James' prospect thread

Those of you who followed my work with MMAProspects and MyMMANews may have noticed that I haven't published anything for several months, and long story short when MyMMANews brought me on they didn't end up buying the MMAProspects domain or give me the resources to recreate my top 15 prospect rankings on their site. That meant that when the MMAProspects domain expired, my list was lost. 

However, I still spend an embarrassing amount of time every day on the tapology feed looking at results, which means that my prospect rankings stay very current and are always adding new members. My idea for this thread is for it to be a place where I'll post whenever I come across a new prospect, when a top amateur goes pro, or when I see a particularly noteworthy performance. If anyone else wants to come in here and show love to your favorite under-the-radar regional guys or see how my opinion on a prospect compares to yours, go for it!

I'll probably try to go back to publishing sometime next year, but for now grad school consumes too much time, so this will be my primary outlet for all the scouting I do.

* Edited at 11.11.2022, 1:28 PM ET *

Agreed, he was totally off my radar and I expected McGhee to beat him because I figured he was just a submission specialist with no chin, but he's way more well rounded than I'd imagined. 

Always love seeing mysterious fighters come out of the woodworks like that. Reminds me of autumnn Norton in invicta. She was 1-1 coming off of a 3 year layoff and comes in looking like a top 5 WBW. Insane hands and perfectly read/countered everything and smoked her opponent. One of the craziest improvements I’ve ever seen 

Back to Brazil for this one, only this time the prospect isn't Brazilian: meet Renzo Cortti

Cortti is another fighter who was completely off my radar despite me living in his part of the world, as before this week he'd spent his entire career on small regional shows in Paraguay, which is about as deep in obscurity as you can get. I can't even find an age listed for him anywhere online, and while Tapology shows him starting his career 0-3 between 2014-2016 and getting finished in every loss, Sherdog only has one of those losses in its database.

While he got off to a terrible start, its been nothing but wins since then for Cortti and he's fought his way all the way to 9-3 with 8 of those wins coming by finish. His competition in Paraguay wasn't very good, which is no surprise given his record going into most of those fights and just the generally weak MMA scene there. The combined record of those 8 opponents: 33-30-1, so while there were a couple real cans mixed in there, there were also some at least decent regional fighters.

His signature win came this week as he made his debut for small Brazilian show Immortal FC vs Juliano Prescendo, a T.5 prospect who had just joined the rankings back in May after beating an undefeated prospect to cap a 7-win streak. Unfortunately for Prescendo, Cortti's streak proved to be even stronger and he won by first-round guillotine to claim his spot in the rankings and push Juliano out. 

Grade: .5
No film watched yet so hard to justify ranking him higher, and while 9-3 isn't the prettiest record on paper, think about Jack Della Maddalena coming into DWCS with a 9-2 record riding a 9-win streak. I'm not saying Cortti is anywhere near as good as JDM, but it's definitely worth keeping a close eye on guys who struggle early in their careers and then break out with big win streaks, as it often points to someone who has made substantial improvements and may have more room to grow.

If you are interested in watching Cortti, the full Immortal show is in the Spartacus App

Had no idea, gracias Cangrejo, I'll go check that out

Well I haven't made it to the main event yet but I just watched Jhonata Diniz kill a man in the co-main, goddamn. Still too early to rank him because I have no idea if he knows how to grapple, but as a kickboxer and athlete he sure is scary

I am about to watch it now, but they must really like kickboxers in this app. Mascote Lima has gone through two guys at the Spartacus events too in a really impressive way.

I really like diniz. That guy could be a problem in the future

OK, just watched the Prescendo-Cortti fight, nothing hugely changed but a few notes:

Cortti seemed very comfortable on the feet especially with his kicks, though he does throw them naked sometimes. Used his striking well to set up a single leg attempt, then when his clinch on the cage got reversed you see him immediately start using his bicep and pectoral to force Prescendo's head down into the armpit to set up the guillotine. Didn't rush anything, stayed on his feet until he had the right grip then transitioned to the back without losing any of his control and rolled to a hip for maximum squeeze. He's still just a T.5 for now because it's pretty clear that Prescendo had no real business being ranked from what I just watched from him.

I finally have time now to share some prospects im looking at. 

Ill start off with Tariel Abbasov. Tariel is ethnically Azerbaijani, but trains, fights out of, and represents Israel. Now, When we hear the words "Israeli prospect" it doesn't exactly inspire confidence. However, while he may represent the country, he has fought his entire career in Russia over at Open FC and EFC, so he already stands out in that regard. Another thing that separates him from normal prospects is his combat sambo background. Now, this isn't your average Dagestani who is a "world sambo champ". No, Abbasov has legit credentials; after getting the bronze medal in the (official) World Sambo Championships in 2018 & 2019 (also the first Israeli to win a major medal in combat sports) he finally accomplished his goal when he got gold in the 2022 Sambo World Championships (also won gold at the 2022 European Championships). Abbasov is 5-0 and has adapted his sambo perfectly to mma.  

Naturally, his grappling has been his best weapon. Being a Sambist, his best work is done against the cage using body lock takedowns or trips but he also has a very good single leg as well. He is incredibly dominant once he gets it to the ground too; none of his opponents are able to get back up (except in his debut but he didnt know how to fight back then) and he just suffocates them with GnP. He is like a backpack on the ground too, if you try to roll away he will take your back, if you try to scramble out, he will transition to mount. He just effortlessly flows on the ground. Another way I can tell he's a legit sambo guy, is the fact that all his submissions come from on top (except for his debut, but again, that was the version of abbasov that didn't know how to fight). You see the two guillotine chokes on his record but both were guillotines from mount. Anyone who has tried to take him down just ends up getting reversed as well.

The biggest hole in his game is his striking. We dont see much of it because 98% of his fight time is spent on top but when it is on the feet, its not pretty. His striking looks like its somewhat improved but even then its still really just novice level striking. He hasn't really learned how to properly strike yet and the most alarming thing is his lack of head movement. Luckily, he has shown a great deal of toughness and pretty impressive recovery, but he will need to work on this as he moves up in the MMA world. One thing I do like, is that when he gets clipped or badly hurt, he instantly goes to the grappling so thats a benefit at least. 

Tariel is only 26 and been doing MMA for a year and a half, so from no experience to where he is now in only 16 months is quite impressive. His next fight is December 15th in Israel's new fight promotion, MMA Open. He will be fighting 9-3 Payman Haciev. Even better, this promotion has been picked up by UFC Fight Pass so a large audience will be watching. Hes green in the striking but I think his grappling is high level enough to beat guys in the UFC. Ill give him a 7.5/10 right now and I think hes got a pretty high ceiling. If he can just get comfortable with striking I think he will be a big problem

@AyyLmaonnaise 

Im guessing Abbasov must be an Azerbaijani Jew, not an ethnic Azerbaijani, im pretty sure Israel is a no go zone for most muslims except for the Palestinians whose ancestors moved to that area long ago

* Edited at 11.22.2022, 5:08 PM ET *

No, he represents isreal in sambo and trains there. He also speaks Hebrew. I’m pretty sure he was born in Azerbaijan but lives in Israel. He’s also not a Muslim, he’s Jewish so he has no problem being in the country. 

I mean he’s ethnically Azerbaijani as in he was born there and his ethnic composition is Azerbaijani 

* Edited at 11.22.2022, 5:08 PM ET *

Yeah cool nevermind

Sambo worlds gold medal doesnt come easy he is tough

* Edited at 11.22.2022, 5:11 PM ET *

Abbasov is great, I picked him up last year when he went 3-0 because it was an impressive performance, he's at a T1 currently for me.

Here's a copy-paste of my current notes on him: 1<- -.5 Mid-20s, brutal GnP and creative choke against decent regional to go 3-0 all w/ EFC dropped from 155 2ND Strong double-legs in space and good trips against fence, nice feints and moves well to find angles on feet, stalled in guard once but heavy GnP w/ knees, elbows, fists from half-guard and side, beautiful transition to mounted guillotine when BRZ journeyman scrambled. 4-0 after OFC debut, needs a proper test 3RD Good movement vs noob, powerful 2-leg straight into half-guard, easy transition to mount then back mount while controlling limbs, accurate GnP then quick RnC for R1 SUB when opportunity came, 5-0 w/ 4 chokes and 1 ammy choke

Aw damn thought I found someone nobody knew about🤣🤣

But I’m pretty high on him. Even cooler to see he finally won gold at this years sambo world championships

* Edited at 11.22.2022, 6:54 PM ET *

Haha you're gonna have to go even deeper to find people I haven't looked at, as my tagline says, WAY too many prospects lmao. And definitely awesome that he won gold, but we already knew he was a great grappler. Do you know if this was his last tournament or if he's going to try to do both sambo and MMA?

Not sure, he posted a photo with the gold medal and a caption saying “ufc champion by the end of 2023” so I’m assuming he’s doing mma full time now 

That's one hell of a bold prediction lol, maybe he'll get in the UFC by the end of next year if he gets a DWCS shot 

I could see him going to dwcs. Especially since he will be fighting on fight pass 

Hey James great job on all this. I'll definitely be keeping tabs on all the prospects you mention. Keep it up