Usman’s title reign in retrospect

OldBoy91 said:
It was a good title reign imo. The only fight that mars it is the second Masvidal fight.
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This.

And in a silly way the 2xMasvidal throws the 2xColby under the bus due to "fights just the same guys!" visual. But Colby really is good enough (yes, yes, irritating) to have two tries vs. the champ, and as said they were cool fights.
 
jk7707 said:
He was/is one of the best ever. He had to go 9-0 before he even got a title shot. And after he won the title he smashed everyone not named Leon for 3 years. Anyone trying to discredit Usman is a moron.
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Yes, going 9-0 prior to the title fight should absolutely be factored in.

About this part:
"And after he won the title he smashed everyone not named Leon for 3 years."
can also be rewritten to:
"After becoming champion he never beat anyone not named Masvidal, Covington, or Burns."
 
Bearknuckle said:
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.
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Even so, that would make him the 2nd best WW ever, and that's still pretty damn good.
 
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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Colby beats up 40 year old men.
OldBoy91 said:
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.
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Well written Leon appreciation post.
Big Tuppy Hole said:
The biggest thing holding Leon back from being a long reigning champ is his chin, it will fail him.
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Shavkat gonna take that jaw home.
 
Bearknuckle said:
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.
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it's funny because posters often shit on colby and claim the whole top 5 would beat him, Yet he's usman best win and some have put usman over gsp. Lunacy.
 
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jk7707 said:
He was/is one of the best ever. He had to go 9-0 before he even got a title shot. And after he won the title he smashed everyone not named Leon for 3 years. Anyone trying to discredit Usman is a moron.
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I think that is the point. Usman didn't really face many people on his rein. Just a bunch of rematches.
 
The multiple Jorge fights watered down his title Reign imho.

if he had a different person instead of Jorge a 2nd time, his run would have looked stronger.. but the KO was nice too so I can’t knock I Usman.
 
hes a bum that fought like a puss against maia. g nelson at least challenged himself when fighting maia
 
I guess I see it differently from a total accomplishment type perspective, I wasn’t really an Usman fan, but he grew on me. That being said, Marty handily won the title against the guy who was also considered a dominant Champ in extremely impressive fashion. Kamaru went onto defend his belt 5x while being an active Champion, he held onto the belt for 3 1/2 years or 1228 days, he was also the P4P#1 for a year of his reign. He was the 2021 fighter of the year and also had the 2021 KO of the year in his second bout against Masvidal. He won POTN X4, and FOTN X1. I’ll also mention that he won the TUF21 tournament, and to top it off Marty went undefeated for 9 1/2 years or 18 fights, honestly not a bad run.
<Fedor23>
IMO he’s arguably the 2nd best WW to do it behind GSP and pretty much neck and neck with Matt Hughes despite having 2 less title defenses.
 
Retrospectively everything looks worse. At the time he beat
- Woodley, a champ with 4 defences, seen as top 3 WW of all time at the time.
- Covington, the interim champ, with wins over Maia, Dos Anjos, Lawler & Woodley, who were all top 5 guys when he beat them
- Burns, a very dangerous rising contender who had just dominated a #1 ranked former champ Woodley & KO’d a #6 ranked former contender Damien Maia
- Masvidal, fresh off a year that can only be rivalled by Conor’s 2015, one of the most iconic knockouts of all time, all time level hype. Had also knocked out Till, who was the UFC’s “next Conor” at the time

He was also dominating Edwards in the fight in Utah. It was a good title reign. Most importantly, HE WAS AN ACTIVE CHAMPION.
 
Woodley and Mas were def not in their prime. But Colby and Burns were great wins. He must be in the top 3 WW all time imo, in a historically STACKED division

GSP
Hughes
Usman
 
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