I don’t see a particularly hard matchup for him in the group of guys he’d be fighting next though. Imavov would probably be a purely striking match that I’d expect Dricus to win, De Ridder is a very easy matchup given his poor takedowns, the chasm between them on the feet and the fact that Dricus won’t gas, and he’s already beaten Adesanya and Strickland.
Fluffy would be interesting because Dricus has crazy stamina, so it’s pretty much impossible to imagine Hernandez breaking him like he does everyone else. He might have good enough wrestling to grind out a decision against Dricus, but feels like a coinflip. And Borralho would likely be a boring, low-output fight that also feels like it could go either way.
I can see the latter 2 giving Dricus some problems, but none of them have grappling anywhere near Khamzat’s level, so It’s not like they can follow his gameplan. Nothing in that loss suggested Dricus is washed, he just came up against the best grappler in the UFC who happened to fix the flaw that Dricus needed to exploit to win (endurance issues). MMA fans are way too ready to act like anyone who wins is unbeatable and anyone who loses is shit. Unless the UFC brings in Sadulaev for his next fight, no one’s taking him down and controlling him as safely and consistently as Chimaev did.
Possibly. Once a blueprint on how to beat you is out there other fighters will then try it too.
Remember back to the Brunson fight how easily he took Dricus down. Dricus still managed to win because Brunson gassed out and then Dricus took over later in the fight.
Dricus hasn’t fought a wrestler since then and it seems he has made almost no improvements to his take down defence.
As long as his delusional coach is also taking the same humble approach Dricus is then he should be able to make big improvements. However he needs to get in actual high level wrestlers to improve. He’s not going to get to the level he needs to get to with the same guys he’s been working with. Their wrestling knowledge is clearly not good enough.
It depends; he's unlikely to face a grappler like Khazmat until a rematch, and he did legitimately and decisively beat Bobby, Izzy, and Strickland (all Champs). Looking at the rankings, is there anyone you don't want him matched up with? Becoming a champ at MW and getting a few defences under your belt is nothing to scoff at, especially with a fighter that seems to take the game very seriously and is in his athletic prime - he took next to no damage in this loss, so it's not like a Cain vs JDS 2 situation.
idk, Whittaker took him down iirc in their fight and didn't hold him there as easily as Khamzat did, same with Brunson i think. but DDP definitely needs to work on his bjj defense imo, as well as wrestling defense ofc, but on the ground he just seemed like one of those white belts you see trying to muscle-out of shit.
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u/Giegling90 2d ago
I'm a Dricus fan, but I see a skid incoming