Yan vs. O' Malley - A Balanced Take

It's definitely a really interesting matchup. Sean is obviously skilled, but we don't really know where his ceiling is yet. I wouldn't be surprised if Yan overwhelms Sean, but I also think Sean can cause Yan problems with his range and accuracy.
 
Humongo said:
If O'malley wins he wrote a sentence that proves he is a moron. If Yan wins you wrote a fucking book proving you are a moron.
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A 300 word book? Just because you're an illiterate imbecile incapable of reading more than a tweet doesn't make one a moron. It's not what you say but how you argue for it. Anyone can be right or wrong when picking a fight.
 
I'm not sure how people can hold the Pedro fight against Sean. Pedro was fighting extremely cautiously, and Sean still managed to fuck Pedro's eye up with a punch in the 1st. In the 2nd Sean was also clearly ahead and continuing to pick up the pace. Did Pedro even land a punch in that fight? (Just checked Fight Stats, they have 0 sig head or body strikes listed for Pedro)
 
Yan is going to kill him with leg kicks and body kicks.

I used to be very high on O'Malley and predicted he would make easy work of Munhoz. Despite the narrative he has built, he lost almost every second of that fight. He just couldn't get anything going. It was a legitimate punch that caused Munhoz to quit but it was also a fluke injury.

Yan is one of the most talented strikers we have seen in the UFC. He's also more well rounded than O'Malley.

Styles make fights and Sterling was obviously a difficult fight for Yan. However, if Yan had fought O'Malley just after Sandhagen, I think he would've been a -1000 favourite and rightfully so, imo. Yan is still that guy. He's not old, he hasn't taken any serious damage, I still believe he has complete confidence in himself.

Although a very solid fighter, O'Malley definitely thinks he is a lot better than he is.
 
UFCIsNOTRigged said:
Most, if not all, fighters fare better against stationary targets with speed and reach deficits. But other than a reach advantage over Yan what advantages does Sean have in this fight?



So if Yan is a better technical striker, has better footwork, and is faster what advantages does Sean have in this fight other than being longer?



Sean and Yan have roughly the same striking accuracy over their respective UFC runs (57%>53%) if you factor out Sean's win over Quinonez and Mountinho. His striking accuracy in those two fights are statistical anomalies (81%,72%) in an otherwise very consistent range.

I am assuming by height and range you are referring to Sean's reach advantage. So other than a reach advantage what advantages does he have in this fight?



So you are stating Yan has demonstrated he can work around reach deficits and thus negate Sean's only advantage?



Why is it a difficult fight to call then if according to you Sean's only advantage was his reach which you also say Yan has demonstrated he can work around? If one fighter has seemingly all the advantages, in every phase, then isn't it a pretty easy fight to call in Yan's favor?
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Some fighters do not rely on finding striking range to succeed for a variety of reasons: because they find their way in, they prefer to pressure and have fighters on their back foot, to close the distance to grapple... My point, which is also a criticism, is that O'Malley heavily relies on finding his striking range since he has one set gameplan with little adaptability shown thus far. He likes styling with his combinations and feints. His best performances are always against fighters who don't have stellar movement, and Yan has stellar movement. This is the biggest difficulty he will face imo, finding his range.

I already mentioned other advantages: his accuracy, capacity to fight off his back foot, his combinations, his striking at tip range, his use of feints, him being taller, which allows him to avoid strikes to the head generally quite well. I also think he is a more dynamic striker. And I would argue he has better BJJ as well. The difference in accuracy you mention is not insignificant, but I think O'Malley throws a lot of volume as well in general. The three round format works against slower starters as well.

Yan is better at moving in and out, arguably faster, fights better in the pocket, has better lateral and vertical movement, is extremely durable, is adaptable and gets better as the fight gets longer, and has excellent defensive grappling as well. He has shown his capacity to compensate for reach deficit, but I think O'Malley is a faster and a more dynamic, coordinated striker than the ones he has faced before, so we will have to see if he can do so this time.

I don't think O'Malley should be a clear favorite. Like many fighters I think he is underrated for a variety of reasons, some reasonable and some not. I think Yan is the reasonable favorite; I personally am slightly inclined toward O'Malley.
 
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The Last King said:
I'll revive this thread after the fight and we will see who's take is moronic.
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You can call the fight correctly and still be moronic lol (not saying you are... But you have only, like, one example of what you said)
 
Dont troll me said:
Well we know Suga doesn't like leg kicks and Yan is pretty good at them if he chooses to use them. On the other hand Yan is a lot shorter and O'Malley has good footwork and good distance management. Whoever implements first. We'll see.
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This is my take as well. While gun to head I'd choose yam over omalley, I'm not like the others and just casually dismissing Sean's in octagon ability because of his of out of cage dumbness or looks.
 
The Last King said:
A bunch of Omally fanboys butthurt because someone points out that their boy can't land fancy strike on someone who isn't a can. Is normal.
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So the strike that shut Pedro's eye wasn't thrown by O'Malley?
 
krelianx said:
A 300 word book? Just because you're an illiterate imbecile incapable of reading more than a tweet doesn't make one a moron. It's not what you say but how you argue for it. Anyone can be right or wrong when picking a fight.
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Lmao relax. So far you are just throwing insults left and right just because people have an opinion different than yours. You seem to have some anger issues over the internet.
 
krelianx said:
Dislike for O'Malley colors people's perception a little too much, so I'm going to try to just cover the obvious points.

O'Malley's clear advantages in these fight are his range, height, and striking accuracy. He is a very coordinated striker who works best at tip range, who throws great combinations from different angles at great speed, can throw from his back foot, and who uses a lot of feints and mixups extremely well. He tends to fare better against less mobile targets who are at a clear speed and range disadvantage, like Moutinho, where he can style off and chain combinations or use his speed advantage to land counters. In his last fight, Pedro adopted a mobile strategy, to move in and out of range, avoiding the boxing exchanges, and poking with leg kicks that while mostly checked also added up. O'Malley had trouble finding his range, even if he did manage to land a few good punches, including one that shut Pedro's right eye. Upon rewatching I thought he won that round. He is exceptionally good at chaining strikes and finding the counter punches, and avoiding head strikes.

Yan is even faster, has better movement, and a much more polished striking game, not to mention speed, than Pedro. He works at his best moving in and out with fast short combinations. Nothing particularly fancy, just tenacious, fast, and precise. He has a big reach disadvantage, but he moves in and out very well, and tends to find his range and pick it up as the fight moves forward. He will probably move laterally a lot and frustrate O'Malley, who will have to try to find his range against a much more mobile target than ever before. While O'Malley generally has a speed advantage, against Yan this might not be the case. Propensity for injury might be a factor, but it's impossible to factor in such things. Neither fighter seems to opt for wrestling offensive, though both have good takedown and submission defense.

The thing with O'Malley is that he is in love with the idea of becoming a KO artist like Conor or Anderson, while he should grow into a more dynamic MMA fighter like DJ or GSP, who could change gears mid fight if something was not working. His BJJ is actually surprisingly good, but he rarely has alternative gameplans and always seems to prefer to strike. He needs to get his ego in check, and realize styling off with strikes won't always be available as he fights the higher level competition moving forward, if he wants to be consistent.

I think this is a difficult fight to call; far more than people are making it out to be, though obviously it is an enormous step up in competition for Sean. I'm going to go out on a limb and say O'Malley shocks the world.
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O'malley stats vs Moutinho:
http://ufcstats.com/fight-details/dbcc5b5d568efa8b
Moutinho landed 70 sig strikes against O'malley whilst he landed 230 sig strikes against him.
Moutinho landed 39 shots to the head and 24 to the legs. If Moutinho can land those sort of strikes whilst getting pieced up like he was, imagine what Yan is going to do to him in a 5 rounder...
 
krelianx said:
Don't talk if you don't know what you're talking about.
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The punch that O"malley reckons he landed happened in the first and was to the wrong side. Munhoz fought and won the round.
O'malley poked him in the eye as Pedro was coming in to close distance. O'malley was losing at range to the shortest reach in the top 10 and he knows it.
That's why he took a fight with a guy like Yan before he loses to the lower ranked guys and gets booted out of the rankings permanently.
 
The Last King said:
A bunch of Omally fanboys butthurt because someone points out that their boy can't land fancy strike on someone who isn't a can. Is normal.
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You sound like a teenager, the type that would follow O'Malley.
I'm double his and your age, nor a fan. But if you can't acknowledge he's clearly talented... You're just a pathetic hater.

This this point in Yan's career, he doesn't fight anyone who isn't a top tier skilled fighter, that's just common sense.
 
maximus__ said:
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The punch that O"malley reckons he landed happened in the first and was to the wrong side. Munhoz fought and won the round.
O'malley poked him in the eye as Pedro was coming in to close distance. O'malley was losing at range to the shortest reach in the top 10 and he knows it.
That's why he took a fight with a guy like Yan before he loses to the lower ranked guys and gets booted out of the rankings permanently.
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Pedro admitted the punch in the first fucked his eye up, and Pedro didn't land a single punch on Sean in the entire fight. Sean was in control of that fight from start to finish.
 
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