I agree with most of this, but where I slightly differ in opinion is that I believe he’s not a very skilled MMA fighter. He’s very limited and labored in his MMA skillset.
When has Ngannou thrown nice kicks with good set ups and sprung back to defensive position? He hasn’t, he’s slow and labored.
I think he’s more of a product of having fought bottom of the barrel HW athletes in the worst UFC HW division to date.
When guys like Black Beast and Rozenstruik were at the top of the rankings, you know the roster is depleted.
No, your opinion doesn't differ from mine at all lol.
Dude's a shit MMA striker who got by on just hitting really hard and being big as fuck strong in the least talented division in MMA.
Look at the way he beat Rozen. Rozen is technically a way better striker than Ngannou, but he's still not that good. Frank was able to blitz forward with windmill punches and put him out. It looked pathetic if you watched in slow motion, but it worked because it was HW.
And yeh, BB is shit. He's just a pure boxer, and he's not even really good at that.
But when I talk about how Frank would wreck AJ with his MMA striking, I'm not saying he'd put on some masterful, clean performance or anything. It'd be shots that AJ isn't at all used to, a totally different sort of range management, etc. It'd be dirty and nasty and just him kicking the legs, getting inside and hurting him the clinch, which wouldn't have any ref separation.
AJ would either catch him coming in, while having to worry about blitz, and a range of kicks that he isn't used to, or get beat up and finished in a clinch game that he's used to being a place of somewhat safety and a break.