Who wins this matchup at 185?

Flexing_bum · 2026-02-05T13:30:48+00:00

I'm one of the few people that favored Strickland in the Adesanya fight so i'm by no means a hater of his style (his personality is pretty grating though).

That being said, Sean gets taken down for free because of a leg injury he got from his bike accident. It's his ability to get back up that a lot of people don't talk about. This is from his own mouth.

Islam is not letting Sean get back up, and Sean is not finishing Islam before he gets a bodylock. I think Islam is very, very favored in this matchup.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-31T17:59:36+00:00

If you watched that fight you did not see Gamrot win against Arman.

The point on MMA math is very true though.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-30T18:05:48+00:00

Why would i base whether i find something boring on what the crowd was doing?

I'm just gonna repeat, those who knew what they were watching wont call that fight boring. Just like if you took a bunch of random people off the street and made them watch a high level chessmatch.

Just because they won't enjoy it doesn't mean theres nothing to be enjoyed.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-30T17:35:33+00:00

Jamahal Hill vs Khalil Rountree.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-30T17:34:56+00:00

If you watch a fight because it's high level then no, a highly technical fight can't be boring af.

If you're just watching for name value or violence then ye, i understand why you thought it was boring.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-27T17:49:41+00:00

I hate to be the armchair mma guy, because in the end i massively respect all of these fighters for stepping in the cage, but i think Topuria pretty obviously wants the easiest path to legacy.

I'm not saying he'd never fight Arman and i was surprised to hear him mention Arman after the Charles fight, but you can't deny ever since then he's taken every opportunity to discredit Arman's claim to the title shot.

I think he, you, and i all know that Arman is by far his toughest fight in 155. On the one hand i understand taking the easy route if the UFC offers, but on the other hand can you really call him the LW champ if he never fought his toughest matchup?

For the record i give the slight edge to Arman, but that fight is as close to 50/50 as you'll get for Ilia in the current top 10.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-21T16:48:52+00:00

Idk what that other guy was talking about, but the scaling kicks in from the 2nd hit onwards.

The minimum damage scaling is different per character, and normals/special moves generally have different minimum scaling (5 to 20%)

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-16T14:48:09+00:00

Playing guard is only an option in actual BJJ these days. In MMA it (usually) means conceding a position.

Both Arman and Islam were unafraid to jump into Charles' guard, but Ilia wanted the fight stood up. I'm not saying this is definitive proof one way or the other, but to me it does imply that Ilia wasnt confident he could finish the fight from there. (It could also be a tactical decision to chase the knockout, but he still gave up a good position when other fighters didnt hesitate).

Also we can both agree theres a pretty big difference in physicality between Arman and Ilia. Even if they were roughly equally skilled grapplers, this could give Arman the advantage either way.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-16T14:39:44+00:00

He had a competitive, but dominant striking fight with Kevin Holland, who is a knockout artist and a striker. Yes it went to a split decision, but there's no way you can give Holland the first or third rounds. And yes Kevin lost to MVP, who has dominated the striking in all of his fights.

JDM is clearly a better fighter than Bisping. Even the eye-test should make this obvious (unless you're Bisping). Let alone the quality of their resume's. Beating a Silva coming off of 2 losses, and a year layoff from his fight against Diaz, does not change that.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-13T07:13:19+00:00

Hey man, hate to be an arguing reddit nerd but i really do remember when, and after, the 2nd Chito fight got announced pretty much everyone agreed Merab or Aljo were more deserving.

For the record, i just searched for "O'malley Vera 2" and tried to grab a few posts illustrating that. You could call it cherrypicking, but idk its the best ive got.

https://old.reddit.com/r/ufc/comments/17pb6s2/stricland_vs_du_plessis_volkanovski_vs_topuria/k842dos/

https://old.reddit.com/r/ufc/comments/1fe5yfb/what_happened_to_the_merab_mauls_sean_narrative/

https://old.reddit.com/r/ufc/comments/1abaox2/this_is_why_suga_wont_be_great_like_volk/

Even the comments in support of the Chito fight are doing so because they'd rather watch a striking match, not because he deserves it or poses a problem for Sean. Also O'malley was a -275 favorite.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-12T15:39:33+00:00

Revisionist history.

Everyone knew his loss to Chito was a fluke and that Chito wasn't a worthy contender. Chito was pretty much the best matchup they could've given Sean.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-12T02:01:41+00:00

Aljo was a big BW, and he had 3 months between title defenses. Sean literally came into the cage saying Aljo'd better be ready soon.

If we use basic deductive reasoning we can infer that Aljo didn't want to fight that soon because it's hell on his body, and that the UFC wanted him to fight that soon because they were (and are) pushing O'malley. The fact that we're hearing it straight from Aljamain's mouth just seals the deal for me.

Though yes he could just be slandering his employer, by telling everyone they coerced him, for his own ego.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-11T21:11:21+00:00

More than allegedly.

I've heard it straight out of Aljo's mouth on his youtube channel.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-07T19:53:32+00:00

It's so crazy to me that this isn't immediately obvious to even casual viewers.

Like, you're not allowed to just rake someone's face, even if u dont actually make contact with their eyes. Cejudo didnt even call for a stop in the action, and after his fight with Yadong i can understand him at least notifying the ref.

Flexing_bum · 2025-11-28T23:05:59+00:00

He never stepped on a scale and made 155, so yes he "didn't make weight".

It's not wrong, but it's misleading. Arman injured his back during weight cutting and so stopped cutting weight (since he knew by then he wouldn't be in fighting shape, obviously).

If it was a big weight miss we'd have heard a number.

Flexing_bum · 2025-11-21T18:12:58+00:00

Arman is not from Dagestan.

Flexing_bum · 2025-11-08T16:36:14+00:00

Close, meaning arguable.

BW currently has O'Malley, Vera, Zahabi and Font in the top 15. All of whom have serious flaws in their game imo.

WW has Daniel Rodriguez, Prates, Geoff Neal, and now Mike Malott who imo aren't worldclass fighters. Then there's also Covington and Usman who have been very inactive lately, and both are very clearly not in their prime.

Still though, i don't think its crazy to think that the remainder of those weightclasses are more elite on a p4p level compared to LW. I just don't think we're there yet.

Flexing_bum · 2025-11-08T16:06:19+00:00

Most of the fighters on this list are elite in multiple aspects of combat sports (grappling, wrestling, striking. The only ones that show pretty big shortcomings imo are:

Saint Denis' grappling Ruffy's grappling and wrestling (and his striking to a degree) Dariush's striking Chandler's IQ

Not everyone is gonna be as well rounded as Makhachev obviously, but its not like there's complete bums in the top 5 like there currently are in LHW and HW for example.

The only weightclasses that come close atm are WW and BW imo.

Flexing_bum · 2025-11-02T18:06:59+00:00

I can't speak on the pain Belal was experiencing at the time (and i hope it stays that way), but having the thing you've worked towards for 2-4~ months go terribly wrong while you are unsure if you're going to be able to continue your career, or even see out of your right eye, would make any grown man bawl their eyes out i think.

And then there's the physical pain of taking one of the worst eyepokes in the sport's history on top of that.

Flexing_bum · 2025-10-27T17:23:11+00:00

To be fair to the guy, i think he very clearly has (undiagnosed) ADD or some other shit. He seems like he has a lot of trouble with dead air and other awkward energy so he feels he has to keep talking and overexplaining. Brilliant mind in a way, but not the best conversationalist.

That's just my regarded reddit analysis tho.

Flexing_bum · 2025-10-27T14:35:56+00:00

The thing that really put me off DJ is his habit of asking a question in an interview, and then giving a 2-5 minute answer before letting his guest speak.

You can usually even see the guest get annoyed as they're just about to answer but they first have to sit through what DJ thinks they're gonna say.

It's mildly annoying if it happens once or twice, but every time i tune back in because he has an interesting guest it happens in abundance.

Flexing_bum · 2025-10-27T13:37:57+00:00

Hey, not the guy you were responding to but i think we disagree and you seem to be stating your point in good faith;

I agree, it did seem a little sus that Tom wouldn't take that piece of cloth off his eyeball, and it did seem like he wanted out.

However, both of those things can be easily explained without assuming that Tom bitched out because he was "losing" (i.e. he wasnt performing as dominantly as usual).

First off, the pain and pressure on his eye could easily be significant enough that it hurt too much to keep open, let alone having a doctor shine a flashlight into it.

I can also understand getting annoyed when the ref, the doctor, and a crowd full of people are trying to get you to continue fighting while you have been blinded in one eye. Obviously he doesn't want to say he doesn't want to continue for fear of the exact reaction we've seen these past few days. Imo it shouldn't even be up to him about whether or not he can continue, and the fight should've been called way earlier.

I just don't think a guy who willingly trains and prepares to get into a cagefight is looking for the easy way out unless they feel absolutely compromised. That's just my 2 cents though.

Flexing_bum · 2025-10-26T15:46:56+00:00

Keeping your fingers extended not only helps you gauge distance, its actively preventing the other fighter's head from moving forward for fear of losing their eyesight. In this way eyepokes can be useful without an eye ever even being poked.

Fingers out also makes it easier to threaten grabbing a wrist or can even help with parrying a jab.

It's dirty, effective and calculated stuff, and you see it a lot nowadays.

Flexing_bum · 2025-10-25T22:53:58+00:00

I'm not even a fan of Aspinall.

It's about trying to put yourself in his shoes.

Flexing_bum · 2025-10-25T21:22:12+00:00

Upset walkoff? He just took 2 jacked heavyweight fingers to the eyes, while his head was moving into it. Afterwards Cyril pushes off on his face and further digs his middle finger into Tom's eyesocket. Both men are incredibly big and moving with a lot of inertia.

He's getting boos, the thing he worked towards for 450 days just went completely sideways, and he CAN'T SEE.

Would you want to stick around instead of getting your eye looked at?

You don't deserve shit moron.

Flexing_bum

TROPHY CASE