instead of punching to land crisp.

The real test is going to be if/when he uses this striking in the cage. It’s easy to look good in training, but the actual MMA fight is when a fighter has to really put it together. Seeing most of Lashley’s fights, he barely stands with his opponents despite the fact that he fights low-level journeymen.

Joshua Franklin – Fresh out of the box
Jason Guida – A bum and there’s no other way to describe him
Mike Cook – A journeyman but the fights outcome was highly suspicious and to many looked like a work
Bob Sapp – Fighter that is far past his prime and only looking for a paycheck
Wes Sims – An journeyman that was never really all that great and hasn’t had real training in years
Chad Griggs – A puffed up LHW that put a stomping on him.

Most of the hate is Pro Wrestling related. The online MMA community has an unnatural hatreds to any and all this Pro Wrestling. He got more hate when he started calling out Fedor when he hadn’t fought anything that smelled like mid-level competition.

My problem with Lashley is that he approaches his fights the same way. He really forces takedowns and then doesn’t pick his shots when he does ground n pound, and gasses himself out. Lashley is hardly fighting people that are that much better than him despite their experience, and these low-level journeymen are the types of fighters that he should be putting his game together against. As he keeps winning, he’s eventually going to fight someone good, and seeing that he hardly does any standup or any other types of takedowns or any different approach to his game, so it’s just counter-productive to his growth.