pistolpete11
Registered User
- Apr 27, 2013
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I'm not a doctor, but I'm like 99.9999% sure that's not true. It's something to do with breaking blood vessels in the tissue around your eyes from getting punched in the face. When you blow your nose, it increases the blood pressure, the blood vessels are broken so they can't contain the blood, and it swells up. Fighters know not to blow their nose during a fight and it's not because they all have structural damage.Well the only reason blowing your nose would be a problem is if there is interior structural damage in the area of the sinus cavity.
Also, again, if there was structural damage, a doctor would catch that in their physical after the fight.
Not even close. Gaethje landed 7 shots against Vick and he was completely KO'ed, stiff as a board. Gaethje landed 40 shots against Cowboy, it was a TKO, and Cowboy popped right up to argue with the ref (again, it was a good stoppage, but just pointing out that Cowboy wasn't completely KO'ed). He doesn't have a Nate Diaz chin and that was one of the reasons I picked Conor to beat him, but you're acting like a stiff wind would KO him. It's just not true. He was taking a lot of damage in all 3 of those fights.Fair enough point. But it also implies that Cowboys chin and durability is at this point in the realm of Vick or "2019, post Khabib and Lee Barboza", and not the likes of Palomino, or Alvarez or even Michael Johnson. You also saw an experienced, veteran fighter throw caution to the wind like a compromised fighter, mere minutes into the fight. Gaethje is new to being an efficient, powerful finisher. His m.o. involves testing durability as his main focus.
I don't think throwing caution to the wind is a sign of a compromised fighter, either. Cowboy has often not been the smartest fighter and instead opted to 'give the fans what they want'. Going up against a guy like Gaethje where the fans expect it to be rock 'em, sock 'em robots, he gave the fans what they wanted.
Again, I don't think that's a sign of a compromised fighter. He took a knee to the head and clinched up to try to recover and slow it down. I'm sure he wasn't expecting the shoulder strikes to be that effective because we've never seen them used that effectively, and then it was just too late. He was overwhelmed.The knees to the temple were sweet. The effect the shoulder strikes had to the structural interior of Cowboys face, the depths the shorts grab took Cowboy, and his inability to maintain any semblance of defense in the aftermath of those things, does not speak to me as being a fighter exhibiting durability and resilience on his way to being edged out in a technical exchange. To me those details are more consistent with a more cynical view of the matchup.
Also, Cowboy has been known to freeze up in big fights and be a slow starter. I think it just happened again.
I agree he doesn't have a long list of wins against elite guys, but my point is that his losses are only to the elite. He loses to the elite guys and beats everybody else. There's no evidence at this point that that is ready to change. It will happen one day, but it's premature to say it is now because he's lost 3 in a row to elite guys.Right, 2014 was a great year for him, but the resume of wins is less impressive than the resume of losses you referenced. And 155 is naturally an incredibly deep division, and the top 15 has been stagnant and inflated on account of Khabib and Conor.
Dude, he convincingly beat Raging Al 9 months ago. But now he needs to be on his best night to maybe hang with him?Cowboy hasn't been functioning as an elite fighter at that weight class except for 2014. So top 5 overall in this day and age isn't close imo. Iaquinta, Felder, Hooker, Barboza, sure Cerrone on his best night in the future could hang maybe, but that ground is shifting away from all of those guys. Maybe 1 of Felder/Hooker is knocking on the door of the elites, but the loser of that fight will be a ways away from contention.
What!?!? No, dude, no. No. No no no no no no no. No. That's absolute horseshit.You are right too, as far as worldwide rankings go, I guess it wouldn't be irresponsible for Cowboy to continue to do his thing against a lot of those guys. But the real threat is the 60-120 ranked or unknown 20 somethings imo. Currently tapology has Cowboy as the 83rd ranked Lightweight. To your point the guys in the 10-20-40 range, Cowboy has maybe already beaten or would at least be even odds with the other fighters in their late 30's. But to my point there are good fights for Cowboy where I would favor the prospect around his ranking at 83.
First of all, they have him ranked as the #37 best pound for pound fighter but #85 best LW? How does that make sense?
Second of all, he beat their #7 (Raging Al), #8 (Barboza), #9 (Oliviera), #14 (Hernandez), #21 (Jim Miller), #33 (Makdessi), and #34 (Henderson) ranked LW's. Probably more but I was just going off the top of my head and stopped at#50. (I guess they also call Alvarez a WW now?) How does #85 beat so many of the top 50? I don't know how they come up with these rankings, but doesn't something seem off about that?
Lastly, look at some the guys they have ranked ahead of him. There's a number of these guys that I don't know. I assume some are in other organizations, but until you're doing in the UFC, who cares. They are the minor leagues. Then there are some solid-to-OK-to-way-over-the-hill vets like Jim Miller, Vannata, Dober, Davi, Guida, etc. but they are absolutely not better than Cowboy. I mean so many of these guys aren't good enough to even be in the position to fight guys like Conor, Gaethje, or Tony.
You want him to fight some 20-something's? You mean like 26 year old Alex Hernandez who was 10-1 and riding an 8 fight win streak? Well, almost exactly a year ago, Cowboy absolutely throttled him.
Look, there are legit criticisms of Cowboy. He can't beat the elite guys, he doesn't show up in big fights, he's a slow starter, he doesn't always fight smart, etc. But he is absolutely a top LW. I hate labeling guys as gatekeepers, but that's kind of what Cowboy is. A gatekeeper to the elite.