kevin Lee etc but he is not in Cowboy's level as evidenced by last night beating. I knew that Al would have only a puncher chance against Cowboy since skill-wise they werent close , Even that puncher-chance i was confident that it wouldnt come since Cowboy despite what shertards will say he still has an iron chin.
Reminder al was bragging about getting dominated by Khabib for 5 rounds. Just shows you how much of a sore loser he is
I was hoping Cowboy would have give us a Michelle Waterson speech talking about being a father and wanting to be the first ufc champion that is a DAD. Lol.
You realize though that in the case of every single contest there are countless people predicting both sides, right? In your mind you’re thinking, “man I really nailed it.” In our minds we are thinking, “shrug, so you’re one of the ones who bet on red instead of black.” Reminds me a little of the dork who wrote the Dilbert comic strip who predicted that Donald Trump would win the election. He thinks he’s brilliant. The rest of us realize that for every low probability outcome there will be thousands of people who correctly guessed that it would happen. If you want credit for your predictive prowess, you should keep a thread open and make all of your predictions publicly and ahead of time. Then we can gauge whether to care or not. Otherwise you could just run around babbling before every event, then pop up with a thread like this when you happen to stumble into one.
Good call TS. But get off the Sherphonics. It is fucking lame. I didn’t get the 4th round sub I called for. But when Cowboy took his back for about half a second after that kd I was pretty excited. As the 5th ended it was all good... Thanks for making this thread. I never would just to brag for getting it right. Just sayin.
pretty accurate. Making threads on your predictions that come true is pretty fucking pathetic. Come on.
That being said, I do think that we can say in hindsight that Raging had become slightly overrated after the second Lee fight. Beating guys like Ross Pearson and Diego Sanchez is what any decent top twenty lightweight should be doing. His first win over Lee was also very early in Lee’s climb. I thought the second win over Lee was very impressive, but styles very much make fights at 155. Offensive wrestling is kind of all or nothing. A guy like Lee either gets the takedown and dominates, or he doesn’t. Against Edson he consistently got them and he mashed. Al’s defense was just a little bit better and it made all the difference. Against someone who doesn’t kick Al’s boxing can be very effective. But while beating Lee is impressive it really doesn’t tell us a lot about the fighter’s ability to beat other top 6-7 fighters. I thought Al looked pretty decent in the first round last night—splitting the guard with his right hand (which was always a big jet to a potential victory) and throwing the big looping shots that can catch Cowboy. But Al was way too flat footed for a guy who kicks like Cowboy. (I was also surprised by the size difference. I knew DC would have the edge in height but even his arms looked significantly thicker....not quite Max v Dustin, but it was noticeable). And over time that paid big dividends for DC. I thought Al needed to rip the body to set up the big head shots, not unlike the way Don used low kicks to set up the head shots. But Al went head hunting right away and by the time Donald got rolling it was too late. The difficult reality for Al right now is that he’s not a big enough puncher to be one-dimensional. His wrestling is above average for the division, but that only matters to the extent that a fighter can score takedowns. Other than Khabib, formerly Lee, and Gregor Gillespie, nobody at 155 uses takedowns, so Al’s wrestling is largely irrelevant. And while he probably has more single strike power in his hands than Khabib, Tony and Cerrone, it’s not big enough to turn the tide against guys who are—all in their own unique ways—busier than him. Cerrone’s next fight is going to be a great test. Tony and Gaethje will test his will, durability and ability to fight fire with fire. Conor will test his chin and his big fight poise. A win over any of those guys will earn him the title shot that Donald puzzlingly seems to think he’s already earned. As for Al, there are still a lot of great fights at 155: Iaquinta vs Barboza immediately jumps to mind. And dropping a tier back to face someone like Felder, Hernandez, Hooker, Vick, Oliveira, etc. makes a lot of sense to me too.
Al is too green (36-11 vs. 14-5). He is more proof that toughness will only get you so far in the UFC. If he doesn't get new skills, he won't go further. He needs new style.
I think he needs to kick. I didn’t think he tactics were necessarily bad last night, but they weren’t diverse enough for someone like Don. Remember when Jorge Masvidal came out in a Thai boxer’s stance against cerrone, and kept looking to hit him between the eyes with a hard right hand? I felt like Raging had similar aspirations bu didn’t execute it as well. (He was dealing with a tough size and reach deficit too). Agree that he needs some tweaks, but DC is tough when he’s on and last night he was on.
I don't spend much time on Sherdog these days, but good to see that people here still don't think it's pathetic in any way to weirdly take credit for the outcome of a fight.
Yeah my only concern was his chin, but that was only an issue when he had quick turnarounds after the Brown & Lawler wars. Better at range, in the clinch, top game, guard, scrambles. He didn't dance in the pocket until after Al's lead leg was compromised from the low-kicks. Ferguson vs Cerrone for #1 contender makes all the sense in the world now. Do it around the same time as Khabib vs Poirier, or even on the same card. Winner's fight. If Connie wants to come back he can fight Nate or Gaethje or stay retired. Yeah he can sell way more, but his demand$ at this point may not be worth it for WME given their new ppv deal with espn paying for 500k buys no matter what. And on cards where the payout is 1/10 of what Conor wants
