Who was the fighter that surprised you the most with his career?

[drbolony]

The two that come to mind are Robert Whittaker and Porier.

For me, it's more Whittaker in particular. This man refuses to stay down. He's been champion and he still improves exponentially between fights, a trait expected of a green fighter not a former world champion . First he became an Olympic wrestler because he refused to lose to Yoel, then he humbled himself enough to put on his boxing boots and learn the sweet science properly after being embarrassed by Izzy.

He's looked great in all his last three wins, but that Kelvin fight in particular, man. Hands glued to his face, footwork on point, one of the best jabs in mma. Just beautiful work from the former Champ.

 

[Hitdepruns]

Jan Blachowicz reach far beyond what I expected while M. Johnson i still don t understand how he went down so fast.

 

[13Seconds]

Anderson Silva actually. He was always good but nothing special. Clearly leveled up when he got to the UFC.

Frankie Edgar too. I saw no path to victory for him vs Sherk, BJ and Maynard.

 

[KBE6EKCTAH_CCP]

Dan Hooker.

It surprised me most how he went from being so cocky just 9 months ago



To now practically begging for any opponent

I am usually very critical of the hooker and I support Machachev but it's hard to argue against anything he said in that vid at the time he said it.

 

[Willek]

Fighter Kevin Lee. I expected him to be a world champion by now.

 

[Richard Fannin]

Like, surprised in a good way?
... mmmh.
Lots of good ones that got amazing career resurgences have been picked (Lawler, Arlovski, Masvidal, Mark Hunt...)

It's kind of a hard question because I tend to remember the guys I've predicted wrong, as in I thought they would kick ass, but ended up being "average"
(no shame in being average in the UFC of course, but you know what I mean).

When it comes to Brazilians, I was so sure that Yan Cabral would be top contender in the UFC, and that both André Dida & Andrews Nakahara would have a solid international careers, hopefully not in the UFC so they could take some kickboxing bouts once in a while.
Sadly, none of them fought after 2017, even if last year Dida kept hyping up a K1 rematch between him and Buakaw, but sadly the negotiations went nowhere AFAIK...

Same for my man Katsunori Kikuno, who beat my other man André Dida in pure Kikuno fashion
Sadly Kikuno went 2-3 in the UFC and was released, and since then mostly fought under kick-boxing hybrid rules... but to be fair he was only matched up against tough guys while in the UFC.

Tony Ferguson, Diego Brandao & Edimilson "Kevin" Souza were the guys who beat him...
Kikuno's wins weren't too shabby either, with Quinn Mulhern & Sam Sicilia.
I really hoped Kikuno would be the next Machida/Wonderboy, he's an exciting striker with a unique style, but sadly that wasn't enough against the likes of Ferguson.


Recently, I was real bummed in March when Amir Aliakbari

got KO'd in a huge upset by "The Mighty Warrior"Ji Won Kang in ONE FC; at least Kang is an undefeated 5-0 top Korean prospect and not some random, but still... t'was a big upset.


The wrestling double gold medalist was 10-1 with his only loss being to a resurging Cro Cop when he was in the middle of an impressive MMA & Kick-boxing run.

I kinda hoped that he wouldn't lose again for a long while, but since Amir tried to get another fight just a month after that loss shows that he wants to bounce back from that massive upset ASAP, good sign.

He was supposed to fight another undefeated prospect, 11-0 Anatoly "Spartak" Malykhin, but COVID struck again...

Anyway, Amir is a superb wrestler, and I like how he set up an MMA bout against fellow Olympic gold medalist Radu Spinghel; we don't see enough of gold medalists vs gold medalists bouts, I made a thread listing them all a while ago and even if some consider it a "freakshow", I still find it entertaining/interesting.
That's part of MMA, seeing how athletes like wrestlers or judoka would fare in a "real" fight.
That whole card was pretty good actually, "REAL 3"

ANYWAY
I guess Brock Lesnar surprised the hell out of me, to be perfectly honest.
I was in the "he's going to get chewed up and spat out" crowd, I was expecting what ended up happening to CM Punk, to happen to Brock.

But after the beating he took from Carwin (the N'Gannou of the past) without giving up, I had to swallow my pride and admit defeat.
You don't beat Mir-Couture-Carwin in a row without being legit.
Sure, I wasn't happy with the ending of the Randy bout, since I used to think the punch that rocked him was illegal

 

[Richard Fannin]

Funny thing about that, when Struve got to the UFC with his age, experience, and length I thought he would be the dark horse in the division
I was way off on both counts

I had the luck of watching Struve win a couple pre-UFC fights in the Netherlands "back in the days", he was standing out for being super tall, but also for being Dirty Bob's protégé, they have/had a great coach-fighter relationship, from the first fight to the last.
Then I was there live in Germany when Struve won his first UFC bout, after getting by JDS.

Stefan Struve vs Denis "The Menace" Stojnić was only the second fight of the evening at UFC 99, but the crowd still went wild, people who were still outside were rushing inside, t'was crazy.
(only time the crowd went even further was during the main event, Wanderlei vs Franklin 1, what a glorious brawl )

And my terrible prediction was that if Struve wants to stick around, he can't take such a severe beating every time he fights...


"I have a feeling this fight will be an important lesson for young Stefan, and that he will now do his best to work on his defense instead of relying on his solid jaw and thick skull"

Damn, this makes me realize that Denis Stojnic, since losing to Struve, has been on a 9 wins run and is still active in 2021!
That run includes 2 TKO victories over Ricco "Suave" Rodriguez (one of these TKOs has been turned into a NC because the stoppage was horseshit)

On November 9, 2013, Ricco Rodriguez lost to Denis Stojnić on Bosnia Fight Championship event by TKO after an early referee stoppage. Rodriguez immediately stood up and protested the stoppage and left the fight showing the middle finger to the referee. It was announced that they would have a rematch in 2014, also in Sarajevo, however the day after the event, the referee said he was not up to the task and the fight result was changed to NC

Early stoppage so the fight is turned into a NC, it doesn't happen often, and the rematch was in June of 2015, 2 years after the first, 2 years during which Denis didn't compete...
(Ricco fought twice, including a win over Olympic Freestyle Wrestler Nestoras Batzelas, who competed in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens as a Super-Heavyweight)

The first stoppage was horseshit, check it out here if you want to judge by yourself:

But the second was not, a beautiful victory for The Menace!
His stoppage of Bellator veteran Christian M'Pumbu was also pretty slick (could have done without the late shot though) and his decision win over Mighty Mo was another solid performance.
It's a shame Denis was cut from the UFC after only 2 fights, especially since one of those was to Cain Velasquez, and the other a legendary battle against Struve
Sure, at the time they couldn't know that Cain would be champ, but later on they, or Bellator, should have invited him back for UFC cards in Europe, considering he kept winning so much and all.

It pisses me off that The Menace doesn't even have a wikipedia page, time to remedy to that

 

[BlessYourHeart]

Robbie Lawler. Went from young phenom to mid level UFC castaway, to beloved UFC champ.

 

[Swepingright]

I thought Gus would be more successful but I never thought he would be champ