UFC 223 left us with some unanswered questions
Before I talk a little bit about the titlefight,let's have a quick look at the co-main event's stats.
Joanna Jedrzejczyk believes she won the fight and these stats might prove what she says.She clearly outstruck Namajunas by a decent margin and this gives us the first question: wouldn't be more fair to score the overall fight by the numbers and not round by round?
If you outstrike your opponent,that means you put more work into the fight,you are more efficient,your technique,your gameplan was better,am I wrong?
Now about the main event.It was kinda disappointing to be honest.Khabib shown huge holes in his striking game,as Joe Rogan said: " you would expect from a champion to be more well-rounded,not just a wrestler" and I agree with him.Someone like Tony or Conor with a decent boxing could easily take advantage of Khabib's vulnerabilities last night (chin up high,leaning backward) and even if I think this wasn't the best performance of him,he has lot more work to do in order to keep his title for a long time.
So the question: do you think Khabib can do better than this?Or he really is "just" an amazing wrestler with some striking knowledge?
And by the way: why was this a title fight against someone who ranked #11?
Watching the fight I kind of thought rose won it, but now looking back and looking at these stats, Joanna has a really good point. Rose landed harder shots / more damage but hmmm...?
As for khabib, he had a thought week and mad respect to him for staying in there and not even considering dropping out - true champ. However, he didn’t impress me and give off that invincible feeling like I’ve had before watching him. I always thought Tony was gona beat him, I actually thought Holloway was too. So could conor. If khabib can adjust and grind them out really he can hold down and maul anyone, but I don’t think he could with Tony