An Analysis of UFC 243
So… UFC 243 took place on 6th October, Sunday morning (0730 hrs) IST (Indian Standard Time), in Melbourne, Australia, in front of a record crowd of 57000 plus screaming fans…
In the main event Israel Adesanya beats Robert Whittaker via TKO in the second round… I mean, is the Last Stylebender everything an mma fan dreams off or what… Plenty of style points for his showmanship and antics outside the octagon, but the level of striking inside the ring was just sublime…
The angles he setup every time Robert tried to blitz into range were just masterful… I mean there were moments in that first round where I thought that Bobby’s punches missed by just a few inches and I found myself biting into my knuckles and ooing with tension and anticipation…
Bobby had fantastic kicks at the exit of his combinations, but man… the accuracy and precision of Isreal is just unreal. His kickboxing and boxing skills are amongst the best in all of MMA right now and its not really his speed and power that impresses me as much as his cage generalship and range management…
It takes him a few minutes to get his opponents timing and movement down and after that he is just a sniper with knuckles and knees landing on a target… Boys and girls… We have a new champion in the UFC middleweight division and I have a feeling he’s here to stay…
Now I know that Paulo Costa is a beast and we still have Romero in the mix but it feels like Adesanya is in the stratosphere right now and I’m very curious to see who really can bring this man down…
The co-main event was a stellar performance by the Hangman, Dan Hooker… Those calf kicks were extremely effective and I liked the way he really used his range and his muay thai skills to keep AL at bay…
Al kind of starts going one dimensional if one refuses to play the pure boxing range with him… Most of the fights he loses is because his opponent uses another threat on him which is not in that boxing range…
example khabib (takedowns). ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone and Dan Hooker both played the kickboxing/muay thai range with him which forced Al Ioquinta to keep swinging wild power hooks from range which will rarely work against an elite fighter…
Not many feints from Al either but Dan had him confused with plenty of feints… The jab was an extremely effective weapon employed by Dan which is a great shot to use against a shorter fighter with a reach disadvantage…
All in all a fantastic performance by Hooker and I would like to see him against Paul Felder or Justin Gaethje next… Either of those should be a fun fight…
It was a pretty good card that lived up to its Hype… Looking forward to seeing how the winners move forward and what the others do next…
More words to come as the MMA train moves along… Until next time……
From The Fight Hub’s point of view…..