Rampage Jackson or Jon Jones?

Matt Hughes or Josh Koscheck?

I find myself wanting to see Rampage doing well and getting his belt back if only for a little while. I suspect though, Jones will chop away at him unmercifully with leg kicks and thereby Rampage will have little chance of throwing big punches. I figure most of the fight will be standing.

Koscheck is a big mouth hot head and for no other reason I'd like to see Hughes win big.

Your thoughts?

Jones questions Jackson's power after seeing him unable to finish Hamill or Machida who he hit clean. Wouldn't mind seeing Jackson taking him down a peg but I am thinking Jones finishes Jackson in the second or third.
Similarly I'd like to see Matt Hughes smash Koscheck but I don't think Matt has anything to offer Koscheck at this point in his career.

Jackson is a tough fight for Jones simply due to his durability. It takes a massive amount of punishment to put Quinton away. Jones has shown in the past that once his fights hit the third round, he starts getting extremely tired. If Quinton can make it into a war and slow Jones down, he can put him away. Most likely though, I see a situation where Jones stays as far away from Quinton as possible and throws lots of kicks to the legs and body. If the range gets too close, I think Jones tries to tie him up in the Thai clinch and work some knees. You have to favor Jones here, but Quinton Jackson isn't an easy fight for anyone and he definetly has the chance to pull off the upset.

I love Matt Hughes but let's face it, he's on the downside of his career. Unless Koscheck is still a mess from his injury and put off by the short notice of the fight, I think he hits Hughes with a big shot and that's it. Hughes is a bit too stiff and mechanical on the feet to offer much of a threat to Koscheck there. Hughes would have to catch Koscheck on the ground in a bad position and try to submit him - I don't see any other route to victory for him. Rooting for Hughes, but I think Koscheck takes it without too much trouble.

Brian.

Any other notables on the card, Brian? I glanced over it but nothing really jumped out at me.

Nate Diaz vs. Gomi should be a barnburner while it lasts. One of the best fights I've ever seen was Gomi against Nate's brother Nick - just an insane fight. Nate isn't quite as good as his brother, and Gomi has certainly faded over the years, but it still should be an exciting fight.

Travis Browne vs. Rob Broughton is worth paying attention to simply because Browne is a very talented prospect and is pretty exciting as well. Ben Rothwell vs. Mark Hunt is what it is, and I have no clue why they put it on the main card other than hoping that Hunt knocks Rothwell's head off in epic fashion.

Nick Ring vs. Tim Boetsch on the Spike prelim card is a quality fight. Nick Ring is super talented despite having a knee that's held together by silly string, and Boetsch is an absolute beast at 185 pounds. Tony Fergueson vs. Aaron Riley has some potential as well - both those guys like to throw down and it will most likely be one of those knock down, drag em out type fights. Te Huna vs. Romero will most likely sneak it's way onto the broadcast somehow, as it most likely won't go long.

At first glance, it's a top heavy card but there are some quality fights to be had. My only fear is that there are two heavyweight fights on the main card.........and they're in Denver. There's an excellent chance we see two guys standing with their hands on their knees gasping for air and not even thinking about fighting each other. Why they would book a single heavyweight fight in Denver is beyond me, as they're really tempting fate.

Brian.

Speaking of the elder Diaz...

I'm a bit surprised Dana is giving him a 2nd chance and keeping him around.

What else is he going to do with him? They need new interesting challengers for GSP, which is the ONLY reason they gave Diaz a title shot in the first place. In actuality, putting Diaz in against Penn is an extreme form of punishment. Due to GSP's conservative fighting style, Diaz at least had a chance to be mildly competitive. Against Penn, he's just going to get his doors blown off and might even get stopped. Not only that, but Penn isn't a top contender - so losing to him would set Diaz back and force him to fight a bunch of generic wrestlers, all of whom Diaz would struggle with.

If, and I mean if Diaz somehow manages to beat Penn, then they can just stick him against the winner of GSP vs. Condit and you have a nice little story line to sell the fight with. I would be extremely suprised though if Diaz was even moderatley competitive with Penn, let alone beat him.

Brian.

IMO they are running this circus over one fight, Jackson and Jones. The rest is just filler. Then in another week they will have another ppv. I guess it's really just about the money, I thought Dana had figured out you gotta give the folks a show.

I was ringside at that fight and at the time it was the greatest fight I had ever seen live. The crowd was going apeshit and Diaz just kept coming at him. Damn what a fight!

Obviously, the very next fight on that card was my favorite but other that fights that involve my friends that Diaz/Gomi fight was the best I've ever seen live. The combination of striking and submissions combined with the electricity in the crowd was insane

I'll be at the fights in Denver tonight and am hoping for a great main event. Rampage looked damn good in workouts on Thursday and he was just going through the motions and working up a sweat

Speaking of your friend, I'm glad Dan is back in the UFC. I'd like to see him match up w/ Silva again.

Prize fighting is all about the money? I'm shocked.

BTW, probably the best heavyweight title fight in years is going to be free on Fox in November, so don't cry in your beer too much.

Brian.

It was like something out of a movie - insane drama from the opening bell on. Diaz getting his face broke in half, not even flinching and then winning the fight immediatley after that.



Yeah, Diaz really stole that show but the Henderson vs. Wanderlei rematch was absolutley fantastic as well. Dan hitting Wanderlei with a spinning back fist is one of my all time favorite MMA moments.

I hope Dan mashes Shogun as bad as he did Fedor. That fight is going to be violent.

Brian.

The MMA world is so competitive I do not have the time to keep track of all the players. With the exception of a couple(Silva and GSP) the champions come and go so fast it is hard to be a fan of a particular player.

Is there an explaination for the fast demise of Fedor. He was so dominant and now he has lost 3 in a row. Real glad for Henderson. I really like him.

2nd fight on the undercard was SICK!!!!

I tried to answer this yesterday but after writing up a very long explanation, the forum crashed and it didn't get posted. So let's try it again.

1. Fedor still trains like it's 1999. His training camps consist of a couple of his buddies sparing with him in an absolutley bare bones gym (just a room with a few mats on the ground, a punching bag and some weights in a corner), taking runs in the mountains and choping firewood. Once in awhile he'll go to Holland and spar for a week with Ernesto Hoost, and that's about as far as he goes with his training.

2. Since he's never working out with contemporary high level (or even mid level) MMA fighters or even a proper MMA coach, his game hasn't progressed at all since he first hit the scene. He started throwing hands with his opponents more in the last 3 or 4 years of his career, but his striking was the same as it always was - throw big looping overhand rights and hope for the best.

3. Fedor's offense (both on the feet and on the mat) has always been good, but his defense has always stunk. People seem to forget that he got stuck on the bottom for what seemed like forever against Ricardo Arona, he damn near got knocked out by Kazuyuki Fujita, he had his back taken by Mark Coleman, he got thrown on his head by Kevin Randleman, he got put on his back and was nearly submitted by Mark Hunt, and he got reverse mounted by Brett Rogers of all people.

4. Despite these issues, Fedor was always able to get away with them and have an extremely good career. This was mostly due to two factors - the weakness of the heavyweight division and the fact that Fedor was an incredibly fast, agile athlete. But he's older now (he turns 35 in a few days), and while he's still very quick he's not the same level of athlete he was 6 or 7 years ago. Once his purely athletic skills started to slow a bit, he turned into a guy who was just a small heavyweight with good power in his hands, some offensive submission chops and an incredibly reckless fighting style devoid of defense.

5. His last three fights were against three of the best opponents he'd ever faced in an 11 year career. Against two very high level BJJ blackbelts, he simply couldn't get away with the mistakes he was able to skate by with against guys like Mark Coleman and Mark Hunt. Against Dan Henderson, he showed a complete lack of game planning - Fedor was fighting a guy with an iron jaw and incredible power in his hands, and Fedor's game plan was essentially to swing for the fences and hope for the best.

Brian.

Well, Jones is the real deal. Beating Shogun to win the title and beating Rampage to retain the title is no joke. I don't see Evans adds anything that Shogun and Rampage didn't already bring to the table, except maybe some more wrestling. But Jones has already proven to be a great wrestler offensively and defensively. The one guy in the division, from a stylist stand point, that I would like to see him fight is Lyoto Machita. Jones has a strong reach advantage that he's been able to exploit well. Rampage's demise, mostly, came from his inability to close that reach gap and engage inside against Jones. Lyoto has the best ability to dart in, close the gap, get a strike in, and retreat. He is the only one I see taking some of the reach advantage away from Jones. Time will tell...

Two years ago, everyone was convinced Machida would reign as champion forever and Jones was fighting on the unaired prelims. Things change really fast in MMA. I wouldn't be shocked whatsoever if two years from now Jones was trying to work his way back up to another title shot while some other "unbeatable" guy holds the belt.

Brian.

My thought exactly about Rashad. If he could get a few take downs he might be able to land a few punches, other than that, nothing. Machita could pose a real threat if he started chopping at Jon's legs but I think Jones would pretty much put Machida on his back and end it there. I used to think Davis stood the best chance of beating Jon. I'd only watched one of his fights, now that I have sat down and watched as many as I could find I do believe God would have to intervene in Davis's favor for him to have any chance.

Davis is even more green than Jones. Give him a year or two to develop his game. He's by FAR the best wrestler at 205 in the UFC, and he's got a very effective top position submission game. If Davis took down anyone in that division and submitted them, I wouldn't be shocked at all.

Brian.

I think if Evans tried to take down Jones, it would end up being a long, painful night for him. Jones has such a huge reach advantage over Evans that he could do the same thing he did to Rampage and punch and kick from outside. Evans has to close that distance aggressively to be able to take him down. And if he did, I think Jones would just sprawl and make Evans work his butt off. And to effectively kick Jones, Evans has to take the chance of Jones grabbing his leg and taking Evans down. Evan's best chance is the same as Rampage. Somehow close the distance, keep from getting throw to the mat or kneed to death, and land a devastating punch to Jones face. Rampage is one of the best, close in, in the pocket punchers out there, and he couldn't make it happen. Maybe Evans could pull it off. There's always a punchers chance in any UFC fight. There's bad blood between those two guys. I think the only advantage Evans could potentially gain is to get into Jone's head pre-fight and somehow take him off his game psychologically. Jone's is one of the coolest headed guys in the sport. If he took that away from him, maybe he would make more mistakes and get caught. But I doubt it.

Brian, Thank you for the analysis.
Pete

Sat 15 feet from the cage last night, I'll post pics a little later today. Jones is a stud but he's not unbeatable. I was really disappointed in Rampages game plan, you can't just stand in front of Jones and get picked apart like that and Rampage was, and really always has been, horrible in the clinch.

I think that Jones will be tested in his next 2 fights and we'll get to see how he handles being pressured. I'm not taking anything away from him, he's a freak but I'm just not willing to say that he's unbeatable. I think the sky is the limit for him and he is only going to get better, he's scary good for as young as he is!

I've heard a lot of stories about Rashad and Jones in the gym, and they all revolved around Rashad being able to bully Jones and put him on his back on a regular basis. Rashad isn't afraid of Jones whatsoever, and isn't going to be standing there in awe like Rampage was last night. Rashad is going to come right after him and try to put Jones on the defensive.

You've got to favor Jones in that fight, but it's not going to be easy for him and Rashad could definetly win.

Brian.

My pleasure Pete.

Brian.

No one in MMA is unbeatable. But your last comment is the big one for me. I watched a repeat of Jone's UFC debut fight a few nights ago, and he has made a scary amount of improvement since then. And he will grow in every fight he takes on. I guarantee we see the best Jones we've seen yet against Evans. There's no doubt in my mind that his camp will train very hard to negate any advantages Evans may have had over him before too. I think Evans is a more well rounded fighter than Rampage but I think Jones still takes the fight.

While I agree with you for the most part, I think the whole "oh he's only 24, he's just going to get better and better" is being played up a bit too much. Will he get better by spending more time in the cage and gaining that experience? Absolutley, 100%. But that does not mean his technique is going to get any better. This is why I was worried when Jones started training at Jackson's a couple of years ago when Jones only had only been fighting as a pro for about a year. Gregg Jackson and Mike Winklejohn don't try to change a fighter's style whatsoever - they just try to make them better at what they already do. Now that's fine if you're a GSP and you join the camp after having tons of experience in fights and already have an established style, but that's bad news if you're just developing as a fighter. Instead of trying to get Jones to learn proper striking techniques, they just go "that crazy stuff is great Jon, let's focus on that!" So you end up with a guy with a massive reach but can't really offensively box properly and instead of trying to finish a fight with effective strikes prefers to try spinning back elbows and front push kicks to the knee. They're never going to teach him in a way that benefits his physical skills. For crying out loud, they trained Keith Jardine for 10 years and never taught him how to defend a left hook. They trained Rashad for years and ignored his positively dreadful foot work, which Rashad didn't get to work on until he started training with Grudge in Colorado.

Jones has come a long way with what he has, but what's going to happen when he can't fall back on his reach? At some point you're going to run into a guy who isn't afraid to close the distance on you and fight in the pocket, and what then? What if he fights another tall lanky guy with a similar reach to his own? If you don't have really good fundamentals to fall back on, you're screwed.



One of the stories I have heard more than a few times about Rashad and Jones training together was an instance where Rashad took Jones down, and Jones simply couldn't get back up to save his life. He asked Rashad to let him up, and Rashad said no - he needed to learn to be able to get back to his feet on his own and not rely on getting stood up by the ref. Jones couldn't get up and Rashad was on top of him for something close to an hour before the training session ended.

Now, is Jones going to be training to defend shots and to scramble back to his feet? Of course. But what great wrestlers does he have to work with? GSP isn't going to train with him as he's boys with Rashad, and the only other wrestlers at Jackson's are lightweights. Meanwhile, Rashad is going to be working with Dan Cormier, Mo Lawal and probably even Phil Davis - three world class wrestlers.

I think Jones' offensive firepower will be too much for Rashad, but nobody should be shocked if Rashad just takes Jones down and beats him up. That fight is going to be incredibly competitive and we'll see how Jones handles being in a back and forth fight for the first time.

Brian.

Man, was I wrong about that in every aspect or what?

Brian.

That's what's fun about this stuff. We can all speculate on what we think and see how it plays out. And we get to see some butt kicking to boot.

Well, I legitmately thought Browne was a talented prospect. Instead, he's a guy who throws some of the sloppiest punches I've ever seen and has no clue what to do on the ground. How many times did he get full mount on Broughton and then just sort of sit there and look confused?

Brian.

You sure called the Hugh's fight.

Here is some video I took from my seat last night. I labeled the video "Cute Kittens 2" so it wasnt flagged for removal. This is Matt Hughes talking with Joe Rogan...



Here is Jonny Bones Jones walking in...



I'll get some pictures up later

Rampage entering the cage...


My girlfriend with Bobby Lashley behind her, I sat next to Bobby Lashley for 3 fights and he's a BIG dude!



Steven Seagal was sitting in front of us with Fez from That 70's Show. Here is is with Dana White...



And here he is with Dan. I asked Dan if Seagal taught him anything in their 30 second conversation but he didnt. I guess Steven Seagal gets paid for that kind of info

Seeing Matt Hughes almost break down into tears while Rogan was interviewing him was hard to watch.

BTW, I'm pretty sure they showed you on the PPV broadcast, because I know they showed Fez in the audience at one point.

Man, don't you just love that condescending look Segal is giving Dan? Did you hear that Segal called Jones up before this fight and wanted to meet him to give him some pointers, and Jones politely told him to get lost? Classic. Then after the fights, Segal says that Jones didn't look all that great and he was actually more impressed with Rampage's head movement more than anything, and then claimed his opinion was worth more than Joe Rogan's because he is a "real fighter". That's pretty funny considering that Rogan was a US National TKD champion and Segal never even competed.



From now on, just post pictures of your girlfriend. Nobody wants to look at Bobby Lashley.

Brian.

Brian, I cannot believe you have doubts about Segal's greatness!! You need to watch his movies! Why, he can send people flying with a flick of the wrist. Best of all, he can out run the rate of detonation of many explosives. Segal is really pretty full of himself.
Pete

Rampage vs Segal? Who you pick?

Rampage via staredown

Segal tried to get in a real fight with Gene Labell back in the early 1990's. Segal was maybe 30, Judo Gene was well over 60. Segal ended up waking up in a tool shed and needing to change his underwear.

I'd have paid anything to have been a fly on the wall for that one.

Brian.

Rampage by first degree murder.

Brian.

Some great Monday morning laughs right there.

This is why GSP is so awesome.

His sting of title defenses is pretty rare.

BMT

Yes, just the girlfriend.

BMT

Warning, strong language.



Brian.