Merab is a matchup nightmare for Sean, he has nothing for him.
No one is stopping Merab at 135lbs until his relatively advanced age catches up to him.
Will be curious to see if his style and training makes him an exception for the steep fall off once smaller fighters hit 35yo.
Watching Merab I thought of this.
His constant herky jerky movements with the threat of a takedown and the constant pressure and nonstop movements to force a reaction overload the nervous system.
I don’t know if there’s anyone that wouldn’t be taken off their game from this
Dude is 511 and cutting to 135, there can’t be much muscle running with those numbers. Merab is on a different level.
There’s some old boxing quote about how becoming the champion can make a fighter X% better because his confidence goes through the roof.
That fits Merab to a T with his last two performances.
I think he did have better takedown defense, but a worse gameplan, he sat in his guard for too long without even coming close to getting a submission attempt off.
He did better in the first fight because despite having worse TDD, he rolled to his knees and got up quickly every time.
I think defending every takedown in round 2 and then losing the standup was considerably more embarrassing than getting caught in a submission.
As mentioned Sean looked better than the first fight but looks like Merab is improving at a faster rate. He’s special. He will always be a bad matchup for Sean.
Sean didn’t do so bad. He was winning the end of the 2nd round and defended all takedowns up to that point. I thought the tides were turning
I don’t see Max fighting at 45 again
SO’M vs Lopes or Yair could be fun, but Sean loses most if not all of his reach advantage at 45
I bet he’ll say cutting out marijuana affected him
I thought O’Malley looked really good. Merab just looked a lot better than O’Malley. No one is beating Merab by being better. Someone could land a bomb and KO him but that’s about it. He fights that same guy 10 times and wins 9. His cardio and pressure are impossible to beat.
I thought it was wild when he got taken down the first (maybe second?) time and had a butterfly hook along with a foot on the hip/thigh when they hit the ground then he just kept his shoulders flat on the mat and accepted a full guard position immediately.
I thought one of the things he’d be training relentlessly would be scrambling the moment the takedown happens and using that split second to change position or at least get his shoulders off the ground.
I haven’t rewatched, but I really thought that moment was a harbinger of things to come.
Havent rewatched the fight, but also seem to remember him hanging out in half guard far too much, which I thought was a horrible position when fighting a pressure fighter like Merab.
His lazy half guard kept him from getting his hips out, he doesnt have subs from there, Merab’s pressure is too heavy for him to wrestle up at all, and also kept him from creating space for a scramble. Reminded me of how Randy Couture would say how he loved when guys would go to half guard for this reason.
For such a relentless top pressure fighter like Merab, with relatively limited submissions, I thought it was a horrible game plan.
Yeah the shoulder of justice in bottom half from guys with insane top pressure is a recipe for disaster for your gas tank.
On the other hand, delivering the shoulder of justice is pure bliss.
Merab’s Serra-Longo team needs to teach him the Makhachev Darce. He would be REALLY effective with it given his pressure and squeeze.
I think Merab would be great at just about anything he sets his mind to - just not sure if his arm length hinders him a bit on that technique.
As a long armed guy myself I love it, but some guys funnel other shit. Hard to argue with the results Merab puts out.
Umar with a 5 round gas tank is probably his biggest threat, but none of those Dagis can hold the pedal down that long.
You mean when Nate didn’t melt from his power? Yeah he looked freaked out. Pretty normal for front runner fighters when it happens
Must be some sort of adrenaline dump or something.
As someone with shorter arm too (or as I like to say, its just because my biceps are so big, lol) I think how Islam connects to his forearm vs. traditional figure 4 lends itself to shorter armed guys not having to get their elbow as in line with the chin while still being able to get your opponents trapped arm to apply pressure to the neck.
More throat crush / crank than blood choke, but in an MMA fight, especially when he has his chest cranking down on the back of his head… that’s your opponents problem, lol.
Loss of confidence which causes panic which causes bad decisions and fatigue.