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Originally Posted by Sakara=Excitement  19 of Clays 30 wins are finishes. And Clay has been in some seriously exciting fights. Hell he just had an amazing fight against Bendo 2 fights ago! He finished Gomi, Dos Anjos, and Gugerty before that.
His fights with Sanchez, Huerta, and Griffin were all fight of the nights....that he lost. Clay has won 5 FOTN awards, yet has only won 1 of those fights. Maybe the guy just wants to win? Who knows.
He also was awarded FOTY twice by major MMA publications. |
Biased on my part because I was being selective on his fights. The main ones I was thinking about were Mac Danzig, Nate Diaz, Diego Sanchez, Anthony Pettis and Hatsu Hioki. He won 4 of those by just looking busy in my opinion and almost stole a decision from Diego for the same reason. The reason the Diego fight was exciting was because of Diego's skill and Clay's heart. Diego was destroying him in the first round and Clay kept coming. Clay was getting brutalized with elbows from Diego from the bottom in the 2nd and 3rd. The Ben Henderson was another display of Clay getting punished and showing heart. I feel that most of his fights where he gets FOTN is based on the same thing: Clay's takedowns, coming forward, and heart versus the other fighter showing actual technique and a skillset.
I actually thought he changed his style after the Florian loss because he went and finished fights, and I changed my mind about him but then the Pettis and Hioki fight showed me otherwise.
I don't include the Gray Maynard fight because it's an anomaly. He fought very differently and got boo'ed for it but that's not how he usually fights.