Sage Northcutt

[SPX]

Dustin Poirier, Joseph Duffy, Beniel Dariush, Possibly Al Iaquinta.

I don't really think of people with 7+ UFC fights as prospects. Especially Poirier, Jesus, he's been under the Zuffa banner for 5 years already!

[Ludo]

I don't really think of people with 7+ UFC fights as prospects. Especially Poirier, Jesus, he's been under the Zuffa banner for 5 years already!

But only one as a lightweight.

[SPX]

But only one as a lightweight.

I don't know that that's like pushing the reset button on his career though. In any case, I am more talking guys in the UFC who have like 3 or fewer fights . . . or maybe even guys you know about that aren't even in the UFC yet.

[edman5555]

On the JRE he said it was his karate that allowed him to get in on opponents:

[/I]

Correct

[Ludo]

I don't know that that's like pushing the reset button on his career though. In any case, I am more talking guys in the UFC who have like 3 or fewer fights . . . or maybe even guys you know about that aren't even in the UFC yet.

In that case:

Will Brooks
Michael Chandler
David Rickels
Dave Jansen
Lowen Tynanes
Koji Ando

Also, Poirier is only 26. I don't know that I would rule him out just because he's been busy. Kind of like Stefan Struve. He may be a veteran by definition of cage time in the UFC, but the kid is still learning shit every day, and still improving every fight.

[zY|]

I agree Northcutt is a legit prospect, but to Ludo's point you can't count out guys making incremental improvements.

Look at RDA, a low-key middling almost-journeyman fighter who quietly improves fight-to-fight until one day he kicks Ben Henderson's head off and you say oh shit this dude is a badass all of a sudden. Then he bends Nate Diaz over, pulls his pants down, and literally fucks him in the ass in the middle of the cage. He follows this up by inserting his big, brown, Brazilian monkey wrench all up into Pretty Tony Pettis' Wheaties box and crushes his perceived long championship reign.

[Ludo]

I agree Northcutt is a legit prospect, but to Ludo's point you can't count out guys making incremental improvements.

Look at RDA, a low-key middling almost-journeyman fighter who quietly improves fight-to-fight until one day he kicks Ben Henderson's head off and you say oh shit this dude is a badass all of a sudden. Then he bends Nate Diaz over, pulls his pants down, and literally fucks him in the ass in the middle of the cage. He follows this up by inserting his big, brown, Brazilian monkey wrench all up into Pretty Tony Pettis' Wheaties box and crushes his perceived long championship reign.

Or Robbie Lawler. Most people thought his career was done, now he's making the "new breed"s faces literally explode.

[SPX]

I agree Northcutt is a legit prospect, but to Ludo's point you can't count out guys making incremental improvements.

I'm not counting them out. I'm just saying if we're having a conversation about "prospects" then guys like that don't qualify. Northcutt is a prospect. Michael Page is still a prospect. I'm talking about guys who are still relatively new to the sport, not guys who have been fighting for years.

Ludo put Michael fucking Chandler on his revised list. Michael Chandler is 29, has 16 pro fights and is a former champion in a major organization. That is not a prospect. He's a guy who may very well have already passed the mid-point of his career.

And obviously it's not that those can't can do some serious shit over the next handful of years, it's just not the conversation that we're having.

[SPX]

Sage with Hughes. Hughes looks old.

[Ludo]

I'm not counting them out. I'm just saying if we're having a conversation about "prospects" then guys like that don't qualify. Northcutt is a prospect. Michael Page is still a prospect. I'm talking about guys who are still relatively new to the sport, not guys who have been fighting for years.

Ludo put Michael fucking Chandler on his revised list. Michael Chandler is 29, has 16 pro fights and is a former champion in a major organization. That is not a prospect. He's a guy who may very well have already passed the mid-point of his career.

And obviously it's not that those can't can do some serious shit over the next handful of years, it's just not the conversation that we're having.

You specified lightweight prospect, then changed the rules to guys who had <5 fights in the UFC, or had never fought in the UFC. Chandler is still very much a prospect, because while he has 16 fights who the fuck has he fought other than a washed up Ghono, Alvarez, and other exciting young fighters?

[Ludo]

Can we put this nonsense to bed now?

[SPX]

2-0!!!!!!!!!!

[SPX]

But for real, he's 19 and new to the sport and still pretty raw. He got taken down almost immediately, which was kind of surprising, but I think that was just lack of experience. What concerns me more is the way he barely looked like he knew what he was doing off his back. He was trying to shrimp out and shit, but he wasn't doing a very good job of it and who knows how long he'd have been down there if the ref hadn't stood them up. Would he have been down there all round?

In any case, once he got back to his feet he went into beast mode and finished the fight soon after. So don't act like he lost or even like it ended up being some close decision.

[Ludo]

But for real, he's 19 and new to the sport and still pretty raw. He got taken down almost immediately, which was kind of surprising, but I think that was just lack of experience. What concerns me more is the way he barely looked like he knew what he was doing off his back. He was trying to shrimp out and shit, but he wasn't doing a very good job of it and who knows how long he'd have been down there if the ref hadn't stood them up. Would he have been down there all round?

In any case, once he got back to his feet he went into beast mode and finished the fight soon after. So don't act like he lost or even like it ended up being some close decision.

Yeah but he got taken down and controlled for nearly a whole round by Cody fucking Pfister.

[SPX]

Yeah but he got taken down and controlled for nearly a whole round by Cody fucking Pfister.

So you're not going to give him any credit for righting the ship? Or taking Cody down with ease? Or getting a second round sub?

Why do you hate Sage?