UFC 155 - Dos Santos vs Velasquez 2

[quote]humble wrote:
That and Alistairs take down defence is bar none the best in the division if not MMA. Try and get the guy down, good luck. Those hips are friggen bulldozer strong. He doesn’t even need to sprawl. Watch his fights, all he does is snap them back and the sheer size of him and speed and explosiveness has guys struggling to grab him. Big guys too. Not small guys like Cain with no reach.
[/quote]

I disagree. Since 2006 Alistair fought exactly one fighter with good takedowns, Lesnar. He executed Lesnar in the ring, but Brock wasn’t exactly doing his best to hit his power double either. Reem has strength, and his clinch work is great, but I don’t think stuffing Werdum is the same thing as dealing with Cain’s wrestling. He plays the clinch and footsweep game as well as anyone at HW, in no small part do to his kickboxing background, but I cannot remember him ever stuffing someone I would consider great at single or double legs(Lesnar seemed like he wanted to run, and for good reason).

Having said all that, my mind is more on the “A tired JDS still hit Cain. That means a non-tired Reem can do it too.” track. I wouldn’t pick Cain to win, but I will be watching to see if he has any issues with BigFoot.

By the way, the UFC 156 card has Aldo vs Edger, Ubereem vs Silva, and Fitch vs Maia(I would actually prefer they start this one on the ground). All of those match ups I am looking forward to.

Regards,

Robert A

[quote]Robert A wrote:

What is this madness? Are you saying that combining the low hand position of boxers who fight off the back foot(Mayweather, Ali, etc) with the immobility of a cover then counter fighter(“Comeback” era Foreman) is a bad thing?

Regards,

Robert A

[/quote]

Lol… Dos isn’t Mayweather or Foreman.

About the hands, guys:
I cannot recall one fight where a simple “get your hands up” changed a fighter’s low-hands stance.
It seems Dos Santos learned this in the gym.
Point is, however you look at “low hands”, a badly bruised fighter won’t change his style in-fight.

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
About the hands, guys:
I cannot recall one fight where a simple “get your hands up” changed a fighter’s low-hands stance.
It seems Dos Santos learned this in the gym.
Point is, however you look at “low hands”, a badly bruised fighter won’t change his style in-fight.
[/quote]

All of Dorea’s fighters seem to do that. Dos Santos finally paid for it, but look no further than The Brothers Nog to see how it works out. They move in and out well. They actually jab(not so much in this last instance I admit). However they hold their hands low and often wide, don’t tuck their chins, and seem to treat head movement like its a cloistered affinity for midget porn. I.E. they may be familiar, but they aren’t about to show it in front of people.

Regards,

Robert A

[quote]humble wrote:

[quote]Robert A wrote:

What is this madness? Are you saying that combining the low hand position of boxers who fight off the back foot(Mayweather, Ali, etc) with the immobility of a cover then counter fighter(“Comeback” era Foreman) is a bad thing?

Regards,

Robert A

[/quote]

Lol… Dos isn’t Mayweather or Foreman.[/quote]

In the Interest of comedy:
Come on, you are being unreasonably harsh. Think of it as a work in progress. He has the guard position, now all he needs is the movement, strategy, timing, etc. that make that work. He’s almost there.

Look at how quickly Damian Maia picked up Muay Thai. He is practically Wanderlai junior now right…Oh, wait.

Really, I was thinking of JDS a bit when I said that Lauzon’s just shelling up might be a good lesson to learn. JDS has good speed, and great power, but I always though he would pay the price for his lack of movement/low guard.

Regards,

Robert A

[quote]audiogarden1 wrote:
Overeem’s TDD is underrated, i dont get why people act like his ground game is a weakness. Check out his ADCC videos on youtube, back when he was a LHW. He has no doubt improved since then and is the biggest, strongest guy in the division to boot. Hes also generally had pretty good TDD, we havent seen it in action much since moving to HW, but a lot of that has to do with people having a hard time closing the distance and avoiding his clinch.
[/quote]
I don’t think his ground game is a weakness at all. He has a damn good guillotine and did ok in the ADCC Europe trials. That may not make him a world beater in pure submission grappling, but with his size I don’t think there are that many that can bring enough to really ruin him on the ground. I think Werdum would be a huge threat. Frank Mir is a maybe. Big Nog is too old/run hard at this point. Of those three, none of them have a good enough takedown game to not get bombed out.

On the other hand Werdum did manage to land punches and get a clinch plenty of times during his rematch with Overeem. Even with his much shorter reach I think Cain is a better striker, and far better at takedowns than Werdum, so I see some possibilities for Cain to take him into deep waters and grind him.

[quote]
Also yeah, the hands down shit pisses me off so bad. When Chuck fought Rampage for the second time i got a real bad feeling as soon as the fight started because of the way he was holding his hands, and i got that same feeling last night when JDS came out with his hands down.

There is one person in MMA that can do that and get away with it seemingly anytime, so if your name isnt Anderson Silva, get your fuckin hands up. [/quote]

Chuck is a good example. He adopted a game almost completely designed to wreck Couture and Ortiz, and then started getting tagged by guys using more conventional stand up. Prior to fighting Jardine I would have said Lidell was a damn good kickboxer. I would have offered up his wins against Mezgar, Belfort, and Overeem as evidence that he could hang with decent MMA strikers. Basically, I would have said a bunch of wrong shit.

Sometime between 2003 and 2007 he became vulnerable in his apparent strong suite. It became guys willing to stand and strike with him that found success.

Oh, and I am not trying to start a huge Dorea bash, but I think Anderson Silva and Machida are the members of the Black House/Nog BJJ crew that DO NOT train with Dorea. I am pretty sure he has had a hand with Big Nog, Diet Nog, JDS, and Big Foot. Anybody know if I am remembering this correctly?

Regards,

Robert A

I honestly think the Cain/Overeem fight looks similar to the Duffee/Overeem fight. Do i think he’ll get put out in 17 seconds? hell no. But if he tries to force the take down like he did against JDS and not time and set up with strikes, i dont think he gets it. And i cant see him surviving a firefight with Overeem at all. I think this is a case where Cain’s aggressiveness works against him ultimately.

Yeah Overeem got tagged a lot in the Verdum fight, Verdums constant take down attempts probably threw him off a great deal BUT i also think much of that was attributed to Overeem just not giving Verdum any respect in the standup department.

As ive already said, i think the key lies in the clinch game. They will most likely wind up there if they meet, and i cannot see Cain being able to handle overeems power and understanding of the clinch game. He is the worst person in MMA to tangle with in that department, even more so than Anderson and Bones IMO.

If Kongo can survive 3 rounds on the ground with Cain, and a battered and exhausted JDS can survive 5, i cant see Cain putting Overeem away short of catching him with a lucky punch.

And i know people will argue against this, but NO i do not believe Cain is that much improved from the Kongo fight. This is why everyone told me he would beat JDS in the first fight and i was calling for him to get KO’d. And in that case i was right.

Anyone else think that Dos Santos’ camp’s response to going against a really good wrestler was something like"Well, we don’t any world-class wrestlers for you to work with, so instead of bringing some down, we want you to lift weights and get really strong so you can just toss him around"?

JDS beatup on Nelson for 15min and didn’t look as gassed as he did at the end of the first. I have the feeling his new high-tech training experience for this camp had him lifting, and doing size/strength oriented stuff at the expense of his conditioning.

His TDD is still really good, and worked against Cain when he had gas. It was just Cain’s ability to re-shoot constantly…

[quote]Spartiates wrote:
Anyone else think that Dos Santos’ camp’s response to going against a really good wrestler was something like"Well, we don’t any world-class wrestlers for you to work with, so instead of bringing some down, we want you to lift weights and get really strong so you can just toss him around"?

JDS beatup on Nelson for 15min and didn’t look as gassed as he did at the end of the first. I have the feeling his new high-tech training experience for this camp had him lifting, and doing size/strength oriented stuff at the expense of his conditioning.

His TDD is still really good, and worked against Cain when he had gas. It was just Cain’s ability to re-shoot constantly…[/quote]

his TDD worked against cain throughout the whole fight. Yeah he got taken down 11 times, but he stuffed 22 of em.

As far as his conditioning goes, i dont really think thats the case because comparing his weigh in pic from this fight to his last 3 fights he looks exactly the same.

I dont know if he had an adrenaline dump or just came in outta shape, but either way he messed up bad. Also, what the fuck, whered his right hand go? It seemed he was hesitant to put that right hand in cains face, he isnt exactly known for his stellar use of the jab, so what he was thinking there is beyond me.

Robert,

The way I see it, Werdum did essentially the same as Sonnen did vs Silva.
Overeem’s/Silva’s gameplan was to avoid the ground at all costs.
In doing so, you become very vulnerable against what constitutes wild brawling to the untrained eye.
If a fighter, whose style you respect too much can keep you guessing and he’s also able to switch fast (Musashi calls this the “Mountain-Sea Change” in his Fire Scroll) he can own you with pretty much everything.
Also,

that.

Basically, Werdum has an obscenely good guard and Overeem’s/his camp’s gameplan made him look a bit foolish.
In order to beat V. he cannot do the same.
But I don’t think at all he will.
V. has no magic superguard and O. might even take a breather on top of him.
He’s a smarter fighter today and will take V. down if he can.

p.s.
Are we sure Overeem faces Bigfoot next?

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
Robert,

The way I see it, Werdum did essentially the same as Sonnen did vs Silva.
Overeem’s/Silva’s gameplan was to avoid the ground at all costs.
In doing so, you become very vulnerable against what constitutes wild brawling to the untrained eye.
If a fighter, whose style you respect too much can keep you guessing and he’s also able to switch fast (Musashi calls this the “Mountain-Sea Change” in his Fire Scroll) he can own you with pretty much everything.
Also,

that.

Basically, Werdum has an obscenely good guard and Overeem’s/his camp’s gameplan made him look a bit foolish.
In order to beat V. he cannot do the same.
But I don’t think at all he will.
V. has no magic superguard and O. might even take a breather on top of him.
He’s a smarter fighter today and will take V. down if he can.

p.s.
Are we sure Overeem faces Bigfoot next? [/quote]

I agree with everything you said.

They are scheduled to meet February 2nd.

That fight will tell a lot about how Overeem will fare against Velasquez. Obviously if he loses (which would shock me) then that wont happen. However if the fight manages to make it past the first round without overeem blowing big foot out, it will answer some questions.

Unfortunately for big foot i think his slow, plodding style and lack of athleticism compared to Overeem spells his doom in this fight in particularly devastating fashion.

Very good card. I was surprised all around.

In regards to comparing Overeem to Lesnar, I am not comparing them skill wise in any way, simply from a size/strength perspective (which was brought up as being a potential issue for Cain). Lesnar is every bit as big and strong as Reem from a pure physicality standpoint, so I don’t think the size and strength will be that big of an issue. However Reem is a much, much better striker than Brock and just an all around more skilled an dangerous match-up for Cain. So don’t take my comments as meaning that I think Cain will win if they fight or dominate like he did to Lesnar.

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
In regards to comparing Overeem to Lesnar, I am not comparing them skill wise in any way, simply from a size/strength perspective (which was brought up as being a potential issue for Cain). Lesnar is every bit as big and strong as Reem from a pure physicality standpoint, so I don’t think the size and strength will be that big of an issue. However Reem is a much, much better striker than Brock and just an all around more skilled an dangerous match-up for Cain. So don’t take my comments as meaning that I think Cain will win if they fight or dominate like he did to Lesnar.[/quote]

I agree with you. But the one area that no one at hw can match overeems strength is the clinch. Cain would be wise to avoid it at all costs. Yes he is a fantastic wrestler but I don’t believe his Greco is good enough to handle overeem at close quarters.

[quote]audiogarden1 wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
In regards to comparing Overeem to Lesnar, I am not comparing them skill wise in any way, simply from a size/strength perspective (which was brought up as being a potential issue for Cain). Lesnar is every bit as big and strong as Reem from a pure physicality standpoint, so I don’t think the size and strength will be that big of an issue. However Reem is a much, much better striker than Brock and just an all around more skilled an dangerous match-up for Cain. So don’t take my comments as meaning that I think Cain will win if they fight or dominate like he did to Lesnar.[/quote]

I agree with you. But the one area that no one at hw can match overeems strength is the clinch. Cain would be wise to avoid it at all costs. Yes he is a fantastic wrestler but I don’t believe his Greco is good enough to handle overeem at close quarters.[/quote]

Agreed

[quote]audiogarden1 wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
In regards to comparing Overeem to Lesnar, I am not comparing them skill wise in any way, simply from a size/strength perspective (which was brought up as being a potential issue for Cain). Lesnar is every bit as big and strong as Reem from a pure physicality standpoint, so I don’t think the size and strength will be that big of an issue. However Reem is a much, much better striker than Brock and just an all around more skilled an dangerous match-up for Cain. So don’t take my comments as meaning that I think Cain will win if they fight or dominate like he did to Lesnar.[/quote]

I agree with you. But the one area that no one at hw can match overeems strength is the clinch. Cain would be wise to avoid it at all costs. Yes he is a fantastic wrestler but I don’t believe his Greco is good enough to handle overeem at close quarters.[/quote]

Really? I think that Velasquez’s wrestling pedigree sets him up perfectly to handle Overeem in close quarters.

In fact, I think Velasquez will destroy Overeem.

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]audiogarden1 wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
In regards to comparing Overeem to Lesnar, I am not comparing them skill wise in any way, simply from a size/strength perspective (which was brought up as being a potential issue for Cain). Lesnar is every bit as big and strong as Reem from a pure physicality standpoint, so I don’t think the size and strength will be that big of an issue. However Reem is a much, much better striker than Brock and just an all around more skilled an dangerous match-up for Cain. So don’t take my comments as meaning that I think Cain will win if they fight or dominate like he did to Lesnar.[/quote]

I agree with you. But the one area that no one at hw can match overeems strength is the clinch. Cain would be wise to avoid it at all costs. Yes he is a fantastic wrestler but I don’t believe his Greco is good enough to handle overeem at close quarters.[/quote]

Really? I think that Velasquez’s wrestling pedigree sets him up perfectly to handle Overeem in close quarters.

In fact, I think Velasquez will destroy Overeem. [/quote]

We will have to wait and see. If he uses the same clinch game against Reem as he did against JDS, itll be a short night for him.

Good fight, as an aside JDS has a hell of a chin.

[quote]RampantBadger wrote:
Good fight, as an aside JDS has a hell of a chin.[/quote]

He is one tough SOB that’s for sure. I don’t think I’ve seen an MMA beating quite so bad without the ref stopping it. Many guys who are getting beat that badly just turtle up cover their heads and wait for the ref to step in.

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]RampantBadger wrote:
Good fight, as an aside JDS has a hell of a chin.[/quote]

He is one tough SOB that’s for sure. I don’t think I’ve seen an MMA beating quite so bad without the ref stopping it. Many guys who are getting beat that badly just turtle up cover their heads and wait for the ref to step in.

[/quote]

The only fight i can think of in recent memory where a guy took that bad a beating and went the distance in a title fight was Hominick/Aldo. You could argue that he got beat even worse than JDS.

I would have said Silva/Sonnen 1 is up there also, except if you saw post-fight pics, Silva looked like he didnt get touched and Chael was the one busted up.