What happened to Kevin Lee?

  1. Kevin was never as good as people wanted him to be. He only has 2 top 10 wins in his career, but he has a ton of bad losses.
  2. He seems like a big of a head case. I get the impression he never recovered mentally from his higher-profile losses.
  3. He's had a bunch of knee surgeries.
 
methrogenn said:
I never really believed that Lee was going to be a champion or anything even when he was doing well in the UFC but he was a decent prospect with a good top game.

He also seems like a great guy but like most of his peers at that time he suffered alot by trying to act like McGregor.

I know he's had some knee issues but his chin seems to be completely gone, he can't take damage at all even though I don't remember him taking any career altering damage.

I feel like his career went downhill since his old coach passed away and he just couldn't recover. He did pretty decently in his early UFC career, he had a relatively competitive fights with Charles Oliveira aswell.

I was shocked when he had a competitive fights with Diego Sanchez in EFC which again was due to his knees but watching his latest pfl fight, it's shocking how bad he looked.

I would attribute the lack of takedowns to his knee issues but I really don't understand what happened to his striking & chin, he is only 32 years old aswell & it's not like he started MMA at a young age or has had several wars.

What happened to the Mo Town Phenom?
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Seems like an issue with all xtreme couture fighters

They spar like idiots and leave their careers in the gym, become chinny way before their time.

Happened to Gray Maynard as well, who now has serious and noticeable CTE.

If you’re a fighter who cares about your livelihood or career, don’t fucking train at gyms like that.

Lee left, but he probably still kept the habits. Someone who trains with him says he spars way too hard when that last video of him getting dropped came out.

It’s sad because he had so much potential, those meat head gyms are the poison of potential in the sport.
 
Injuries and peaking young. It sure as shit didn't help that his coach died and he obviously hasn't been the same since.

This fight shouldn't have happened. Was this supposed to legitimize their champion or something?
 
Pancake Sprawl said:
buddy, he's BEEN washed up. back in his day i thought he could be a contender at LW but the man was too arrogant and too dumb to close the gaps in his style. he's a wrestler with no chin and shitty defense who thinks he's a striker, that's a big red flag already. then when he actually wrestles he gasses the fuck out. low fight IQ can't be trained out of you.

he nearly lost to Diego Sanchez in 2022, think about that guys.
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To be fair, his knee fell apart pretty early in that one.
 
ArtardFiesta said:
it's also fucked up that he is tony ferguson biggest win
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Lee wasn't his biggest win at all, who exactly is claiming this ? Even someone like Thomson who was fringe top 10 was a better win.
ArtardFiesta said:
which goes to show how overrated tony was.
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Guy was really exciting, never turned down any opponent, and despite being an absolute mental head case (literally had to get a psych meds before the Justin fight) still racked up 6x top 10 wins. Don't know if "overrated" is the right term, he had a great career and was fun to watch.
 
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- Poor discipline outside the gym.
- Burning bridges with people who got him to the top
- Gym hopping
- Hard sparring at Kill Cliff destroying his chin (there’s even a video of him getting flash KO’)
 
Ever since his entrance against Al Iaquinta where he came out dancing like the ultimate DB - I can never root for him … people with walk outs like that deserve to be slept … do people not realize how fkn dumb they look doing that shit
 
Some fighters just experience wear and tear faster than others.
 
IMO he benefitted by being under the radar in a time period where the LW division was stacked and thus he was able to build a streak of wins that really wasn't as impressive as it seemed.

Then, when he suddenly got recognized and was given a huge step up in competition against Ferguson, he did better than expected because Ferguson has horrible takedown defense and was honestly a very flawed fighter who himself was being overvalued due to a long winning streak.

This exact same phenomenon has happened in the past many times... remember when G Sot was on an 8 fight winning streak? How about when Matt Brown suddenly became a "contender" or Rick Story or, more famously... Leon Edwards (whose streak was terrible and protected by inactivity)?

Many times, an unsung fighter skates by beating bottom feeder names but then gets a serious reality check when they are suddenly thrown into the top of the heap. Kevin Lee is a classic example of this IMHO. He really wasn't exceptional in any way and he never seemed to improve despite being given many chances.

With his style of fighting against someone with known flaws like RDA at WW... it is absolutely baffling that he lost that fight and this is when you could "put the nail in his coffin" as far as calling him a title contender. This was a gatekeeper test and he lost so anything that has happened since to him should surprise no one IMO.

TL/DR: The expectations on him were always too high. He benefitted from favorable matchmaking and then sunk when he was tossed to the deep waters.
 
He looked so bad tonight that im not sure if he could win a title on the regional scene
 
The 2020 Knee surgeries were brutal, I mean he hasn't beaten a quality fighter since 2019. The injuries were the nail in the coffin. Now he's just a diminished version of himself, and it seems clear he's taken some serious damage in gym wars because that chin was egregiously bad.
 
I think Vegas messed him up and the move to Florida was too late. Kevin never learned how to strike properly. He picked up kickboxing from Dewey. I don't think Dewey Cooper has the best track record for developing striking for MMA fighters. He did train Francis but honestly Edmund could have coached Francis.

I think Dewey is really good at selling his coaching to guys who want to get better at striking. He offers a lot of padwork. I think the issue is that the guys tend to be BKK ready like Marvin.
 
didnt he have a bunch of knee surgeries after that weird staph fight?

if so, that's it. once you lose that initial fire, that initial belief, and you get some crazy ass knee surgeries, and feel what its like to actually be human, it's all over. you're not going to pull the trigger when deep down you know it means total tendon collapse, synapse destruction, and 6-9 months of just recovery time. let alone get back into fight shape time.
 
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