Not sure what he was and I never watched that much of him in Strikeforce, but it is a little different in MMA. Smaller gloves, you have somebody trying to kick you or take you down, you have to defend against those as well as somebodies hands. In boxing he'd just have to watch Machida's hands. In MMA he mostly had to watch out for his feet. His jab looked pretty good, I think he beleived he was going to truly knock out Machida with that left hook (he kept looking to land it), but Machida did A LOT OF MOVING! Still I somewhat agree with you.. His hands didn't look fantastic even saying all that. If you saw him against somebody more willing to fight toe to toe you'd see what Moussasi really has... but obviously he should have been doing a whole lot more.
Even then though I mean boxers have the best fighting footwork in the world. He should have been able to cut the ring off better and at least land some clean shots.
He did not give Machida an easy fight. Too passive of a style (stylistically) to truly give Machida problems. I really thought he was going to do worse but he caught Machida at times when he let his hands go.
Well boxers have some of the best footwork in the world, but I have seen boxers with bad footwork (by boxing standards). Machida obviously is fast and does have good footwork himself. I do agree he should of done better if he's actually a GOOD boxer, but he didn't do to bad. I agree with bachatu that he is simply to passive of a fighter to win against Machida. I've never watched Mousassi box, but he seems like he'd probably be a counter puncher really
I did some research and he only boxed for 12 months before switching over to kickboxing. I also found out that the netherlands amateur championship is not a very respected amateur belt.
He was failing to pull the trigger spectacularly. I thought he'd really let them go with confidence and he didn't seem scared of the kicks, speed or power but he decided to be a bit of a punch bag/sparring partner. This fight was a huge case of your mind letting your body down. Physical ability was not the issue. Mind over matter failed him big time.
