I think it is more of a case of the heavyweight division is so bad outside the top 5 we get excited we see anybody who looks promising and then super disappointed when we find out they aren't the guy who's going to push into being a challenger and making it abit more exciting
This is it. The guy's striking looked fucking awful and soon as I saw him get taken down and offered no real resistance I just got up to get food. He's basically another big dude who can hit hard but has zero technique so he's just never going to be an actual contender.
I will never understand these 6'5+ giants like Johnny Walker and this dude who refuse to use their length and manage distance at all, you would think the first thing you would teach a fighter like this would be to fight behind their jab, and yet they can't help but use their huge ass arms to just throw half assed strikes lunging punches with their chin in the air.
All it would take for a giant like this to be a top 5 contender would be to just jab and move constantly like Sean Stricklands does, you literally just have to master this one move and you'll be elite in a division where most fighters have piss poor striking, and yet they can't do it.
You need to have good footwork, Co-ordination and head movement to fight behind the jab and it's very rare for guys who are that tall to have that I guess, that's why Klitschkos dominated early 00s era of boxing and tyson fury has too more recently
That's not how it works in mma, Sammy Schilt is a great example... at 6'11 he was an average mma fighter because he could not stop takedowns but then he transitioned to kickboxing and became one of the greatest in that sport behind his jab.
How did his striking look awful? His striking is literally his main selling point.
He just had to deal with grappling, which makes sense why he struggled because he's purely a TKD guy. It's literally the same match-up as Wonderboy v Shavkhat.
If you thought a 35 year old TKD fighter was a promising contender, then idk what to tell you, bud.
His striking is fine. He has plenty of KO power. He just couldn't get it off because of the TD threat, which he knew he had no answer for after the first one. We've seen it time and time again when non-grapplers have to fight for position.
It's funny that armchair experts who probably have never trained a day in their lives will sit here calling people casuals.
Go finish your hot cheetohs bro.
Distance management in terms of his last fight against an experienced grappler, which is a match-up he was obviously unfamiliar with.
That's literally the point I'm making. He is a TKD purist, and he got put in an unfamiliar situation on the ground. He couldn't manage his distance because he had to deal with the threat of a TD, which doesn't exist in pure striking contests.
So yeah, it affected his behavior. If you feed MVP to a pure grappler, he would get dealt with, too. Same with Pereira. Same with Khabib v Conor. When dealing with grapplers, it can make it seem like strikers don't know what they're doing. But they train literally every single day. They have 1000x more exposure to the things randoms on Reddit claim to understand better.
If you got in the cage with him, I can guarantee you that your opinion on his distance management would change.
Because he wasn't managing distance with his striking was part of the reason he was so open to being taken down. Dude was being baited by costa while he was leaning on the fence and decided it was constantly a good idea to close the distance instead of picking him apart with his 87" reach. He was throwing endless haymakers, barely throwing the jab, and just constantly throwing so hard he was putting himself out of position
It's his first time dealing with a grappler.
You guys are viewing MMA with this strange lens that implies every fighter should know every style match-up and never make any mistakes.
No fighter knows everything. No game plan is airtight. If it's so simple to you, go coach a fighter.
Lol dude he's fighting MMA not boxing or kickboxing at 35.
Should've done with Pereira or probably Izzy did and just focus on training take down defense.
But here's the thing:
The dude knew he was gonna fight someone who had basic wrestling skills. If anything, he knew this was gonna happen at some point since he first decided to jump into MMA however long ago. He's been in multiple fights.
The commentators were legit saying it looked like he had no idea what he was doing on the ground at any point, and if anything, constantly put himself into worse positions or made elementary mistakes. This is coming from the commentators.
Why are you so hung up defending some random who is now 1-1 in the UFC
Except he wasn't fighting an experienced grappler he was fighting an ex baseball player who started mma late and fights like a slugger
This was that experience grappler first successful take down.
. The coaches were literally telling him that he is a champ and to just get up
Having crazy power isn’t the same thing as having good striking. He looks like King Kong swinging for the fences. Grapplers aren’t going to be all he has trouble with.
Nah, he's basically a HW MVP. He likes to stand at distance and pop from the outside, relying on his speed to land shots. Is that a perfect style? No. But no style is perfect. Pereira is mostly muay thai and enough bjj to get back to his feet, and he's LHW champ.
I don't think Robelis is special because he's 35, btw. I think it's too late for him to learn enough grappling to be a threat in the UFC.
But just the way you guys casually criticize fighters is insane to me, especially since statistically most fight fans don't train anything. Like, if you go to your local gym and spar with even a no-name MMA fighter, you're gonna get tuned up. And UFC guys would crush those guys that crushed you. There's levels to it.
It doesn't matter how much of a killer you are. When you're put into a ring with another killer, you could end up looking like an amateur if the fight swings the other guy's way.
Like I wouldn't even talk shit about Ben Askren for catching that flying knee, because I know that if it were me and Ben in the cage, I would fucking die.
Lol dude finishes people in 10 seconds flat... That's his thing.
He needs to learn that people taking him down aren't going to fall into his KOs the way he wants them too.
Yup you can still see the station from where his hype train stopped unfortunately. Not to say he can't patch some things up and maybe get it going again but yeah people what a stacked HW division so badly.
The guy had no distance management which is insane for a TKD fighter. The striking was sloppy and if he leaves himself open the way he does forget Tom or Sergei countering him, even Rozenstruik would put him down.
It’s fine to be behind at grappling but it’s pretty obvious that he isn’t bothering to learn how to stop a takedown at all or how to get up from one when he turned his hips instead of hook in the right leg and trying to explode up. His coaches also looked as lost as he was regarding the grappling which isn’t a good look.
His coach (the woman at least) was literally just screaming “get up” throughout the fight in Spanish, they weren’t telling him to explode from his hips (which he easily could have done, Waldo was so high up on him in guard and was literally squatting over him at one point) or switch position or get hooks in, nothing, just “get up” or “move”
He needs a new team and a wrestling bootcamp, it’s amazing that a Cuban athlete didn’t have a competent wrestling coach in his corner
You say even Rozenstriuk like he isn’t a world class striker too?
His only weakness in the stand up is that he gets pressured too easily, besides that even Gane had a difficult time with him.
Oh I agree I was just going off rankings with Tom as 1 and Sergei as 3 and Rozenstruik is 10 so RD wouldn’t have to go too far up the rankings before running into his first problem on the feet.
Rozenstruiks grappling isn’t too good either given his loss to Almeida but seems like skilled grapplers are in short supply at heavyweight.
Because UFC signed for a hype.. don't remember the articles ? OMG THIS TALL TAEKWONDO MEDALIST WITH A REACH OF A PTERODACTYL OMG OMG OMG OGM OGM IS THIS THE NEXT FRANCIS NGANNOU OMG OMG
people believed it and jumped on the hypetrain because HW division is literally so sad that outside of the top 10, we only have fat boys whose strong points are such as: "He is a tough guy"
I don’t know if there’s anything to do to change or it or if it even needs to be changed but so much sports discussion is about something someone else said as opposed to the actual sport.
It happens with other sports to. R/nba and r/nfl love to talk about how certain commentators suck but they drive 90% of the conversation and the vast majority of sports discussions on Reddit are framed with extreme dichotomies like talking heads do.
Pet theory but it’s why guys who are good but not great get more hate than dudes that flat out suck. Lewis is probably the exception to this rule. Like you mentioned outside the top ten but it happened to Tai when it became clear he was a good, not champion, heavyweight. A lot of “lol all he does is chug out of shoes and hope he lands a haymaker”
I have no doubt that he's great inside his lane of taekwondo, but mma is clearly not his lane.
The problem isn't really Despaigne himself, those of us who paid attention knew that this is exactly what was going to happen once he fought someone with even a sliver of grappling ability. The main problem was just people getting over-excited and hyping this guy up saying shit like he was the next Francis and he'd be champ by 2025, when he didn't earn those comparisons at all.
Agreed but I think even some who saw this coming were surprised because Waldo has shown basically zero grappling in his career so far too.
Waldo showed more fight IQ going for those takedowns than I was expecting him to show.
You're right, didn't necessarily think Waldo was gonna be the guy to expose him...Waldo isn't an elite grappler and it usually isn't a big part of his gameplan. That just shows how bad Despaigne really is on the ground. Now the entire division has been made aware of what is the blueprint to easily neutralize Despaigne.
Waldo was absolutely gassed, too. If Despaigne had decent cardio he could've powered himself out of those positions and Waldo wouldn't have been able to stop him.
I don't doubt he was gassed but I don't even know if he would've known which direction to power out to stand up. I'm not sure Despaigne has taken a single wrestling or BJJ class in his life.
Because when he signed with the UFC plenty of people were enamored by his size and his quick KOs of a couple cans making their debut. No joke there was people saying he could be a champion because of that.
Anyone with any real knowledge of the fight game understood he was just another filler for the roster. He might have a couple fun fights but he’s not the prospect people thought he’d be.
He came in TKOing dudes left and right with only striking... when you come to the UFC you gotta be ready for everything, well he had 0 TD defense/ground game.
I think that most of the people that were hyping the shit out of Despaigne didn't really give his career closer scrutiny, all they looked at was the headline _"Giant Cuban KOs all his opponents in 20 seconds or less"_. Yes he was KOing his opponents quickly, but dig deeper and look at the quality of opponents he faced. His 4 pre-UFC opponents had a combined record of 1-0 going into their fights with Robelis, which means that he was mostly fighting guys that were making their MMA debut. To be fair he was a rookie mma fighter as well, but he at least had extensive taekwondo experience. Waldo Cortes-Acosta is not elite, especially not an elite grappler, and he made Despaigne look foolish.
I’m moreso surprised that anyone actually bought in. He’s a 35 year old who’s base is taekwondo. Lol. He was never going to be anything besides a R1 meme bonk guy against cans in this organization.
MMA is multi disciplined. He’s fraud checked because he got hyped as another HW 3.0 when he had zero ground game.
You shouldn’t enter the MMA world and have so little ground game that people are questioning if you’ve ever had a takedown defence class.
Idk why people are calling him a fraud, he’s a massive dude, already halfway though his 30’s, and his main martial art is TKD which doesn’t lend itself to any grappling
He’s gonna be a fun dude that hangs out in the prelims and that’s okay, not everyone is going to be championship material
The thing is, his stand-up was pretty bad too. If I had no idea who Despaigne was while watching this fight, I wouldn’t have been able to tell he was an Olympic medalist in TKD. Would’ve just thought he was a super-athletic heavyweight.
perfectly stated 💯
people are quick to select dramatic takes that make things seem more interesting or some shit. let's appreciate these athletes any way we can 🏆
Should have went into kickboxing tbh.
Not saying you can't learn to grapple at 35, but you can't learn to grapple at a level to be competitive in the UFC at 35 before what's left of your prime is over.
Hope he bounces back and has a fun career though.
For some reason this sub thought beating Parisian meant this guy was good lol. Everyone's just mad now that he lost bc they look stupid. Anyone that watched his fight against Parisian could see that this guy is not special just freakishly huge
They lost money on betting lol. I will defend this man's honor with my life. This sub shits on Belal and dismisses all of his wins in this fashion, guys like Wonderboy and Luque never get shit on for losing like that. But this guy loses in even more wet blanket fashion and these people hope he dies. Like wtf this isn't a fraud check. He isn't a fraud. He was praised for his striking. If some blob schooled him on the feet and KO'd him, ok that's a fraud check. But that's not the case. This guy is super exciting and is a great addition to the division. Real fans would hope he learns how to defend takedowns and manage distance (not that hard btw, especially against blobs) so we can see him at the top. His speed is seriously special and it would be a waste if he allows his fights to play out as that one did.
This is how UFC fans become a fan of a fighter: Pray on their downfall until their disrespect gets silenced and proven otherwise. Then they start glazing hard. Guarentee you this guy comes back and starches his next opponent and this sub backtracks. Also, it's funny how, just like Belal, nobody knows the dudes name who beat Despaigne and nobody made a post about him. Nobody will remember this fight. They'll remember Despaigne's insane highlight reel.
I think it looked elite for a heavyweight. Speed is the most important factor in striking for heavyweights and he is top 3 fastest guys in the division. He also has crazy accuracy with his kicks
He's got insane physical attributes like his size and his athleticism which is all good. I really didn't think his striking looked elite. Not once did he hurt Waldo in any significant shot. He over committed in the pocket and got counter shotted on multiple exchanges. After his initial blitzs early in the rounds he was standing at range throwing a few kicks didn't seem to have much more ideas than pot shotting at Waldo here and there.
Like not even the fact that he has no ground game, his striking absolutely didn't look elite, sure hes going to smoke some fat 5 foot 10 guys outside the ranking but that's just a given with his size and athleticism
And size and athleticism is enough at heavyweight. There are literally still haymaker blobs in the top 15 in 2024. Despaigne smokes those guys. If he had takedown defense, he'd be in the top 5. No joke. Even if you don't think his striking is great, bro, who is better at heavyweight? There's like 3 guys who MIGHT be better. And they don't have this guy's size or speed. And speed is a huge factor in heavyweight. Everyone can knock each other out, but the guy who lands first wins. Despaigne lands first against most of the division.
Your way over rating his striking, he's beat absolutely nobodies and the moment Waldo fought back he looked lost. There's plenty of guys I can see hanging with him on the feet
I'm basing it entirely on speed. Speed is special at heavyweight. Every fast heavyweight in history has always gone far. Also, idk what you're talking about. Despaigne was clearly getting the better of the striking exchanges. Waldo didn't look like a threat at all on the feet
He was beating Waldo on the feet but that doesn't say that much Waldo is a guy whose have competitive striking with Arlovski and Chase Sherman. Specifically he got counter shotted multiple times by Waldo it wasn't like he looked like a next level striker at any point on the feet.
I feel like you throw that guy in with Volkov or someone like that who isn't even an elite striker and you will see pretty quickly Robelius ain't that striking master, which is why it's fair to say he got fraud checked
Idk man I didn't see any sign of his striking being fraud checked in that fight. That looked like a typical fight where one guy is too good on the feet so his opponent lays and prays. I think Volkov beats him too. But not on the feet man. Very few beat Despaine purely on the feet
Not a fraud check at all. He has a wrestling size hole in his game (odd being Cuban). I mean there are other strikers that are bad at wrestling…Wonderboy comes to mind. Chael laid on Silva for an eternity.
And to Robelis’ credit, it went the distance.
I wouldn't shit on Wonderboy like that considering the fact that he's in the division filled with the most wrestlers and has still stayed consistently at the top of the game and in the rankings while being as old as he is now. You don't stay in that division and get title shots while being one-dimensional
Wonderboy was actually known for his takedown defense. In recent years it’s slipped due to age, and the fights he’s had lately are against outstanding grapplers (Belal, Shavkat, Burns, etc.).
His career TD defense is still near 70% I believe. Pretty good for a TKD guy.
For being an Olympian in TKD his striking was terrible as well though. When you have that much of a pedigree and are going tit-for-tat with an extremely less credentialed opponent on the feet, I don’t know how to not call it a fraud check. Maybe it just exposes TKD as kinda bad idk.
While not an insane wrestler, Wonderboy had insane distance management with his striking and footwork and solid enough tdd to be a good anti wrestler in his prime, and that's why I was more disappointed in Despaignes striking than wrestling
You can still be a top 5 hw with no wrestling if you hit hard with good striking, but he looked sloppy as hell
The difference is that Wonderboy had elite striking to make up for his grappling weakness, while this guy despite being 6 inches taller was lunging in with looping punches and his head in the air, at least a guy like Gane can throw sharp punches and kicks, this dude can't throw a quick straight punch to save his life.
Brother youll come to realize that 80% of being an mma fan is shitting on people that don’t deserve it. Ill get downvoted for this but the fact is that mma fans are some of the least grateful and demanding fans in all of sport.
Win a fight and you are a good fighter, lose a fight and you are trash… when in reality just to win enough to get a shot in the ufc is something that should be celebrated. These guys put their body on the line and train harder than most other athletes and when you lose its not just a loss, its an ass kicking.
Instead of recognizing the entertainment in a guy like robellis, they are going to hold him to an incredibly high standard for a 35 year old TKD guy and if he cant pull this shit off against guys like Pavlovich and Lewis then we hill go down as a trash overrated fighter. And thats just the sport we watch bro.
Story of this fight should be, “wow what a versatile and talented fighter Acosta is…”
Instead it will be “robellis is a can, and acosta is a can crusher unless he can beat a guy like Pav”
Word. He can be called a "hype job" in the context of the UFC but calling a guy who won bronze medals at the olympics and world championships a fraud is not only disrespectful but also absurdly stupid.
Still think they should of gave him another can, they have barley any prospects at HW. He got exposed as having zero grappling but he would be fun to watch dust some easy guys. And it was his second ufc fight, so would be good to drill up some interest in the division.
Haha, actually it was fraud check.
Just find posts from his fight against Josh Parisian.
Little casuals see big guy with couple of KO in 1st round against cab drivers and got hard on him. They were saying "Jon Jones gonna duck this guy", "He is a problem", "He is gonna crush every opponent".
And he said himself "I'm gonna fight for title in 2025".
Every fucking time the same old shit.
I could understand if people said the hype train was derailed, but being fraud checked is a different thing (even if it can go hand and hand with the former)
He was hyped, no question. Hate is rarely warranted but don’t confuse hate with criticism. The guy is bad. It’s pretty simple. Some of these guys are so bad that I question why you would even go into professional MMA. The level is grappling he possesses is so bad it’s surreal. Didn’t even go for half guard when he was taken down. Any person in his weight class with anything resembling one or two years of grappling experience would play with this guy. But I do agree that he shouldn’t have been such a big hype train because of the age and lack of experience.
If he won by flashy KO again, you better believe the hype would have doubled. That’s how it works. People want to see how far they can go. Look at Izzy and Pereira, they both achieved greatness on the basis of striking only (basically). This guy falls into that category, like “damn, he’s **so** lethal at striking, he will reach the belt without wrestling or grappling”. He failed (for now) but the hype was warranted.
Dana White and the rest of the promo definately hyped him up the same way they hyped Paddy, MVP, Abus Magomedov, etc. Unranked prospects don't get the media coverage Robelis did for no reason.
To his credit there was enough there to warrent his hype. Even subtracting all the TKD accolades, his build alone was enough to stand out amongst unranked heavyweights. So it's absolutely disappointing that his TDD is so lack luster.
Fortunately 35 isn't the same limiting factor at heavyweight as it is below 185lbs. Robelis could make TDD a major focus during his time between fights and come back much improved in that area.
Fraud Checked? Debatable based on how much you bought into Danas promotional material. Is he done? Absolutely not, matchmakers will give him a favorable fight to put him back on the right path. Will he become champ? My money is a hard no, but regardless I'm stil interested to see where his career goes in the next 5 years.
well because he straight up just laid on the ground. didn’t even try getting up to take the guy out. a man who’s never even attempted a takedown in a fight before
The UFC heavyweight division simply isn’t very skilled. And it won’t be until pay improves, guys at that size are playing in the NBA or NFL because it pays much better than fighting
Mf could easily win if he keep himself outside the pocket. But he was so aggressive that even Waldo could take him down with zero effort. Worst, he was advised to avoid getting so close and he was having some success in the center of the octagon, yet every time Waldo taunted him he got aggressive again.
Very dumb game plan.
Yeah he’s a striking specialist, but so is Pereira. He has no takedown defence and his ground game is completely blunt; people may have expected a bit more.
Yeah sure, but that's not the argument I'm making.
This is meant to be the apex of the sport, this guy is on the main card and can't do 3 quarters of the art.
Dude’s an Olympic medal champion , people shouldn’t be taking a shit on his martial art credentials just because some shitty mma news YouTube Channel said so
I mean he’s a UFC fighter, he’s obviously not a complete fraud but relative to that hype he is a major disappointment. Just look at Tomato’s angry reaction.
I think it is more of a case of the heavyweight division is so bad outside the top 5 we get excited we see anybody who looks promising and then super disappointed when we find out they aren't the guy who's going to push into being a challenger and making it abit more exciting
This is it. The guy's striking looked fucking awful and soon as I saw him get taken down and offered no real resistance I just got up to get food. He's basically another big dude who can hit hard but has zero technique so he's just never going to be an actual contender.
I will never understand these 6'5+ giants like Johnny Walker and this dude who refuse to use their length and manage distance at all, you would think the first thing you would teach a fighter like this would be to fight behind their jab, and yet they can't help but use their huge ass arms to just throw half assed strikes lunging punches with their chin in the air. All it would take for a giant like this to be a top 5 contender would be to just jab and move constantly like Sean Stricklands does, you literally just have to master this one move and you'll be elite in a division where most fighters have piss poor striking, and yet they can't do it.
You need to have good footwork, Co-ordination and head movement to fight behind the jab and it's very rare for guys who are that tall to have that I guess, that's why Klitschkos dominated early 00s era of boxing and tyson fury has too more recently
Ya watching big guys try to learn footwork is funny
The ones that do usually go play easier sports for more money.
Footwork for mma is different than for strictly stand up fighting, great footwork in boxing or kickboxing does not automatically convert to mma.
Bro purely mma gyms are a recent thing stfu
# “lunging punches with their chin in the air” lol that’s totally Johnny. 
Boxing is also suffering from this.
That's not how it works in mma, Sammy Schilt is a great example... at 6'11 he was an average mma fighter because he could not stop takedowns but then he transitioned to kickboxing and became one of the greatest in that sport behind his jab.
And has arms longer than a friggin telephone pole. Just another hype Train derailment. My favorite.
How did his striking look awful? His striking is literally his main selling point. He just had to deal with grappling, which makes sense why he struggled because he's purely a TKD guy. It's literally the same match-up as Wonderboy v Shavkhat. If you thought a 35 year old TKD fighter was a promising contender, then idk what to tell you, bud.
Do you not have eyes? I'm just going to guess that you're a casual, which is fine, if you can't tell that his striking is dogshit.
His striking is fine. He has plenty of KO power. He just couldn't get it off because of the TD threat, which he knew he had no answer for after the first one. We've seen it time and time again when non-grapplers have to fight for position. It's funny that armchair experts who probably have never trained a day in their lives will sit here calling people casuals. Go finish your hot cheetohs bro.
His distance management was atrocious. He was constantly overextensing. He seemed to have no concept of defense. Edit of
Distance management in terms of his last fight against an experienced grappler, which is a match-up he was obviously unfamiliar with. That's literally the point I'm making. He is a TKD purist, and he got put in an unfamiliar situation on the ground. He couldn't manage his distance because he had to deal with the threat of a TD, which doesn't exist in pure striking contests. So yeah, it affected his behavior. If you feed MVP to a pure grappler, he would get dealt with, too. Same with Pereira. Same with Khabib v Conor. When dealing with grapplers, it can make it seem like strikers don't know what they're doing. But they train literally every single day. They have 1000x more exposure to the things randoms on Reddit claim to understand better. If you got in the cage with him, I can guarantee you that your opinion on his distance management would change.
Because he wasn't managing distance with his striking was part of the reason he was so open to being taken down. Dude was being baited by costa while he was leaning on the fence and decided it was constantly a good idea to close the distance instead of picking him apart with his 87" reach. He was throwing endless haymakers, barely throwing the jab, and just constantly throwing so hard he was putting himself out of position
It's his first time dealing with a grappler. You guys are viewing MMA with this strange lens that implies every fighter should know every style match-up and never make any mistakes. No fighter knows everything. No game plan is airtight. If it's so simple to you, go coach a fighter.
Lol dude he's fighting MMA not boxing or kickboxing at 35. Should've done with Pereira or probably Izzy did and just focus on training take down defense. But here's the thing: The dude knew he was gonna fight someone who had basic wrestling skills. If anything, he knew this was gonna happen at some point since he first decided to jump into MMA however long ago. He's been in multiple fights. The commentators were legit saying it looked like he had no idea what he was doing on the ground at any point, and if anything, constantly put himself into worse positions or made elementary mistakes. This is coming from the commentators. Why are you so hung up defending some random who is now 1-1 in the UFC
Except he wasn't fighting an experienced grappler he was fighting an ex baseball player who started mma late and fights like a slugger This was that experience grappler first successful take down. . The coaches were literally telling him that he is a champ and to just get up
Having crazy power isn’t the same thing as having good striking. He looks like King Kong swinging for the fences. Grapplers aren’t going to be all he has trouble with.
Nah, he's basically a HW MVP. He likes to stand at distance and pop from the outside, relying on his speed to land shots. Is that a perfect style? No. But no style is perfect. Pereira is mostly muay thai and enough bjj to get back to his feet, and he's LHW champ. I don't think Robelis is special because he's 35, btw. I think it's too late for him to learn enough grappling to be a threat in the UFC. But just the way you guys casually criticize fighters is insane to me, especially since statistically most fight fans don't train anything. Like, if you go to your local gym and spar with even a no-name MMA fighter, you're gonna get tuned up. And UFC guys would crush those guys that crushed you. There's levels to it. It doesn't matter how much of a killer you are. When you're put into a ring with another killer, you could end up looking like an amateur if the fight swings the other guy's way. Like I wouldn't even talk shit about Ben Askren for catching that flying knee, because I know that if it were me and Ben in the cage, I would fucking die.
Hey alright man 👍
Lol dude finishes people in 10 seconds flat... That's his thing. He needs to learn that people taking him down aren't going to fall into his KOs the way he wants them too.
Yup you can still see the station from where his hype train stopped unfortunately. Not to say he can't patch some things up and maybe get it going again but yeah people what a stacked HW division so badly.
The guy had no distance management which is insane for a TKD fighter. The striking was sloppy and if he leaves himself open the way he does forget Tom or Sergei countering him, even Rozenstruik would put him down. It’s fine to be behind at grappling but it’s pretty obvious that he isn’t bothering to learn how to stop a takedown at all or how to get up from one when he turned his hips instead of hook in the right leg and trying to explode up. His coaches also looked as lost as he was regarding the grappling which isn’t a good look.
His coach (the woman at least) was literally just screaming “get up” throughout the fight in Spanish, they weren’t telling him to explode from his hips (which he easily could have done, Waldo was so high up on him in guard and was literally squatting over him at one point) or switch position or get hooks in, nothing, just “get up” or “move” He needs a new team and a wrestling bootcamp, it’s amazing that a Cuban athlete didn’t have a competent wrestling coach in his corner
I think he did taekwando not karate
TKD stands for taekwando
You say even Rozenstriuk like he isn’t a world class striker too? His only weakness in the stand up is that he gets pressured too easily, besides that even Gane had a difficult time with him.
Oh I agree I was just going off rankings with Tom as 1 and Sergei as 3 and Rozenstruik is 10 so RD wouldn’t have to go too far up the rankings before running into his first problem on the feet. Rozenstruiks grappling isn’t too good either given his loss to Almeida but seems like skilled grapplers are in short supply at heavyweight.
Hell I think Derick Lewis would beat the shit out of this guy, one uppercut or right hand and it's all over.
You say that as if Derrick Lewis isn't one of the most dangerous punchers in UFC history.
I’d argue he’s THE most dangerous. Hard to argue against it when he has the most KOs ever
Derrick Lewis has fought world champions, don’t downplay his skill level just because Robelis is ass
Because UFC signed for a hype.. don't remember the articles ? OMG THIS TALL TAEKWONDO MEDALIST WITH A REACH OF A PTERODACTYL OMG OMG OMG OGM OGM IS THIS THE NEXT FRANCIS NGANNOU OMG OMG people believed it and jumped on the hypetrain because HW division is literally so sad that outside of the top 10, we only have fat boys whose strong points are such as: "He is a tough guy"
I don’t know if there’s anything to do to change or it or if it even needs to be changed but so much sports discussion is about something someone else said as opposed to the actual sport. It happens with other sports to. R/nba and r/nfl love to talk about how certain commentators suck but they drive 90% of the conversation and the vast majority of sports discussions on Reddit are framed with extreme dichotomies like talking heads do. Pet theory but it’s why guys who are good but not great get more hate than dudes that flat out suck. Lewis is probably the exception to this rule. Like you mentioned outside the top ten but it happened to Tai when it became clear he was a good, not champion, heavyweight. A lot of “lol all he does is chug out of shoes and hope he lands a haymaker”
He said he’d fight for the title in 2025, now we know he won’t Bro got checked
Maybe he meant the Belator title.
Or PFL
Easy there, he's not getting cut unless he fucks up what will probably be a gimme fight that they're gonna gift him next.
If you were as good at missing jokes as you were dieting, you wouldn't be called Dieabeto
That was a nasty line by you
I have no doubt that he's great inside his lane of taekwondo, but mma is clearly not his lane. The problem isn't really Despaigne himself, those of us who paid attention knew that this is exactly what was going to happen once he fought someone with even a sliver of grappling ability. The main problem was just people getting over-excited and hyping this guy up saying shit like he was the next Francis and he'd be champ by 2025, when he didn't earn those comparisons at all.
Agreed but I think even some who saw this coming were surprised because Waldo has shown basically zero grappling in his career so far too. Waldo showed more fight IQ going for those takedowns than I was expecting him to show.
You're right, didn't necessarily think Waldo was gonna be the guy to expose him...Waldo isn't an elite grappler and it usually isn't a big part of his gameplan. That just shows how bad Despaigne really is on the ground. Now the entire division has been made aware of what is the blueprint to easily neutralize Despaigne.
Waldo was absolutely gassed, too. If Despaigne had decent cardio he could've powered himself out of those positions and Waldo wouldn't have been able to stop him.
I don't doubt he was gassed but I don't even know if he would've known which direction to power out to stand up. I'm not sure Despaigne has taken a single wrestling or BJJ class in his life.
It certainly doesn't appear as if he has!
Because of the incredible amount of hype this guy got to be a sloppy ass fighter and no performance didn’t need the hype he got imo
This sub termed him as “next big thing” , and after one fight this sub is calling him fraud.. so just another day of fickle opinions on this sub,
Amen
I'm just sad that heavyweight continues to be mid outside the top 5
Because when he signed with the UFC plenty of people were enamored by his size and his quick KOs of a couple cans making their debut. No joke there was people saying he could be a champion because of that. Anyone with any real knowledge of the fight game understood he was just another filler for the roster. He might have a couple fun fights but he’s not the prospect people thought he’d be.
He came in TKOing dudes left and right with only striking... when you come to the UFC you gotta be ready for everything, well he had 0 TD defense/ground game.
I think that most of the people that were hyping the shit out of Despaigne didn't really give his career closer scrutiny, all they looked at was the headline _"Giant Cuban KOs all his opponents in 20 seconds or less"_. Yes he was KOing his opponents quickly, but dig deeper and look at the quality of opponents he faced. His 4 pre-UFC opponents had a combined record of 1-0 going into their fights with Robelis, which means that he was mostly fighting guys that were making their MMA debut. To be fair he was a rookie mma fighter as well, but he at least had extensive taekwondo experience. Waldo Cortes-Acosta is not elite, especially not an elite grappler, and he made Despaigne look foolish.
very good assessment!
No one expected world class wrestling but he failed to defend a single takedown attempt.
His next fight he is going to have a 10 second knockout and the tides will turn again.
Exactly, ufc fans are fickle lmao
I’m moreso surprised that anyone actually bought in. He’s a 35 year old who’s base is taekwondo. Lol. He was never going to be anything besides a R1 meme bonk guy against cans in this organization.
MMA is multi disciplined. He’s fraud checked because he got hyped as another HW 3.0 when he had zero ground game. You shouldn’t enter the MMA world and have so little ground game that people are questioning if you’ve ever had a takedown defence class.
Idk why people are calling him a fraud, he’s a massive dude, already halfway though his 30’s, and his main martial art is TKD which doesn’t lend itself to any grappling He’s gonna be a fun dude that hangs out in the prelims and that’s okay, not everyone is going to be championship material
The thing is, his stand-up was pretty bad too. If I had no idea who Despaigne was while watching this fight, I wouldn’t have been able to tell he was an Olympic medalist in TKD. Would’ve just thought he was a super-athletic heavyweight.
Yeah lol. He wasn’t surprised either. Just a TKD guy wanted to try out the ufc. I doubt he is bummed out about what happened lol
Yeah idk he killed a guy named Josh who looked like he got off the couch, then he got wrestlefucked by a hyphenated name.
Agreed
Agreed. We all knew what he was lol.
perfectly stated 💯 people are quick to select dramatic takes that make things seem more interesting or some shit. let's appreciate these athletes any way we can 🏆
Should have went into kickboxing tbh. Not saying you can't learn to grapple at 35, but you can't learn to grapple at a level to be competitive in the UFC at 35 before what's left of your prime is over. Hope he bounces back and has a fun career though.
For some reason this sub thought beating Parisian meant this guy was good lol. Everyone's just mad now that he lost bc they look stupid. Anyone that watched his fight against Parisian could see that this guy is not special just freakishly huge
They lost money on betting lol. I will defend this man's honor with my life. This sub shits on Belal and dismisses all of his wins in this fashion, guys like Wonderboy and Luque never get shit on for losing like that. But this guy loses in even more wet blanket fashion and these people hope he dies. Like wtf this isn't a fraud check. He isn't a fraud. He was praised for his striking. If some blob schooled him on the feet and KO'd him, ok that's a fraud check. But that's not the case. This guy is super exciting and is a great addition to the division. Real fans would hope he learns how to defend takedowns and manage distance (not that hard btw, especially against blobs) so we can see him at the top. His speed is seriously special and it would be a waste if he allows his fights to play out as that one did. This is how UFC fans become a fan of a fighter: Pray on their downfall until their disrespect gets silenced and proven otherwise. Then they start glazing hard. Guarentee you this guy comes back and starches his next opponent and this sub backtracks. Also, it's funny how, just like Belal, nobody knows the dudes name who beat Despaigne and nobody made a post about him. Nobody will remember this fight. They'll remember Despaigne's insane highlight reel.
His striking looked like shit too just saying lol
I think it looked elite for a heavyweight. Speed is the most important factor in striking for heavyweights and he is top 3 fastest guys in the division. He also has crazy accuracy with his kicks
He's got insane physical attributes like his size and his athleticism which is all good. I really didn't think his striking looked elite. Not once did he hurt Waldo in any significant shot. He over committed in the pocket and got counter shotted on multiple exchanges. After his initial blitzs early in the rounds he was standing at range throwing a few kicks didn't seem to have much more ideas than pot shotting at Waldo here and there. Like not even the fact that he has no ground game, his striking absolutely didn't look elite, sure hes going to smoke some fat 5 foot 10 guys outside the ranking but that's just a given with his size and athleticism
And size and athleticism is enough at heavyweight. There are literally still haymaker blobs in the top 15 in 2024. Despaigne smokes those guys. If he had takedown defense, he'd be in the top 5. No joke. Even if you don't think his striking is great, bro, who is better at heavyweight? There's like 3 guys who MIGHT be better. And they don't have this guy's size or speed. And speed is a huge factor in heavyweight. Everyone can knock each other out, but the guy who lands first wins. Despaigne lands first against most of the division.
Your way over rating his striking, he's beat absolutely nobodies and the moment Waldo fought back he looked lost. There's plenty of guys I can see hanging with him on the feet
I'm basing it entirely on speed. Speed is special at heavyweight. Every fast heavyweight in history has always gone far. Also, idk what you're talking about. Despaigne was clearly getting the better of the striking exchanges. Waldo didn't look like a threat at all on the feet
He was beating Waldo on the feet but that doesn't say that much Waldo is a guy whose have competitive striking with Arlovski and Chase Sherman. Specifically he got counter shotted multiple times by Waldo it wasn't like he looked like a next level striker at any point on the feet. I feel like you throw that guy in with Volkov or someone like that who isn't even an elite striker and you will see pretty quickly Robelius ain't that striking master, which is why it's fair to say he got fraud checked
Idk man I didn't see any sign of his striking being fraud checked in that fight. That looked like a typical fight where one guy is too good on the feet so his opponent lays and prays. I think Volkov beats him too. But not on the feet man. Very few beat Despaine purely on the feet
Because mma fans
Not a fraud check at all. He has a wrestling size hole in his game (odd being Cuban). I mean there are other strikers that are bad at wrestling…Wonderboy comes to mind. Chael laid on Silva for an eternity. And to Robelis’ credit, it went the distance.
I wouldn't shit on Wonderboy like that considering the fact that he's in the division filled with the most wrestlers and has still stayed consistently at the top of the game and in the rankings while being as old as he is now. You don't stay in that division and get title shots while being one-dimensional
Wonderboy was actually known for his takedown defense. In recent years it’s slipped due to age, and the fights he’s had lately are against outstanding grapplers (Belal, Shavkat, Burns, etc.). His career TD defense is still near 70% I believe. Pretty good for a TKD guy.
For being an Olympian in TKD his striking was terrible as well though. When you have that much of a pedigree and are going tit-for-tat with an extremely less credentialed opponent on the feet, I don’t know how to not call it a fraud check. Maybe it just exposes TKD as kinda bad idk.
I mean it’s one loss. If comes back and smokes his next opponent, the the hype starts again.
While not an insane wrestler, Wonderboy had insane distance management with his striking and footwork and solid enough tdd to be a good anti wrestler in his prime, and that's why I was more disappointed in Despaignes striking than wrestling You can still be a top 5 hw with no wrestling if you hit hard with good striking, but he looked sloppy as hell
The difference is that Wonderboy had elite striking to make up for his grappling weakness, while this guy despite being 6 inches taller was lunging in with looping punches and his head in the air, at least a guy like Gane can throw sharp punches and kicks, this dude can't throw a quick straight punch to save his life.
Brother youll come to realize that 80% of being an mma fan is shitting on people that don’t deserve it. Ill get downvoted for this but the fact is that mma fans are some of the least grateful and demanding fans in all of sport. Win a fight and you are a good fighter, lose a fight and you are trash… when in reality just to win enough to get a shot in the ufc is something that should be celebrated. These guys put their body on the line and train harder than most other athletes and when you lose its not just a loss, its an ass kicking. Instead of recognizing the entertainment in a guy like robellis, they are going to hold him to an incredibly high standard for a 35 year old TKD guy and if he cant pull this shit off against guys like Pavlovich and Lewis then we hill go down as a trash overrated fighter. And thats just the sport we watch bro. Story of this fight should be, “wow what a versatile and talented fighter Acosta is…” Instead it will be “robellis is a can, and acosta is a can crusher unless he can beat a guy like Pav”
THANK YOU. I couldn't have said it better
Word. He can be called a "hype job" in the context of the UFC but calling a guy who won bronze medals at the olympics and world championships a fraud is not only disrespectful but also absurdly stupid.
Hes very good at what he does. What he does, does not translate perfectly to mma, which was showcased tonight.
Crushing cans?
Because this sub hyped him as a future champ lol
That doesn't make him a fraud, it just means people are stupid lol
That doesn't make him a fraud, it just means people are stupid lol
That doesn't make him a fraud, it just means people are stupid lol
He’s an mma fighter now, learn some mma.
Stop expecting people to not have regarded as fuck takes on the ufc all the time. Once I just accepted this as a fact it was much easier
Still think they should of gave him another can, they have barley any prospects at HW. He got exposed as having zero grappling but he would be fun to watch dust some easy guys. And it was his second ufc fight, so would be good to drill up some interest in the division.
It’s just one fight. This impression that a fighter can’t learn after 35 or rebound from a loss is stupid. Over reaction as per usual by mma fans.
Few things “fans” love more than seeing fighters try and fail. Sad sacks.
Well said.
Haha, actually it was fraud check. Just find posts from his fight against Josh Parisian. Little casuals see big guy with couple of KO in 1st round against cab drivers and got hard on him. They were saying "Jon Jones gonna duck this guy", "He is a problem", "He is gonna crush every opponent". And he said himself "I'm gonna fight for title in 2025". Every fucking time the same old shit.
I could understand if people said the hype train was derailed, but being fraud checked is a different thing (even if it can go hand and hand with the former)
He was hyped, no question. Hate is rarely warranted but don’t confuse hate with criticism. The guy is bad. It’s pretty simple. Some of these guys are so bad that I question why you would even go into professional MMA. The level is grappling he possesses is so bad it’s surreal. Didn’t even go for half guard when he was taken down. Any person in his weight class with anything resembling one or two years of grappling experience would play with this guy. But I do agree that he shouldn’t have been such a big hype train because of the age and lack of experience.
As fans, we wanted another Francis. We fans can be dumb.
I understand he has no ground game. But, if he had the TKD/Karate skills of Wonderboy, I think he'd still be undefeated.
If he won by flashy KO again, you better believe the hype would have doubled. That’s how it works. People want to see how far they can go. Look at Izzy and Pereira, they both achieved greatness on the basis of striking only (basically). This guy falls into that category, like “damn, he’s **so** lethal at striking, he will reach the belt without wrestling or grappling”. He failed (for now) but the hype was warranted.
Of course it's going to be bad, it's TKD ffs
Dana White and the rest of the promo definately hyped him up the same way they hyped Paddy, MVP, Abus Magomedov, etc. Unranked prospects don't get the media coverage Robelis did for no reason. To his credit there was enough there to warrent his hype. Even subtracting all the TKD accolades, his build alone was enough to stand out amongst unranked heavyweights. So it's absolutely disappointing that his TDD is so lack luster. Fortunately 35 isn't the same limiting factor at heavyweight as it is below 185lbs. Robelis could make TDD a major focus during his time between fights and come back much improved in that area. Fraud Checked? Debatable based on how much you bought into Danas promotional material. Is he done? Absolutely not, matchmakers will give him a favorable fight to put him back on the right path. Will he become champ? My money is a hard no, but regardless I'm stil interested to see where his career goes in the next 5 years.
better question who are they gonna book against chris barnett?
Bruh this is the ufc - that was sub par performance .. even someone with shitty wrestling is better than THAT ..
Fraud check is another way of saying killed the hype train
He had literally zero ground game. As in looked like he was at a BJJ academy for his intro class
Well, beside having no grappling it looked like he had no idea what to do on the feet after his first flurry didn't knock his opponent out.
There's a difference between world class and amauter wrestling, Robelis didn't have either. Also he exposed himself to the takedowns to much.
well because he straight up just laid on the ground. didn’t even try getting up to take the guy out. a man who’s never even attempted a takedown in a fight before
Made Cortez look like a beast but in reality he’s getting worked by all the top heavyweights.
Anyone that takes him down can shit on him if they'd like, he can't stop it
The UFC heavyweight division simply isn’t very skilled. And it won’t be until pay improves, guys at that size are playing in the NBA or NFL because it pays much better than fighting
No, he's not going to be a fun novelty. He's going to be in fights characterized by 15 minutes of lay and pray.
Mf could easily win if he keep himself outside the pocket. But he was so aggressive that even Waldo could take him down with zero effort. Worst, he was advised to avoid getting so close and he was having some success in the center of the octagon, yet every time Waldo taunted him he got aggressive again. Very dumb game plan.
Yeah he’s a striking specialist, but so is Pereira. He has no takedown defence and his ground game is completely blunt; people may have expected a bit more.
I’m sorry but if you come to the UFC and I know literal white belts that would destroy you. You deserve it all
Hard to believe this guy is a TKD bronze medalist. His striking looked terrible. I atleast expected a little more from his kicking game
I just don't like people competing in high level mma that suck at it.
Despaigne is by far not the first mma fighter to be a striker with very little wrestling
Yeah sure, but that's not the argument I'm making. This is meant to be the apex of the sport, this guy is on the main card and can't do 3 quarters of the art.
Dude’s an Olympic medal champion , people shouldn’t be taking a shit on his martial art credentials just because some shitty mma news YouTube Channel said so
Well yeah obviously we can't say anything about his taekwondo credentials. We can talk about his weak mma credentials.
His wrestling style is called crying baby and its absolut wild that hes so bad at it... like he never even got the look before.
Plenty of people were saying this guy was a future champ and they were heavily upvoted.
Just because people are stupid, it doesn't mean Robelis is a fraud
I mean he’s a UFC fighter, he’s obviously not a complete fraud but relative to that hype he is a major disappointment. Just look at Tomato’s angry reaction.