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He looked bad on the inside against Whittaker, that was his strength against Romero.
Whats Costa Missing?
- Thread starter BluntForceTrama
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Conditioning.. he fights like he's afraid of gassing out.
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Probably wrestling IQ and knowing when to take a single or double leg shot on someone. He is too stuck in "firefight" mode on the feet. If he can learn to setup the punches then chaining properly to attempt takedowns he could wear out his opponents a little more.
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Fight IQ.
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He is fine. He just needs to fight more. If I had to nitpick then I would say he needs to work on leg kick defense. He had the same issue with Izzy. He just can't keep tanking leg kicks. You can argue he was on his way to victory until he couldn't tank those kicks anymore
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Confidence
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Offensive grappling + combinations
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Easier opponents. Seriously. If he fought mid-level fighters he's win more often.
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I feel like his fight IQ just isn't that great. Relies on his athleticism, strength, and good chin. Whittaker is on the opposite end. Pretty good athleticism but his fight IQ is one of the best. Not sure he is too different, maybe some after Izzy but he doesn't seem to fight much different. Plodding forward and throwing hard. Vettori beat him just off gameplanning despite being the lesser fighter IMO. I get there was a point taken away but I still had it for Vettori and I believe he would have won anyway?
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Not really. He just started fighting better competition that he can't bully around anywhere near as easily.
I mean, look at his record. A bunch of nobodies, then Hendricks who was washed and too small for MW; then Hall, who crumbles under any sort of pressure; then Yoel, who usually just stands there and lets you tee off if you're game enough, and doesn't have good technique.
Those are the fights that Costa made his name with. They're the reason Costa seemed so unstoppable.
And then he fought Izzy, who was just far too skilled for him.
And yeh, Izzy wrecked him and impregnated him on live TV, but after Izzy he fought Vettori, who never gets bullied around; Rockhold, who had no fucks to give at that point, and Whittaker, who was just more skilled.
Cardio, confidence, grit.
The dude has all the tools, he just doesn’t let it go because he knows he will fade. Against more technical strikers, he should press the action and make them respect his power, but he seems unwilling to take a punch to land a punch. He tries to out point guys, when his skillset is to suited for moving forward, eating a shot, while throwing more powerful shots of his own.
The dude has all the tools, he just doesn’t let it go because he knows he will fade. Against more technical strikers, he should press the action and make them respect his power, but he seems unwilling to take a punch to land a punch. He tries to out point guys, when his skillset is to suited for moving forward, eating a shot, while throwing more powerful shots of his own.
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More or less agree with this
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This. He's just half a step behind against the top 5. And he NEVER adjusts. In the Israel and Vettori fights his game plan wasn't working and he just carried on with it. Maybe with Izzy it was just beyond him. But in the Vettori fight he was what?, trying to KO him with body kicks?
If there is a possible saving grace it may be that the weight cuts slow him down and leave him foggy. Maybe 205 is a place he could look.
I will say this. He's fun to watch fight and fun to watch "being about to fight". No hate ..
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More weapons and less stationary shot selection. His lead headkick is on the money. Now his jab is becoming very dangerous as well. But despite his jacked frame, which frankly isn't quite what it used to be anyways, he does not seem to have that one punch knockout power. All his finishes come by walking the opponents down and mixing up shots to the body and the head.
Paulo is the classic tank. He's got a great capacity for absorbing shots while putting a whole lot of pressure forward and landing a decent amount shots throughout. Now in the Whittaker fight he showed up quite thinned down, and his footwork seemed to be improved to some degree, but the issue he has is that to find his success, he effectively needs his opponent to back down in a way that allows him to cut them off with their back against the cage. Now that may very well work against so-so and even good MWs, but at the top of the division the guys have understood how to move away from exchanges before they end up in trouble against the fence.
All his good shots in the open land from the left. He is not able to impose a real threat from the right side until he has his opponents backed up against the cage. He's only picking one shot at a time, without really taking advantage of opponents response patterns. I guess you could call it lack of fight iq. Perhaps just lack of detailed gameplanning.
If he figures out a way to consistently catch his opponents when they are not all shelled up and expecting to get hit, he'd look significantly more dangerous and he's already a force to be reckoned with.
Paulo is the classic tank. He's got a great capacity for absorbing shots while putting a whole lot of pressure forward and landing a decent amount shots throughout. Now in the Whittaker fight he showed up quite thinned down, and his footwork seemed to be improved to some degree, but the issue he has is that to find his success, he effectively needs his opponent to back down in a way that allows him to cut them off with their back against the cage. Now that may very well work against so-so and even good MWs, but at the top of the division the guys have understood how to move away from exchanges before they end up in trouble against the fence.
All his good shots in the open land from the left. He is not able to impose a real threat from the right side until he has his opponents backed up against the cage. He's only picking one shot at a time, without really taking advantage of opponents response patterns. I guess you could call it lack of fight iq. Perhaps just lack of detailed gameplanning.
If he figures out a way to consistently catch his opponents when they are not all shelled up and expecting to get hit, he'd look significantly more dangerous and he's already a force to be reckoned with.
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Fight IQ
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I'm going to go against the grain and say technical striking. He brute forces his setups too much. If you could put Anderson Silva's brain into Costa's head then he possesses the physical gifts to really be special. Unfortunately his skills are very mediocre and used his size/power to overcome it mostly. I would say he's like a better MW version of Drew Dober. He has improved somewhat, but he just isn't at the level where he's masterclass. If guys like DDP can make bad striking effective, Costa has the possibility to find a new way to land with new gameplans and training.
