Edson Barboza Jr: The Real Deal

[Fizzy]

If you stuck around after the PPV finished last night you undoubtedly saw Edson Barboza completely destroy Mike Lullo. He made him his bitch pretty much. He pummeled him with Jose Aldo style leg kicks, and precise shots with his hands. Lullo is pretty good on the ground with nice Omoplatas, and Gogoplatas which he attempted, and Barboza easily got out of them, and got back to his feet. He is obviously competent on the ground, and his standup is fucking deadly. He is a mirror image of Jose Aldo only less proven, and with a worse ground game. At age 24 he has all the time in the world to improve, and become a really serious threat to the LW division. Muay Thai strikers are really becoming my favorite type of strikers in MMA, and I LOVE watching high leveled practitioners fight. What do you guys think about him? How do you think he will fare in this stacked 155 division.

 

[Tha Wolfpac]

Edson like you said has all the time in the world to improve immensely and dominate his respective division. I find expert Muay Thai strikers have a definitive edge over any other striker as they have a wide deadly variety of strikes which is excellent to construct any type of gameplan that will work. He looked very good, and really made Mike Lullo look like a fool. Im interested to see the next chapter of Barboza's MMA career. Nice scouting Fizz.

 

[INDYjon22]

I think it is a little early to tell. He has some great skills and at his age he should only improve from here. He is certainly a prospect to watch, but I personally want to wait and see him fight some more of the UFC caliber fighters before I decided he is the next big thing or not. However, he is a guy to keep an eye on because baring injury he could very well be a big time fighter in the future.

 

[Via Armbar]

He's a young prospect and I look forward to seeing what he can do and where he can go. With that being said, fight fans tend to overhype every young fighter that comes along and write them off after their first loss. He has shown amazing skill and potential but hasn't faced anyone that can give him problems. Local talent can only get you so far.

I think his biggest asset is his size. He's about 5'10'' which is rather tall for a lightweight and he clearly uses it to his advantage. With a reach like that, knockouts are going to be coming from this guy like rapid fire. I would love to see him start training with a camp that can utilize his striking potential but mix in top level bjj, a place like Blackhouse maybe. With Silva and the Nog's he can get tons of instruction to best utilize his natural abilities. If the guy can put on another show like he did the other night I can see UFC handing him a bigger name and we can really gauge his potential.

 

[Window Licker 101]

Man this dude was the real deal. He looked superb. But then again he was fighting a grappler. Would the same result have occurred if he took on a striker? Nevertheless he completely picked apart Lullo. The leg kicks were brutal. The marks on Lullo's leg and the echo heard around the arena when he landed them....it was like a gun going off! His wrestling looked quite crisp for a Brazillian dude also, taking Lullo down three times (I think?) I really wanna see more of this guy, maybe give him someone like the loser of Dunham/Florian.