Khabib has always had rough weight cuts. Abulmanap (Rest in peace old man) has said cutting the weight is harder than being in the Octagon. I can timestamp a video of him saying that if you want. When Khabib won the title from Ragin' Al, he started his camp (intending to fight Tony Ferguson) at 187 pounds then fast forward to 11 days before the fight hes walking around 174. His lived shut down or whatever before UFC 209. I'm super not surprised at the very least he looked underwhelming but looking rough has never stopped Khabib from looking fresh while imposing his will.
You know who would be an awful match up for Khabib? Jose Aldo. Also can do and has done ALLLLL the things you need to hit Khabib without being hit and avoiding extended grappling. You dont have to be on the ground to be losing to Khabib.
Anyway, Jose Aldo can pivot when someone his marching forward on him with strikes. Sometimes then sends you into and open angle and Aldo hits you while your looking at Joe Rogan and he's looking at the side of your head. Gaethje...I don't really see doing very often. Mostly I've seen him go back in a straight lines when defending strikes. He does move side to side at a distance and can escape at angles and I've also seen him get way better foot position on say Tony Ferguson...but....to say he can matador Khabib bum rushing his hips? He would have to show something new to me.
Aldo can limp leg! The good news is so can Gaethje AND so can Ragin' Al. Al defended many many Khabib lauch and your leg TD's in open space with a simple limp leg. I'm confident Gaethje has that ability.
Aldo has a good whizzer! A great one in fact. Watch him use it vs Chad Mendes especially (idk which fight. Watch em both theyre awesome). JG has a whizzer but uses it sparingly choosing to explode his hips to expose his back and wall walk. DP is a good wall walker too and he spent minutes at a time trying to get off the fence. The fence is lava don't touch the fence.
Aldo is a good hand fighter! You're not getting your hands around Jose Aldo for very long no sir. Aldo can tie one of your arms with a whizzer and have wrist control on the other in the clinch and escape super duper easily. I might be wrong but I don't think I've EVER seen Gaethje do this. He needs to able to do that if he needs to and Khabib pretty much gets everyone to the fence.
In short Gaethje is not Aldo...
but will give Khabib and good account of himself and may even threaten Khabib drastically standing up. Gaethje has a meeeeeeean left hook and uppercut and he swings bloody hard (I'm not English.) We learned from Tony that he could swing like that for long long time too.
