Usman’s title reign in retrospect

Bearknuckle

Bearknuckle

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Was usman title reign a bit mediocre? The UFC and some of u shills were pushing usman as a p4p #1 and WW goat.

yet his reign was beating woodley for the title, then fighting

colby 2x
Masvidal 2x
Leon 2x
Burns

losing 2 of those fights.

so he beat 3 guys in his reign, colby, masvidal, burns. Colby being the toughest.

i think gsp runs through all of usmans opponents.
 
It was a good title reign imo. The only fight that mars it is the second Masvidal fight.

The first one is forgivable as Burns pulled out on 2 weeks notice and Jorge stepped in. The second one was Usman cherry picking because he didn't like Masvidal saying he couldn't beat him on a full camp. There were some really deserving contenders by that point that were passed up because Usman wanted to prove a point which sucked.

The 2 Colby fights were fine, Colby doesn't have the best resume but nobody can deny he is a hell of a fighter and they gave us 2 great fights.
 
I’m on the fence, as an Iowa man I was a huge fan of a farm boy wrestler being champion but I have to concede I may be wearing rose tinted glasses when I look back on his title reign. I’d probably have Usman right up there with Hughes as a 2a and 2b with GSP taking the 1 spot.
 
OldBoy91 said:
It was a good title reign imo. The only fight that mars it is the second Masvidal fight.

The first one is forgivable as Burns pulled out on 2 weeks notice and Jorge stepped in. The second one was Usman cherry picking because he didn't like Masvidal saying he couldn't beat him on a full camp. There were some really deserving contenders by that point that were passed up because Usman wanted to prove a point which sucked.

The 2 Colby fights were fine, Colby doesn't have the best resume but nobody can deny he is a hell of a fighter and they gave us 2 great fights.
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colbys resume when he fought usman was remarkably similar. lots of opponents in common, including wins over rda and maia. they had both lost to an opponent the other had beaten. even after they fought, colby beat 2 of usman’s championship opponents (masvidal and woodley). the only real difference is usman beat burns and lost to leon. if you think colby’s resume is thin, you really have to say the same about usman. i think usman’s resume is okay except for the masvidal fights, because journeyman jorge really didn’t have any business fighting for a title. if they were non-title fights (and thus not “defenses”), they wouldn’t stain his legacy.

but yeah, imo beating colby covington twice rates pretty highly.
 
Goutfather said:
colbys resume when he fought usman was remarkably similar. lots of opponents in common, including wins over rda and maia. they had both lost to an opponent the other had beaten. even after they fought, colby beat 2 of usman’s championship opponents (masvidal and woodley). the only real difference is usman beat burns and lost to leon. if you think colby’s resume is thin, you really have to say the same about usman. i think usman’s resume is okay except for the masvidal fights, because journeyman jorge really didn’t have any business fighting for a title. if they were non-title fights (and thus not “defenses”), they wouldn’t stain his legacy.

but yeah, imo beating colby covington twice rates pretty highly.
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My bad. I was specifically thinking about what he did in between the first and second title fight. He beat one opponent iirc before he got the second shot at Usman. I worded it very poorly.

I don't think either of their resumes as a whole are thin. They beat the guys who were the top guys at 170 at the time. Woodley, Maia, RDA, Masvidal etc. Usman had Burns while Colby had a very underrated DHK on his record. 170 isnt the strongest its ever been but none of those guys are scrubs. RDA is an atg when you figure in what he has done at 145 as well.

Hell, even Leon has a lot of the same guys on his record.
 
OldBoy91 said:
My bad. I was specifically thinking about what he did in between the first and second title fight. He beat one opponent iirc before he got the second shot at Usman. I worded it very poorly.

I don't think either of their resumes as a whole are thin. They beat the guys who were the top guys at 170 at the time. Woodley, Maia, RDA, Masvidal etc. Usman had Burns while Vokby had a very underrated DHK on his record. 170 isnt the strongest its ever been but none of those guys are scrubs. RDA is an atg when you figure in what he has done at 145 as well.

Hell, even Leon has a lot of the same guys on his record.
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ww is kinda top heavy at the moment, but imo the guys at the top are some of the best the division has ever had (compared to lhw, by contrast, which is far weaker and shallower than it has ever been). it will be interesting to see how leon vs colby shakes out. i admittedly didn’t think much of leon, but that second usman fight showed that maybe he has the tools to reign for a long time.
 
Goutfather said:
ww is kinda top heavy at the moment, but imo the guys at the top are some of the best the division has ever had (compared to lhw, by contrast, which is far weaker and shallower than it has ever been). it will be interesting to see how leon vs colby shakes out. i admittedly didn’t think much of leon, but that second usman fight showed that maybe he has the tools to reign for a long time.
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Skill for skill I think Leon is one of the best to ever do it at 170.

I understand why people write him off, he isn't the most exciting and he has "struggled" against lesser competition. And by struggled I mean he got hit once and was rocked in fights he dominated against Bryan Barbarena and Nate Diaz.

His striking is some of the cleanest at any weightclass, his fight IQ is extremely high, he is a slick BJJ black belt with excellent back takes and RNCs. His defensive wrestling has improved so much also, I hesitate to call it elite until we see how it stacks up against Colby's chain wrestling, but its very high level. His wrist fighting absolutely took away most of Usman's offensive wrestling game.

He has 3 losses on his record but only 1 of them is a true loss in the sense that his opponent was better than him on the night, and that was the 1st Usman fight, when Leon was 22 and Usman was the 1st wrestler he had ever fought.

His other losses are a split decision loss in his UFC debut that he clearly won, but hometown judging in Brazil robbed him. The other fight he was DQed in a fight he was clearly winning. His record arguably should be 22-1-1 right now.
 
Goutfather said:
ww is kinda top heavy at the moment, but imo the guys at the top are some of the best the division has ever had (compared to lhw, by contrast, which is far weaker and shallower than it has ever been). it will be interesting to see how leon vs colby shakes out. i admittedly didn’t think much of leon, but that second usman fight showed that maybe he has the tools to reign for a long time.
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The biggest thing holding Leon back from being a long reigning champ is his chin, it will fail him.
 
Should have gone through with his plan to skip right to LHW for that title.
 
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