Did Belal actually not fight very well or was it JDM that forced Belal to strike with him ?

Belal came out and said on the Ankik/Florian podcast that he didn't follow the gameplan of trying to take Maddalena down and opted to strike with him instead. A lot of fans and media members share the same sentiments. I just don't see it that way. Belal's takedowns and general mma success is by pressuring, boxing combinations level changing into takedowns . Except that's going to be a lot harder to do against a more skilled and more dangerous pressure boxer in JDM . Look at what happened against Neal and the first Luque fight. Which is why against Gilbert Burns and Luque rematch, he stayed at range or on his bike and would use a lot of kicks and single shots and would level change if Luque got too close. Which is what he did against JDM for a lot of time and almost every time he pressured , he took a good amount of punishment. Now people will look at Jack's performance against Burns where Giacomo did pressure Burns heavily and still got taken down at a decent rate. Except Jack adjusted from that performance. Instead of using a high guard, he kept his hands a lot lower and opted for more head movement to prepare for the takedown better. Instead of constantly trying to get into the pocket to land his combo hooks , he stayed at range using long straights ,jabs and teeps and forced Belal to cross the distance. He also used several body jabs , jab and dips to be in a preemptive position to defend takedowns. He was also feinting the uppercut and the knee up the middle to make Belal wary of shooting. And when he did get taken down or was in a back body lock . He used his already well proven scrambling skills to get back up with getting his back taken. submitted by /u/MA-JA-HO [link] [comments]