Was Ante Delija a hyped prospect from PFL?

[Rhood]

I got an overall impression that he was going to shake up the Heavyweight division and move the needle.
But he can't even get past Spivac for a man of his talent.
Was his level of competition much weaker in the PFL?

 

[xhaydenx]

He's a fucking bum.

Could tell immediately that he trains his boxing with Modestas Bukkakus. They both have that bum level style where they've been taught to strike on the spot, which just results in them being easy to hit and missing most of their punches.

Dude won't be going anywhere in the UFC.

 

[Othman]

He was going to but the Aspinall curse got to him and derailed his destiny, now his face got turned into a bloody mush by Spivac after Waldo made his brain bleed.

 

[Tweak896]

Aspinall's training partner. It is what it is. That camp seems horrible.

 

[xhaydenx]

Aspinall's training partner. It is what it is. That camp seems horrible.

Terrible, stationary strikers, the lot of them. They just stop, stand still, and lean back and try to counter or throw the most basic combo with no movement and then don't land.

Modestas got whooped recently trying this shit. It even got him KOd with a second to go.

Ante could barely even touch the guard with Spivac standing right in front of him. Commentary brought up how many of his sig strikes he'd completely whiffed.

And Tom couldn't touch Gane and got thrashed as a result.

 

[Pierced7681]

In fairness, usually Spivac folds whenever the strikes start landing, but this time he showed mental toughness and finished the fight for his father who recently passed away. Gutsy performance.

 

[TheBrownRanger]

Kinda. PFL's Heavyweight division has always been pretty terrible in those early days. Philipe Lins was their first champion by beating Josh Copeland and Ali Isaev won the second PFL championship by beating Jared Rosholt. So there you go.

The hype surrounding Delija in the PFL was due to him training with Mirko Cro Cop. Delija was runner-up to Bruno Cappelozza, who wasn't that good, in 2021 PFL championship. He did have wins over Maurice Greene and Renan Ferreira, which are decent wins by PFL standards, and won a PFL title in 2022 (I think). Was a victim of the Bellator exports when he got washed by Valentin Moldavsky in RD1.

 

[Bobby Boulders]

He won the PFL HW tourney some years back. He's not bad. He's a Crocop protégé. I don't think Spivac is a bad loss for anyone, either. The crazy thing about the way that fight transpired, to me, is that Spivac was able to do it with his hands, on his feet. He's a good grappler at HW, has always leaned towards his strengths, and tonight was kinda out of nowhere. HW gonna HW, imo

 

[CatchtheseHands]

Id say yeah but he's still far from bad imo. Spivac has been a perpetual fringe top 5 guy for years and Waldo is the dark horse of the.division and has been on a hell of a run with his only loss being to a top 3 guy so both guys are definitely not bad losses for him. Ante still beats most of.the bottom 10 and pretty much everyone else outside of that but probably won't ever break top 5 so he'll likely become a gate keeper like Tybura going forward now.

 

[Jinx_AA]

He’s decent .. can forgive the loss to Waldo as Waldo might be a future champ whether you want to admit it or not …. But losing to spivac def hurt his stock

 

[Fedorgasm]

That was a decent scrap. Both dudes looked fast and sharp. A far cry from all the fatties that we have been seeing in the division.

 

[ExitLUPin]

PFL's HW division has never been good. Moldavsky KO'd Delija on the way out and he's a notorious decision machine. Delija wasn't top 3 over there when he left. UFC's HW division has been poor for a long time itself (obviously better than PFL), and Delija should be ranked for a while, barring an influx of legit HW talent (which we haven't seen in a while now). He's a respectable HW with all-around skills (the Cappelozza rematch was one of the best HW fights of the 2020s). It was still a very competitive 29-28 type of fight, easily one of the best on an otherwise dreadful card, and Delija had Spivac really hurt in the 2nd. He just wasn't ever going to be top 5, which is the level of HW Spivac loses to these days (Aspinall, Gane, WCA, Almeida).

 

[Thesnake101]

I got an overall impression that he was going to shake up the Heavyweight division and move the needle.
But he can't even get past Spivac for a man of his talent.
Was his level of competition much weaker in the PFL?

Bro he got KO'd by Moldavsky and beat by Cappelozza twice. He was just supposed to be a decent guy to fill the rankings, getting outboxed by Spivac like that is a lowlight tho.

 

[Doctor Grudge]

no one thought he was going to shake up the division or was a hyped prospect. why do people make this stuff up to crap on other orgs?

 

[Lee Danger]

i'll remember this guy forever, he earned his spot in the history of the sport.

"in one million fights i've never poked anyone's eyes so eyepokes must be always intentional"
proceed to badly poke his opponent and pretend to win by tko, gets koed some seconds later
"i won the fight, the ref did a bad job, that poke wasn't influential at all, my team and i'll appeal the decision"

 

[Mmmmmmma1234]

He’s decent .. can forgive the loss to Waldo as Waldo might be a future champ whether you want to admit it or not …. But losing to spivac def hurt his stock

You know "future champion" Waldo got a blatant robbery vs Spivac.

 

[Lee Danger]

You know "future champion" Waldo got a blatant robbery vs Spivac.

he got a blatant ktfo vs Delija.

 

[Yabadabaev]

Delija would smokes us all here hell even TJ Pillashaw with gyno and broken shoulder

 

[bjjwar]

I got an overall impression that he was going to shake up the Heavyweight division and move the needle.
But he can't even get past Spivac for a man of his talent.
Was his level of competition much weaker in the PFL?

But didnt he almost KOed the almighty Waldo and also Spivac last night?Not saying hes great or anything but he couldlve (shoulve) easily beaten those 2 guys and 1 of them is basically the number 1 contender lol.

 

[The_Renaissance]

Yeah, he's not very fucking good is he?

I can see him getting cut by the summer. Looked terrible last night, getting boxed up by a grappler like Spivac is an awful look.