The UFC Thread | STRICKLAND BEATS IZZY

He was collecting welfare. Nobody’s really fighting for their meals anymore. “Hunger” is metaphorical when referring to Conor, literal when referring to Jack. It’s using an extreme example to illustrate the point.

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By the way - this was just posted on YouTube today. Prophetic.

Although, his reasoning here is not sound at all. He makes a case that the fat cat can be more dangerous than the hungry lion. It makes no sense.

And was training for mma at the same time. It was that or go into training to become a plumber or something. My point is, he didn’t grow up like Tyson, Mayweather, Foreman, Frazier, or many Mexican fighters. He didn’t grow up like Khabib. Relatively speaking, his childhood and young adulthood were not that hard. Poirier had a tougher life.

Conor does not have the mental strength of other fighters. He doesn’t have their work ethic. This is why, when things don’t go his way, he will quit. When he says it’s just business, that tells you everything you need to know about him.

Disagree. Up until the Eddie Alvarez fight, his work ethic was up there with the best.

And he was hungry to be the best. He didn’t get to be a two time champ without work ethic or mental toughness. But a lot of his showboating is certainly insecurity. The just business thing, though - come on, people across all sports have been kayfabing forever. He just didn’t understand who Khabib was. It worked out in his favor many other times.

To be clear, I’m not a Conor fan and I think he’s overhyped. But my analogy of him being hungry to be the best, getting money and losing the hunger stands, and I’m not sure why you’d disagree with that. He was obviously hungry and worked for it.

Also looking forward to Ryan Hall. I’d be way more excited if he applied an actual takedown game instead of the Imanari Roll or whatever, but still fun to see some high level submissions on display.

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Ryan should have taken my advice

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It’s interesting. I was a blue belt at the same time as Ryan Hall was and it was interesting watching him progress. Like a lot of LI guys, he leveraged submission-first specialization (triangle chokes early in this career, then leg locks) to become competitive against guys with a “superior over-all game.” That approach definitely works for awhile. But as an old school, position-before-submission guy, I can’t help but feel like, Demian Maia notwithstanding, the most effective ground fighters in MMA have been wrestlers (Matt Hughes and Khabib Nurmagomedov) for reasons that should be clear to jiu-jitsu fighters…

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So

DP fights Charles Oliveira next. Thats what makes sense. I can see DP winning that bout and becoming next 155 lb champ.

Fuck man I knew it was gonna go down similar to this but I really wanted CM to win this.

These anti climatic endings seem to becoming a bit more common as of lately or is it just me that thinks that?

Gilbert Burns will probably fight winner of Usman vs Covington 2. So likely rematch against Usman. Not really interested in that.

Wonderboy is done. At least his hopes for a title. At 38 he’s not gonna be able to go on another run. Maybe he will stick around for another 3 fights or however many is left on his contract so he can collect that pay check. Sucks for him.

Tuiviasa’s got his third first round finish in a row. I wonder if he will be able to climb the rankings.

Was thoroughly impressive by this no name Kris guy they brought in to fight O’Malley.

Or maybe this is highlighting how O’Malley is mostly just flash. Clearly can move well and looks good doing it but how will his style do against someone who is better than Moutinho but pushes forward like him. Sounds like Petr Yahn.

Its crazy how much shine and hype he gets you wouldn’t guess he’s not even in the rankings. My prediction is O’Malley fizzles out. I don’t see him hanging with the best of the best.

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100%. Works for sub-only tournaments and catching the random fighter off-guard, but otherwise a toothless, one-dimensional approach. The overall disregard from this brand of BJJ (which comprises much of it) for sweeps / trips / takedowns / throws and establishing / maintaining top control (or - God forbid - getting back to your feet) is infuriating to me.

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The low-leg injuries from checked kicks, in particular.

Concur.

I dunno - apart from his ability to advance through damage I wasn’t too impressed by him. Dude needs some serious help if he’s to stick around.

Maybe - but Imma stay on the hype train a bit longer. Can’t help but like him a lot.

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Yeah I wasn’t impressed with his skill set.

I was impressed that he did what he did though and wasn’t KO’ed. I watched a few of his other fights and they were very lack lustre amateurish performances.

Definitely agree with that.

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Mindset was huge in this one. Dustin looked chill, light as a feather, and even smiling during all the warm-ups and walk-outs. Conor looked stunned and had nothing for him. I know his leg was fucked early on from a checked kick, but I didn’t see him have anything new, or have any type of dominant performance. I think Dustin would have submitted him the next round anyway.

But y’all, let’s just talk about Tai Tuivasa. First of all, walking out to the Spice Girls is probably the most ingenious thing ever, because every girl in the building was dancing until the song ended, and second, how many shoes are we estimating he drank beers out of last night/this morning?

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The shoe thing was fantastic. On his walk out someone hit him with a hot-sauced beer, hilarious stuff.

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Yeah, I saw that, haha. I think it was Dustin Poirier’s hot sauce.

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It’s all relative. Sure he worked hard, but he wasn’t the hardest worker. He also benefited from weight cutting and favorable match ups (like Mendez taking the fight on short notice). Cerrone? That was a joke. You can also tell that he doesn’t get pushed in training. When Khabib had his neck, he didn’t even try to defend. Anyone who does BJJ for a while instinctively will try to defend based on all the time they have spent getting choked, Conor doesn’t get into that position training because his partners are probably told to go easy or he trains with inferior guys.

Tells you he isn’t a warrior. His cowardly tirade during the post fight interview tells you that as well. Talk about a guy’s wife while you have 50 dudes surrounding you as you lie helpless on the mat? That’s a weak man.

Until it got hard. He was hungry when it was easy. He didn’t lose the hunger because of money but because it was no longer fun.

It was funny listening to the commentary because they saw something different. Rogan is too much of a fanboy to comment on fights. Conor looked good in the beginning because Dustin let him do his flashy crap and waited for his moment to dominate him. That fight was over a few seconds after the takedown. Conor would have been gassed had it gone to a second round and Dustin was just warming up.

I mean - that’s a broken man. Literally and figuratively. It was pathetic to watch. Super, super pathetic.

Yup, Conor promised the world and came out with the same old shit - flashy stuff, and pushing 110% in the first round, relying on a gas tank that isn’t there. Even with the one punch that caught Dustin, I didn’t, for one second of that fight, see a chance of Conor winning. Trying to guillotine Dustin is a bad idea, too.

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Dustin mentioned that punch. A difference between the two is Dustin expected he might get hit with a good shot or two and was prepared to deal with it from a mental perspective whereas Conor acts as though he is surprised he is an actual fight when he gets hit. I read somewhere where someone said that when Conor gets hit, he stays hit and when he gets tired, he stays tired.

Conor’s biggest win was over Jose Aldo, years ago. A good question is why Aldo never got a rematch but you know that Conor has a good chance of fighting Dustin a fourth time.

The fact they never ran this back is crazy. Is there another example of anything like it?

Crazy…like a bald white fox.