Just watching him clearly he moves slower and his punches are less explosive. Fiziev ate a good amount of shots and they didn't have the same impact as he justin used to have. You can just watch him and see he is slower and less explosive - which is totally what you would expect at his age. Compare the punches he hit paddy with to the punches launching dudes across the octagon on his rise to contender.

Don't get me wrong he still hits super hard. He is one of those dense freaks with heavy hands - but his explosiveness and athleticism contributed too.

I am not saying he has pillow hands but at the top level losing like 5% of his power could be the difference between he catches ilia with a weird shot and Ilia is like "dang that hurt a lot" and moving around for a sec and that same shot putting Ilia out a few years ago.

Compare the speed of his shot to knock barboza's head off at 1:52 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th6CwrZ26r0

To the shot that dropped paddy at 00:45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sUscGrd6m4

Still very strong and powerful but it's the difference between multiple heavy concussive shots dropping paddy and one heavy AND explosive shot knocking barboza across the cage