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Say what you want about Ngannou vs Lewis being a gunshy fighter vs a guy with a hurt back, but there was more to the lack of action than that. Both guys clearly wanted to counter strike in that fight, which I believe was the major source of the lack of action.
Lewis obviously wanted to counter strike, and even said in the post-fight interview that he is vulnerable when he wings his right hand, so his team wanted him to be less aggressive. And Ngannou's team likely saw the same thing, and told Ngannou to wait and counter, and look for that uppercut in close. So you had two fighters that likely both trained to counter-strike, and the fight sucked.
This is why counter-strikers should ALMOST NEVER be given decision wins by referees. If you start giving decisions to guys that sit back and counter, for being "more accurate", then counter-striking starts to become much more common. Eventually we'll see more of these Counter vs Counter matches, and they suck. Counter striking is a very effective strategy, but you should basically need to KO/TKO your opponent to get a win with it.
Let's stop rewarding people that just sit back and do nothing, and wait until their opponent opens up.
Lewis obviously wanted to counter strike, and even said in the post-fight interview that he is vulnerable when he wings his right hand, so his team wanted him to be less aggressive. And Ngannou's team likely saw the same thing, and told Ngannou to wait and counter, and look for that uppercut in close. So you had two fighters that likely both trained to counter-strike, and the fight sucked.
This is why counter-strikers should ALMOST NEVER be given decision wins by referees. If you start giving decisions to guys that sit back and counter, for being "more accurate", then counter-striking starts to become much more common. Eventually we'll see more of these Counter vs Counter matches, and they suck. Counter striking is a very effective strategy, but you should basically need to KO/TKO your opponent to get a win with it.
Let's stop rewarding people that just sit back and do nothing, and wait until their opponent opens up.
