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Foul Fowl
Sep 12, 2008

"Roguelikes"*



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Google Butt posted:

thank you for conceding, Nate will beat Dustin's rear end

i'm a diaz fan, i'd love that fight. but i think dustin would kick his legs over and over and win. but since i'm a bigger dustin fan it works out.

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Tezcatlipoca
Sep 18, 2009

Google Butt posted:

please make the case for why Nate diaz isn't an elite fighter lmao please

He's never been better than a gatekeeper.

Lucasar
Jan 25, 2005

save a few for lefty too

Tezcatlipoca posted:

He's never been better than a gatekeeper.

I mostly agree that Nate Diaz is a great fighter though not the tippy top best, but in fairness the guy IS a UFC title challenger, which means he has at least gotten to the gate himself and not just kept it for others.

Tezcatlipoca
Sep 18, 2009

Lucasar posted:

in fairness the guy IS a UFC title challenger, which means he has at least gotten to the gate himself and not just kept it for others.

Cerrone, Gustafsson and Jessica Eye have also fought for belts. They're still gatekeepers.

Snowman_McK
Jan 31, 2010

kimbo305 posted:

Dustin got hit quite a bit with that left, it just didn't do him in.
In the first round, he was trying a few different things to answer it, including twice when he sent a right hook over it.
But he was still landing fewer punches than he was getting.

I forgot how good his killer instinct for finishes is.

I think Conor bought into the bullshit about being able to finish anyone with one shot, ignoring that he's only actually got one knockout like that in his time in the UFC. Every other finish has been an accumulation, a barrage, going right back to Marcus Brimage. He would land the punch, Dustin would back up, and Conor would just stand there. Whether or not Dustin was hurt (he said he was) Conor was in no position to follow up, even before his leg started getting chewed up. I think Conor hits hard, but he's at his best when the other guy is rushing him, and Dustin simply wasn't doing that.

shizen posted:

He also was saying he never lost to khabib in interviews leading up to this fight. His ego is destroyed since khabib outclassed him even while cheating.

His fans are also saying that, that it was his leg that gave out instead of him being knocked out. I have no idea why they think that's better but it's nice to see they're determined to remain the worst fandom in the sport.

Shirkelton posted:

People forgot that Conor is a snappy puncher, but doesn't possess fight altering gently caress you power and also has pretty poor defence.

Really good counter puncher, where he exploits how much they're moving into it. But yeah, he doesn't seem to have that Jeremy Stephens 'doesn't matter what's happening, it'll still loving hurt' kind of power.

Shumagorath posted:

Conor's first fight back after Khabib was also against a guy notorious for melting in any kind of marquee fight (despite having all the tools needed to win).

A guy who is also 37 with 8 billion fights and was coming off getting finished twice in a row.


Tezcatlipoca posted:

Cerrone, Gustafsson and Jessica Eye have also fought for belts. They're still gatekeepers.

So did Paul Buentello and Volkan Oezdimir.

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad

Snowman_McK posted:

I think Conor bought into the bullshit about being able to finish anyone with one shot, ignoring that he's only actually got one knockout like that in his time in the UFC. Every other finish has been an accumulation, a barrage, going right back to Marcus Brimage. He would land the punch, Dustin would back up, and Conor would just stand there.

I think Conor capitalizes decently when someone is rocked enough. Like with Chad Mendes — he knocked him down and followed in as needed. If he hadn’t been dealt the leg damage, he might have pile enough onto Dustin’s chin to get a similar knockdown in later rounds.

CommonShore
Jun 6, 2014

A true renaissance man


Someone can be different things at different times in their career. Pure journeyman gatekeepers are like Joe Lauzon, Clay Guida, Jim Miller or Brad Tavares, who never got a title shot and haven't even really been much in the conversation for getting one, but they stick around forever and string wins together. Diaz was a contender and challenger at one point, and he's not in the elite conversation now, though thinking back the only time I can think of someone using him as a stepping stool to the higher levels of the division was RDA who got a title shot off of him.

Snowman_McK
Jan 31, 2010

kimbo305 posted:

I think Conor capitalizes decently when someone is rocked enough. Like with Chad Mendes — he knocked him down and followed in as needed. If he hadn’t been dealt the leg damage, he might have pile enough onto Dustin’s chin to get a similar knockdown in later rounds.

That's because Mendes was so tired that he collapsed against the fence before the punch even landed. I know what you're referring to, but that fight is not a good example. Pouring it on against Brimage, or Brandao or Alvarez is a better exaple.

Even early on, before his leg got chewed up, he was planting himself. It works really well as a counter punching technique, but Dustin was being judicious and not rushing things. It's becoming one of his better traits as a fighter. I rewatched the second Alvarez fight the other day and was struck by how much Dustin restrained himself.

Conor is suffering from there being a lot more tape on him and a much clearer blueprint for what he can do well and what his weaknesses are. He's got two punches he does exceptionally well (the straight left and the lead uppercut that's morephed into a shovel hook over time), but has poor offensive footwork and struggles to lead as a striker.

Shirkelton
Apr 6, 2009

I'm not loyal to anything, General... except the dream.
Conor's a good finisher and has pretty good instincts for when he needs to pile on to get a win, but he's really bad at judging his own reserves or maintaining pace. He's got a really poor understanding of his own limits and how to build on his initial platform which is why he fades so quickly.

Poirier and Gaethje and some of the other elite Lightweights also used to be like this to different degrees and for different reasons, but they haven't been for some time now.

Conor's sort of the odd man out in that he's probably the fighter who starts with the most of his tools dialled in and available to him, then has them drop off almost immediately as he sets a pace he has to throttle down from at the first sign of adversity.

Although all this is stuff that's been apparent for a very long time now and hasn't changed a lick, so I think the bigger elephant in the room is the one that's been truest for longest; his camp, his coaches and his training partners are all terrible.

Snowman_McK
Jan 31, 2010

Shirkelton posted:

Conor's a good finisher and has pretty good instincts for when he needs to pile on to get a win

I agree with this, which is why i noticed his issue with that in the fight. Even if Poirier hadn't said it, Conor clearly hurt him two or three times, but every time gave Poirier plenty of time to get back and recover. A lot of that was clearly Dustin having practiced staying light and moving away, but Conor just couldn't follow. A similar thing happened in the Khabib fight. Khabib neutralised a lot of Conor's striking game by simply moving away from him.

Shirkelton
Apr 6, 2009

I'm not loyal to anything, General... except the dream.
Conor's good at getting people behind the black but kind of bad at keeping them there, which is why Poirier just staying there, and standing still for some of the most decisive exchanges, is so funny.

The good news for Conor is there are actual fighters who've stayed active and have developed a really good anti-low-calf-kicking game built around some solid defensive fundamentals he could learn from.

Unfortunately for Conor those fighters are Jose Aldo and Justin Gaethje.

Shumagorath
Jun 6, 2001

Snowman_McK posted:

His fans are also saying that, that it was his leg that gave out instead of him being knocked out.
Ahahahahaha that's great even for the "Khabib cheated by using cowardly grappling" crew.

Shumagorath
Jun 6, 2001
Jesus there was a loving crowd as this event what the gently caress

Brut
Aug 21, 2007

Shumagorath posted:

Jesus there was a loving crowd as this event what the gently caress

Yeah they sold package deals for all 3 cards this week. As far as I know about 2000-2500 people, and the arena has a capacity of 18,000. The previous 2 Fight Island runs were in basically a metal shack purpose-built for them while they were waiting for the arena to be finished, so there was physically nowhere to put fans even if they wanted to (which they probably did).

Brut fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jan 25, 2021

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Quantum of Phallus
Dec 27, 2010

I was actually really freaked out when I heard the crowd chanting Ole, I hope to gently caress it wasn’t anyone from here who traveled over and now intends to come back.

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