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yeah stephen a could have said it in a more delicate way when talking about Cowboy, but he was 100% correct when he said "we ain't learned a damn thing about Conor McGregor" because most people expected Conor to beat the shit out of Cerrone, who was borderline shot and already a stylistically pretty good matchup for Conor; I found myself disagreeing more with Rogan and Thomson there frankly. Also but it's not like there haven't been a ton of people on here that have expressed analogous views re Cowboys composure/heart in fights (particularly as he was getting older); it's not my opinion, but it's not a view that's just coming out of nowhere.People have shit on Stephan after what he said when Conor Cowboy happened and whether he really knows what he talks about he was 100% right then and now.
my honest opinion of Stephen A is that he has said a lot of ignorant stuff about MMA in the past and he needs to work on how he talks about hte fighters, but I think he's always been honest that he doesn't know the sport well and he does seem like he's sincerely trying to improve his knowledge of the sport (and is genuinely improving in a lot of respects). A lot of MMA fans still value the weird counter culture image the sport used to have and I think the fact that a big name like Stephen A is doing MMA commentary is hard for them to accept. If MMA wants to get bigger, it needs figures like Stephen A, and hte sooner fans understand that, the better. We can always criticize him when he's wrong or he's disrespectful, but engaging with him with immediate dismissal and hostility doesn't do anything positive for the sport and frankly I think a lot of the criticism of him is bad faith and dishonest to begin with.
also, Stephen A has more latitude to speak his mind than most MMA journalists. He's the only guy I can think of that would have a big enough platform tthat the UFC couldn't just threaten to freeze him out (implicitly or explicitly) if they didn't like his coverage.
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