I’ll admit I was wrong in my predictions. Sean looked off. Maybe discouraged. The fact that he visibly had him hurt and didn’t go for the finish was weird.
3 Likes
When he landed the kick, he was beaten. He was embarrassed and lost faith in his ability to engage up close since his takedown defense is horrible. So when he hit him, he was more concerned about being taken down again—my thoughts.
if I was his coach I would have told him to quit getting taken down.
4 Likes
I was so frustrated with Tim’s cornering. It reminded me of when BJ’s brother was like “Just beat this mother fucker’s ass!”
3 Likes
yea, I put him just below Teddy Atlas when it comes to corner excellence
In fairness, that was something BJ was very good at.
1 Like
Or when Anthony Smiths corner was telling him to beat Jones ass
1 Like
Merab did mostly what I expected, except he didn’t go forward, and did a lot of movement around the outside. This in my opinion is the biggest factor of the fight. What he did there was limit Sean’s opportunities to counter and once Sean was on the offensive, he took him down, limiting his game coming forward.
So if Sean sat and waited for Merab he wouldn’t land anything significant except for a few shots, then he would be taken down. If Sean was aggressive he would land a few shots, Merab would time him and take him down. So either way he was getting taken down, and his jiu jitsu was good, but he was spending too much time on the ground.
The other thing Merab did that I didn’t expect was close distance incredibly well. He covered a lot of ground on his shots with not a lot of set up, and was essentially taking Sean down at will. I didn’t expect him to take him down anytime he wanted like that, I thought he’d have to work a lot harder for it.
1 Like
Was it just me or did it look like Merab was timing his strikes with sean’s. Not that he was actually countering bc he didn’t look like he was even in range to make legit contact, but he was doing it as a block/distraction to get Sean to second-guess about going in???
1 Like
i think a lot of people over looked seans tdd percentage. it’s in the 60 percentile range. and he hasn’t really fought a wrestler.
1 Like
Hmmm I hadn’t noticed. I’ll have to rewatch. I don’t remember Merab throwing much at range but I was watching to see what Sean would do.
You’re right. When Cejudo called Sean out previously I thought he would be a bad matchup for O’Malley. When the Merab fight was announced, I knew it would be a tough fight. I guess I thought Merab would have to work harder for takedowns, and he really didn’t.
1 Like
man what merab did to cejudo blew my mind. had him up on his shoulders. to do that to olympic gold medalist is absolutely insane.
3 Likes
Yeah foreal. I knew Merab would be tough for O’Malley but after the Cejudo fight I was like fuck. He’s better than I thought.
1 Like