Topic: The UFC Info and Prediction Thread - page 388. (Read 97111 times)

Don't get me wrong, I think he could potentially be something special. He's already pretty damn good, but I'm just not eager to jump the gun especially when he hasn't been tested in every way yet, especially when it comes to title talks. Considering Usman is also a pretty damn good wrestler, but also has the advantage of very good stand up.

I might be wrong, and I'll be happily wrong if it means the division comes a little more competitive, I'm all for that. I've just been sold on hype before, and it I've always got bitten in the arse, especially when it comes to betting.

Oh definitely, still a fan, and I love his teaching style. I think I myself started rapidly blinking like him after I watched some of his instructionals XD And his ground game at the time was one of the best. That being said, there is less and less room for specialists in MMA, especially at this level. Fighters have been transitioning to a more versatile approach that does everything really good, but nothing exceptionally well. And Hall is, in some aspects, in a situation where leg lockers were 5 years ago when not many people were doing that, but, now people are catching on and a slight shift is occurring. Hall Isn't in Tristar anymore, right? Under Zahabi he really dialed in some of his striking.

^  I kinda thought Chimaev was nothing but a hyped prospect too until we all saw him matched up vs Li Jingliang and won and made it look really easy.  I mean think about it, he could take on most of those guys in the top 10 at 170.  Masvidal, Edwards, Thompson, Luque even Covington himself.  

But yeah..  Some rumor going around that it would be Burns next but I doubt he’ll be signing the contract.    That’s the thing with the UFC, ranked fighters tend to avoid young skilled prospects in fear of losing their rank.

Edit:  How would you guys line Chimaev vs Masvidal?  Just curious... 

Well, you can be right, and I may be wrong because I really think there is no fighter in UFC that can't be defeated  even Khabib Nurmagomenodov almost losses to Gleison Tibau and after watching that fight I really did think that Tibau won, even Khabib's Father was really surprised that Khabib did Win,

For me, I think Chimaev had a decent striking but has the power to knock out an opponent if you look at his fight with Ikram Aliskerov because of that Sambo Background Chimaev is having a hard time taking down Aliskerov that is why he resolves with taking Aliskerov into exchanging punches and kicks, and he ended in an uppercut that out cold Aliskerov in an instant, in my opinion, I am not really interested in the event of the UFC right now and would care to watch a Khamzat Chimaev VS Gildert Burns or Colby Covington fight than the Rob Font VS Jose Aldo fight.

@Welsh. It appears you and Colby Covington certainly have very similar opinions on Khamzat Chimaev hehe. However, I am skeptical of his opinion. I reckon this might be a business or career decision if Colby demands the UFC to organize a fight with him versus Khamzat. It would be Colby’s short cut and be given the right to challenge for the welterweight championship again if he is the winner.

I'm going to sound like an hypocrite here due to liking Ryan Hall, despite not being a very well rounded fighter in terms of MMA, but when it comes to Khamzat Chimaev we haven't seen enough of his other skills other than his wrestling, and if he has title aspirations, I don't think he can soley rely on his wrestling. I know I'm somewhat ignoring that for Ryan Hall above, but I don't expect Ryan Hall to ever challenge for anything, because he's simply not go enough as a overall fighter, but his BJJ on the mat is nothing short of incredible at times.

I'm not saying Chimaev isn't a promising fighter, because he clearly is, but I'm holding off getting too excited about him until I actually see him in a competitive fight, and one which is is forced to use alternative skills. Khabib despite being a great wrestler didn't rely on it completely, for example in the Justin Gaethje fight, and Mcgregor fight he actually did very well in the stand up against both guys. Yeah, he finished the fight via submissions, but he hurt both of them on the feet. More so Connor though.

Swedish National Championship does not necessarily be the toughest competition but Khamzat Chimaev is from Chechnya and he won bronze medal at the Russian National Championships at junior level which is a really high level competition, so his level his much higher and the way in which he recently dominated Jack Hermansson in a wrestling match is more than enough to create fear on anyone fighting at Welterweight and Middle Weight.

When you compare experience there is no doubt that Kamaru Usman is superior, but he does not have one punch knockout power but Khamzat Chimaev showed his one punch knockout power and he are yet to see his striking potential nor his grappling level because he finishes the fights faster.

Yeah, if you can avoid the roll, and get out of the leg grab, you basically can unleash heavy fists on him without much coming back your way. Ryan Hall, is probably one of the only fighters I enjoy watching that is one dimensional. I don't mean he only knows the leg lock, as he's clearly a wizard on the ground hence the nickname, but he relies on his BJJ heavily, probably more than anyone else in the UFC.

I've been critical of other fighters that rely on one approach for example, Brady recently. However, I can't help but like Ryan Hall. I do think his previous fight was much harder than the one coming up though, so I'm hopeful on his chances despite his obvious short comings.

I guess I'm a fan just because I appreciate his skill on the mat, and I've also followed some of his courses that he does at his academy. Plus, is there anything more iconic than his confused looking shrug after he wins?

About Ryan Hall, he was exposed in his last fight, but that alone would not be an issue. The thing is he is being figured out. I am a BJJ guy myself, and always rooted for Hall, but the infrequency of his fighting led him to get kinda left behind as fighters moved on in their styles, knowledge, and technics. Who knows, maybe he can pull something out of his ass for a couple of more fights and get a nice streak going. 

Kamaru Usman would still be a huge favorite in fight against Khamzat Chimaev, because he is a champion and he has much more experience in pro mma fighting.
He is seven years older and have slight reach advantage, but most important is that he had many fights with five rounds, and I think Chimaev never did that.
Usman just said that he broke his hand few weeks before fight with Colby Covington, he still won that fight so you know he is very hard to break.
It would be a great fight to watch and one that should not be missed.

This is why between Gilbert Burns if Chimaev would surely have a problem with Wrestling against Burns I think he may result in striking and I am very confident with the power of his striking, but I still think against Chimaev, Burns will surely have a hard time with his Chain Wrestling, and even if they are on the ringside it is still proven effective, that is why I am really confident on Khamzat Chimaev.


I agree, if the hype on Chimaev is pretty huge it may come to that conclusion but I guess there is still a Kamaru Usman fan that may bet for him or believes in him, so it may also come to a close odds.

^  If Usman and Chimaev were to fight next, how would you line the fight or how do you think the sports betting sites will line it..?

I think they will open the market line right in the middle.  Prolly 1.90 - 2.00 for either one of them making it a coin flip.  Sharp money usually come first to find value but if lined in the middle, the sharps would not want to move the line first and give value to whoever becomes the underdog.  Chimaev could be that special.

My 2 cents on a possible Usman vs Chimaev fight:

Usmas is better at striking. Trevor Wittman is a god of coaching striking. He helped Usman to get on first place on pound for pound rating. Chimaev trains striking with Alexander Gustafsson coach. Anyone remember Gustafsson being a top striker?

Wrestling. No doubt that Chimaev is good. But Usmans main fighting style is wrestling also, plus black belt in BJJ. Most of Chimaev opponent were not wrestlers on the first place. Chimaev has fought only once against pure wrestler - Ikram Askerov. They have found on Brave. Askerov is from combat sambo. Yes he has lost via knockout, but Chimaevs wrestling did not work in that fight. If you happened to find this fight in the Internet, you would see that Askerov countered every wrestling skills of Chimaev. So I would not rely on Chimaevs wrestling much.

Usmas is way more experienced than Chimaev. I think he is better at striking. If we cross out wrestling, Usman has more advantages.

P.S. I have updated current UFC event post with fight.

Yeah, there's the most liked comment below one video of his recent fight that goes like "Tell Chimaev that in addition to the first round, there are others too."    But jokes aside, with all due respect to the great fighter Kamaru Usman, I think Chimaev can beat him.

Btw, here's the newest interview with Usman(click on the image):




He is so confident and so relaxed, you can't stop loving this guy.


He started wrestling when he was 5 years old, and he is a three-time Swedish National champion in wrestling. So, I agree with you when you say "he has the best grappling". I mean, it's not entirely surprising, right?

Well he surely needs to work on that and I think all fighters need to hone the basic and the significant main need for the MMA is surely boxing or striking your opponent, and if he lacks in that division certain fighters could expose that and use that on their advantage, and just like you have said in facing a dangerous opponent on that division he wouldn't be just wrestling his way to the belt unless he is a good of a wrestler like Khabib Nurmagomenodov.


Like I said I really love the way he fights it brings back the memories of how I liked Khabib Nurmagomenodov the way he fights and become undisputed and that is thanks to his style Dagenstan or Chain Wrestling really is very effective in my opinion, and regarding Khamzat Chimaev he really racks up hype when he defeated Li Jinliang as we have never seen Jinliang beats up like that, and regarding the Gilbert Burns fight I got to admit this is surely a hard fight for Chimaev if he gets Burns to the ground and if he can really dominate Burn on the ground that is a big question, well I really love to see it and will surely bet for it.

My issue with Chimaev right now is, he has had ten fights in his career, he's won all of them without much of a problem. However, he hasn't exactly fought the best of fighters during those first ten fights. Jingliang Li, and Jack Hermansson being the most impressive, but other than that relatively unknown fighters at the time.

He's moving in the right direction, but I'm not putting him up for a title shot yet. He's doing well, but like I said at the moment he has gone through fights without much of a problem. I want to see how he performs when his plan A doesn't work, which is what happens against the better fighters. Usman can wrestle, and Chimaev will find it difficult, and will have to use a different approach. The issue with that is from what we've seen, and I know its limited, Usman wins all day on the feet.

Although Chimaev has only a few fight experiences in the UFC I think he can beat a lot of top fighters. He may have been hyped too much but I think he got the competence to build his career to the top to get there with Usman and Adesanya. These two however are really going to make Chimaev hard to get there.

As long as they are in thier prime, Usman nor Adesanya will beat him unless Chimaev can grab them by their legs turning the fight to Chimaev's advantage.

Alright, I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. Chimaev needs to prove he can do it in his current division before he thinks about moving to others. Also, I don't think it'll be as easy as your suggesting. Chimmaev while definitely looking like a potential problem in his current division, that doesn't mean he easily beats one of the best strikers in MMA. In fact, many wrestlers before him thought they could beat Izzy, but they struggled to close the distance.

The think about Adesanya is he's very long so he can keep the distance against most people, and is probably the best striker in the division. Plus, he also has some decent take down defense. Yeah, he struggled a bit against Jan, but we have to remember that Izzy moved up a division, and weighed considerably less than Jan, while that isn't an excuse because he choose to do that, it definitely contributed to how easy it was for Jan to use his weight against Izzy.

Chimaev doesn't have that advantage, and while he might be strong, and definitely very technical so were many others that have tried similar things against Izzy. It's a total different story when you have one of the best strikers in front of you throwing fists, and legs at you.

For example, everyone thought Costa would just walk through Izzy's shots like he usually fights, but what we saw was the opposite, he was reluctant to move in, and when he did decide to move in it was lights out for him.

I think while Chimaev definitely deserves the hype, I think a lot of people are jumping the gun just a little bit. He has yet to be tested, when he's tested i.e his plan A doesn't work, we'll see how well rounded he is. Gilbert Burns despite being a good fighter, isn't on the level of the current champion as this was proven quite convincingly recently, alright I do think I recall Burns catching Usman, but Usman fought back in convincing fashion.

Does it mean that you will place  bet when ever he fights, even when he faces Kamaru Usman  . I am a huge fan of Khamzat Chimaev and he will steam roll everyone easily and if he wants to move to Middle weight division i am sure he will easily beat Israel Adesanya because his weakness on the ground is not a huge secret and i doubt he will be having any offense with his chain wrestling, but Kamaru Usman will be a really good fight which i would like to see.

Next he is facing Gilbert Burns and if Khamzat Chimaev can beat him like he used to defeat his other opponents, he might get the title shot next.

Always worth betting Ryan Hall by submission I think, if there are any websites which allow me to bet on what type of submission, please let me know because for the foreseeable future I would chuck a leg lock submission down every single time on him.

Definitely was exposed, though it's nice to see him actually fighting somewhat regular again. I know everyone is loving O'Malley, but I actually think he's rather weak willed, and will be exposed as he climbs into the top fighters.

He needs to significantly work on areas that isn't wrestling for him to have a chance, and he doesn't seem to want to do that so far in his career. He isn't going to wrestle himself to the belt, far too many dangerous fighters in the division.