Who has he fought besides Gilbert? Holland has(or at least had) no TDD and Li is the second best name on his resume. Let Khamzat have one top 15 fight at MW before crowning him champion.
No reason to think Strickland couldn't do the exact same thing a second time. If it ended in the first after the knock down I would have been confident in an Izzy win in the rematch, but a 5 round display like that, Izzy literally showed nothing.
Being a draw has its perks. Hell Bisping got Hendo and GSP as his title defenses, Jones is getting Stipe instead of Pavlovich, Izzy got Pereira off of one top 10 win. UFC has always been in favor of a good storyline over strictly going off of rankings.
O'Malley was throwing feints the whole first round, Aljo even said it threw him off and made him unsure when he should try and close the distance. I'm sure O'Malley would have liked to win round 1, but don't think he was worried about punting a round in a five round fight to get Aljo's timing...
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