Bellator 260 - Lima vs. Amosov (June 11th)

[Egg Shen]

1 week out.

Solid little ditty.

Obviously Jim is picking Amosov to beat Lima and i have to agree. Its a weird one because Lima was seen as such a force, but that Mousasi loss really seemed to damage his stock. He just got taken apart without much of a fight in a real damp squib of a superfight. Here he's fighting a hungry 25-0 fighter who has the toolbox to make Lima's life miserable. Gotta lean towards a title change here.

Daley/Jackson is a cracking co-main too. Daley looked reborn last time out, and Jackson has been one of the unsung success stories in Bellator, currently on the best run of his career.

oh, and fans are back 🙌🏻

 

Edited June 5, 2021 by Egg Shen

[jimufctna24]

Amosov should be able to exploit Lima's bad habit of backing himself into the fence. Amosov is really good at backing his opponents up with strikes while at the same protecting his chin, and then scoring takedowns against the fence when his opponent runs out of space. Even if Lima tries to push forward, the threat of a takedown will be there. Amosov is also very good at reactive takedowns as he showed against Ruth.  

It's true that stamina was an issue for Amosov in his last fight, but that came while fighting Logan Storley, a pressure wrestler who constantly made him work. By contrast, Lima is primarily a striker, who while having powerful leg kicks and a decent left hook, is fairly low in his output. He is therefore unlikely to drain Amosov's reserves in the same way that Storley did. 

Given all this, I foresee Amosov dominating with his grappling and winning a wide unanimous decision. 

[Egg Shen]

Lima has a habit of getting stuck on his back and conceding rounds once he gets taken down. 

[jimufctna24]

Not long now:

 

[Egg Shen]

Amosov is the underdog here which kind of surprises me as it's the worst kind of match up for Lima. Im gonna have to get on that.

[Egg Shen]

1 day to go:

[jimufctna24]

Two of my strongest MMA beliefs will be put to test tomorrow. 

1) That Lima is the most overrated Brazilian fighter since Anderson Silva. 

2) That Amosov is the 2nd best fighter on Bellator's roster behind Pitbull. 

Let's see if I am right or talking bollocks. 

[Egg Shen]

i dunno about overrated, Lima has spent the majority of career going pretty much unnoticed. I think the "best Welterweight in the World" talk all came from Lima defenders who were frustrated that nobody paid much attention to him.

Right now id fancy Lima against pretty much any 170lb'er in a standup MMA fight. He just has one glaring weakness to his game, and i think any of the top UFC fighters would probably exploit that, as well as Amosov.

[wandshogun09]

Plus I don’t think losing to Amosov would prove Lima is overrated anyway. I’ve seen limited footage of Amosov but he looks like he’ll be a real issue for most. No shame losing to him. Although I guess Jim means more that if Lima beats Amosov, it’ll make him eat his words a bit. 

I’ve always liked Lima but I don’t think many genuinely ever rated him top 1 or 2 in the world at Welterweight did they? There’s always been someone better at the top of 170. I think it was more a case of, like you said Egg, some people thinking he was underrated then going overboard and overrating him a bit. I also think some of it is people wanting to put a Bellator guy on that pedestal because he’s not in the UFC, the rooting for the underdogs thing. I said similar about Ryan Bader on here a while back and I think most disagreed. But I definitely think there’s an element of some fans bigging certain fighters up more than is probably warranted because they’re in Bellator and it’s an alternative to the big bully in the game. I get it. And the likes of Lima and Bader are really good. But I don’t think either would be making a huge splash in their divisions if they were in the UFC. Some Bellator fighters would do well. I think Pitbull would be right in the mix for one. And him and Volkanovski or Holloway would be fucking incredible. There’s a few others I could see doing well in the UFC as well. And Bellator have a bunch of really great prospects so the future is in safe hands. But I think Lima would be in deep shit against an Usman or Covington and I wouldn’t fancy his chances against Edwards either. He’d probably be in the Top 10 and I think he’d beat a lot of the UFC’s 170ers. But I reckon he’d end up getting lost in the shuffle in the middle of the pack battling the Vicente Luques, Niko Prices and Michel Pereiras. All still fights I’d love to see though. 

[jimufctna24]

 

Around a year ago when this picture emerged, some were hyping Lima as the fighter to beat Usman, which is partially why I came to perceive him as overrated. For example, Josh Thomson claimed that Lima could defend a few of Usman's takedowns and tire him out. An opinion I found outrageous! Not only because of Usman's superior wrestling, but also his insane cardio. If they did fight, I can only see Lima getting taken down repeatedly and losing 50-45 on the cards. 

As for his striking, some forget that MVP actually didn't do too bad against him while their fight lasted. MVP had some decent success in the striking department and defended well off his back. Against Mousasi, a fight which was also primarily a striking battle, he simply wasn't busy enough! Which again, is a key weakness of his. He has some very good weapons, which I credited for above, but I don't think he's the 170lbs Mirko Cro Cop like some make him out to be.

Now, the talk of him being an Usman-beater has cooled since he lost to Mousasi. However, given that the bookies have him as a slight favourite to beat Amosov tonight, which I don't think he will, I still think he's overrated to some extent. For the reasons I noted above, I consider Amosov to be a terrible match-up for him.

I actually like him as a person and enjoy watching him fight. However, I think he'd only be a top 10 Welterweight in the UFC rather that a legitimate contender. 

47 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

I also think some of it is people wanting to put a Bellator guy on that pedestal because he’s not in the UFC, the rooting for the underdogs thing. I said similar about Ryan Bader on here a while back and I think most disagreed. But I definitely think there’s an element of some fans bigging certain fighters up more than is probably warranted because they’re in Bellator and it’s an alternative to the big bully in the game. 

There is certainly some truth to this. I am anti-UFC at heart, and therefore will always root for the number 2 promotion and its fighters. 

In Bader's case, he might surprise a few people if he returns to the UFC. Not because he's a great fighter, but because the 205lbs division is utter pish beyond 4 or 5 fighters. If Glover can put enough wins together to get a UFC title shot at 41, then there is a good chance that the likes of Bader, Davis, etc, could too. 

[Egg Shen]

27 minutes ago, jimufctna24 said:

 

Around a year ago when this picture emerged, some were hyping Lima as the fighter to beat Usman, which is partially why I came to perceive him as overrated. For example, Josh Thomson claimed that Lima could defend a few of Usman's takedowns and tire him out. An opinion I found outrageous! Not only because of Usman's superior wrestling, but also his insane cardio. If they did fight, I can only see Lima getting taken down repeatedly and losing 50-45 on the cards. 

As for his striking, some forget that MVP actually didn't do too bad against him while their fight lasted. MVP had some decent success in the striking department and defended well off his back. Against Mousasi, a fight which was also primarily a striking battle, he simply wasn't busy enough!

I 100% agree with the Usman thought, just the worst fight for Lima.

His inactivity has cost him previously too. Its just when Lima lets it fly he looks incredible, it can be frustrating to watch a guy with that arsenal not utilise it on occasion. 

[wandshogun09]

1 hour ago, jimufctna24 said:

In Bader's case, he might surprise a few people if he returns to the UFC. Not because he's a great fighter, but because the 205lbs division is utter pish beyond 4 or 5 fighters. If Glover can put enough wins together to get a UFC title shot at 41, then there is a good chance that the likes of Bader, Davis, etc, could too. 

He was about 4 or 5 down the pecking order when he was in the UFC’s 205 division though, wasn’t he? Beyond Jones, DC, Gus, Rumble etc there weren’t many ahead of him. I think he’d slot in around about the same position now as he did then. He’s good, and I’m not saying he couldn’t get to a title shot.  Post-Jones that division is wide open. But like before, there’ll always be a handful of guys he can’t beat. Just off the top of my head I’d have Blachowicz, Glover, Jiri to beat him. Thiago Santos would probably be 50/50 at this point, he’s not looked the same since the double knee surgery. I could see Ankalaev and Rakic beating him, to be honest. 

Back on topic, I’m guessing Lima is the betting favourite mostly because he’s a former champ and a lot of people betting don’t know enough about Amosov. 

[Carbomb]

3 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

He was about 4 or 5 down the pecking order when he was in the UFC’s 205 division though, wasn’t he? Beyond Jones, DC, Gus, Rumble etc there weren’t many ahead of him. I think he’d slot in around about the same position now as he did then. He’s good, and I’m not saying he couldn’t get to a title shot.  Post-Jones that division is wide open. But like before, there’ll always be a handful of guys he can’t beat. Just off the top of my head I’d have Blachowicz, Glover, Jiri to beat him. Thiago Santos would probably be 50/50 at this point, he’s not looked the same since the double knee surgery. I could see Ankalaev and Rakic beating him, to be honest. 

I'm not sure he'd beat Reyes either.

[jimufctna24]

It's funny how perceptions change. 

Last summer when Jones vacated some were pushing for Bader to be ranked number 1 at 205lbs. Then Nemkov smashed him and his stock plummeted. 

I'm not sure how he'd fare against Jiri, Reyes and Jan. But I think he'd beat Glover and probably Santos too. 

 

 

[wandshogun09]

35 minutes ago, jimufctna24 said:

It's funny how perceptions change. 

Last summer when Jones vacated some were pushing for Bader to be ranked number 1 at 205lbs.

I didn’t agree with that then or now. The streak he was on before getting Nemkov’d was good (although I still think it was overrated), but half of it was at Heavyweight so the wins over Fedor, Meathead and Mo obviously had no bearing on his status at 205. Nobody was putting him anywhere near the top of the pile of LHWs when he left the UFC and the only 205ers he beat in Bellator at that time were Phil Davis (in a shit fight) and Linton Vassell. Don’t get me wrong, he had a good run. He had a 14 fight stretch there where the only loss was the Rumble one. But you look back at his wins - Davis, Vassell, OSP and Latifi were probably his best in that run. Then there’s wins over the shells of Little Nog and Rashad, Feijao wasn’t looking too good when Bader beat him either.

Of course, Jones vacating left a massive void. But while Bader had put more wins together than the UFC’s top LHWs, I’d say Reyes’ razor close loss to Jones was better than any of Bader’s wins at 205. And at the time Jones vacated last year, Bader hadn’t even been competing at 205 since 2017 as he was wrapped up in the Heavyweight GP. I admit though, it’s hard ranking a nailed on #1 in Jones absence because they’ve all been trading wins and losses. Last May though (which I think is when Jones vacated), Reyes, Santos and Glover would’ve all been up there. That’s before Reyes and Santos went on losing streaks, obviously. 

35 minutes ago, jimufctna24 said:

I'm not sure how he'd fare against Jiri, Reyes and Jan. But I think he'd beat Glover and probably Santos too. 

Edited June 11, 2021 by wandshogun09