Was Ngannou's tdd really that improved?

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613MMAfan

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Everyone's making a big deal about Ngannou's improved tdd, but do people realize he defended Stipes first three td attempts in the first fight and only started to get taken down after he started to gas and get sloppy? The first td Stipe got in the first fight was a double leg where Ngannou got close to Stipe and Stipe was able to duck underneath his punch and go for a double leg. I think early in the first fight Ngannou would've been able to defend that same td attempt that Stipe went for in the second fight where he had to reach a long way to try and grab a single when Ngannou was balanced.

The issue for Stipe in the second fight was that Ngannou was fighting in a way where he wasn't going to gas early and he wasn't going to give Stipe easy opportunities for td's. Maybe Stipe would've lasted long enough for Ngannou to start gassing had he not run at Ngannou with his hands down after hitting him with that counter. The other option for Stipe was to take more risk and be more aggressive and force Ngannou to expend more energy and try and draw out counter punches that he could try and time and duck underneath from close range.
 
He stuffed takedowns since his first UFC fight.
 
His TDD was always good, obviously it's gotten way better since their first fight but I always thought he was capable of beating Stipe the first time too

He was just super overconfident, fat, and went to Paris to fuck around 2 weeks before the fight
 
Of course it was.

He has literally twice the experience in MMA since the first Stipe fight.

He power stuffed Stipe and even showed grappling technique taking his side back, bludgeoning then tripping Stipe.

He was also slower paced and more measured with hands like a Predator until he decapitated Stipe.

He outwrestled, outgrappled and outstruck Stipe.

What I mean to say is he's becoming scarier than he already was.
 
His TDD has only continued to improve since his first fight against Stipe.
 
He doesn't need to be a great wrestler. If he stuffs the first shot he is going to get a punch off that changes the fight.
 
He's never had bad TDD. He just gets overzealous and gets himself out of position to defend.
 
He could always stuff a td but now he showed a lower stance and level changes with body shots, before he was stiff upright and swinging bombs in patterns.

He could've won the first match with the right game plan. If they fight a 3rd time, Stipe will get stiffened even worse.
 
There's no doubt that Stipe is the better fighter of the two. Ngannou got lucky by catching Stipe with a punch, which is what happens.
 
  1. Yes
  2. It also wasn't that bad to begin with, IIRC, he stopped 8/14 takedowns in the first fight.
 
No, only people who don’t understand grappling were impressed by that.

Stipe didn’t commit to that takedown and Ngannou used mainly physicality to get out of that and dump Stipe. I’d be impressed if he were able to establish or control position on Stipe but that was lack of position awareness letting him scramble so quickly back up.


TLDR he can’t sustain that level of defense in a long fight. He only has maybe one or two of those in his pocket before it compromises his gas tank and Stipes team knew that.
 
loisestrad said:
There's no doubt that Stipe is the better fighter of the two. Ngannou got lucky by catching Stipe with a punch, which is what happens.
Click to expand...
Genuinely not sure if serious or trolling lol

Ngannou destroyed Stipe in every aspect of fighting
 
FanofC said:
Genuinely not sure if serious or trolling lol

Ngannou destroyed Stipe in every aspect of fighting
Click to expand...

He did, so now they're 1-1.

Stipe is obviously 40 pounds lighter than Ngannou though. So Stipe has the upper hand in terms of P4P.
 
loisestrad said:
He did, so now they're 1-1.

Stipe is obviously 40 pounds lighter than Ngannou though. So Stipe has the upper hand in terms of P4P.
Click to expand...
*29lbs

They're both career HWs so the superior current fighter is better P4P

Ngannou dominated and finished him, something Stipe wasn't able to do to a green Francis
 
Not at alll. It was a very weak TD attempt from Stipe and does not tell much about Francis " New and improved wrestling"
 
Do people think practice doesn't work? The guy has been training since the first Stipe fight, so why wouldn't his skills improve? This idea that Francis hasn't improved, or has gotten worse is exactly why I come on this forum just to laugh mostly. Can't find many respectable opinions on here anymore
 
I think so, looked better but he always had good takedown defence... even in his first match against Blaydes.
I wonder how strong Francis really is? Is he naturally stronger than Overeem used to be when he was on steroids and doing all that strongman training?
 
Willy Knuckles said:
Do people think practice doesn't work? The guy has been training since the first Stipe fight, so why wouldn't his skills improve? This idea that Francis hasn't improved, or has gotten worse is exactly why I come on this forum just to laugh mostly. Can't find many respectable opinions on here anymore
Click to expand...
The point is that it doesn't make a lot of sense to use the fact that he stuffed Stipes one td attempt in the second fight as evidence that his tdd had improved significantly when he stuffed Stipes first three td attempts in the first fight before he gassed.

Also, people don't just continuously get better the more they practice something, people plateau after a certain point and that's the reason why some people who have been competing in MMA for a long time still have average striking or average tdd.
 
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