Now that the shock and excitement has worn(Dillashaw was incredible), I can actually talk about the match. (If you haven't watched it, do it. NOW)
The first thing that hit me when I saw Dillashaw's Final Form, was Dominick Cruz. He was moving in a very similar fashion to Cruz, and it's made me rethink the Cruz/Barao matchup. Cruz doesn't have the same the power, but he's got the stamina and unorthodox movement and combos. This match may never happen since Cruz gets attacked by ninjas before every fight, but I am actually going to go ahead say that Prime Cruz would take a decision on Barao.
And its crazy how much talent there is at the lighter weight classes. Dillashaw's movement, feints, footwork, variety in attacks were incredible. It was like... Cruz's movement, Carlos Condit's duck then high kick, Anderson Silva's headmovement and strike variety, and big power. Such elite striking he showcased. Very few fights leave an impression on me like that one did. I'm still less coherent than I thought when I talk about it.
Dillashaw. Who'd have thought?
He really did look like a high level kickboxer out there. What I found most remarkable was how comfortable and loose he looked, everything just seemed effortless and efficient. He was changing stances seamlessly, his strikes were quick and accurate, his footwork was exceptional, great head movement, he was landing with volume and power, the way he controlled distance, the speed at which he changed direction, the speed at which he leapt in and out, everything was just top notch. It looked like he was channelling a combination of Machida, Cruz and Mighty Mouse. Kinda wish I'd been following his career a bit more closely up until this fight.
How do people rank TAM's big 4 out of curiosity?
Mine would be:
1. Chad Mendes
2. TJ Dillashaw
3. Joseph Benavidez
4. Urijah Faber
Found it really hard to pick between Mendes and TJ but ultimately, while TJ is definitely the more technically sound kickboxer, Mendes is the far more dangerous one and he also has a clear wrestling advantage imo.
Originally posted by StyleTime
Now that the shock and excitement has worn(Dillashaw was incredible), I can actually talk about the match. (If you haven't watched it, do it. NOW)The first thing that hit me when I saw Dillashaw's Final Form, was Dominick Cruz. He was moving in a very similar fashion to Cruz, and it's made me rethink the Cruz/Barao matchup. Cruz doesn't have the same the power, but he's got the stamina and unorthodox movement and combos. This match may never happen since Cruz gets attacked by ninjas before every fight, but I am actually going to go ahead say that Prime Cruz would take a decision on Barao.
And its crazy how much talent there is at the lighter weight classes. Dillashaw's movement, feints, footwork, variety in attacks were incredible. It was like... Cruz's movement, Carlos Condit's duck then high kick, Anderson Silva's headmovement and strike variety, and big power. Such elite striking he showcased. Very few fights leave an impression on me like that one did. I'm still less coherent than I thought when I talk about it.
Dillashaw. Who'd have thought?
Cruz's movement is actually pretty overrated. He spends too much time bouncing on both legs instead of switching legs (which makes you much easier to knock down, Faber did it to him twice), and much of his movement is unnecessary and wasted as he often isn't doing anything productive with his movement. People always rant about his footwork but it's very flawed and rarely leaves him in a position where he can put any power in his shots (which is why he never hurts anyone).
Dillashaw had much less wasted movement than Cruz and shifted his weight much better. I doubt Cruz would ever beat Barao.
Against Dillashaw, Barao was too intent on brawling and didn't move nearly enough. Dillashaw consistently circled towards Barao's power hand but Barao just never capitalized despite ample opportunity. Also, Barao should have dropped his weight more often and feinted TD attempts like Dillashaw was doing.
I don't think it was a matter of intention but that it is simply more his style of fighting. He's never had particularly good footwork, and I know a lot of people liked to think of him as Lil Aldo but the truth is that he isn't as athletic or as skilled as Aldo and we saw him having similar difficulties against Wineland's movement, until he caught him with the kick. Prior to that Wineland had been darting in and out and Barao had been touching nothing but air.
While Cruz might not follow the best striking fundamentals, its those very things that make him so tricky and hard to hit. His movements come across as awkward, and might not end up in the best form to throw strikes, but it gives him a very unorthodox style that nobody so far has really managed to figure out. I wouldn't say his movement is wasted at all either, as a constantly and erratically moving target is that much harder to hit.
I think Prime Cruz would UD either Barao or Dillashaw. One thing he does far better than anyone else in the division is mix up his strikes with his takedowns and I'm convinced he could take down either Barao or Dillashaw consistently throughout the fight, and I do believe he outstrikes either of them. Barao imo has a puncher's chance (a pretty good one), and Dillashaw could possibly outstrike him, but my money would be on Cruz for sure.
It's crazy to think that Cruz was only 26 when we last saw him (younger than both Dillashaw and Barao are now). It's too bad he's been plagued by injuries and wasn't able to keep on improving at a regular rate over these last couple of years.
His style of fighting is not a brawling style though and he was spending too much time trying to plant and land against an opponent who wouldn't play that game. He has shown good movement before, he used it against Faber very well and hardly got touched in either of their fights. I've never thought he was as good as Aldo in the stand up, but he's still an exceptional fighter.
Barao seems to have forgotten how good his grappling is. If he mixed his attacks up more and went for more takedowns then I don't believe any BW could beat him.
I think Cruz's movement is largely wasted because he's constantly doing it which means he's burning himself out when his opponent isn't even attempting to engage.
Cruz's evasiveness also partially stems the fact that he really hasn't faced many good strikers. The best striker he faced was Faber, and he got tagged more in that fight than Barao did in 2 fights with an improved version of the same fighter.
I just don't see Cruz ever beating Barao. That's a massive step up in competition for Cruz.
Cruz has the cardio to maintain that pace for the full 5 rounds though, so I don't really see the issue with it.
Not sure where you're getting those numbers from, Faber was able to hit Barao more times than he did Cruz in the first fight alone, while also getting hit less by Barao than he did by Cruz.
Faber also isn't the best striker than Cruz has faced, that would be Mighty Mouse followed by Benavidez, who are both more importantly a lot quicker than Faber as well, and Dominick Cruz looked very hard to hit against both of them as well.
I'm not saying Barao can't win that matchup but I just think Dominick Cruz has the kind of striking style that would give Barao problems, mixes up TDs in a way Barao's never faced before, and I don't think cardio wise Barao would be able to keep up with him for five rounds. I think Barao either catches him with something, or Cruz UDs him.
Originally posted by Insomniatric
Cruz's movement is actually pretty overrated. He spends too much time bouncing on both legs instead of switching legs (which makes you much easier to knock down, Faber did it to him twice), and much of his movement is unnecessary and wasted as he often isn't doing anything productive with his movement. People always rant about his footwork but it's very flawed and rarely leaves him in a position where he can put any power in his shots (which is why he never hurts anyone).Dillashaw had much less wasted movement than Cruz and shifted his weight much better. I doubt Cruz would ever beat Barao.
Against Dillashaw, Barao was too intent on brawling and didn't move nearly enough. Dillashaw consistently circled towards Barao's power hand but Barao just never capitalized despite ample opportunity. Also, Barao should have dropped his weight more often and feinted TD attempts like Dillashaw was doing.
Sad we may never see this match. Fun to talk about though. I don't think it's cut and dry for either, and Barao could definitely take it too.
Originally posted by Astor Ebligis
Cruz has the cardio to maintain that pace for the full 5 rounds though, so I don't really see the issue with it.Not sure where you're getting those numbers from, Faber was able to hit Barao more times than he did Cruz in the first fight alone, while also getting hit less by Barao than he did by Cruz.
Faber also isn't the best striker than Cruz has faced, that would be Mighty Mouse followed by Benavidez, who are both more importantly a lot quicker than Faber as well, and Dominick Cruz looked very hard to hit against both of them as well.
I'm not saying Barao can't win that matchup but I just think Dominick Cruz has the kind of striking style that would give Barao problems, mixes up TDs in a way Barao's never faced before, and I don't think cardio wise Barao would be able to keep up with him for five rounds. I think Barao either catches him with something, or Cruz UDs him.
Having good cardio doesn't change the fact that he's wasting energy. It's still a flaw.
I've seen those fights many times, Barao soundly outstruck Faber in every round and hardly ate a clean shot throughout the whole fight, and the rematch was even worse for Faber. Cruz got countered cleanly multiple times by Faber and didn't outclass Faber like Barao did.
By "best striker" I meant "most effective" because I was taking size and power into account for that judgement. Benavidez and DJ both are more fundamentally sound than Faber in some aspects but they're just too small for someone like Cruz who is a huge BW, both of those guys would do much worse against Barao than they did against Cruz.
Cruz leaves himself very vulnerable to counters with the way he loves and someone like Barao is perfect to capitalize on these openings. I think Barao would drop him and submit him if not TKO him. It's over for Cruz once Barao is on top IMO.
Mighty Mouse is incredible. Not much else to say about that fight.
Rory/Woodley though...What was Woodley's gameplan exactly? Rory just bullied him around the entire match. I expected a more exciting match from these two, but Tyrone seemed too tentative. Either way, Rory is probably going to have the belt soon. It's amazing since everyone predicted years ago that Rory would be champion. It's like watching a smaller Jon Jones rising through the ranks.
How do you all see a potential matchup with Hendricks/MacDonald?
Yeah I know, crazy how he's still only 24. Definitely think he's a future champ.
It's weird but Rory seems to just do that to a lot of people. BJ Penn and Jake Ellenberger froze up in a similar way as he picked them apart. I guess it's the kind of thing you don't really understand until you're in there with him and he does it to you. Also, lol at when he started clowning Woodley. His movements are so awkward and yet they work nonetheless.
TBH I'm not sure why people were so high on Woodley to begin with. He got outpointed by Shields (albeit only slightly and it's arguable) and ko'd by Nate Marquardt, and his win over Condit was basically a NC (even if he was dominating to begin with this is something that's been known to happen to Condit when facing a wrestler). His best win is a Koscheck on the decline, which isn't really all that impressive in the grand scheme of things these days.
I think Rory picks Hendricks apart and beats him decisively, though there's always the possibility that Johny ktfo's him.
These would be my UFC WW rankings:
1. Rory MacDonald
2. Johny Hendricks
3. Robbie Lawler
4. Hector Lombard (he could arguably be number 1, it really depends on his cardio and whether or not he freezes up when facing a technical striker)
5. Carlos Condit
6. Matt Brown
7. Jake Ellenberger (think he has similar potential to Lombard, but just doesn't seem to have that mental game right now and the ability to put things together)
8. Tyron Woodley
9. Demian Maia
10. Dong Hyun Kim
I do believe Hector and Jake Ellenberger are the two guys that are potentially the most dangerous at the beginning of the fight though. Two ridiculously explosive guys. Up until the Rory fight, I thought Jake was going to be a future champ and possibly the guy who had the best chance of dethroning GSP. Up until then he had looked like a real world beater, and imo his loss to Kampmann was a fluke and he was robbed against Condit.
I'll always think of GSP as the true number 1 guy though.
Mighty Mouse is incredible. Not much else to say about that fight.
That's how I feel about MM in general. You can't really say much more than: he's world class in all areas, absolutely no holes in his game (he's a FLW and he even knocks people out ffs), arguably the most dominant champ in the UFC right now, has cleaned out his division and decisively beaten P4P worthy guys etc.
What's frightening is that he's still only 27 and has all the time in the world to improve. Think he probably beats anyone at BW now as well as a prime Cruz. Also, as talented as he is, I think you've got to give a lot of credit to how good he's become to Matt Hume as well. Cornermen all over the world need to use him as an example on how to do their jobs properly asap.
It's actually pretty sad that there are still a tonne of MMA "fans" who don't give him the respect he deserves purely because he's a FLW.
At this point, how do you not rate him the P4P best fighter in the world? Only guy I could possibly have above him right now is Cain, who seems to just destroy world class guy after world class guy to the point where he made someone as good as JDS look amateur. Who knows, maybe even Dillashaw might prove to belong in that discussion before too long, when you look at how he destroyed someone as good as Barao.
Edit - Ok I guess you have to think that Jones should still belong in that discussion; he's been extremely dominant and against truly elite competition, and I think people exaggerated how close the fight between him and Gustafsson was (Cormier's coming for that belt either way). I don't think Jose Aldo should belong in that discussion any more though.
Jose Aldo has been pretty close to perfect in his UFC career, the only time anyone was overly effective against him was Mark Hominick in the fifth round of their fight, and that was after 4 rounds of dominating Hominick, and he was never really in danger of losing. DJ got dropped by Dodson two or three times, going completely limp at one point, and Cain legitimately lost by KO. Aldo's closest fight was Edgar, and that fight wasn't as close as Jones/Gus.
I do agree though, DJ, Jones, and Cain are all exceptional fighters and definitely belong in the discussion of top p4p fighters, but the same goes for Aldo, because he's arguably done better than all three of them (not saying he's absolutely better, just that you can make a good argument for it).
I have a tonne of respect for Aldo's skills, don't get me wrong, but I do believe he has a big hole in his game in his cardio, and that it will eventually cost him dearly. Never mind how he dominated Hominick, that fight ended with him getting destroyed and close to being finished in the final round, and Hominick was hardly an elite fighter, and it just goes to show how important cardio is when you don't simply destroy your opponent early on in the fight. Most people also believe that he would have potentially been in trouble against TKZ for the same reasons, if not for the injury. I also think Aldo/Edgar was closer than Gus/Jones; I scored it 3-2 to Aldo but imo Aldo clearly had the first two rounds, Edgar clearly had the fourth, and the other two could have gone to either. With Jones and Gus, I felt that Jones clearly had the last two rounds (almost finishing Gus in the 4th), and that the first three could have gone either way. I actually scored that 4-1 Jones personally. A lot of people scored the Aldo/Edgar fight for Edgar, and while that's also the case with Gus/Jones, I think people were just more shocked to see someone looks so competitive against Jones than anything else.
Yeah, Cain's been KO'd, but to be fair that kind of comes with the territory of being a HW and at the very least you'd have to go easier on him getting KO'd for that reason, compared to if a LW was KO'd for example. Also, he didn't go into that fight in the best condition IIRC and would appear to have learnt from that in a big way. He's since gone on to absolutely annihilate JDS (who's entirely championship level and P4P worthy) in the rematches, and similarly absolutely destroyed Bigfoot twice (both by standing KO and GNP), who's also a great fighter and hardly easy to finish. Nobody seems to completely destroy elite fighters quite like Cain, and he has this unique ability in being able to use his cardio, aggression, explosiveness, pressure and mixing things up in a way that absolutely no one else can.
If anything, the Dodson fight shows how great MM is. Rather than saying MM hasn't been put in pressure and showed how he deals with adversity, he absolutely has. He got rocked multiple times and showed the heart and recovery of a champ to survive each time and come back strong, and still ended up winning that fight in dominant fashion. Dodson's also probably the only guy who can do that to him, given his crazy power, high level skills and the fact that he's basically the only guy that can keep up with MM in speed, and MM was still able to deal with it, and will never really have to again until a rematch. You also have to consider, that was around a year ago and MM has been improving every fight more so than any other champ (not counting Dillashaw), and the next fight with Dodson may very well turn out to be nowhere near as competitive.
MM's so young and constantly improving, and is so admirable in many other ways; he's clearly very coachable and listens well to his corner, and he takes risks in fights and doesn't play it safe, looking for finishes late in fights that he's completely dominated.
He's got both some of the best grappling and striking in the division, is an absolute beast in the clinch, he's insanely fast and can keep up an extreme pace for 5 rounds, has a great chin/recovery and also has the ability to KO or submit people, with the heart and fight IQ of a champ to boot, and arguably the best transitions from striking to takedowns in MMA. The rare moments he's outmatched in an area, he still finds a way to win in a dominant fashion. Facing someone extremely dangerous that can match him in speed/striking in Dodson? He weathers the early storm, uses the transitions to grappling to nullify a lot of what Dodson is doing, and then shines through in the later rounds due to his superior cardio, almost finishing him and winning a clear decision. Facing a more powerful grappler in Bagautinov? He ****s him up in the clinch with his Muay Thai.
Here's the difference, I feel, when it comes to Jones/Cain/MM and Aldo. Cain got KO'd, sure, but it was against one of the rare few who have the hand speed and power to do that to him, was clearly a fluke (or at least Cain seems to have learnt from it and won't make the same mistake again) and he's avenged that loss in as dominating a fashion as you could, twice now, and JDS is a truly elite fighter. Jones hasn't really been in massive danger (minus the arm bar from Vitor, again would have been a fluke) and his fight with Gus was simply a close one, and again Gus is an elite fighter and one of the very few people who can compete with him in striking as well as handle his wrestling (people do also always ignore that Jones was by far the closest to finishing that fight). MM got hurt badly by Dodson, but Dodson's again an elite fighter and the only guy that could really do that to him, and MM still ended up winning convincingly and almost finishing him, and he's continued to improve since then. But Aldo on the other hand? He was almost finished by someone who was both not an elite fighter, and also wasn't a stylistically bad matchup for him, due to a hole in his game that you could see being his downfall in other fights, and that almost has been. Aldo could probably sort out that hole in his game by moving up to LW, but then he faces arguably much tougher tests in Pettis, Bendo, Gil and Thomson. I could also see rematches with Edgar (who always brings it in rematches) and Mendes (improved Bang Ludwig version) and hell even Swanson going differently.