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Lee regressed within that camp. You used to see some savvy in his fight style, and now he just tries to grind, burning himself out failing on techniques. Probably exciting at the beginning to learn the sport, but now he's stagnating not being stimulated by better training partners and coaches.

Long been high on Heinisch. He's well-rounded, an athlete, and I guess you're going to develop resistance toward penetrating doubles when you were fending off triples and quadruples at Riker's.

cowboyronnie wrote:

REDDzone wrote:

duppyy wrote:Lee is not as good as he thinks he is. Maybe he needs to train at a better gym.

You know you're f*cked when you got a fat trainer. I'm a hobbyist pajama wrestler and would change gyms if my head instructor got as fat as his guy, and he's a ufc contender.

Dewey Cooper? Nah, man, check out this kickboxing record. Definitely the striking coach you want.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Cooper#Kickboxing_record

Also, his pad holding is ridiculously bad. Incomprehensible that he is a coach.

I looked him up and he was in the corner for Jesse Vargas against Pac a little while ago.

Seems like he's a coach who knows what fighters want to hear (in particular physically gifted ones) and has weaseled his way into the circles of some really good fighters. Lee, Francis and Jesse Vargas.

The death of Robert Follis has really hurt his development and Xtreme Couture in general. That, and the fact Miesha Tate pretty much ruined that entire camp with her affair.

I'm absolutely shocked that Anthony Smith just beat Gus.

Good move to retire now IMO. People still think he's good and that may change once he starts losing decisions to the Corey Andersons of the world.

Susan wrote:I'm absolutely shocked that Anthony Smith just beat Gus.

Hmm, why is that? (just curious, btw)

Me, I thought Gus had the slight edge, but wasn't shocked that he lost. Also, based on the recent BE article on him, Smith sounded like a man on a mission after losing the Jones fight. Considering how big motivation is in sports, and the fact that Gus was already questioning his future, I would tend to think Smith had the solid edge in that dept.

Smith. Jones. Johnson. Funny how some of the top names in the division are of the generic variety.

Anyway, I found the fight to be a tactical long-range battle, filled with lots of feints and not too many solid hits. Also I could be wrong, but I don't quite remember Gus dancing so relentlessly in previous fights. Almost a steady Irish jig, in fact. I'm not sure how necessary that was, and half-suspect that it contributed to a certain amount of fatigue that (literally) tripped him up in the 4th round. Just a hypothesis, tho.

Honestly, if this is the end for Gus, I'm a bit sad. The man went from arguably winning the first Jones fight, which would have shocked the world, to a string of misfortunes against his following opponents. He was one of the very best at his peak, but I'm not sure if he'll be appreciated for that, in future. Meanwhile, plenty of worse, less-consistent fighters have held UFC gold at least once.

Ah well...

gigantes wrote:Honestly, if this is the end for Gus, I'm a bit sad. The man went from arguably winning the first Jones fight, which would have shocked the world, to a string of misfortunes against his following opponents. He was one of the very best at his peak, but I'm not sure if he'll be appreciated for that, in future. Meanwhile, plenty of worse, less-consistent fighters have held UFC gold at least once.

Ah well...

It's hard to say when he best fights were losses. His best win was 37 year old Glover I guess? He lost to all the other top tier fighters he fought. Jones, D.C, Rumble, even Davis. That doesn't make him "one of the very best" to me, though I guess it does depend on how you define the term because he's wasn't far off it.

Gus is the biggest myth this side of Cain. He benefitted from fighting in the worst division in the worst era for said division ever, and was still outside of the top 3 for most of his career. And people laughed at me for saying Gus and Bader were in the same tier. Who would be the favorite if those two fought tomorrow? Legit question.

I've never cared much for Gus, but he was unlucky to have the GOAT and another guy not far behind that in his way. He was beating Jones until late in the 4th and he probably gave DC his toughest scrap (other than Jones). I feel like he would have beaten Bader fairly easily 2+ years ago. Maybe not now.

^^ It's a double-edged sword though. He had Jones and DC ahead of him, but if he was ever even 3 behind those guys, it was only because Rumble retired. Also, clearly benefited from such a terrible era of LHW. In summary, he was a good, not great fighter who was always put in the top tier at LHW when in reality he belonged in the 4-6 range. His best performances were all clear losses.

Being 2nd-4th best for several years with Jones and DC ahead of you isn’t much of an indictment. And Rumble had the scariest power in the sport. He was KO’ing everyone except DC (he came close).

High 5 wrote:Being 2nd-4th best for several years with Jones and DC ahead of you isn’t much of an indictment. And Rumble had the scariest power in the sport. He was KO’ing everyone except DC (he came close).

What? Who did he KO besides Manuwa and old Glover? He didn't even KO old Shogun. He GOT KOed by Jones and Rumble. If that's what you meant?

REDDzone wrote:

High 5 wrote:Being 2nd-4th best for several years with Jones and DC ahead of you isn’t much of an indictment. And Rumble had the scariest power in the sport. He was KO’ing everyone except DC (he came close).

What? Who did he KO besides Manuwa and old Glover? He didn't even KO old Shogun. He GOT KOed by Jones and Rumble. If that's what you meant?

Obviously (I thought) I was talking about Rumble.

High 5 wrote:

REDDzone wrote:

High 5 wrote:Being 2nd-4th best for several years with Jones and DC ahead of you isn’t much of an indictment. And Rumble had the scariest power in the sport. He was KO’ing everyone except DC (he came close).

What? Who did he KO besides Manuwa and old Glover? He didn't even KO old Shogun. He GOT KOed by Jones and Rumble. If that's what you meant?

Obviously (I thought) I was talking about Rumble.

Sorry I misunderstood. Listen, I'm not sh*tting on Gus for losing to Rumble. I just think Gus was more of a tier 2 fighter than a tier 1 fighter. I think that statement is less controversial than it was before he was finished by Jones a few months back, fwiw.

3-5 in his last 8 fights in the last 6 years and the 3 wins came against Glover, Blachowicz and Manuwa. His big win is against Shogun who was in by far his worst stretch of his career. 205 was definitely in a very weak time when it comes to depth when he was the #3 guy. Smart for him to retire before he has to face the likes of a Johnny Walker. I can also see why Luke Rockhold was calling him out. If Rockhold sticks to his kicks and using his dominant top ground game, I think he could make some noise as a contender at 205.

You guys hear me harp about this all the time but I think one of Gus problems is that he just never fought. Never able to take advantage of any momentum whatsoever. He fought only one time in each of 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016. He fought twice in 2015, but only once in both 2014 and 2013 crazily enough.

The best win of his career was Glover in May 2017 and then he inexplicably took 19 months off. Not sure why.

If Jones and DC are “tier 1” then yeah I don’t think many would disagree that Gus is “tier 2.” I just don’t think that’s much of a knock. I don’t even know what we’re arguing about at this point. Like I said I’ve never even been a Gus fan.

High 5 wrote:If Jones and DC are “tier 1” then yeah I don’t think many would disagree that Gus is “tier 2.” I just don’t think that’s much of a knock. I don’t even know what we’re arguing about at this point. Like I said I’ve never even been a Gus fan.

I think Reddzone and myself are just saying he was lucky that he came along at a time when the "tier 2" for the division was at a historic low.

Duke4life831 wrote:

High 5 wrote:If Jones and DC are “tier 1” then yeah I don’t think many would disagree that Gus is “tier 2.” I just don’t think that’s much of a knock. I don’t even know what we’re arguing about at this point. Like I said I’ve never even been a Gus fan.

I think Reddzone and myself are just saying he was lucky that he came along at a time when the "tier 2" for the division was at a historic low.

Maybe, but I don’t think he would have given Jones and DC a run for their money in that case. Agree to disagree I guess.

REDDzone wrote:Gus is the biggest myth this side of Cain. He benefitted from fighting in the worst division in the worst era for said division ever, and was still outside of the top 3 for most of his career. And people laughed at me for saying Gus and Bader were in the same tier. Who would be the favorite if those two fought tomorrow? Legit question.

He showed that his top level was as high as pretty much anybody in the sport. His first fight against Jones and his fight against DC were absolute WARS and he embarrassed Glover pretty bad.

Top 4 LHWs of the past 4-5 years are clearly Jones, DC, Johnson, Gus but Bader is right there at 5.