#ufc286

[theanticool]

A quick breakdown of the meta in MMA.

185 is the tough/buff dad division.

205 is the bachelor division.

Heavyweight is the step-dad division.

[theanticool]

Yall going to call me crazy or bias but I thought Leon won every round.

[theanticool]

Rewatched Usman-Edwards 2 and just being flat out shocked at how bad Edwards is at not backing directly into the fence. I remember thinking “wow, Usman is doing a great job of pressuring Leon” but after hearing others say that wasn’t the case I went back to watch. Usman didn’t really pressure at all. Edwards literally just backed into the fence of his own volition 75% of the time.

Here’s an early example. Usman tried to catch a low kick that lands successfully. Edwards reacts by switching stances and moving back towards the fence. Bites on an Usman shot feint and ends up eating a jab.

Leon lands a really nice left hook over an Usman leg kick. Backs Usman up. Usman fires a nice jab to the chest, Leon fires a jab to the body and then immediately retreats to the fence? Switches stances and ends up with his back to the cage. Usman does a little bit of pressuring/cutting off here as Usman tries to escape from the rear leg but Leon basically invited him in.

Usman throws a borderline lazy jab feint in the CENTER of the cage and Leon responds by backing up 10+ feet into the cage where Usman unloads on him with sharp shots before taking him down (cut off at the end for space). This might be the most damming of them all.

Usman doesn’t even feint. He just walks at Leon and Leon backs up to the cage where’s he’s forced to go square. And eats punches for his trouble.

Like come on man. Leon has the rear waist cinch on Usman. Usman escapes but instead of using that time to chase, attack, or circle to the center of the cage, Leon just stands there until Usman turns around walks back into range and feints him into the cage for the takedown.

Every second of this fight that didn’t involve Edwards walking directly into the cage of his own volition was competitive. And honestly, Leon was getting the better of. But there’s so many times where, for no reason other than thinking “Usman is too close to me,” Edwards retreats until he runs out of space and allows Usman to go downhill on him. It’s wild. If Edwards could make this one simple change if pick him to win this third match. But this is just how he fights. He does it against guys like RDA (who actually pressures) and Bryan Barbarena too. The thing holding him back is completely mental. I’m really hoping that win lot a fire in him.

[theanticool]

Leon Edwards takes majority decision over Kamaru Usman.

Again, I thought Edwards won this fight outright. I’m not kidding when I say I thought he won ever round. Only one I might have given to Usman was the third and even then, after the point deduction Leon got back to beating him up at range.

Fouls (numerous as they were) aside, Edwards looked great. He and his camp looked at what went wrong in that second fight and worked hard on making sure Edwards wouldn’t retreat into the fence. In open space, he is just a better fighter than Usman. The kicks to the lead leg and body and the reach were just too much for Usman to cover. One of the cooler things was seeing Edwards realize he could literally just step into Usman by feinting the jab as Usman came forward, reach over the top for the clinch and just turn back to the center of the cage. Seeing him literally put his hand on the cage and push off it so he wouldn’t fall back into it with his hips square was great. He’s got a terrific jab. We got to see some of his offensive craftiness in the clinch with those knees and elbows (and the turns to the center of the cage).

And unfortunately for Usman, Wittman seems to have drilled out a lot of the relentless aggression that Usman had in their first fight in favor of being a boxer-puncher type. That works against guys like Colby or Burns, but that’s the fight Edwards wants most. Usman had success (some of it cut off by that fence grab in the 3rd), but a lot of the fight was him trying to slowly walk Edwards backwards but not punishing Edwards enough for it to be reliably effective. In a lot of regards, this was an Eryk Anders-esque performance from Usman who’s offensive output seemed muted by not being able to navigate distance.

[theanticool]

If Edwards backs into the fence again in this fight for 25 minutes, I”m going to be so disappointed in him.

I don’t have a horse in this race. I’m not rooting for anyone, but seeing a great fighter cut their own knees off like that is the most frustrating thing ever.

[theanticool]

Justin Gaethje takes MD over Rafael Fiziev

1. That should have been five rounds.

2. Someone scored that a draw?

Amazing scrap between Fiziev and Gaethje that somehow goes the distance. Fiziev got off to a hot start and had a really great idea of attacking Gaethje to the body like Poirier and Alvarez did. Invested a lot into body kicks and knees in the clinch. Did a great job in the pocket early. But as the fight started to move on, Gaethje started getting his reads and Fiziev got more complacent sitting in rage. Gaethje started getting the last word in exchanges and by the third was completely drawing out reactions from Fiziev with his jab. Fiziev would go to slip to the inside and then eat an uppercut from Gaethje’s read hand. That must have worked like 4-5 separate times in round 3. One other thing is Fiziev throws everything at max speed. That’s tiring in these types of fights where the other guy is going to keep the pace up and look to exchange whenever you try to engage. Plus it makes you easier to read. Gaethje, even though he had eaten like 40 kicks to the body, understood how to fight tired while Fiziev was trying to fight like the third round was the first round. Great performance from Gaethje to reestablish himself as a top 5 fighter at 155.

[theanticool]

If Marvin Vettori hit as hard as he looks like he should given his build, I think there’s a decent chance he’d have been UFC middleweight champ.

[theanticool]

“Biggest event in UK history”

Ok, calm down there my guy.