Gilbert Melendez: "the Russians have arrived"

“The Russians have arrived and they all have that special style, the Sambo. They know how to wrestle. They know how to grapple and they know how to put it together. Khabilov will try to push Henderson with the punches and get the takedowns. But what’s going to make the difference is the scramble in the takedowns. Benson is too slick and too smooth and once he defends the takedowns, then we’ve got a striking battle. Henderson is very tactical landing some kicks and scoring the points.”
Taking to his role as guest host on ‘UFC Tonight’ last night, former UFC title challenger Gilbert Melendez discussed this weekend’s UFC main event between Ben Henderson and Rustam Khabilov.
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Pretty spot on analysis by Gil

I agree

Don't know if you noticed Gil but.... the Russians 'arrived' in the UFC in 1995, PRIDE 1 in 1997, and 80 years before MMA was ever MMA when they developed Combat Sambo.

  

Dagwood wrote:Don't know if you noticed Gil but.... the Russians 'arrived' in the UFC in 1995, PRIDE 1 in 1997, and 80 years before MMA was ever MMA when they developed Combat Sambo.

  

Good post. I was thinking the same thing.

Oleg "The Russian Bear" Taktarov = UFC 6 tournament winner and finalist in the first Ultimate Ultimate

Igor "Houdini" Zinoviev = Extreme Fighting Champion

I've seen Gil on tv and in interviews and he doesn't come across like a person whose strength is thinking or coming up with original thoughts.

Lmao you guys are haters



He's obviously referring to the surge in hot fighters coming from Russia and eastern Europe.

There has always been a great Russian fighter in the mix but never in these sorts of numbers.

Bellator alone has a ton of euro fighters and ufc has followed suit.

Look to ufc roster couple years back it was arlovski matyushenko LOL


Gil isn't saying that Russians just appeared or arrived just now, he's talking about their popularity and numbers surge kinda like Brazilians have been for quite a while.

There are 2 to 3 times more Russian/eastern European fighters in the upper ranks literally in every division before it was mostly hw and lhw.

Like I said before spot on Gil (real ufc lw champion)

fka wrote:There are 2 to 3 times more Russian/eastern European fighters in the upper ranks literally in every division before it was mostly hw and lhw.

The quote mentions Russians, it doesn't mention Eastern Euro's.

There are 2 to 3 times of everybody. The pool of talent/fighters in mma has grown for all nationalities/races.

There have always been talented Russian's in mma.

Gil says they "have arrived".

If he means arrived as in physically arrived....Oleg Taktarov was winning UFC tournaments in 1995.

If he means arrived as coming onto the scene. The talent pool was much smaller then and Russians had a good representation. Oleg Taktarov winning UFC shows. Igor Zinoviev being the champion and fighting on ppv. Mikhail Ilyukhin. Maxim Tarasov. This was at the beginning of mma/nhb.

Maybe Zuffa mma doesn't recognize these people.

There was a little sarcasm in my post. That's why putin went from fedor-faced to dancing.

The former Soviet fighters were always there. The UFC never scouted or recruited a fighter from over there in their life until just lately. All the former-USSR guys that fought in the UFC showed up on their doorstep in America already.

I tried to tell people for years that the reason US & Brazilian fighters had a big over-representation in the UFC because those are about the only places they recruited from. That non-representative sampling of the top fighters worldwide skewed the results. The MMA masses conclude there was zero guys 'anywhere' else (but maybe a Canadian or two) that were high enough level to make the UFC roster.

For instance, many M-1 guys could have cut it in the UFC at any time after Oleg or Andre or Vladdy M. Khabib himself virtually walked right from being a M-1/Pro FC guy into UFC champion contention. I think if you ask Khabib he'll tell there are a few guys as good or better than he or Rustam just from their region.

Zuffa's bull**** structure & propaganda machine has fooled too many MMA fans for too long. Even the long-term diehard UFC masses are seeing the've been lied too.

Hey I'm not literally busting your guys balls I realized the sarcasm dag LOL I love Gil I was just halfway defending.

Team jp he means there's title contenders of Russian decent in every division in every promotion right now.

By "arrived" he means as the hot high talented guys in mma much like Brazilians were in pride era and partially til today.

Everyone is well aware of the past success of oleg taktarov in ufc as well as prides Russian monsters he's not ignorant of the past just stating what is true.

In America there is no denial on every front in every division in every org Russians have arrived (very complimentary remark)to take over the belts.

I know ufc never scouted Russians but really until bellator we didn't see high recruitment anywhere in the united states.

There has always been exccellent Russian fighters never denied it they are my personal favorite type of fighters but you can't deny for whatever combination of reasons Russians seem to be the hot commodities.