Strikeforce/WEC 45 - December 19

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Ross

Ross

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Two pretty good cards taking place on the same night, I'll watch WEC live on Setanta and have to download Strikeforce later.

Strikeforce: Evolution
Middleweight bout: Cung Le vs Scott Smith - expecting the usual Scott Smith fight where he gets hit in the face repeatedly, Cung to put him away in the third round
Lightweight Championship: Josh Thomson vs Gilbert Melendez - Melendez to avenge the loss last year, Thomson's injuries are too much to step back in immediately against a top lightweight like Melendez.
Middleweight bout: Ronaldo Souza vs Matt Lindland - Jacare to school Lindland on the ground and pull out the sub
Heavyweight bout: Muhammed Lawal vs Mike Whitehead - King Mo hype train to roll on, Whitehead should be a solid test though
Middleweight bout: Robbie Lawler vs Trevor Prangley - going with Lawler by TKO

WEC 45
Lightweight bout: Donald Cerrone vs Ed Ratcliff - Cerrone by sub
Lightweight bout: Anthony Njoukani vs Chris Horodecki - Njoukani by TKO
Bantamweight bout: Joseph Benavidez vs Rani Yahya - Benavidez by decision, this is going to be a crazy fight though
Bantamweight bout: Takeya Mizugaki vs Scott Jorgensen - Mizugaki to take a decision over a game Jorgensen
 
Some interesting fights to be sure.

Most interested in Jacare being as he's pretty much a BJJ god. By all rights he should school Lindland with his brilliant pull to guard/judo trip takedown work followed up with something of beauty as a sub on the ground. But there is a very real chance he will knock himself out by headbutting someones kicking foot al la Mousasi.
 
I'll only do Strikeforce as I couldn't give any sort of educated opinion on the WEC fights, although I'm excited to watch the event. Strikeforce should be good too.

Strikeforce: Evolution
Middleweight bout: Cung Le vs Scott Smith - Meh to this. Smith's game but Cung Le should at least outstrike him to a decision if not stop him.
Lightweight Championship: Josh Thomson vs Gilbert Melendez - I love Melendez. Not exactly excellent anywhere but he gets in there. Decision. Not sure why this isn't top billing.
Middleweight bout: Ronaldo Souza vs Matt Lindland - Huge uphill battle for Lindland here. He just cannot go to the ground with Jacare but he's not exactly known for his striking prowess. Sub round 1.
Heavyweight bout: Muhammed Lawal vs Mike Whitehead - Whitehead's no mug but Mo shouldn't lose this. It'd be cool to see him make a statement and roll through Whitehead quickly.
Middleweight bout: Robbie Lawler vs Trevor Prangley - going with Lawler by TKO
 

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The Thomson - Melendez fight was up there as fight of the year.

Jacare was simply awesome. Impressed with the advance in his striking, speed and accuracy, can tell he's been training with Anderson. Perfect mix for his style. You don't go to the ground with him under any circumstances no matter how good your sub D or control is. We might not have the Manny Pacquiao of striking in MMA, but we have the equivalent fighter in submissions.

It's hard to see if you don't really understand BJJ because it's not really a spectator sport. But I'd wager that he popped Lindland's shoulder via the omoplata prior to the head arm triangle as a tactic to take away Lindland's effectiveness in defense. Wrestlers don't tap as a creed. Live by the sword, you don't see strikers avoid shots to the side of a cut opponents bloody face. Well beyond time submission fighters got beyond the "submission" mentality and started working to inflict damage. You can not tap if you don't want to.
 
Melendez/Thomson was an awesome fight. Thomson didn't have the right game plan and he looked quite rusty after the long lay off but I gained a huge amount of respect for him. He continuously stood infront of Melendez and traded bombs with him despite coming off second best most times. Melendez was also hugely impressive. Showed a good chin and was winning the striking both attacking and countering. I don't think he got a successful takedown though, which I didn't expect.

Good showings from Jacare and Lawal as well. I expect we'll be hearing a lot more from then in 2010. I was laughing my ass of at Cung Le. He's a nice guy but I just never saw him as being that good besides his kicks. That being said, he was kicking Smith's arse until the KO.
 
Great card and great fights. Scott Smith has had a second life in Strikeforce. Guy just gets his arse kicked all over the place but manages to somehow pull the win. Never really thought much of Cung Le, and although he's got good kicks and was kicking smith's arse, he should have had that fight wrapped up in the first, but he's too one dimensional.

Thompson/Melendez was a SICK fight. Definate FOTY candidate. Great all round showing of guys just throwing down for the title. Loved it.

Jacare has again shown that he's in the elite in terms of grappling in MMA. Solid striking and speed put away a slowing veteran in Lindland. Lindland is one TOUGH sob, as drew said, that omoplata was deep and almost certainly cranked his shoulder. Impressive SF Debut. Lots of good matchups possible there - Smith, Diaz, Shields, Hendo and others.

King Mo certainly has power. Still not sold on him, but Whitehead is no joke and he was destroyed. King Mo vs Mousasi would be a great fight, as would Hendo.

Heard Marius Zaromskis (Dream WW GP winner) vs Nick Diaz is being planned too for the Strikeforce WW title. Great fight. LOVE cross promotional fights.
 
Cung Le is great to watch but will never be top 10. He should of finished the fight when he was gnp on Smith in the 1st but just let him get up too easily.

Jacare/Shields and Mousasi vs King Mo/Hendo are fights I want to see.
 
Both cards were awesome.

Melendez/Thomson was definitely a FOTY candidate. Not sure where it sits overall, there's been a lot of amazing fights this year and it's up there. Good win for Melendez too, he's now avenged his only two losses in his last two fights. Word is they're looking at Melendez vs Aoki and Thomson vs Kawajiri next.

The Cung/Smith fight was really good but watching Smith gets a bit frustrating as he's really got no skills except a good chin and KO power in his hands. Cung's lack of conditioning was what cost him the fight, wasn't able to avoid Smith's punches in the third like he was in the first.

Jacare's striking looked pretty good and obviously his ground game is phenomenal. I think he matches up really well against Shields and would sub Smith with little trouble but fights with Hendo, Diaz and a third Mayhem fight are all interesting.

Good win for King Mo, not sure if he should fight Mousasi next. Maybe Babalu or Soko instead? He's capable of fighting at 185 too.

Cerrone's fight was great, save for all of the nut shots. He almost topped the inverted upside-down triangle from a Bellator fight by locking Ratcliff in an inverse triangle and almost getting him in a kneebar. Cerrone was saying before the fight he was going to take some fights at 145 as well, there's some incredible fights to be made if he does. Fights against Aldo and Faber would be wars.

Njoukani's KO of Horodecki was amusing. WTF was he thinking running away from him like that? Njoukani's going to be tough to beat if his ground game has improved, he's got some heavy power.

Mizugaki and Jorgensen and Visher/Buck were both great fights. The stoppage on the Visher/Buck fight was too late though, Buck was out and Mazzagatti let him take several more punches before stopping it. Had to love Pickett getting the sub with the Peruvian necktie as well.
 
Magnum said:
Never really thought much of Cung Le, and although he's got good kicks and was kicking smith's arse, he should have had that fight wrapped up in the first, but he's too one dimensional.
Click to expand...

Glad I'm not the only one who doesn't rate Cung Le. The guy's a novelty act.

Magnum said:
Jacare has again shown that he's in the elite in terms of grappling in MMA. Solid striking and speed put away a slowing veteran in Lindland. Lindland is one TOUGH sob, as drew said, that omoplata was deep and almost certainly cranked his shoulder. Impressive SF Debut. Lots of good matchups possible there - Smith, Diaz, Shields, Hendo and others.
Click to expand...

Good debut. He was given Lindland on a platter and Jacare finished him as expected. I like the look of Jacare's hands but I think his footwork has a lots of room for improvement. Most of the time he wasn't balanced when throwing a punch and often had one foot on the ground.

Just out of curiousity, how would you guys compare Jacare's grappling to Demian Maia's? I don't think Strikeforce would want to throw him in with a KO striker like Hendo in the near future or they'd have a Marquardt vs Maia result.

Interesting King Mo wants to fight Fedor next. The guy's delusional. King Mo thinks he's God's gift to mma.

[youtube]X4ugZ8YwxjY[/youtube]

[youtube]zz3fRhALysU[/youtube]

There's heaps more if you wanna search for them.
 
IMO Jacare is as good if not better than Maia on the ground. In fact I'd say he is the premier grappler in MMA (although Roger Gracie has just been signed by Strikeforce aswell). In any case he's the absolute top of the top in terms of BJJ worldwide. Elite like Marcelo Garcia, Roger, Xande Ribeiro, etc In terms of grappling competition Jacare is 2-1 against Maia (and should have been 3-0 by all accounts). Jacare I think has the edge as he has better takedowns and is a better all around athlete than Maia. This takes nothing away from Maia, he's easily the best pure grappler in the UFC, its just that Jacare is probably better overall. Both are similar in that total BJJ freaks though.

His standup is improving, but I'd say it would be at least as good as Maia's. I'd agree its probably not wise to put Jacare in there with Hendo just yet, but a fight with Shields would be awesome. Perhaps after Hendo destroys Shields for the title.
 

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Mag has explined it quite well but **** it. It's my last day and I'll be damed if I'm going to do any work.

There are 3 names in BJJ that stand out; Rodger Gracie, Marcelo Garcia and Ronaldo Jacare Souza. Of the 3 Garcia is probably the best technically, Gracie has the best fundamentals but Jacare would be the best all round.

These guys are your Anderson Silva, BJ Penn and GSP of BJJ. Damian Maia is at the top of the next level. Maia won the 2007 Abu Dhabi under 85kg div becacue Jacare wasn't in it. They get beaten every now and again but by and large if I was tipping a grappling match between Jacare and Maia, my money would be on Jacare every time.
 
Jacare has a huge athleticism advantage over Maia which would be the difference. Technically, Maia is very close to that top tier that drew noted, but in MMA Jacare's speed and strength would probably be too much for him. On top of that, Jacare's striking looked vastly improved against Lindland.
 
RobbyRoy said:
Jacare has a huge athleticism advantage over Maia which would be the difference. Technically, Maia is very close to that top tier that drew noted, but in MMA Jacare's speed and strength would probably be too much for him. On top of that, Jacare's striking looked vastly improved against Lindland.
Click to expand...

Yeah, to go on the top three MMA guys analogy, Jacare would be GSP. Maia has beaten Jacare in Gi comp. (mundials) but I don't think he's been able to do it no gi where the grip advantage is muted, and in my opinion technicality is muted some what.
 

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Strikeforce/WEC 45 - December 19

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