I get that scoring rounds is highly individual and different people give different emphasis on things. Some dudes score “damaging shots” and “accurate shots” higher, other dudes score “aggression” and “octagon/ring control” higher.
This would be a problem without clear rules, which, although retarded, are offically the only way to gauge a fight and definitely explain how it’s supposed to be scored.
There’s no individual feelings or preferences involved, it’s 99% about effective hitting. Only if both parties are “100% equal” in terms of “effective striking”, should a ref measure control and aggression.
Justin scored more hits and they were far more damaging.
Since it was clear cut, aggression, control and Dagestani frowning mustn’t factor into the scoring.
The rub is, I guess, how you define dominant:
If I’m correct and Justin objectively won round 1, then what if rounds 2-5 went exactly like that? Khabib would have lost a dominant performance? Dominant stems from ‘to rule’ which by definition is not a part time job. In other words, you are the one who’s better and scoring in every criterion. If that’s not the case, you’re just “highly aggressive”, “in control but ultimately outstruck” etc
Of course judges often don’t give a fuck about them rules.
It is my belief that
1-raw aggression is very sexy for many people but they can’t really admit that. So they say different things because in an age of faggociousness you’d rather go with the slightly more nebulous ‘dominant’ than proley aggro.
2-general bad cultural habits pushed by journalists. MMA journalists are often untalented geeks who write the same hype pieces over and over. Their language seeps over.
I’m going to assume that Khabib is not lying here, as he has thus far come across as a man of his word - one of his favorite transitions is armbar, and if that fails, triangle. He had heard Gaethje speak all week about how he’d never tap, and him and Gaethje have a mutual respect for one another. He told Daniel Cormier, on the record, that the reason he ended up with a triangle was that if he’d gotten Justin into an armbar, he’d have broken Justin’s arm in front of his parents, and he didn’t want to to do that, so he put him in a triangle and put him to sleep.
Now, if you want to say he’s lying about that, then there’s no point in speaking about that anymore. But to have the presence of mind - and the OPTION - to pass up a submission and go for a less common and overall less effective one, to spare your opponent pain and humiliation, in the middle of a title match - that’s domination.
Not gonna lie - when you go from coherent fight analysis to politically charged rhetoric that lines up perfectly with all the other political stuff I’ve seen you post on here, it’s not a good foundation for your argument. This doesn’t paint you as an unprejudiced bystander, it just shows you arguing via profiles you’ve painted of both fighters prior to the fight.
No, control factors into a fight that involves more than striking. Justin was winning in striking. He was dominated in the overall game. We’re talking MMA, not kickboxing or muay thai. 2 takedowns to 0 is a different story than 29 strikes to 26.
Would love to see Adesanya against someone who could test his ability to win/survive/avoid the ground. I don’t think that a Jacare or a Chris Weidman would last more than a few rounds against him. But I can’t help but wonder what would happen if he found himself on the mat with one of those guys, or a Luke Rockhold …
Ugh. I hate to say it, but if Romero had been 10% more aggressive he’d have won the fight. Adesanya spent basically the whole time on his back anyhow. That’s a big IF, of course, because closing the distance with Izzy means putting yourself at a big risk, but man, if there was a guy to beat him, Yoel was it.
I believe it. For every guy like Rousimar Palhares, there are tons of guys with top-of-the-food-chain submission skills (h/t Rogan) who still hesitate to pull the kill switch for one reason or another. I’m half-convinced that Belfort held back a bit when he had Bones Jones in that armbar, assuming he would tap from the pressure alone, and it cost him the fight.
There’s just something about wrestling. I know it’s a cliche. But I love watching guys attempt to wrestle in MMA and see just how much they commit to the takedown, for example, and how soon they give up if it doesn’t work at first. The best at it: Khabib, Maia in his BJJ way … are just tenacious. They know that in that moment they have ONE JOB and the worst thing in the world to do is to quit and try to find another one.
I think the TJ Dillashaw fight vs Cejudo was when I finally stopped caring about PEDs in MMA (TJ failed a test - EPO - after getting completely demolished by Cejudo in 30 seconds). I’d love to see the UFC improve its weight-cutting policy, though, maybe with monitoring to keep guys from cutting too much too fast.
Just saying - if my favorite fighters list had to be just-ufc, it’d have included Matt Hughes. Wrestlers are dangerous, and make great fighters, as long as they don’t think their wrestling background precludes them from having to spend just as much time on their ground game as anybody else. Their problem usually lies in an inadvertent disrespect of BJJ, IMO.
You didn’t see that? Dude straight up grew a titty during the lead-up. Again - I wouldn’t care, but when he was asked about it, he brought up Chadwick Boseman and asked “well what if it’s cancer?”, which I thought was a pretty shitty thing to do. However, I also don’t detract from a fighter’s prowess based on his douchebaggery. Many of the greatest fighters have been absolutely horrible human beings, and deceitful pieces of shit. Maybe that’s why I’m so flabbergasted at the pushback Khabib gets, after going undefeated and being unreasonably respectful and a true man of his word.
I vividly remember when I realized that if I was a fan of the ground game in MMA, then Matt Hughes had to be my “favorite” fighter whether I liked it or not because at the time there was no one who was winning via submission at a better clip than he was. I literally went through Sherdog’s Fight Finder back in the aughts, looking through the records of the top Pride and UFC guys to find out who had the highest submission rate.
Also speaks to the point you just made. I didn’t (and don’t) care for Hughes as a person. And it was a good experience to find myself following and studying someone objectively and not worrying about whether or not I wanted to have a beer with the guy.
It’s helped me appreciate (and learn from) guys like Gordon Ryan, who comes across as not-so-nice (h/t Trump), but has incredible jiu-jitsu.
Also, if raw aggression is sexy, then Wanderlei was my Jennifer Aniston. I spoke in the flame free thread a little while back about how I had a dream where a boxer had backed out last minute and I was scheduled, that night, to fight Mike Tyson. For some weird reason, I was wrapped up in the ring while staring at Mike dancing around in front of me, but I remember being so scared I wanted to just run in the opposite direction. He met his match sometimes, but for some of his victims, I can’t imagine how it must have felt to be opposite the Axe Murderer.
Now, if you want to say he’s lying about that, then there’s no point in speaking about that anymore.
Why and how should Khabib’s opinion matter on post fight analysis at all?! That’s the definition of subjective and on top of that his bias is as extreme as it gets! We have data, we go from there.
when you go from coherent fight analysis to politically charged rhetoric
Two things: We live in hyper politicized times and chat on a platform that’s literally named after the devil. Testosterone (and also “nation” btw) is openly maligned.
I simply presented my attempt at an explanation why people would use the term “domination” willy nilly and not see an obvious dissonance (Justin outpointed Khabib clearly in terms of striking- he almost dominated the striking while Khabib pushed the pace and was the clear aggressor).
These theories are absolutely subjective, semi socio-political opinions which you are free to disregard completely in the context of fight analysis
2 takedowns to 0 is a different story than 29 strikes to 26.
round 1 (which we were talking about) resulted in only one TD. I think it’s safe to say that all of K.'s opponents would love to trade about 40s at the end of the round if they could keep it on the feet for the first 4:20. Doesn’t make it dominant. In fact, again, if you cannot damage the opponent at all, TDs are nothing in terms of determining the winner.
This is mitigated in favour for TDs in so far that even very light GnP is usually counted as a strike, so that wrestlers can pile up ridiculous strikes/minute and truly dominate a round. Khabib certainly did that a lot although he also delivered very decent GnP.
And because I’ve turned into a total Khabib fanboy apparently, check out this incredible breakdown of his final fight from one of my favorite MMA analysts, Luke Thomas
How Khabib Nurmagomedov’s Genius Defeated Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 | Luke Thomas
Thomas does very, very good technical breakdowns - striking and grappling. And this is among his best. In this treatment, I’ve picked up at least two things that I’ll be looking to implement in my own grappling game.
