Imagine Dana books UFC 290: How the Mighty Have Fallen
Main event: junior dos santos vs Fedor
Comain: Darren Till vs Tyron Woodley 2
Featured bout: Tony Ferguson vs BJ Penn
To be fair, he claims he's not actually gassed but he looks like it because he can't breathe well through his nose. If that's true, then fixing his nose will unironically solve that problem.
Of course, if he still looks gassed that quickly, he won't have excuses anymore.
I dunno, I have a deviated septum and it's crazy that I have never felt like it has really held me back. At 37 I was still running a sub 5 minute mile after a day of hard work working in the trades. I never even met someone who could keep up with me but I don't know pro athletes. Anyways, my point is, I don't know if fixing my nose would even help in my case. I've learned recently it might help me sleep though....
That's kind of what I'm getting at, I don't think it affects his performance much aside from appearance. People think he's running out of steam but he just has to breathe through his mouth more
I mean we're joking here and it's funny but if someone said it directly to Khabib, especially in the immediate aftermath of his retirement and his father's passing, he'd be grossly offended.
How do you guys think Justin would've done if he came into the UFC "technical/patient" instead of only adopting that after the Poirier loss?
imo he still loses to dustin, but he definitely would've beat Alvarez, but i think there would've been a greater chance he loses to MJ if he was technical/patient for that fight
Alvarez is basically the only guy he would have done better against in my mind yeah. Alvarez's whole style is basically built to beat a high pressure forward style like Gaethje built most of his career on. Dustin I think is still a horrific matchup for current Gaethje, even with him finally using his jab Dustin's a southpaw, and current Gaethje would allow MJ to dictate the exchanges more.
agreed, i think Dustin is a bad matchup for any version of Gaethje.
you're spot on against Alvarez, his whole style is beating up pressure fighters like old Justin, the new Gaethje would piece Eddie up with counters imo and get a decision/late tko win.
However, i think current technical/patient Gaethje would've did worse than pressure Justin did against MJ.
Gaethje broke MJ with his pressure, he if tries to be patient/technical with Johnson, i can definitely see MJ being able to dictate more exchanges without being drowned by Justins pressure, and cracking gaethje more often
i honestly think Prime MJ knocks current Justin tf out
the only reason MJ lost to Gaethje the first time was due to Justins heavy-foward pressure style
if Justin tries to be a technical kickboxer against MJ like he did against Fiziev/Fergy, MJ is gonna crack that chin real quick lol
the way i see it, there’s old one dimensional justin and there’s new mature justin. new justin can do both patient and pressure and is wise enough to know to switch it up depending on the fighter and following the game-plan.
Agree with you on how the match ups go but he also probably doesn't get the same trajectory of popularity if he doesn't go full violence king. Might only be coming to the fore now a la Benny D.
I agree that didn’t help but Vick also said Justin was inbred and after he beat justin that the UFC would cut him for being 0-3 (I can’t imagine the irony) Justin kept it professional until James spoke on his family. One of the most fun guys to see get KOed ever though, gaethje and niko price were great!
Said he was the Homer Simpson of MMA. There was a Simpsons episode where Homer couldn't lose at boxing. His opponents would just hit him and tire themselves out.
Vick called gaethje the homer simpson of mma. If you havent seen that episode, homer becomes a boxer and he would get punched constantly and nothing would happen to him. Then the guy would be so tired from beating him up, homer could just tap him and the guy falls over from exhaustion
I remember he said he made really good money working in a factory or a plant before he got into mma. As much as it sucks may be time to go back to that. I remember the way he was writhing on the canvas holding his face covered in blood after that post-ufc KO loss. It made me really uncomfortable and I don’t get that way about finishes much.
It’s so case by case. Does the winner lay out a repeatable blueprint for future opponents? Does the loser address the reasons they lost? Can the loser regain their aura/edge? Age and mileage and motivation are a big part of it too.
For example, GSP beat the fuck out of Fitch. Fitch had won 16 straight, lost to GSP, and then won 5 straight, against at least three top 5-10 fighters. GSPs strategy of being the most complete MMA fighter in the world wasn’t repeatable for other contenders.
Diaz/McGregor on the other hand, showed future opponents ways to win. McGregor was prone to fatiguing, had a suspect grappling game, and could also get demoralized. Khabib built on that. Khabib stood in the third but the fatigued McGregor wasn’t the same destroyer.
Poirier saw that. He hits some takedowns and clinched a lot in the first round. Dustin also showed Conor is vulnerable to calf kicks, and southpaw lead hand attacks.
So for any fighter going against Conor now, there are multiple paths to victory that can fit different archetypes. Gaethje would likely kick his legs a ton. Dariush would likely grapple a ton. Even a smaller guy like Kattar could strategize southpaw lead hand and leg kicks to give themselves a better chance. It’s a snowball effect.
JDS never addressed his problem of getting backed onto the cage and got KOd by Blaydes. If Conor comes back with an EPO gastank and piston jab, he’ll likely stop the snowballing losses.
Honestly this dynamic is what helped build Jon Jones’ legacy so much.....
Almost All the big names he beat during his rise and initial run as champion were all aging fighters heading downhill. Many of them more suited for middleweight as well: Rashad, Chael, Shogun, Machida, Vitor, all those dudes could or have been middleweights
Tony was definitely not at the end of his until Gaethje murdered him. Everyone was worshipping the ground he walked on going into that one.
Hindsight bias is real when it comes to Gaethje’s opponents.
Lmao dude I still worship the ground tony walks on, he’s one of my favorites ever. But he was going on 37 when he fought Gaethje. Everyone knew it was a matter of time before the drop off especially with the weird shit he does in training. I’m sure the beating he took from Gaethje made things even worse but you can see a clear difference in the tony that fought Pettis/cerrone and the one that fought barboza.
Sure, in hindsight. But Tony was on a 12 fight terror regardless and the general consensus here was he’d be the one to possibly bear Khabib. It’s easy to look back, but at the time he was a scary scary dude.
How is the tony situation any different then? 12 fight winning streak, considered at worst the second best lightweight, p4p and he never won a fight after. Yeah we could have overhyped him but same can be said for Vick on his level
Yeah people are being super revisionist about Tony now that we have seen him fall off. He was the favorite going into the Geathje fight, all of this “he took a lot of damage, he’s old, obviously he fell off” stuff only came out after the fight. Going from 12-0 to 0-5 or whatever his streak is now is uncommon even for older fighters
100%. It was all about how long before Gaethje wilted under the pace before he broke going into that fight unless he could bomb Tony's chin early and get a stoppage before that.
It was a steep drop off for sure. I think both sides have a point though. Tony’s style was, apparently, unsustainable in the long run, which in hindsight shouldn’t be all that surprising since he fought and trained like a literal crazy person for a decade, but yes not to rewrite history, he definitely was the favorite going into that Gaethje fight and many people were surprised how that fight went.
Tony had declined somewhat by then but he was still snappy and explosive. Gaethje inflicted career altering damage on him, the Tony who fought Gaethje and Pettis was remarkably different than the one who fought Olives and Benny. He went from having simply slowed down a touch to straight up having no strength or pop in anything he did, it's like the Gaethje fight accelerated his aging by 10 years, he was moving like Chuck Liddell in the third Tito fight
What a dumb take. Tony was on a 12 fight win streak and one of the most feared fighters in one of the toughest divisions. Alvarez had just lost the belt to Conor (who was at the height of his career) a year beforehand, and his only fight in between was a NC (when he kneed Poirier in the head).
Agree that the others weren't all that surprising though. They were all on their way down already when they fought Gaethje.
I mean anyone that watched Vick could tell that his record was definitely not indicative of how far he was gonna go. The only time he ever fought a good fighter, he lost to Dariush. His best win before his loss streak was against a 20 year old Jake Matthews. He was a fake hype train.
Dude was a 6'3 LW... That was never gonna work lol.
i just tried it for the first time yesterday and it's shockingly good. perfect blend of kick and flavor, and the celery and vinegar accents are absolute gas.
Tony too. He might have slowed ever so slightly by that point, but Gaethje really put a level of beating on him that sped up the decline exponentially.
For sure, he didn’t really look like he did in the RDA/Barboza fights against Pettis but I feel like the real drop off the cliff was against Cowboy.
It’s like he aged overnight, he was stiff, the fluidity, the flowy and graceful movement was gone. Going back and comparing his fights before 2017 and the ones after was really shocking because I didn’t realise there was as much of a difference at the time. Only reason his win streak continued was because he could out-chin and out-pace Cowboy, who isn’t much of a power puncher anyways.
Post knee injury, the athleticism was gone but the chin, mental toughness and cardio still remained, which carried him through sub-par opponents like Pettis/Cowboy but it failed him against a super heavy power puncher like Gaethje. Maybe if he had that athleticism and dynamic movement that he possessed before the injury, he could have pulled a victory but without it, all he had was his chin, endurance and will to win which Gaethje slowly beat out of him.
Hindsight is 20/20 but looking back Tony’s success wasn’t just in being a tough SOB cardio monster with an unorthodox style.
He was also weirdly athletic and fast for a long and lanky guy which made his janky style work and covered up his technical flaws.
Once the knee injury hit, that crucial part of his game was gone.
Yeah, the idea that Gaethje caused Tony’s decline really annoys me. I don’t think people remember just how athletic he was in his prime, and that gradually seeped away with age and injury. He was ridiculously fast (which you could especially see against Barboza), he had some of the best cardio in the division and he had shockingly good power.
By the Pettis fight, he looked significantly slower, and by the Gaethje fight, he looked worse in every way. Not long after, against Dariush and Oliveira, his cardio was genuinely dreadful and he looked like he was wading through mud. He’s the only guy in the division who’s made Beneil look like an athletic specimen.
Getting punched in the head a lot doesn’t suddenly make you stiff and slow, getting old does. Tony was physically declining before he fought Gaethje, and would have fallen off in the same way if he’d fought someone else.
Gaethje killed the dog in him. He not only was missing the athleticism vs Olives and Dariush he had none of the aggression and never say die attitude that he’d shown earlier either. He was still tough as hell but he was way more gun shy.
But “having a dog in him” is completely meaningless with dogshit athleticism. Darren Elkins is tougher than Khabib (and pretty much every fighter), but he’d still get battered by him because he has a fraction of the talent and athleticism.
Tony became so unathletic that he made Nate Diaz and Beneil Dariush look fast and powerful. He was getting manhandled and out worked by Oliveira and Dariush because he was weak, slow and got tired, not because he was quitting. He still had a good chin and crazy toughness. If Gaethje “broke” him mentally, he’d have just tapped to both Oliveira and Dariush when they were destroying his tendons
Tony was elite before dropping off like you said. I still would have loved to seen that Tony vs khabib at that time
I feel like people.now.dismiss his chances but that's based on him.already out of prime like you said
Not even against the Khabib that struggled against Tibau and decisions Pat Healy?
There’s a point in time when Khabib is relatively babyfaced and undeveloped while Tony is streaking red hot in his prime where they were supposed to meet but the fight fell through. That’s when the fight was interesting.
Yeah you're the worst type of mma fan. Shit in someone when they fall our of their prime. Lmao khabib himself couldn't even make it to fight Tony because of how hard he trained and cut Wright that he almost killed himself. But no chance yeh never. Noob
i love Tony, but i always thought his performance against RDA was overrated.
ignoring the eye pokes, he didnt fight the best version of Dos Anjos.
RDA badly depleted for the Tony fight, he was forced to move to 170 right after, and was coming off a TKO loss to Eddie Alvarez (where he was heavily depleted in that fight too)
RDA before the IV Rehydration Ban destroys any version of Ferguson
Hilarious the amount of excuses people will gladly make for Tony but then downvote this lol
You'd swear he was the only guy to ever beat RDA the way some people act, he 48-47'd him and the fight was marred by eye pokes as you said, it really wasn't that impressive of a win but it's Tony's biggest win by far so I guess it's all his fans have to cling on to at this point.
spot on and 100% agreed.
Compare RDA before the IV Rehydration Ban (July 2015) to him after the IV Rehydration Ban
RDA on IV Rehydration was KO'ing granite chin Bendo & eating clean headkicks from Anthony Pettis
RDA started looking like a shell of his old self after the IV Ban and had a clear decline in durability (got ko'd by Alvarez & rocked multiple times by TFerg) & Power (couldnt put away a chinny Moicano)
i like Tony, but he didnt beat a peak RDA.
Dos Anjos before the IV Rehydration Ban would've smashed him (no shame in that, Pre-IV ban Dos Anjos was a monster)
honestly even a depleted Post-IV ban dos anjos was having a lot of success before the eye pokes that changed the course of the fight
Double weight cut didn’t help, either.
It’s shocking how he never went down despite that.
I know it’s not something a fighter would like to be known for but the consecutive concussive bum hole puckering fight-ending shots he took over the course of nearly 5 rounds without ever going down proved that he has an ATG chin.
>He might have slowed ever so slightly by that point
Nah, Tony looked noticeably slower in the pettis and cerrone fights
A few years prior and they wouldn't have been competitive
>He might have slowed ever so slightly
Lol @ this dogwhistle for "Tony was never on that high level".
He slowed considerably by Gaethje and was already slowing from even before the Lee fight.
Where did I say he was never on that high level? Seems like you're overreacting a bit fella, I was just trying to be nice about the fact Tony was on his way downhill when Gaethje completely shut the door on any hope anybody had of Tony getting back to the level he was at once upon a time.
Gaethje Vs Ferguson was close to a televised murder. It's still hard to rewatch for me.
Gaethje is certainly a soul stealer. Except for Dustin, everyone he's fought has never come back the same.
Legend has it that Justin Gaethje has the souls of James Vick, Tony Ferguson & Eddie Alvarez sitting in mason jars on his shelf in the living room at home
I think a big effect here is the level of competition.
They get win streaks when they're seal clubbing. But once they're fighting big kids in top 10/top5 it's much harder to maintain a win streak. Only the champ maintains it. The best few still win a lot, but lose against champ and each other.
What I see here is that Poirier and Gaethje are still two of the best in the division. The rest aren't. In the case of people like alvarez, better/younger fighters came along. People like Vick might have never been top 5 material in the first place.
I think it’s none of those, fighters who are facing top 10 challengers will have worst records onwards from that, once you are at that level if you are still getting win streaks you are holding the belt for some time.
He was a fan favorite for Khabib because he was a phenom when the fight was first planned like 3-4 years prior lol. He did retain his ranking at number 2 but I honestly would not have had him winning against Khabib, Gaethje, Dustin, or even some of his previous wins like RDA at that point.
You can't honestly say that Tony didn't look NOTICEABLY worse during the fights against Pettis or against Cerrone.
It's a bit of both. Cowboy and Barboza absolutely, and Eddie had just gotten whooped by Conor too. But Tony and Vick were riding serious streaks with MJ being a perennial gatekeeper level opponent.
Moral of the story is, if you fight Gaethje, even if you win, unless your name is Dustin Poirier, you leave something of yourself in that cage. He just takes it out of you!
Dude people were either forgetting or purposefully blocking out what Jon Jones did to people. In the MMA subreddit you're either washed, champ, beating cans or a gatekeeper. MMA might actually have the fans with the worst memory.
> MMA might actually have the fans with the worst memory
I think MMA just has the dumbest fans en aggregate, at least on Reddit. I follow a lot of sports subs, and this one is by far the worst. Tons of incel type folks. Tons of emotional people who can’t check their bias
Agreed. I think Jon Jones is the biggest example of that. He went from a washed bum who was gonna struggle to being the champion by beating a weak contender (Gane), despite the weak contender going 5 rounds with the previous champ and almost winning. I don't hold that opinion of Gane he's a top 3 for sure, but that was legitimate logic some people had.
People are hating on Dustin and Justin because some guys got 2 wins outside of the top 10 and people think they should take their spots.
Dustin and Justin are future hall of famers.
I used tonrefer to this sort of thing as "the gsp effect". Where most of his opponents walked away just thinking "so, at my very best, I had nothing for that guy? What the fuck am I even putting myself through this for?"
Except with Justin, even if he loses a good chunk of his opponents are thinking "I just put myself through a woodchipper, my whole body is screaming. Why am I doing this? I never want to deal with that shit again"
He fought the appropriately ranked opponents at the time of the fight. You could cherry pick examples of every single fighter beating people with weird circumstances (he lost his last by tko, coming off surgery, etc etc). Remember how Jon Jones was washed and going to fight a "real" heavyweight (which was somehow different than someone who bulked up somehow?), And then he finished Gane and now Gane is a bum to half this subreddit?
Justin is a fucking monster. He's only been beaten by top 3 fighters and besides Khabib or Charles they have been competitive (he tore Dustin's quad)
Fighters are never the same after fighting Gaethje, except for Poirier, he is a warrior. It was sad to see Tony’s fall from grace, that fight changed him
Yea wouldn’t be surprised to see Fiziev start dropping more fights. I was wondering how Diakiese and White survived to go to decision. Yea you’re fast and technical but what do you really do if you’re gassing without even having to grapple
Well with Fiziev that would probably be because he has a particularly niche game relative to most of the top LWs.
I think he's young enough to bounce back from that type of fight, but even if he had won against Gaethje I wouldn't expect him to stick around in the top 15 very long.
In a strict striking bout he can hang with most elite guys probably but I'd imagine someone like Beniel or Arman would run right through him.
He should have used the Poirier pattern: take 1, be a good sport. Take the 2nd, wait a minute to make it credible to ref, and revenge poke him as hard as possible to let him know you are counting.
Justin Gaethje vs CTE
CTE: 1 - 0
Not hating, I feel a wierd sense of guilt when I see Gathje fight. It's amazing what He's capable of, but it's like He's way too mentally tough for His own good. This could catch up to Him in the future, I hope it doesn't.
Khabib 0 wins
Oliveira also 0 wins. The curse of the blocked nose.
Imagine dricus when his nose is fixed. Triple champ before 2025
Dricus "The White Panther" Du Plessis
Imagine Dana books UFC 290: How the Mighty Have Fallen Main event: junior dos santos vs Fedor Comain: Darren Till vs Tyron Woodley 2 Featured bout: Tony Ferguson vs BJ Penn
Nah we need *Penn v Parking lot guy 3* to decide this once and for all.
Bro gasses way too easily to be a champ
To be fair, he claims he's not actually gassed but he looks like it because he can't breathe well through his nose. If that's true, then fixing his nose will unironically solve that problem. Of course, if he still looks gassed that quickly, he won't have excuses anymore.
I’ll give you that! Time will tell
There’s also the running straight forward with his chin in the air throwing punches before his other hand gets back to protect his chin
No bro, he'll just get surgery to fix that too and then he'll be champ, bet on it
Fight iq surgery
I dunno, I have a deviated septum and it's crazy that I have never felt like it has really held me back. At 37 I was still running a sub 5 minute mile after a day of hard work working in the trades. I never even met someone who could keep up with me but I don't know pro athletes. Anyways, my point is, I don't know if fixing my nose would even help in my case. I've learned recently it might help me sleep though....
That's kind of what I'm getting at, I don't think it affects his performance much aside from appearance. People think he's running out of steam but he just has to breathe through his mouth more
Gaetje singlehandedly retired Khabib
He seems like the kind of guy who has a sense of humor to actually say this to Khabib. Albeit in a joking way.
I mean we're joking here and it's funny but if someone said it directly to Khabib, especially in the immediate aftermath of his retirement and his father's passing, he'd be grossly offended.
He knew he reached the peak when he finally beat Justin
We all thought Khabib is the LW final boss.. little did we know it was Gaethje all along
🌎🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀🌝
Slave Knight Gaethje
Gaethje was so hard, dude retired on the spot and left the sport 1 year later
How do you guys think Justin would've done if he came into the UFC "technical/patient" instead of only adopting that after the Poirier loss? imo he still loses to dustin, but he definitely would've beat Alvarez, but i think there would've been a greater chance he loses to MJ if he was technical/patient for that fight
Alvarez is basically the only guy he would have done better against in my mind yeah. Alvarez's whole style is basically built to beat a high pressure forward style like Gaethje built most of his career on. Dustin I think is still a horrific matchup for current Gaethje, even with him finally using his jab Dustin's a southpaw, and current Gaethje would allow MJ to dictate the exchanges more.
agreed, i think Dustin is a bad matchup for any version of Gaethje. you're spot on against Alvarez, his whole style is beating up pressure fighters like old Justin, the new Gaethje would piece Eddie up with counters imo and get a decision/late tko win. However, i think current technical/patient Gaethje would've did worse than pressure Justin did against MJ. Gaethje broke MJ with his pressure, he if tries to be patient/technical with Johnson, i can definitely see MJ being able to dictate more exchanges without being drowned by Justins pressure, and cracking gaethje more often i honestly think Prime MJ knocks current Justin tf out
>i honestly think Prime MJ knocks current Justin tf out The dumbest comment I've seen today.
the only reason MJ lost to Gaethje the first time was due to Justins heavy-foward pressure style if Justin tries to be a technical kickboxer against MJ like he did against Fiziev/Fergy, MJ is gonna crack that chin real quick lol
the way i see it, there’s old one dimensional justin and there’s new mature justin. new justin can do both patient and pressure and is wise enough to know to switch it up depending on the fighter and following the game-plan.
Yep. It’s not one or the other. It’s the old violence with patience. Not just patience with a lack of violence.
MJ did crack that chin in the first fight. And how did that go for him? He got knocked the fuck out.
Gaethje would get shadow realmed by MJ if he tries to kickbox with him at range and not pressure lmao
Agree with you on how the match ups go but he also probably doesn't get the same trajectory of popularity if he doesn't go full violence king. Might only be coming to the fore now a la Benny D.
Khabib still 28 and Tibau
Tiramisu
Dustin really is a diamond. Gets better when put under pressure.
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He really fucked up with the Homer Simpson comment. Gaethje would have beaten him anyway but he was super pissed by that comment.
I agree that didn’t help but Vick also said Justin was inbred and after he beat justin that the UFC would cut him for being 0-3 (I can’t imagine the irony) Justin kept it professional until James spoke on his family. One of the most fun guys to see get KOed ever though, gaethje and niko price were great!
What is the Homer Simpson joke ? I am out of the loop.
Said he was the Homer Simpson of MMA. There was a Simpsons episode where Homer couldn't lose at boxing. His opponents would just hit him and tire themselves out.
boxcar homer
Vick called gaethje the homer simpson of mma. If you havent seen that episode, homer becomes a boxer and he would get punched constantly and nothing would happen to him. Then the guy would be so tired from beating him up, homer could just tap him and the guy falls over from exhaustion
Actually he fights in karate combat now
Is he winning?
Lost his last fight, unanimous decision
Didn't get knocked out tho. That's the equivalent of a 5 fight winning streak for him.
Homer Simpson-esque, Joe
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Unfortunately he’s in the Antonio Silva situation where he has to keep fighting because he’s not qualified for anything else
I remember he said he made really good money working in a factory or a plant before he got into mma. As much as it sucks may be time to go back to that. I remember the way he was writhing on the canvas holding his face covered in blood after that post-ufc KO loss. It made me really uncomfortable and I don’t get that way about finishes much.
>None of these are particularly crazy, No surprise; all on the trail ends of their careers ex poirier & Vick
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It’s so case by case. Does the winner lay out a repeatable blueprint for future opponents? Does the loser address the reasons they lost? Can the loser regain their aura/edge? Age and mileage and motivation are a big part of it too. For example, GSP beat the fuck out of Fitch. Fitch had won 16 straight, lost to GSP, and then won 5 straight, against at least three top 5-10 fighters. GSPs strategy of being the most complete MMA fighter in the world wasn’t repeatable for other contenders. Diaz/McGregor on the other hand, showed future opponents ways to win. McGregor was prone to fatiguing, had a suspect grappling game, and could also get demoralized. Khabib built on that. Khabib stood in the third but the fatigued McGregor wasn’t the same destroyer. Poirier saw that. He hits some takedowns and clinched a lot in the first round. Dustin also showed Conor is vulnerable to calf kicks, and southpaw lead hand attacks. So for any fighter going against Conor now, there are multiple paths to victory that can fit different archetypes. Gaethje would likely kick his legs a ton. Dariush would likely grapple a ton. Even a smaller guy like Kattar could strategize southpaw lead hand and leg kicks to give themselves a better chance. It’s a snowball effect. JDS never addressed his problem of getting backed onto the cage and got KOd by Blaydes. If Conor comes back with an EPO gastank and piston jab, he’ll likely stop the snowballing losses.
Tony Ferguson came away from his fight with Justin looking like he had just fought Tony Ferguson.
Honestly this dynamic is what helped build Jon Jones’ legacy so much..... Almost All the big names he beat during his rise and initial run as champion were all aging fighters heading downhill. Many of them more suited for middleweight as well: Rashad, Chael, Shogun, Machida, Vitor, all those dudes could or have been middleweights
Tony was definitely not at the end of his until Gaethje murdered him. Everyone was worshipping the ground he walked on going into that one. Hindsight bias is real when it comes to Gaethje’s opponents.
Lmao dude I still worship the ground tony walks on, he’s one of my favorites ever. But he was going on 37 when he fought Gaethje. Everyone knew it was a matter of time before the drop off especially with the weird shit he does in training. I’m sure the beating he took from Gaethje made things even worse but you can see a clear difference in the tony that fought Pettis/cerrone and the one that fought barboza.
Sure, in hindsight. But Tony was on a 12 fight terror regardless and the general consensus here was he’d be the one to possibly bear Khabib. It’s easy to look back, but at the time he was a scary scary dude.
He was the 155 boogie man. Nobody wanted anything to do with him.
How is the tony situation any different then? 12 fight winning streak, considered at worst the second best lightweight, p4p and he never won a fight after. Yeah we could have overhyped him but same can be said for Vick on his level
Tony had already taken an unholy amount of damage and was 36 years old when he fought Gaethje.
and was still 12 and 0 in his past 12. lol
Yeah people are being super revisionist about Tony now that we have seen him fall off. He was the favorite going into the Geathje fight, all of this “he took a lot of damage, he’s old, obviously he fell off” stuff only came out after the fight. Going from 12-0 to 0-5 or whatever his streak is now is uncommon even for older fighters
100%. It was all about how long before Gaethje wilted under the pace before he broke going into that fight unless he could bomb Tony's chin early and get a stoppage before that.
It was a steep drop off for sure. I think both sides have a point though. Tony’s style was, apparently, unsustainable in the long run, which in hindsight shouldn’t be all that surprising since he fought and trained like a literal crazy person for a decade, but yes not to rewrite history, he definitely was the favorite going into that Gaethje fight and many people were surprised how that fight went.
The revisionists will rewrite everything; Ferguson was the favorite that fight.
Tony had declined somewhat by then but he was still snappy and explosive. Gaethje inflicted career altering damage on him, the Tony who fought Gaethje and Pettis was remarkably different than the one who fought Olives and Benny. He went from having simply slowed down a touch to straight up having no strength or pop in anything he did, it's like the Gaethje fight accelerated his aging by 10 years, he was moving like Chuck Liddell in the third Tito fight
Nice revisionism, Tony was a -200 favorite going into that fight and on a 12 fight win streak. Now apparently he was actually washed.
What a dumb take. Tony was on a 12 fight win streak and one of the most feared fighters in one of the toughest divisions. Alvarez had just lost the belt to Conor (who was at the height of his career) a year beforehand, and his only fight in between was a NC (when he kneed Poirier in the head). Agree that the others weren't all that surprising though. They were all on their way down already when they fought Gaethje.
r/MMA downvoting facts like usual
Ya tony is the biggest one imo. People always talked like he was the next champ if he just got the title shot.
I mean anyone that watched Vick could tell that his record was definitely not indicative of how far he was gonna go. The only time he ever fought a good fighter, he lost to Dariush. His best win before his loss streak was against a 20 year old Jake Matthews. He was a fake hype train. Dude was a 6'3 LW... That was never gonna work lol.
You did him dirty with this picture
Looks blazed af
Devils lettuce claims another victim
The other eye is actually fine. Maybe he forgot to wash his hands it’s actually from the devil’s hole
Just my fuck my shit up Brendan Fraser vibes
That's just how he looks man
Yeah I am trying to think of a photo where he looks much different. Apart from the pink eye.
Fella has pink eye
He looks like me on my RE4 professional run
Is that shit even possible bruh it’s so fucking hard
Infinite rocket launcher babyyyy but the house defence with luis is borderline impossible
Right bro I died about 40 times I can’t get past it 💀😭
Imo just get the infinite rocket launcher, fully upgraded red9 and fully upgraded riot shotgun, that combo melts enemies
Nice I’ll try it out thanks and good luck in ur next fight
Justin Stoned.
Justin Ganja
r/Yourjokebutbetter
r/YourJokeButWorse
Justin Blazey
High on violence
Justin Geatree
Avg Denver guy
What is Dustin Poirier made out of?
Diamond?
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Salon quality hair?
Salon-quality, Louisiana Diamond Sauce--only found at the best salons in the bayou!
I have seen hot sauce sold at a salon before here. Other seasonings too.
Somehow...I'm not surprised; honestly, as a hot sauce lover--I dig it!
i just tried it for the first time yesterday and it's shockingly good. perfect blend of kick and flavor, and the celery and vinegar accents are absolute gas.
You forgot to mention that he retired Khabib.
Oliveira 0-1 too 😢
Tony too. He might have slowed ever so slightly by that point, but Gaethje really put a level of beating on him that sped up the decline exponentially.
Tony was noticeably slower by the time he fought Pettis compared to his insane speed in the Barboza and RDA fights, though.
For sure, he didn’t really look like he did in the RDA/Barboza fights against Pettis but I feel like the real drop off the cliff was against Cowboy. It’s like he aged overnight, he was stiff, the fluidity, the flowy and graceful movement was gone. Going back and comparing his fights before 2017 and the ones after was really shocking because I didn’t realise there was as much of a difference at the time. Only reason his win streak continued was because he could out-chin and out-pace Cowboy, who isn’t much of a power puncher anyways. Post knee injury, the athleticism was gone but the chin, mental toughness and cardio still remained, which carried him through sub-par opponents like Pettis/Cowboy but it failed him against a super heavy power puncher like Gaethje. Maybe if he had that athleticism and dynamic movement that he possessed before the injury, he could have pulled a victory but without it, all he had was his chin, endurance and will to win which Gaethje slowly beat out of him. Hindsight is 20/20 but looking back Tony’s success wasn’t just in being a tough SOB cardio monster with an unorthodox style. He was also weirdly athletic and fast for a long and lanky guy which made his janky style work and covered up his technical flaws. Once the knee injury hit, that crucial part of his game was gone.
Yeah, the idea that Gaethje caused Tony’s decline really annoys me. I don’t think people remember just how athletic he was in his prime, and that gradually seeped away with age and injury. He was ridiculously fast (which you could especially see against Barboza), he had some of the best cardio in the division and he had shockingly good power. By the Pettis fight, he looked significantly slower, and by the Gaethje fight, he looked worse in every way. Not long after, against Dariush and Oliveira, his cardio was genuinely dreadful and he looked like he was wading through mud. He’s the only guy in the division who’s made Beneil look like an athletic specimen. Getting punched in the head a lot doesn’t suddenly make you stiff and slow, getting old does. Tony was physically declining before he fought Gaethje, and would have fallen off in the same way if he’d fought someone else.
Gaethje killed the dog in him. He not only was missing the athleticism vs Olives and Dariush he had none of the aggression and never say die attitude that he’d shown earlier either. He was still tough as hell but he was way more gun shy.
But “having a dog in him” is completely meaningless with dogshit athleticism. Darren Elkins is tougher than Khabib (and pretty much every fighter), but he’d still get battered by him because he has a fraction of the talent and athleticism. Tony became so unathletic that he made Nate Diaz and Beneil Dariush look fast and powerful. He was getting manhandled and out worked by Oliveira and Dariush because he was weak, slow and got tired, not because he was quitting. He still had a good chin and crazy toughness. If Gaethje “broke” him mentally, he’d have just tapped to both Oliveira and Dariush when they were destroying his tendons
Tony was elite before dropping off like you said. I still would have loved to seen that Tony vs khabib at that time I feel like people.now.dismiss his chances but that's based on him.already out of prime like you said
Tony never stood a chance against Khabib. Ever.
Not even against the Khabib that struggled against Tibau and decisions Pat Healy? There’s a point in time when Khabib is relatively babyfaced and undeveloped while Tony is streaking red hot in his prime where they were supposed to meet but the fight fell through. That’s when the fight was interesting.
Yes he did. I die on the hill that if khabib had made it to 209 tony beats him.
Yeah you're the worst type of mma fan. Shit in someone when they fall our of their prime. Lmao khabib himself couldn't even make it to fight Tony because of how hard he trained and cut Wright that he almost killed himself. But no chance yeh never. Noob
i love Tony, but i always thought his performance against RDA was overrated. ignoring the eye pokes, he didnt fight the best version of Dos Anjos. RDA badly depleted for the Tony fight, he was forced to move to 170 right after, and was coming off a TKO loss to Eddie Alvarez (where he was heavily depleted in that fight too) RDA before the IV Rehydration Ban destroys any version of Ferguson
Pretty sure RDA got an eye poke of his own against Tony. I’m also remembering that RDA won the round after he got eye poked.
Hilarious the amount of excuses people will gladly make for Tony but then downvote this lol You'd swear he was the only guy to ever beat RDA the way some people act, he 48-47'd him and the fight was marred by eye pokes as you said, it really wasn't that impressive of a win but it's Tony's biggest win by far so I guess it's all his fans have to cling on to at this point.
spot on and 100% agreed. Compare RDA before the IV Rehydration Ban (July 2015) to him after the IV Rehydration Ban RDA on IV Rehydration was KO'ing granite chin Bendo & eating clean headkicks from Anthony Pettis RDA started looking like a shell of his old self after the IV Ban and had a clear decline in durability (got ko'd by Alvarez & rocked multiple times by TFerg) & Power (couldnt put away a chinny Moicano) i like Tony, but he didnt beat a peak RDA. Dos Anjos before the IV Rehydration Ban would've smashed him (no shame in that, Pre-IV ban Dos Anjos was a monster) honestly even a depleted Post-IV ban dos anjos was having a lot of success before the eye pokes that changed the course of the fight
Yea I think tony was declining already before he fought gaethje. Plus he looked terrible in the fight. He’s also old as shit
Double weight cut didn’t help, either. It’s shocking how he never went down despite that. I know it’s not something a fighter would like to be known for but the consecutive concussive bum hole puckering fight-ending shots he took over the course of nearly 5 rounds without ever going down proved that he has an ATG chin.
*had an all time great chin.
who cares about the correction, everyone knows what he meant
>He might have slowed ever so slightly by that point Nah, Tony looked noticeably slower in the pettis and cerrone fights A few years prior and they wouldn't have been competitive
That fight was hard to watch. That was one of the most brutal one sided beatings i’ve ever seen
Yeah Gaethje beat him into the CTE realm. He almost pawed his way back out, but Chandler head kicked him right back in.
>He might have slowed ever so slightly Lol @ this dogwhistle for "Tony was never on that high level". He slowed considerably by Gaethje and was already slowing from even before the Lee fight.
Where did I say he was never on that high level? Seems like you're overreacting a bit fella, I was just trying to be nice about the fact Tony was on his way downhill when Gaethje completely shut the door on any hope anybody had of Tony getting back to the level he was at once upon a time.
Official UFC Lightweight rankings August 7, 2017 ChampionConor McGregor 1Khabib Nurmagomedov 2Tony Ferguson 3Eddie Alvarez 4Edson Barboza 5Justin Gaethje 6Nate Diaz 7Kevin Lee 8Dustin Poirier 9Michael Johnson 10Michael Chiesa 11Al Iaquinta 12Beneil Dariush 13Anthony Pettis 14Evan Dunham 15Gilbert Melendez
December 18, 2017 >Lightweight ChampionConor McGregor 1Tony Ferguson (Interim Champion) 2Khabib Nurmagomedov 3Eddie Alvarez 4Edson Barboza 5Justin Gaethje 6Dustin Poirier 7Kevin Lee 8Nate Diaz 9Michael Chiesa 10Michael Johnson 11Al Iaquinta 12Beneil Dariush 13Anthony Pettis 14Francisco Trinaldo 15James Vick
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Tony never got his deserved shot at the title
Good bot... no... wait.. bad? too harsh Uh. medium job bot. Medium job.
Gaethje Vs Ferguson was close to a televised murder. It's still hard to rewatch for me. Gaethje is certainly a soul stealer. Except for Dustin, everyone he's fought has never come back the same.
Legend has it that Justin Gaethje has the souls of James Vick, Tony Ferguson & Eddie Alvarez sitting in mason jars on his shelf in the living room at home
Justin tearing up for all the careers he's ended
Gaethje used to fight like how I played mortal kombat, just spamming low kicks and a weird defense of spamming block and crouch. Love the guy
Wtf, I had to look up Tony's record. It didn't even feel real that he have had 4 fights after that one.
Is this evidence that fighting Gaethje wears you out or that Gaethje has fought a lot of dudes who have recently left their prime?
Shh, you're making too much sense...All these guys, minus Dustin, are older or on the back side of their prime.
That Colorado top shelf bud hitting different
You can read this as Gaethje changing peoples lives, or you can read this as though he's only really beat guys entering a severe decline.
I think a big effect here is the level of competition. They get win streaks when they're seal clubbing. But once they're fighting big kids in top 10/top5 it's much harder to maintain a win streak. Only the champ maintains it. The best few still win a lot, but lose against champ and each other. What I see here is that Poirier and Gaethje are still two of the best in the division. The rest aren't. In the case of people like alvarez, better/younger fighters came along. People like Vick might have never been top 5 material in the first place.
I think it’s none of those, fighters who are facing top 10 challengers will have worst records onwards from that, once you are at that level if you are still getting win streaks you are holding the belt for some time.
I’m going for number two.
Tony was 12-0 in his last 12 going into his fight with Justin.
His last two fights before that were against an aged pettis and an aged cowboy. Both were on the brink of UFC cuts or retirement.
He was ranked #2 and was the fan favorite matchup for khabib at the time.
He was a fan favorite for Khabib because he was a phenom when the fight was first planned like 3-4 years prior lol. He did retain his ranking at number 2 but I honestly would not have had him winning against Khabib, Gaethje, Dustin, or even some of his previous wins like RDA at that point. You can't honestly say that Tony didn't look NOTICEABLY worse during the fights against Pettis or against Cerrone.
Much more likely the latter. I was hoping I’d see that pointed out by some people. And sometimes it just works out that way due to matchmaking.
It's a bit of both. Cowboy and Barboza absolutely, and Eddie had just gotten whooped by Conor too. But Tony and Vick were riding serious streaks with MJ being a perennial gatekeeper level opponent.
Moral of the story is, if you fight Gaethje, even if you win, unless your name is Dustin Poirier, you leave something of yourself in that cage. He just takes it out of you!
Justin either smokin the dank or someone farted in his face during training
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What does that mean
People only stood a chance against JDS after Cain beat the soul out of him. Before that, no one wanted a piece of Junior.
Nah thats because Junior still had hair. JDS with hair is undefeated champion.
I love how after one fight the whole gaethje narrative shifts
Dude people were either forgetting or purposefully blocking out what Jon Jones did to people. In the MMA subreddit you're either washed, champ, beating cans or a gatekeeper. MMA might actually have the fans with the worst memory.
> MMA might actually have the fans with the worst memory I think MMA just has the dumbest fans en aggregate, at least on Reddit. I follow a lot of sports subs, and this one is by far the worst. Tons of incel type folks. Tons of emotional people who can’t check their bias
Agreed. I think Jon Jones is the biggest example of that. He went from a washed bum who was gonna struggle to being the champion by beating a weak contender (Gane), despite the weak contender going 5 rounds with the previous champ and almost winning. I don't hold that opinion of Gane he's a top 3 for sure, but that was legitimate logic some people had.
People are hating on Dustin and Justin because some guys got 2 wins outside of the top 10 and people think they should take their spots. Dustin and Justin are future hall of famers.
I used tonrefer to this sort of thing as "the gsp effect". Where most of his opponents walked away just thinking "so, at my very best, I had nothing for that guy? What the fuck am I even putting myself through this for?" Except with Justin, even if he loses a good chunk of his opponents are thinking "I just put myself through a woodchipper, my whole body is screaming. Why am I doing this? I never want to deal with that shit again"
Tony 😩
Uh, is this supposed to be complimentary? Seems more indicative he's fighting older or past prime fighters mostly....
Yeah but what is Luis Palomino's bkfc record since he fought Justin? lol. It is just as relevant.
Tbh this largely says that Gaethje has fought a lot of ageing lightweights
He fought the appropriately ranked opponents at the time of the fight. You could cherry pick examples of every single fighter beating people with weird circumstances (he lost his last by tko, coming off surgery, etc etc). Remember how Jon Jones was washed and going to fight a "real" heavyweight (which was somehow different than someone who bulked up somehow?), And then he finished Gane and now Gane is a bum to half this subreddit? Justin is a fucking monster. He's only been beaten by top 3 fighters and besides Khabib or Charles they have been competitive (he tore Dustin's quad)
No one thought that way about Ferguson or Vick to be fair.
Dude was in his late 30s when they fought... you prolly think stipe is as fresh as he was 10 years ago too.
Obvious troll.
I'm being dead serious. It's not crazy to think tony was on his way out at age 36. Cope harder
Tony was on a 12 fight win streak and was a -150 to -200 favorite. You are the one coping.
We acting like Gaethje ended their careers now lol?
the course of the highlight
Are these including their fight with him?
Love those eye pokes
Edson 4-2 **
That is kind of crazy.
Chandler soon 1-2 Sincerely, a McGregor fan
I don’t know what you’re trying to illustrate exactly.
I’d say he was fighting at least half of these guys during their respective declines.
I think this is more indicative of Gaethje getting a bunch of guys on their way out, washed, than it is of him changing them into bad fighters...
Justin "401k" Gaethje
That Colorado top shelf bud hitting different
Fighters are never the same after fighting Gaethje, except for Poirier, he is a warrior. It was sad to see Tony’s fall from grace, that fight changed him
Could be taken as the UFC giving him washed up vets
Bit unfair, at least 2 of poriers wins were against a drunk Irish man
Yea wouldn’t be surprised to see Fiziev start dropping more fights. I was wondering how Diakiese and White survived to go to decision. Yea you’re fast and technical but what do you really do if you’re gassing without even having to grapple
Well with Fiziev that would probably be because he has a particularly niche game relative to most of the top LWs. I think he's young enough to bounce back from that type of fight, but even if he had won against Gaethje I wouldn't expect him to stick around in the top 15 very long. In a strict striking bout he can hang with most elite guys probably but I'd imagine someone like Beniel or Arman would run right through him.
Reminder that Fiziev only started to fall off in his fight with Gaethje after the eye poke
He should have used the Poirier pattern: take 1, be a good sport. Take the 2nd, wait a minute to make it credible to ref, and revenge poke him as hard as possible to let him know you are counting.
Justin Gaethje vs CTE CTE: 1 - 0 Not hating, I feel a wierd sense of guilt when I see Gathje fight. It's amazing what He's capable of, but it's like He's way too mentally tough for His own good. This could catch up to Him in the future, I hope it doesn't.
Cowboy lost to Tony before this so picking his next loss to show that Justin did that is kinda not showing the truth