this is nonsense. These guys all have blue belts and above. Any mma fighter with 6 months training in mma alone would out grapple Aj who is a white belt. Lewis does wrestle when he fights. Tuivasa knows how to stuff takedowns from weaker grapplers which means he spends lots of time grappling, Rozen also in his last fight stuffed takedowns from a russian grappler. They may not use grappling as their offense, but if they know defensively how to stuff them, that indicates they can grapple offensive to a certain level.
Fair points but Canelo and DLH would have destroyed Conor despite him impressing for a few rounds v feather fisted Floyd.
Chavez was not a top 10 fighte when Silva beat him, Paul beat Silva who then beaten by Fury who`s only had a few pro fights.
Boxers do block a lot but many boxers are also better than MMA fighters at slipping shots, Aspinal is the best at slipping shots at heavyweight, better than AJ.
Raw strength, speed and athleticism can play a part in negating grappling skills especially when we are talking guys who are slobs who arent even good at grappling like the MMA guys I named (well Gane is a good athlete, albeit **** at grappling). They're basically sloppy brawlers (again Gane excluded) with decent power who train takedown defence/getting back to their feet so they can stand and wang with other sloppy brawlers. In a situation where they were fighting an elite boxer they'd have to completely change up the approach they've used almost exclusively in their fighting career, and because they're not very athletic or very good at wrestling theres plenty of chance they'd make mistakes in the process that could lead to them getting their heads taken off. Gane is the only one who has the reflexes and skills that he could stand with AJ for more than maybe 30 seconds and not get flatlined.
Anyone thats remotely athletic and has any fighting instincts has some degree of takedown defence already. Speed, strength, footwork etc. AJ absolutely has enough of all of that to buy himself enough time to detonate something huge in 4oz gloves on some slow sloppy brawler like Derrick Lewis. Is it really that farfetched to imagine Lewis getting blasted with a huge uppercut as he sloppily tried to close distance for example?
No, it`s all technique, small judo guys can take down bigger untrained guys, BJJ is very difficult. Mighty mouse could take down AJ but AJ`s reach might be too much for him. This content is protected
No being athletic is not enough to defend takedowns. a guy like lewis would only need to get Aj down once and then mount him easy cause Aj doesn't understand the basics of pass defense. Lewis would ground and pound Aj and would take his time breaking him down. Aj needs at least 6 months of wrestling training to get to a point where he can at least get off the floor from Lewis. He'd still be out of his element with smaller gloves, knees, clinch fighting and kicks. Aj to get to Cryl Gane level where he is now needs at least 3-5 years, and he's already up there in age. He'd never beat anyone at solid grappling level or higher within those 1st 3-5 years. Remember lots of kick boxers failed in mma. Not all strikers end up like Mirko or Perreira.