Vitaly Minakov: Fight Vids, Interviews, & Career Highlights

Nice thread Dag.  I'll have to check some of these out.

Amazingly talented fighter

The only other 'possible' critique other than his new & evolving striking game is his size. The top HW's are full of monsters.  

He is 6'2-3" but doesn't have the freakish body-builder look like some of the pumped out big guys have. He's got more of an Olympic-type athletes body that is purely for reason of function not super cut vascular or with slower big muscle-mass. He comes into competition with 10-15lbs or fat & water weight. Like most all the fighters over there weight cutting is not really in their vocabulary.

I've continually been trying to size this kid up relative to other fighters he's around. He 'is' big even though he doesn't appear to be. His body is in such proportion that he doesn't have that top-heavy look like the pumped out guys do. He's really big boned, big chest, with a thick powerful mid section going down to powerful hips. 
Though he's not Karelin's size he has that ethnic-Russian super athlete frame thing going on and his size is deceiving.

Just watched the vids.

I hope Volkov enjoys that belt while he has it because Minakov will be top contender soon.

A couple of more fighters like Minakov and the Bellator HW division will be more interesting than the UFC HW division.