Whatever man, I can't visit every forum. I specifically checked threads here prior to Pavlovich KO and people don't attribute much besides potential and being young. Specifically his power or speed like is brought up now.
Tom's only fought two technical strikers in Volkov and Arlovski. They were both among his hardest fights. They were both also the only guys he took down to grapple rather than continue to strike with when he wasn't having his usual success.
I just can't get behind this "there's no way to know" argument. When we're talking about hypothetical fights, no one is speaking in absolutes. There isn't a way to know most things for sure. But we can use evidence to determine what would most likely happen. Aspinall just doesn't have enough evidence to say he could beat those guys. Those other guys have evidence to say they could beat Aspinall-- and they have a lot of it.
They would, if we're talking them in their prime. For Volkov in particular, he's actually been around for a while. There's some overlap in the timeline of him and the careers of those fighters you mentioned. Volkov just wasn't good enough to make it at the time. He was a Bellator tier fighter for the longest. Right now in my opinion, he's masquerading as UFC level.
I think we have the right to say that until he proves himself.
Fair enough.
... Wow, I'm kind of speechless here. You're legitimately insane.... I shouldn't have to tell you that's him reacting to a punch. On the bright side, I am proud of you for at least to some degree admitting you were wrong.
Of course. If that's all we had to go off of when it came to JDS, I would judge him pretty harshly for that. The problem is, it's not. JDS has actually beaten great fighters. And he was beating them at a pretty consistent rate, even when he was past his prime. But hypothetically speaking, let's say I give you the benefit of the doubt and agree that's a legitimate example (which I don't for the aforementioned reason). What about the other guys though? You're cherry picking. Exceptions don't make the rule.
There are people who look at Tom Aspinall fighting... And they're like "oh my god, *chefs kiss*, he's so brilliant. I've never seen anything like it." And to me, it's like, I get salivating over the finishes. But are we watching the same thing? You have to have never been hit hard in your career to think it's okay to run in like that. He wastes so much energy in ways, that I know if he was actually the smart, cerebral fighter they say he is, he wouldn't feel the need to do that.His defence is a problem and he's been overcoming it with his physical traits against guys that largely aren't equipped to capitalize on it as they're not technical strikers. But when even someone like Curtis Blaydes is catching you on the very first punch because you leave yourself wide open attempting a flying knee:
People's head canon of Tom don't remotely match the reality of him. That's why so many people ignore he already has 3 losses.
It's kinda funny people call Gane 1 dimensional when he's got the same amount of sub wins and losses as Tom.
Absolutely. Who is Pavlovich and what has he done? He lost to probably the most limited form of Overeem we've ever seen. Well, what I'm saying is those fighters at their best. You seem to be using them at their worse. And with Blaydes, are you serious? He had nothing for the Black Beast. All of those guys are better than the Black Beast. Same with Volkov. You're telling me with all that height and reach-- and this supposed elite level skillset, he couldn't avoid getting his lights shut out by Derrick Lewis? Yeah man, I don't see it.
I've seen better attributes turn out to not be great.
That's one performance. And at the end of the day, it was a loss. If the best he can do in his entire career is a losing effort against a Cyril Gane that just got embarrassed in a single round and is searching for purpose in life, then I think my assessment is more accurate. Coming off of a win himself, he should have won that fight very convincingly.
Beat some elite guys. My thing is this - it's an unfortunate circumstance that he's in. But I'm not going to use that as an excuse and give him the consolation prize, of saying he can do things that he hasn't shown yet.
Werdum would be very easy. Remember Werdum struggled and lost to Volkov.
Plural. Try again.
You're exposing yourself and you're projecting what you know to be true about yourself onto me. Look man, I'm not going to get into real life with you. But there's nobody who's seriously studied boxing or worn a pair of boxing gloves a day in their life that would be impressed by what Tom Aspinall's doing. You can put on a show for the people who might be viewing this (because some of the people here don't know any better)-- but behind the keyboard you know the truth. And based on the kinds of arguments you're making, I know the truth too.
So what you're saying is Tom got subbed by a regional can despite 15 years of grappling, meanwhile Gane didn't get subbed until facing GOAT Jon Jones despite only 6 years of grappling?
It's not talked enough that Tom probably benefitted quite a bit from the fact that Pav was the official backup and prepared for Jon and Stipe, two technical strikers, completely unlike himself who was randomly slotted in instead of doing Pav/Stipe like should've happened.
