Please, dear God. Please have Belal beat JDM. Please.

JDM is too big for Islam.

 

You need to be more well rounded in modern MMA fights, Belal just didn`t have the stand up to get inside JDM`s longer reach.

 

Love seeing Belal get busted up. Boring style coupled with an awful personality.

 

He definitely should have shot more... but JDM's tdd was insane. Not everyone can be Merab and shoot 15 takedowns a round.

When Belal shot in, JDM would always find a way out. The pressure Belal put in round 4 and 5 to get success would have gassed him out by round 3 if he had started earlier. It was a rough fight for Belal, he looked good on the feet but beating JDM in that department is near impossible.

 

Whole heartedly disagree with everything in this post. MMA math does not make sense.

I have friends that have been die hard MMA fans for years and they all picked Alex to beat Magomed or said the only way Magomed would wins is with takedowns.

I said Magomed will beat him in the stand up without having to take him down.

1 occasion where I was right. SO right. I guarantee you 99.9% of the world would have said my take was ridiculous, but I’m telling you MMA math does both make any sense.

Brady is a worse wrestler and grappler than Belal and Usman, yet he beats Edwards by stoppage. Yes Belal beat Leon but he beat him 3-2. The rounds belal won were dominant, but the 2 he lost were clear. He was also about another 30 seconds from being ground and pounded to defeat against Leon.

Belal tried to take JDM down, he tried a bit of grappling and wrestling and simply couldn’t. It’s not because of this ‘fetish’ of boxing. It’s just that JDM was way better than him on the night in stand up, stuffed almost all of his grappling and wrestling with fantastic takedown defence.

 

The average MMA fighter these days is just way more well rounded than back in the day. Belal literally out struck Leon, even though Leon has better stand up. Magomed out struck Alex despite Alex having way better stand up.

MMA math makes less sense than ever these days.

 

Leon is a passive one-paced fighter.

 

Leon is a one paced counter puncher, one dimentional.

 

In fact after rewatching I do understand your point @kirk. That was some really bad fight tactics from Belal. He should have tried to wrestle earlier, not as a last resort after it didn’t go to plan on the feet.

He clearly let the Leon and Brady fights go to his head. Yes he out struck Leon, but only because he mixed in grappling and wore Leon down on the floor.

Whether it was Belal that decided to fight that way or the corner came up with that game plan, they should both be disappointed.

Hard to see him becoming a two time champ at his age, he’ll need to beat Brady/Shavkhat or the Usman/Buckley winner to have any hope to get a shot before the end of 2026

 

Clenelo hands bro! JDM was hard to deny that night either way, might have just ended up like the Gilbert Burns fight. Belal could have fought a smarter fight for sure, but JDM deserves tons of credit for his level of composure in the championship rounds for his ability to scramble back to his feet when Belal DID get him down. Lots of other fighters would have resigned in those situations.

 

There's been plenty of instances where grapplers have outstruck far more accomplished strikers even in the 90s/00s.

 

Why do they call him Canelo hands?