After a really long couple of weeks which saw me spend 6 days in Yakima Training Center in Washington state with the Army, I finished up the week at the open gym period on Friday night. I rolled with a fellow soldier who is a member of the Canadian Special Operations regiment. They are very similar in to the US Army rangers/ Special Forces Teams. They are highly trained and incredible tough guys. He was a little smaller than me (maybe 10 pounds) but in incredible shape. I would have to say his BJJ was a little better than mine, technically. He was a really tough roll but very good for me. We went back and forth a few times. He tapped me early on with an interesting bicep slicer from inside the guard. I probably could have fought it and in a competion, I may have but the only way I would have got out of it was to brute force it and I usually tap to that kind of stuff in the gym. As a general rule, if I can't get out of it was a technique of some kind, I chalk it up to a learning experience, tap and move on.
He was really tough and constantly moving, so I had to stay real tight with my transitions. After that first sub, there were no more submissions. I almost got a kimura from top side, (which I have been focusing on) and he almost got me in an armbar from guard, but we both managed to reverse them at the last minute. We rolled for about twenty minutes. It was a great roll. My cardio held up, which is good. Every time I take a break from training, I have to re build my cardio.
I also got some tips from one of our blue belts on defending the deep half guard. Once I have it down a bit more I will post it here.
On a side note, my gym is really starting to attrack some great athletes. I recognized Dustin Oliphant, who I did judo with years ago at the gym on friday. Dustin won a bronze at the 03 national judo championships. We also have tarek gebali, who is now 3-0 in MMA who competed at the National level in Judo. We also have at least 1 national level wrestler whose name I can't remember for some reason. It is great having these elite level athletes at the gym.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Three thing to improve your boxing
Here are three things you can do that will improve your boxing by your next sparring session:
1. Focus on your platform. Your striking platform is your foundation. Just like a house, if the foundation is weak everything will fall apart. I use Crazy Monkey as my striking platform. I conciously focus on keeping my hands high and moving, elbows tight to my ribs, hunchback stance, and hips square. Everything else flows from there.
2. Concentrate on what you want to do. Rather than reacting to what your opponent gives you, be proactive. This is important even if you are a counter fighter. If you want to counter his right hand, look for it, try to force it but don't jsut try to react when it comes.
3. Don't get in a fight. This is especially true in sparring. The point of sparring isn't to win. If it was you would have a ref and judges. It is to perfect your craft under pressure. To often people get their adrenaline flowing and start trying to beat the other guy. When this happens, your platform falls to hell and you start reacting. Sure maybe you can out tough the guy or out punch him but are you learning anything?
Try this the next time you spar. I think you will find that you feel much better about your performance and you will tighten up your game.
1. Focus on your platform. Your striking platform is your foundation. Just like a house, if the foundation is weak everything will fall apart. I use Crazy Monkey as my striking platform. I conciously focus on keeping my hands high and moving, elbows tight to my ribs, hunchback stance, and hips square. Everything else flows from there.
2. Concentrate on what you want to do. Rather than reacting to what your opponent gives you, be proactive. This is important even if you are a counter fighter. If you want to counter his right hand, look for it, try to force it but don't jsut try to react when it comes.
3. Don't get in a fight. This is especially true in sparring. The point of sparring isn't to win. If it was you would have a ref and judges. It is to perfect your craft under pressure. To often people get their adrenaline flowing and start trying to beat the other guy. When this happens, your platform falls to hell and you start reacting. Sure maybe you can out tough the guy or out punch him but are you learning anything?
Try this the next time you spar. I think you will find that you feel much better about your performance and you will tighten up your game.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Daily Submission
This week I learned two pretty cool combos while boxing. The first is a Floyd Mayweather favorite that I had to modify for south paw. The combo starts jab, cross, take a big step to the right to get the angle, left hook to the body, right cross, jab out. Because I am a lefty if I simply swapped left for right, I would be stepping right in to his power. For me the combo goes like this: cross, right hook as I step to the right (it is almost like a right cross), left hook to the body, right hook, left cross, spin out. The other went like this. Jab, parry the return jab and immediately throw the right cross, left hook to the body, right cross, jab out. I ended up with two combinations when switching it to south paw. The first was slip a cross, left cross, right hook to the kidney, right hook to the head (the angle was wrong for another cross), cross, jab out. The other was to jab, parry his return jab down and throw and overhand left, and then finish as per the other combo. Both looked very promising and I will try to work them into my sparring sessions.
For jits, we learned to half guard passes which I have post videos of. They are not exactly the same but pretty similar. The tripod video stands out the most. Against a decent half guard player it won't be as easy as in the video. If you take his hips away from you, he loses the power so you can get the knee out then finish the pass.
Rolling went well. I rolled against a karate black belt who was adding some BJJ to his game while is in town for school. He was really fit and had good balance. He was very tough to finish but I got a really solid 20 minute roll in and got to work on a lot of my sweeps.
For jits, we learned to half guard passes which I have post videos of. They are not exactly the same but pretty similar. The tripod video stands out the most. Against a decent half guard player it won't be as easy as in the video. If you take his hips away from you, he loses the power so you can get the knee out then finish the pass.
Rolling went well. I rolled against a karate black belt who was adding some BJJ to his game while is in town for school. He was really fit and had good balance. He was very tough to finish but I got a really solid 20 minute roll in and got to work on a lot of my sweeps.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Daily Submission
A little late on this one but better late then never. Rolled no-gi last thursday. Prior to class I spent about 20 minutes working on my shot. I don't get to drill it enough. The speed is coming back now I need to start training it with a partner. Technique wise we worked off the arm drag in butterfly guard. The first technique was the armdrag to the back. It can be seen here:
Incidently, the guy being demoed on is Stephan Kesting who, like my coach Adam, is a Marcus Soares Black Belt. His stuff is great, check out grapplearts.tv for more.
Then we worked a simple counter. When he arm drags, we post that arm and hope over to the other side, landing in side control.
Next was a re-drag counter, which ended up with the guy on top taking his partners back. Tough to explain. Basically, as he tries to take your back, you re-drag his arm and slip behind him. I can't explain it more because I still suck at it.
So on to rolling. Rolled with this dude Dan, who I don't really know. I think he started at the gym during my absence and he comes on different days then me. So basically, I had no idea what to expect. He was pretty good. I had my wrestling shoes on since I was practicing my shot earlier and I somewhat made a transition back to wrestler. Not a bad thing really as I almost never rely on my wrestling. He was good. His half guard was sick. I have posted on my half guard phase and how I focused on it exclusively for like a month. I have a pretty decent handle on it. He was on another level. Sweep me twice with it, even though I saw it coming. Hit a nice flower sweep on me, which is difficult because I have a pretty good base. Tapped me a few times, once with a darce.
I felt I did OK. I got his back once, passed his guard once. I really had to focus on my defensive game. Spent a lot of time on the bottom in a front head and arm. I hit my spin out (armspin) once but he stuff all the rest of my tricks. My peek outs were good but not good enough. I managed to shut down his darce attempts for a long time before he finally hit it.
But the bottom line was I got my butt kicked. I felt a little better after talking to Adam. I had asked if Gavin one of our senior Blues was up for his purple any time soon. He said after Dan. As far as he was concerned he was a purple already, he was just waiting on Marcus. So I got beat by a (almost) purple belt. No shame in that.
Incidently, the guy being demoed on is Stephan Kesting who, like my coach Adam, is a Marcus Soares Black Belt. His stuff is great, check out grapplearts.tv for more.
Then we worked a simple counter. When he arm drags, we post that arm and hope over to the other side, landing in side control.
Next was a re-drag counter, which ended up with the guy on top taking his partners back. Tough to explain. Basically, as he tries to take your back, you re-drag his arm and slip behind him. I can't explain it more because I still suck at it.
So on to rolling. Rolled with this dude Dan, who I don't really know. I think he started at the gym during my absence and he comes on different days then me. So basically, I had no idea what to expect. He was pretty good. I had my wrestling shoes on since I was practicing my shot earlier and I somewhat made a transition back to wrestler. Not a bad thing really as I almost never rely on my wrestling. He was good. His half guard was sick. I have posted on my half guard phase and how I focused on it exclusively for like a month. I have a pretty decent handle on it. He was on another level. Sweep me twice with it, even though I saw it coming. Hit a nice flower sweep on me, which is difficult because I have a pretty good base. Tapped me a few times, once with a darce.
I felt I did OK. I got his back once, passed his guard once. I really had to focus on my defensive game. Spent a lot of time on the bottom in a front head and arm. I hit my spin out (armspin) once but he stuff all the rest of my tricks. My peek outs were good but not good enough. I managed to shut down his darce attempts for a long time before he finally hit it.
But the bottom line was I got my butt kicked. I felt a little better after talking to Adam. I had asked if Gavin one of our senior Blues was up for his purple any time soon. He said after Dan. As far as he was concerned he was a purple already, he was just waiting on Marcus. So I got beat by a (almost) purple belt. No shame in that.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Daily Submission
Was sparring tonight and I think Crazy Monkey Defense is finally clicking for me. For the first round I was really focusing on keeping the CM structure tight and cycling my elbows. I think I got hit like three times. Once I started to realize how safe I was, I let my offensive open up. I got crowd him and I landed some real solid combinations.
One thing my partner mentioned was that I was, in effect, elbowing his hands. He could feel them through the 14 ounce gloves we were using.
For the jits practice, I got to work a little X guard which I don't do that often. We worked of a butterfly sweep where the guy posts his leg to prevent the sweep. You transition to X guard and sweep him back, then moving to side control. I will try to post a video of it a little later. It is a slick little sweep and I found it pretty simple.
One thing my partner mentioned was that I was, in effect, elbowing his hands. He could feel them through the 14 ounce gloves we were using.
For the jits practice, I got to work a little X guard which I don't do that often. We worked of a butterfly sweep where the guy posts his leg to prevent the sweep. You transition to X guard and sweep him back, then moving to side control. I will try to post a video of it a little later. It is a slick little sweep and I found it pretty simple.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
I am a celebrity!!
Ok, I am not even a minor, failed reality show contestant level, celebrity but I did find my name popping up on fighter profile sites the other day. Here I am at MMA core
http://www.mma-core.com/fighters/_Tony_Manifold?fid=109647
and Sherdog
http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Tony-Manifold-29259
And here is a little 16 second clip from the fight they mention
http://www.mma-core.com/fighters/_Tony_Manifold?fid=109647
and Sherdog
http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Tony-Manifold-29259
And here is a little 16 second clip from the fight they mention
Sunday, August 30, 2009
UFC 102
Rough night for me last night. Not one of the guys I wanted to win came out on top. Damien Maia was a particular disappointment. I was really looking forward to a great fight between those two. Randy Couture and Mintauro was a great fight and I was really worried about that fight because I hate it when fading legends fight. I hate seeing guys on the tail end of their careers getting beat badly. Luckily, that didn't happen to either of them Nog took the win but Couture was competive and even looked like he was going to pull it off at times.
Unfourtunately, it looks like he did too well. At 46 Randy is starting to show his age but he just signed a new 6 fight deal through 2012. That would put him at 49. I hope he quits before he does perment damage to himself.
On the other hand, how good is his jiu jitsu. He escaped a lot of position against one of the best MMA BJJ guys. I was seriously impressed.
Unfourtunately, it looks like he did too well. At 46 Randy is starting to show his age but he just signed a new 6 fight deal through 2012. That would put him at 49. I hope he quits before he does perment damage to himself.
On the other hand, how good is his jiu jitsu. He escaped a lot of position against one of the best MMA BJJ guys. I was seriously impressed.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Armegeddon FC recap
Last night I went and watched the first edition of Armegeddon Fighting Championships. Two guys from my gym fought on the card (although we were supposed to have about 4). Both Gavin Niel and Nick Driedger won their respective fights. Gavin won a one sided decision and Nick finished his opponent by ground and pound in the first round. Zuma was well represented in the crowd as both fighters probably got the biggest appaulse of the event.
We had 12 fights with only one going the distance so it was a very large card. Fighters ranged from first fighter newbies to journeymen fighters and there was decent action from start to finish. There was only one disappointment. The teammates of Duncan Wilson, embarassed him with their actions. In the section next too me there was a whole row of people wearing "Team Wilson" shirts. When Duncan Wilson was stopped after a valiant effort against a larger man, his team took acception with the call. The Ref was John Alessio and very, very experienced fighter who knows a thing or two about the fight game but they didn't like it. They threw their beer at the security gaurds and one guy jumped the glass the seperated his section from the floor seats and then tussled with the security guards. The ones that stayed the rest of the guard continued to make asses of themselves. I feel bad for Duncan Wilson because not only did he lose but that kind of action from your team will not help you get more fights.
For a fight by fight recap of the event check out MMARingReport (that is where I got the photos).
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
First Grappling tournament video
I posted about my experience at the Submission Series in Vancouver last July. You can find it here. I now have a video of my first match which I have posted below. This was in the 200 lbs and under intermediate no gi division. I was about 187 and this was my first sub grappling event. I am the guy in the white t-shirt.
Video page
I have labeled all the video's on my page with the video tag so you can go directly to them by following this link:
http://tonyssubmissions.blogspot.com/search/label/video
http://tonyssubmissions.blogspot.com/search/label/video
Daily Submission
So I had a hellasious work out last night. There was not a lot of new tecniques becing taught because we have a bunch of guys fighting on Saturday (check out http://armageddonfc.com/ for more info). However we did a lot of pad work and really pushed the pace. By the end of the Muay thai portion I was sucking wind pretty hard and sweating enough to save a small african village from a drought.
The BJJ portion focuse on a couple of butterfly guard passes. One of them was the pass described here: http://tonyssubmissions.blogspot.com/2008/04/daily-submission_14.html . The other one was dceptively simple. Reach over his back with one hand and grab the gi. With the other hand (right in this case) reach under his legs and grip the far side gi by the ankle. Post your right leg up and pull his legs to your right as you pull him in with the left. You end up o Knee on belly. Pretty simple and effective.
It was a rough roll last night because I was so tired. I rolled with a guy who was probably about 20 pounds lighter than me and I admit that I bullied him around with my size a bit. I tried to stay technical but when i get tired I wrestle rather than focus on BJJ. Another thing I noticed is that when I am tired, I can be tapped just by smothering my mouth and nose. At one point I was working a double underhook pass and he triangled my head. Normally, I just slowly work to shuck his legs off and get the pass but I guess I was really hurt for air so I ended up tapping for lack of oxygen. Other than that it was a good roll, I had some good submission chances and a couple of nice sweeps and passes. As I get in better grappling shape again, I am sure I will get up to snuff.
The BJJ portion focuse on a couple of butterfly guard passes. One of them was the pass described here: http://tonyssubmissions.blogspot.com/2008/04/daily-submission_14.html . The other one was dceptively simple. Reach over his back with one hand and grab the gi. With the other hand (right in this case) reach under his legs and grip the far side gi by the ankle. Post your right leg up and pull his legs to your right as you pull him in with the left. You end up o Knee on belly. Pretty simple and effective.
It was a rough roll last night because I was so tired. I rolled with a guy who was probably about 20 pounds lighter than me and I admit that I bullied him around with my size a bit. I tried to stay technical but when i get tired I wrestle rather than focus on BJJ. Another thing I noticed is that when I am tired, I can be tapped just by smothering my mouth and nose. At one point I was working a double underhook pass and he triangled my head. Normally, I just slowly work to shuck his legs off and get the pass but I guess I was really hurt for air so I ended up tapping for lack of oxygen. Other than that it was a good roll, I had some good submission chances and a couple of nice sweeps and passes. As I get in better grappling shape again, I am sure I will get up to snuff.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Daily Technique
Normally in my technique posts I post a video but in this case I will post a link to the Sherdog.com striking forum. I have a thread there that is consolidating all the info I can find on fighting southpaw, or left handed. I fight southy ever though I am a right hander for a couple of reasons. One being that I wrestle and grapple right foot forward and the other being various injuries make it harder for me to fight orthodox, or right handed.
Fighting Southpaw
Take a look and I would love to here of any other resources.
Fighting Southpaw
Take a look and I would love to here of any other resources.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Daily Submission
I just came back from getting my ass beat and I feel great. I only kickboxed today because both the BJJ and kickboxing classes were at the same time and I am still babying my shoulder a bit. After warm up we worked a series that I had a lot of trouble with for two reason which I will go over in a minute. The series went cross, hook, cross, parry a jab while throwing a jab, cross, hook, cross, slip a cross, hook cross. I had two problems, the first is that it is a little awkward for a southpaw so it took some getting used to. The second is that I suck at slipping punches. I am more of a rocky then a sweatpea. So although I had a hard time with it, it was a very valuable drill for me.
We spar later and I went against this dude Dustin. Dustin is a true heavyweight and I am at best a super middle weight. He had like 8-10 inches on me and a good 50 pounds. It was like matching mickey ward fight Wlad Klitscho. I got hit a lot. It was a good exercise for me to work my CMD guard and practice slipping his punches. Once I got his timing down, I was more successful and landed a few good punches including a solid right hook to the jaw. But I definately got my ass beat.
I think it is important to get beat down once in a while in training. It keeps you humble, it prepares you for things get bad and it is better then getting beat down for real.
"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything"
Tyler Durden
We spar later and I went against this dude Dustin. Dustin is a true heavyweight and I am at best a super middle weight. He had like 8-10 inches on me and a good 50 pounds. It was like matching mickey ward fight Wlad Klitscho. I got hit a lot. It was a good exercise for me to work my CMD guard and practice slipping his punches. Once I got his timing down, I was more successful and landed a few good punches including a solid right hook to the jaw. But I definately got my ass beat.
I think it is important to get beat down once in a while in training. It keeps you humble, it prepares you for things get bad and it is better then getting beat down for real.
"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything"
Tyler Durden
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
It has been so long!!!
God it has been so long since I posted anything because frankly, I wasn't training. I re-injured my shoulder and the rehab has been brutal. I had blown my rotator cuff about two years ago and it was not diagnosed so when I re-injured it they had to fix all that damage as well.
So I got back to training at Zuma last night. I got say, I love that gym. Between my injury and my military training I had been there once in 10 months. But I walked in and it was like coming home. A great enviroment to go along with Adam's top notch instruction. The fighters at the gym have been doing awesome, Sarah Kaufmann has had two fights for strikeforce and won both. There is talk of a 135 women's title in the works for her. She also got her Purple belt from Marcus Soares. Alot of the other guys have been doing well in MMA, Diego Wilson is currently 4-0, Gavin niel is still doing well as are a bunch of others.
So I doubled up on my first day back. I did some Muay thai prior to BJJ. The main focus was on a lead hook, cross combo. From an othrodox stance, you stepped to you right, dug a lead shovel hook hard in to the belly and followed with the right cross. The step put you at an angle that let you hit hard from a position where he couldn't hit you. For me because I fight southy it didn't work as well, I ended up stepping into a right handers power. I think i will work it stepping to the right (my lead leg) and digging the shovel hook into the kidney's and then follow up with the straight left.
I also had a chance to spar which I haven't done in a long time. It went well. I have been working on fighting from a Crazy monkey Defense structure. I found I had good succes with it when I stayed focused on keeping the hands high and moving, staying in the hunch back posture and keeping my elbows on my ribs. More time under pressure will help but it was a positive first experience.
The BJJ clas was pretty relaxed, we worked on a couple of half guard sweeps that I have talked about before in this blog, then just shot the shit for awhile before rolling.
Rolling went well, I was obviously out of practice and you could see it in my movement. I was slow moving my hips and I had trouble with some sweeps. My opponent was bigger than me and had good posture. I found him leaning way back a few times so I used one of my old standbys and used my feet on his hips to push him back then scramble to a double leg and take side control. I haven't used that in a while so it was good to see it was still there. Got mount fairly easily as usual but still have trouble finishing. I find with the bigger guys, when I try to hard to finish I get rolled.
More work for me.
So I got back to training at Zuma last night. I got say, I love that gym. Between my injury and my military training I had been there once in 10 months. But I walked in and it was like coming home. A great enviroment to go along with Adam's top notch instruction. The fighters at the gym have been doing awesome, Sarah Kaufmann has had two fights for strikeforce and won both. There is talk of a 135 women's title in the works for her. She also got her Purple belt from Marcus Soares. Alot of the other guys have been doing well in MMA, Diego Wilson is currently 4-0, Gavin niel is still doing well as are a bunch of others.
So I doubled up on my first day back. I did some Muay thai prior to BJJ. The main focus was on a lead hook, cross combo. From an othrodox stance, you stepped to you right, dug a lead shovel hook hard in to the belly and followed with the right cross. The step put you at an angle that let you hit hard from a position where he couldn't hit you. For me because I fight southy it didn't work as well, I ended up stepping into a right handers power. I think i will work it stepping to the right (my lead leg) and digging the shovel hook into the kidney's and then follow up with the straight left.
I also had a chance to spar which I haven't done in a long time. It went well. I have been working on fighting from a Crazy monkey Defense structure. I found I had good succes with it when I stayed focused on keeping the hands high and moving, staying in the hunch back posture and keeping my elbows on my ribs. More time under pressure will help but it was a positive first experience.
The BJJ clas was pretty relaxed, we worked on a couple of half guard sweeps that I have talked about before in this blog, then just shot the shit for awhile before rolling.
Rolling went well, I was obviously out of practice and you could see it in my movement. I was slow moving my hips and I had trouble with some sweeps. My opponent was bigger than me and had good posture. I found him leaning way back a few times so I used one of my old standbys and used my feet on his hips to push him back then scramble to a double leg and take side control. I haven't used that in a while so it was good to see it was still there. Got mount fairly easily as usual but still have trouble finishing. I find with the bigger guys, when I try to hard to finish I get rolled.
More work for me.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
UFC 98 Break Down
It has been awhile but I finally got up the energy to post something. Here is a break down of select UFC 98 fights.
Evans Vs. Machida
This is an interesting fight because the challenger is the favorite against an undefeated champion who holds wins over 3 top ten fighters and is 2-0-1 against people who have held the 205 belt. For some reason people have been counting Evans out since he appeared on the 2 season of TUF. I have been a huge rashad booster since day one, the only fight I have picked him to lose was the draw against Ortiz.
When it comes to striking, they have similar but very different styles. Both are counter punchers who use a lot of movement. However, Machida uses a karate, tag and get out, style where as Evans uses more of a traditional boxing style with a lot of head and upper body movement. Evans is also fast, really fast. The question will be is he fast enough to catch up to Machida who as of yet has been caught out of position once in his UFC career.
Takedowns are a big edge to Rashad. When I rate the takedowns of UFC fighters it goes like this: Most Explosive, GSP. Most tenacious, Koscheck. Smoothest, Evans. When he shoots for a double leg it is like watching a wrestling instructional tape. It is perfect and fluid. He is also one of only 3 people to ever defeat Greg Jones (one of the NCAAs best ever) on the mat, when he was in college. While much has been made of Machida's takedown defense, Evans trains with GSP who has the best takedown defense in the business. Machida should be easy compared to that.
Grappling is more of a question of opinion. Dominant wrestlers tend to negate good bjj players if they get top position. But Rashad has never really fought a guy with solid skills from the bottom (unless you count Brad Imes, he of the back to back gogoplata wins). And the only dominant wrestler Machida has fought was a fading, injured Ortiz ( who came really close to finishing the fight with a triangle surprisingly). In my opinion, if Evans gets top position he will be able to hold Machida there and pepper him with short elbows and hammerfists.
The bottom line here is a question of imposing ones will. If Machida can impose his pitter, pat technical style he will win a decision. If Rashad can use his athleticism and wrestling to dictate the fight, he will win with a strong chance of a finish.
I have been betting on Evans from jump so I am not going to stop now plus I really hate Machida. Evans in a late stoppage.
Hughes vs. Serra
more later if I have time. Should have started earlier.
Evans Vs. Machida
This is an interesting fight because the challenger is the favorite against an undefeated champion who holds wins over 3 top ten fighters and is 2-0-1 against people who have held the 205 belt. For some reason people have been counting Evans out since he appeared on the 2 season of TUF. I have been a huge rashad booster since day one, the only fight I have picked him to lose was the draw against Ortiz.
When it comes to striking, they have similar but very different styles. Both are counter punchers who use a lot of movement. However, Machida uses a karate, tag and get out, style where as Evans uses more of a traditional boxing style with a lot of head and upper body movement. Evans is also fast, really fast. The question will be is he fast enough to catch up to Machida who as of yet has been caught out of position once in his UFC career.
Takedowns are a big edge to Rashad. When I rate the takedowns of UFC fighters it goes like this: Most Explosive, GSP. Most tenacious, Koscheck. Smoothest, Evans. When he shoots for a double leg it is like watching a wrestling instructional tape. It is perfect and fluid. He is also one of only 3 people to ever defeat Greg Jones (one of the NCAAs best ever) on the mat, when he was in college. While much has been made of Machida's takedown defense, Evans trains with GSP who has the best takedown defense in the business. Machida should be easy compared to that.
Grappling is more of a question of opinion. Dominant wrestlers tend to negate good bjj players if they get top position. But Rashad has never really fought a guy with solid skills from the bottom (unless you count Brad Imes, he of the back to back gogoplata wins). And the only dominant wrestler Machida has fought was a fading, injured Ortiz ( who came really close to finishing the fight with a triangle surprisingly). In my opinion, if Evans gets top position he will be able to hold Machida there and pepper him with short elbows and hammerfists.
The bottom line here is a question of imposing ones will. If Machida can impose his pitter, pat technical style he will win a decision. If Rashad can use his athleticism and wrestling to dictate the fight, he will win with a strong chance of a finish.
I have been betting on Evans from jump so I am not going to stop now plus I really hate Machida. Evans in a late stoppage.
Hughes vs. Serra
more later if I have time. Should have started earlier.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
I'm back
I don't really know if anyone reads this besides me (Which was the main purpose of this blog anyway, to provide a log of my training) but if you do you would have noticed I haven't written anything in about 4 months. Well, I was off on military coursing and couldn't updated it. Well I am back and hope to start updating on a regular basis again. I should have some stuff up real soon.
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