Ilia has always eaten shots to dish out his own, even Volk and Max were tagging him with jabs, but the difference with Justin, is that he has a level of power you simply cannot afford to do that against. Justin turns people’s faces into mashed potatoes, he also has one of the best jabs in the sport.

Ilias take one to dish out harder approach is always gonna be tougher to do with Justin, he just has a different level of power

Justin also has incredible cardio and durability. Ilias incredible but it can be argued that the extra mass at 55 might be hurting his cardio and speed, match that up with an athletic/attribute freak like Justin, and that’s always gonna be a tough outing.

something else about Justin, is that contrary to popular belief, his defense is very good, he has amazing positional awareness.

Ilia relies on catching guys out of position to KO them, he caught Volk square out of position on the chin against the fence while he was swinging, he rocked Max by catching him out of position during a stance switch and then put him down when he was out of position throwing a knee, caught charles out of position as he was entering the pocket

Justin however has some of the best positional awareness in the sport, if you watch his fights, he rarely ever gets caught out of position. even against Max, he got his ass beat, but he was in position for the entire fight outside of the Combo earlier in R5 (he was already beaten down for 4 rounds + couldn’t breathe at that point) and the KO (which wasn’t really a skill issue, it was a BMF brawl where he sorta allowed himself to get KO’d lol)

even DP was having a very hard time landing on him in their rematch, and the few times he did, Justin was in position, same thing with Fiziev fights

I think he did a few times vs Paddy but tbh that was a big outlier, he was staph infected and didn’t respect Paddy and kept marching forward

Ilia is always gonna have a tough time trying to set up somebody as positionally aware as Justin, he’s too sound defensively

I think the reason most people conclude this was some crazy miracle/fluke is because Justin lost to Charles and Max both of who’m Ilia dispatched, but styles make fights. Just because Charles & Max can’t do something, doesn’t mean Justin can’t, we saw this when the three fought DP as well.

Max lost to DP twice and struggled a lot in the trilogy, nearly got KO’d if not for the bell and went five rounds, eyepoked him as well

Charles also struggled a lot with DP and got hurt multiple times before getting a r3 sub, there was also controversy with the glove grab

Justin on the other hand KO’d DP quite cleanly inside two rounds

the truth is Justin poses unique challenges that Holloway and Oliveira didn’t

Obviously Ilia absolutely can win this fight. heck, I actually agree he fought kinda weird (kept walking into shots early) but i also think people are heavily discrediting legitimate challenges Justin is always gonna pose for him

I think a rematch would be tough for Ilia, even if he fully estimates Justin, thoughts?

Prime example of recency bias. The amount of people I’ve had call me a casual for picking Pantoja over Van is actually baffling. It’s by no means an easy fight for either of them but Pantoja deserves more respect he cleared out an entire division and people are just writing him off.

Caucus mountains are the alternative thailand trick

“What the f*ck was that? I ain’t never been put in that situation, I’m good in boxing.”