Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-32783267-20181005133158

''History: I have discussed the aftermaths of serveral UFC events in the past just after the LIVE broadcast with some frequent users, like Justme28, GBL1111, CanadianOracle, etc, in Live Event threads. So I decided it would be cool to make a seperate discussion thread in order to not clog the in-game thread. This will be the thread just like I did for UFC 228 where we can share our opinions and thoughts before and after the fight along with post-fight matchups. But I was really busy with exams, which just ended today, so now I could do a Fight Discussion thread for this event in time.''

(Note: I can't effort to watch every fights and know in-depth of every fighter because the connection in my country is not too good and I only get to watch UFC thanks to our satellite broadcasting UFC Main Cards, as per the FOX deal with UFC (note that I can't watch Prelims). Since we don't have ESPN here... I think it will be tougher to catch Live Events in the future. So as I only usually watch main cards along several historic fights, film studies and highlights, I don't want to appear like an arm-chair analyst and be judgemental. I will give my honest opinions based on what I see and know.)

And here.. we.. GO..!!

UFC 229: THE CLASH OF FIRE AND ICE

(I'm ripping this table straight off from the wiki page, just like the last one.  :P)

The time is now and after all those injuries/delays/reschduling and all the chaos (Fuk Shev vs. Whobanks!! UFC is desperate with their Valentina push. I like Val as a fighter tho) that had happened to all the cards before this, as if the MMA Gods are asking for too much tributes basically. Honestly speaking, this card looks like fire and I hope it will be great. Even though Sean O'Malley 'popped'(?) and pulled off from the card (which would make him the most physically-improbable-eye-test-passing fighters after Josh Barnett, Ben Rothwell and a handful), I think the card is solid enough, especially the main one.

But we all know what we are all here for. We are not here to see the showdown between two hotties in Michelle and Felice. Nor we are biting our nails for the collision(?) between surging HWs in Lewis and Volkov, not especially after the Black Beast's hype-deflating performance last time around and Volkov not standing out with him just being really tall and well-rounded (AFAIK). Not even the rising contender in the Wasteland of Dinosaurs, aka the LHWs, Reyes taking on the inconsistent Lone Ranger of LHW, OSP could excite us. While (An)Tony vs. Anthony is definitely intriguing, the REAL reason we are all here is the showdown between two polar opposite fighters whose nicknames do not really match their animal motifs, mostly Khabib. (Khabib (Bear?) the Eagle and Conor (Tiger on his belly?) the Irish Gorilla)..

Honest opinions:

Nurmy(c) vs. McGregor - My brain says Khabib, but my heart says Conor. That would be an easy copout of an explaination since both fighters are too different on paper and with almost every analysis saying this will go down one way or another ONLY. But upon closer look (aka reading Jack Slack and other online breakdowns and comments), both are not that opposite and I think the fight would be fairly competitive to the end as neither are really a specialist in a truest sense. Also I see people describing Khabib as this humble, cool-headed and respectful (a good guy) and Conor as a brash, hot-headed and arrogant (a bad guy). Seriously though, I think people just want to paint a narrative of Black vs. White, Good vs. Evil, Order vs. Chaos and such, but that's not really the case as I will state why below.

Conor McGregor, leading up to this fight, definitely looks very unhinged and uncharacteristically emotional with all that Artem talk against Khabib (Proper 12 did not help in that odd conference). But Conor is a deceptively a smart man. He always act like an immature fool days out before the showdowns in press conferences. So is he really putting up an act for the fight? The answer would be a resounding 'Yes' to me. He looked very respectful on Conan(?) interview and his coach Kav did said leading up to Nate rematch that Conor told him backstage that 'Illusion of insanity is over. Time for strategy,' or something like that, after making a scene. Meanwhile Khabib, for all the stone-faced look he gave, looks very (mildly) irritated against Conor and it actually looks more like a language barrier thing than being unaffected by Conor's trash talks imo. But I still think Khabib would be the least affected victim of Conor's trash talking, don't get me wrong.

Technique and stamina-wise, The (techincal) Champ is a powerhouse with grinding/pounding Sambo style or the Art of Smesh. His career was plagued with injuries a few years ago and his aspiration of UFC gold was hampered with the Deadlock caused by none other than the 0-1 Pro Boxer Conor, (who basically has UFC on the balls at this point) and Tiramitsu. He eventually got his Gold, albeit quite sketchly (fighting a #11 Al and shots of him holding a belt before he even become a champ in Embedded, which is kind of disrespectful on Tony). But anyways, his stamina is great, obviously better than Conor by miles, despite the weight-cut. On the other hand, Conor is an explosive and (mostly) linear counter-striker with occasionally Spinning Shit to prevent circling. Gifted and also cursed with the abundance of Fast-Twitch Fibres in his body, Conor can move in-and-out like a viper and strike the sweetspot behind the ear with such accuracy (which beats power). But every thing comes with a price and Conor's seems to be that he sucks at cardio, especially due to recency bias. Also Conor is apparantly a novice on the ground according to the narrative that keeps going on on the internet.

So on paper, the Champ should win because of the fact that he has cardio and wrestling to stiffle ExChampChamp and pound him senseless into the oblivion, while shouting things like 'I deserve dis. You know dat. Give up.. You no I don drink...". This is why I said my brain believe Khabib. But I never truly follow my brain (hehe) and the good news is that Conor is not just the Left Hand nor a fish out of water on the ground. Most pundits against Conor will use the Mendes fight and Nate fight as why Conor is piss-poor in grappling but that definitely sound like cherry-picking and it really is. Going into Mendes fight, Conor was preparing for Aldo and was clearly working on entirely different gameplan but not only did his opponent changed his ACL also popped (it's on his documentary). So I mean like you got one knee a few days out and the first thing you did was to throw a flying kick? Mad respect to Conor (He also never really pull out from a fight unlike the other guy).

Anyways, during the fight, Conor specifically targeted Chad's midsection with stabbing teeps, which contributed to Chad gassing out (short-camp didn't help). And in his fight against Nate, he lost because he blew his wad trying to take out Nate early (rumor has it that he had staph?) and went for a sloppy takedown resulting in a choke. But prior to that he swept Nate using X-Guard which is high level shit before the end of round one. So I don't think Conor would be too helpless on the ground and as in against Chad, Conor should work the body of Khabib which I kinda suspect would be vulnerable with his recent weigh-cutting dilemas and losing muscle mass. He do not have to kick like he did with Chad, but he can target his Left to the body, which will keep his hips low AND reduce the likelihood of Khabib slipping the head punches into takedown.

For Khabib, while I really wanted the man to become a champ at one point (by smeshing Conor specifically) I found myself turning away from him now with his fanbase (equally annoying to Conor's fanbase) deifying him, I'm afraid to say that he is definitely a male Ronda Rousey tbh. He can't cut the ring properly without bullrushing, crossing his legs instead of pivoting, etc and uses clinches to trip more than blasting doubles like Chad does. But despite that I can see Khabib's path to victory against Conor assuming he drastically improved his game between UFC 223 and 229, which AKA is not known for... Conor uses a very linear stance so he could dart in-and-out, drawing his opponents to counter them but having a linear stance can limit your lateral movement. While I do not recommend the Eagle to circle to Conor's right as Mac's Spinning Shit threat is there, he could use side-to-side rhythm-breaking L-Steps (a la Leonard vs. Duran II) to stiffle Conor's movement without even having to use a takedown threat as Khabib is literally Muhammad Ali now after his masterful striking display at NYC in April.

Joking aside, yeah, that's how I think Khabib should impose his will with some smart footwork plus the takedowns but overall his likelihood of winning will definitely increase if Conor gassed and if Khabib's chin hold up. For Conor, I suggest to go for the body, be conservative and keep Khabib on the cage as he seems to suck with his back against the cage. May the best man win on October 6th. Stroked..!! (Check out articles or materials by other analysts like Dan Hardy, Jack Slack, BJJ Scout, David Christian (Modern Martial Artist), Brendan Dorman and such for more insight.. than me at least.)

The Wolverine vs. The Showtime - UFC (or WME?) did our SnapJitsu master Tony dirty by stripping his Interim belt just like that.. which also made Colby lost his belt by proxy of being an interim champ also later lol. But impressively, Tony came back from what most would considered a career-derailing injury after five months.. apparantly using some pseudoscience shit like Cupping and training like a mad man, which would make you wonder how did he reach this level like this at times. On the other hand, we got the older Pettis, whose path to beat him was basically out at this point in his career, who is leaping the rankings after beating an apparant shell of Chiesa last April, and the win over this former Interim Champ, he would be back in title contention.

The narration goes that Pettis is washed up from all those injuries, which sapped his explosiveness and always lost to higher-ups in LW, especially pressure fighters. But looking back, he mostly lost against pressure fighters because he always seems to looking for how to defend the takedown rather than putting his sleeper-hit Jiu-Jitsu skills to use, and he did admitted that after the Chiesa win. In other words, it's not that bad. Also Dustin fight was very competitive until he popped his ribs but if you just read on the internet like I did, you would have thought Dustin was manhandling him from start to that point. So I won't be surprised if he got a redemption arc.

Gameplan-wise, Tony should keep doing crazy shit as it will interrupt Pettis' striking offense (because as seen in Embedded, Anthony is using spinning shit in sparring(?)) and put Pettis on his backfoot, which he clearly didn't like to be. But if the fight ends up on the ground, I would be really stroked and I hope it will as either man has his shot to win. But on feet though Anthony.. probably should target Tony's reconstructed knee with the latest trend in MMA of kicks to the knee. I'm going with a fairly competitive win for Tony.

OSP vs. Reyes - I didn't get to see any of Reyes' fights but I'm sure he would rise in a dying division (not FLW) full of Old Dinosaurs and whining top contenders with least convincing claims for a title shot. OSP, on the other hand, is very active and also very inconsistent, which made him sounds like our boi Cowboy, but his problems seems to be that he tends to rely a little too much on his athletism, unlike Cowboy who never fixes his weaknesses like head mooment. OSP barely won his last fight if I am honest and I won't be shoked if Reyes smashes him... or OSP Von Preux chokes him.

Mememaster vs. Bizzaro Struve - Black Beast is back (no pun) in action after suffering little to no damage in Ngannou fight other than self-inflicted back-pain-inducing Switch Kicks. He will face a tall lanky white foreigner who doesn't suck or use his reach properly like Struve. They are nowhere near the title despite their ranking especially with DC quite being indecisive at the moment. I can see Derrick losing more than Alex getting KO'ed by Lewis.

Karate Hottie vs. Jacked White Gal - Michelle is quite small for her weigh class and there is no Atomweight for her nor she can no longer cut down to AW. So I don't like her chances against Felice and even with a win, I don't see Waterson getting anywhere.. so does Felice, especially since Rose is apparantly still 'shooked' from Conor's Dolly Attack incident.

Lil' Pettis vs. Jucier Formiga - While his big bro is in limbo of LW, Sergio is also in his own limbo of having to clean out the division even after beating Meg Olivi's husband with him losing to Cejudo not very long ago. Cejudo, undersevingly, asking for TJ doesn't help the matters and GOAT Mouse is also out of action from injuries and is probably spending quality time with his family and Twitch. But Formiga is formidable and I expect the fight to be exciting just like every FLW fights.

Other fights include Tonya Evinger, who I believe is returning from injury, and from what I see from Cyborg fight was a quite technical fighter with a body of a Soccer Mom and a chin on her. I also see Yana back in action after getting sacrificed to Cyborg and it's quite amusing to see both former Cyborg victims and they both involved in that Invicta controversy not too long ago. I'm sorry that I don't know or have to talk about other fighters.... but at least most got a Wikipedia page so they will do well :P

Conclusion: So there it is guys (and girls). I've just spent more than a hour to write this and I hope you all would participate in it as long as it's civil. I'm sorry if I got some grammer errors or too wordy (or sarcastic) with the whole thing. Feel free to let me know. Cheers and be excited. 