The MMA thread

"Manager: If it were up to Jon Jones, he'd still be fighting at UFC 133"
http://mmajunkie.com/news/23373/manager-...-at-ufc-133.mma

 

That Chuck clip is priceless! Nobody likes you tito!

 

yeah, I was actually surprised at how funny it was. that line was a steal, loved it.

Wanderlai sparring. at 1:33, wandy takes an axekick in the face and punishes his partner for it. pretty funny. I have never been in a contact session where escalation doesn't appear so this didn't surprise me much.

full clip

 

Part 1 of 2


Part 1 of 3

 

Anybody else fall asleep during the GSP fight? GSP, I love you, but start fighting to finish.

 

I would like to believe that he had all intentions on finishing this fight. Injury to the eye, means no depth perception. Hard to land power shots when you have no idea how far away your opponent is.

 

Nobody realistically expected Randy Couture to go out like that. Team Blackhouse is taking over.

 

Strategy was mostly sound and designed to finish. Those overhand rights were out of character and had a point - in fact I loved Jackson's comments at the second round: "go knock him out". that said, I'm not sure "knock him out" was the best strategy for Shields.

I was really hoping for a strong fight but it all went downhill during the second round. for a guy with only one eye he did alright though.

 

I enjoyed the GSP shields fight. GSP dominated completely a guy who hadn't lost in 10+ years. He was throwing shots intended to end the fight. I was a bit disappointed he didn't try and capitalize on the headkick.

Otherwise, you may have noticed GSP was getting tagged with a lot more rights after his eye got injured.

2nd point, as an example of GSP's dominance, look at the difference b/n what happened when Koschek fought GSP with one eye, and when GSP fought shields with one eye. The guy is taking the best of the best and systematically destroying them all in dominant fashion. He is doing things that nobody has done. His dominance is reaching historic levels, has reached historic levels.

I would enjoy some finishes as well though, but realistically...no one has beat Shields in 10 years, so a 5 round domination is pretty impressive.

 

Maybe it was because of the eye making it difficult to fight, but GSP's face after the fight vs Shields face after the fight told me GSP was not truely dominating.
http://blog.fightmetric.com/2011/05/st-pierre-vs-shields-official-ufc.html
Although GSP only lost 1 round, he took a lot of strikes and it was pretty close.

In general I don't think people give Shield's striking enough credit. They often say its absolutely terrible, and when you look at it all he ever does is a few jabs, maybe a cross and a few body kicks so I can see why. However his timing is very very good. He can get in do his moves and go out readily, and is good at timing his hits so that the enemy walks into them, hes hard to knock out, nearly impossible. His reflexs were pretty impressive as well considering he managed to catch multiple kicks thrown by GSP.

In general against grapplers GSP tends to play it cool and go in and out quickly avoiding long confrontations, thus he doesn't really follow through and knock people out. He basically just uses pokes a lot, safe but no damage, which vs shields who does pretty much the same thing this was one of the most boring fights ever. I wouldn't say GSP was dominating, but he definitely won and that is impressive considering this is Jake Shields, and although boring you really can't fool around with someone like Shields.

 

I understand people's comlaints of GSP, but I don't think you can really blame him. In pretty much all of his fights, he is way ahead on points (had won what, 25 consecutive rounds?) and by the end of the fight his opponents are almost always MORE CAUTIOUS THAN HE IS.

Why should he throw all caution to the wind and go for a dramatic finish and risk losing a fight that is all but won (like chael vs sylva), especially when the majority of the time his opponents -who are clearly losing, and know they are clearly losing- aren't even willing to switch to a more risky style.

Take shields for instance, in the 4th and 5th round, he clearly needed a knockout to win, but he never once tried to go for broke. He seemed perfectly content to grind out a decided loss. I realize, in part its b/c its GSP and he is giving you no openings, but if you are going to lose either way....you kinda gotta go high risk high reward and try to force something to happen.

Personally, while i thought shields did better than i can recall anyone doing vs GSP (didn't see his last loss, btw) I thought GSP won every round pretty handily. I was surprised to see shields given any rounds, let alone 2, on any scorecards.

Also, I don't think reflexes had much to do with catching those kicks. Looked to me like GSP was just lobbing out lazy, pawing kicks without snap, quickness, or urgency. He's fairly lucky that he wasn't forced to "pay" for that kind of lackadaisical effort AT LEAST once or twice.

 

GSP should have mixed in takedowns. For a guy with one eye, he was landing superman jabs almost at will. I do appreciate the hit to his depth perception, but he could have mixed in takedowns, driven Shields against the fence, done a lot more I think. GSP is a master tactician, but he is beginning to fight like Tim Sylvia did after he won the belt - fighting not to loose instead of fighting to win.

 

Well its pretty obvious why GSP didn't want to go for more takedowns, and thats because Shield's trump card is his ground game. Why would he want to take the risk of ground game, when he could just continue with the stand up that he was winning with.

Shadowdean hit the nail on the head, GSP is definitely fighting not to lose rather than to win. Definitely.

If you look at the fight metric btw, it shows that shields won the last round, which isn't too surprising since they were both just poking and its expected that shield's managed to poke more one of the rounds as he was definitely throwing more jabs out there throughout. Shield's is a counter-attacker mostly so thats probably why he didn't rush down, but at least he taunted gsp a little at the end which I thought GSP deserved for doing another boring fight, but your right Shields should have and at LEAST gone for more shots. A few successful takedowns and shield's could have definitely won, it would have given him a decent amount of points and in general shields usually has his way with people on the ground.

 

http://tkohub.com/nate-diaz-vs-rory-macdonald-video-ufc-129

in case anyone didn't see this. nothing better than watching a diaz get done in. hilarious to see the multi-suplex super (13:38).

 

Piankhi Zimmerman vs Taurian McLeod

Piankhi is one of my students. To prepare for this fight, I had him do a lot of wrestling for about 3 weeks before the fight. We practiced a lot of singles and doubles...but he somehow managed a bunch of throws.

 

Just to hype my guy again, check out his opponents Kage roll

 

Where does your constant hate towards the Diaz bros come from? I'm confused man. They are tough as nails, down to fight anybody, and have time and time again exhibited skills in the ring(or octagon). Sure they speak their minds sometimes about certain individuals(in a crude yet hilarious manner) but their take-no-shit attitude perfectly fits their aggressive fighting styles. Always gonna be a fan of people who go all out in the ring and train hard, regardless of their antics elsewhere.

 

I think they are skilled and dangerous opponents. I don't really hate them, I like watching them lose. It looks really good on them.

also, their antics never stop. it isn't an "elsewhere" proposition (but even if it were I still think who you are is who you are). They are hilarious, slurring, thuggish asshats. can't wait for their next fight!