Stephen Thompson expressed his thoughts about the fight against Shavkat Rakhmonov, which he lost by submission. So, when Shavkat Rakhmonov said he would outstrike him in their fight last December, he wasn’t surprised. But Rakhmonov had a big surprise waiting for Thompson, and at one point Rakhmonov took down Thompson and finished him off via rear-naked choke submission late in the second round. Thompson admits that Rakhmonov used a smart strategy, and that is acceptable, but he does not agree with the explanation from his opponent.
Stephen Thompson Reacts to Injury
After winning, Rakhmonov said he had a bad ankle injury that nearly made him pull out of the fight. However, he pushed through with it. Stephen Thompson does not like losing, and he does say Rakhmonov was stronger fighting that night. His frustration comes from his attempts to justify his change in strategy after claiming he would prove he was the better striker.
Stephen Thompson said this in an interview with MMA Fighting. “It is funny when guys are like ‘I’m going to go out there and knock him out. I mean even Shavkat was ‘I’m going to go out there and I’m going to beat him striking. He can’t strike with me’ and then he ended up turning into a grappler out there. Of course, his excuse was ‘I had a hurt ankle’ but that dude was running on the treadmill the day before just fine.”
Conversation with Head Coach
After the fight, he had a conversation with the head coach of the Kazakh fighter known as Henry Hooft. He admitted that they had to use the grappling techniques because that was the only way to dominate Rakhmonov. This is not the first fight where the same coach has told Thompson about his weakness, but they used the same technique against him in the fight against Gilbert Burns.
Stephen Thompson is going to fight another great fighter at UFC 307, Joaquin Buckley. Concerning his fight against Joaquin Buckley at UFC 307, Thompson believes that he will follow the same strategy as Rakhmonov, despite what Buckley is saying. If we look at the history of Buckley, we have seen him grappling a lot. The thing that worked for Buckley was that he would jump on his opponent to try to catch a takedown, and it was on him to defend against those takedowns.
Stephen Thompson predicted this in the interview: “I think he’s going to shoot. I think he’s going to wrestle. You saw what he did with the tall Russian Nursulton Ruziboev who made 170. Of course, he was 6-foot-5 so the butt cheeks are right there, right at his level so it was easy for him to take him down. I’m a very difficult guy to take down. I am. I pride myself on that. I make my opponents work to get me down. When they do, they tire themselves out.”
Final Thoughts
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