UFC 108 Match-Ups

Bigger Stronger Leaner
21

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:

[quote]drewh wrote:
If Daley is killing dudes in the UFC how good is Jake Shields? I’m tired of hearing he gets lucky or he’s not good enough to compete with the top fighters, I personally think he’d take a guy like Fitch.

[/quote]

well, i never thought Fitch was that great of a MMA fighter…more of a good wreslter that’s in great shape who doesn’t take any risks. come to think of it, he bores the crap out of me…
[/quote]

And an iron will/chin. He’s a grinder and pretty much just out works and out hearts everyone he fights (except GSP). It’s definitely not the most exciting style, but it definitely works for him.

I think Shields could possibly submit him if he could get it to the ground. But Fitch would murder him on the feet, and has pretty good TD defense and counter wrestling. So I’m not sure that I’d agree that Shields would beat him in an MMA fight (in a submission grappling competition yeah). It would be an interesting fight nonetheless.[/quote]

But it’s not like Fitch has amazing TD defense, once there Shields could catch him.

22

[quote]drewh wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:

[quote]drewh wrote:
If Daley is killing dudes in the UFC how good is Jake Shields? I’m tired of hearing he gets lucky or he’s not good enough to compete with the top fighters, I personally think he’d take a guy like Fitch.

[/quote]

well, i never thought Fitch was that great of a MMA fighter…more of a good wreslter that’s in great shape who doesn’t take any risks. come to think of it, he bores the crap out of me…
[/quote]

And an iron will/chin. He’s a grinder and pretty much just out works and out hearts everyone he fights (except GSP). It’s definitely not the most exciting style, but it definitely works for him.

I think Shields could possibly submit him if he could get it to the ground. But Fitch would murder him on the feet, and has pretty good TD defense and counter wrestling. So I’m not sure that I’d agree that Shields would beat him in an MMA fight (in a submission grappling competition yeah). It would be an interesting fight nonetheless.[/quote]

But it’s not like Fitch has amazing TD defense, once there Shields could catch him.[/quote]

Yeah maybe. But he’d have to safely close the distance without getting pounded on and then be able to take Fitch down. That’s no easy task. GSP was able to do it, but he’s phenomenal at setting his takedowns up with his striking and was actually getting the better of Fitch on the feet.

I really don’t think that Fitch would be too worried about Shield’s striking, so he would be able to focus almost entirely on stopping the takedown. Almost no one in MMA is going to takedown a good wrestler like Fitch if they’re shooting in from half the octagon away and he’s expecting it.

Fitch is also the bigger stronger fighter, so it would take a lot out of Shields to keep on shooting and failing. Which just falls right into Fitch’s strategy anyhow. At which point Fitch would just pick him apart on the feet, or maybe even take Shields down and pound on him for a while (first option would probably be more likely though).

I’m not saying that it couldn’t happen, Shields has sick submission skills. But I definitely wouldn’t be betting on it happening.

23

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
For such a hyped up wrestler, Volkman doesn’t seem to have an overpowering MMA ground game. I really thought he was going to be something, but losing to a non-contender like Kampmann (who did look good in this fight though) doesn’t bode well for him.
[/quote]

Volkman looked like a fish out of water on his feet. I honestly can’t understand why so many wrestlers suddenly think that they’re boxers/kickboxers when they step into the Octagon. Especially if they’re as obviously unskilled at it as Volkman. Think about it, he didn’t really use his wrestling at all in that fight, so it’s pretty tough to say anything about his MMA ground game.[/quote]

Yeah, I don’t want to play armchair critic too much because I know Volkman could beat my ass, but it does not seem like he is working to his strengths.

24

Fitch is not stronger, Shields has been working at Diablo Barbell to add size at MW, watch other Fitch fights his TD defense is not that good. Fitch also has little power in his hands.

25

[quote]drewh wrote:
Fitch also has little power in his hands. [/quote]

The same goes for Shields. Fitch and Shields are so similar…if they fought,I’d fall asleep watching.

26

[quote]drewh wrote:
Fitch is not stronger, Shields has been working at Diablo Barbell to add size at MW, watch other Fitch fights his TD defense is not that good. Fitch also has little power in his hands. [/quote]

Maybe, it’s tough to say because they don’t really have any common opponents.

Fitch also doesn’t have big power, I won’t argue that. But his striking is heads and shoulders above Shields’. And he can take a serious punch, so even if Shields landed a lucky haymaker, he most likely couldn’t KO Fitch. Fitch would easily beat Shields in a stand-up war IMO.

Shields really only has one way that he could win that fight and it would be via submission. Again, if anyone at welterweight could pull that off it would be Shields. But I just don’t think it would be the likely outcome if they fought.

27

a friend of mine trained with wanderlei and silva before ufc 108 because he was in wanderleis show: a fighters life.

he told me before ufc 108 that silva really hurt his back. He could not train properly and tried to pull out of the fight. but the UFC suggested him to fight cause he was healthy again just his cardio was not there.

In my eyes Thiago is a true fighter and he took it although he knew he will not put on the best show.

28

[quote]dnbjoe wrote:
a friend of mine trained with wanderlei and silva before ufc 108 because he was in wanderleis show: a fighters life.

he told me before ufc 108 that silva really hurt his back. He could not train properly and tried to pull out of the fight. but the UFC suggested him to fight cause he was healthy again just his cardio was not there.

In my eyes Thiago is a true fighter and he took it although he knew he will not put on the best show. [/quote]

i just re-watched this fight, and noticed there were several times where Silva was clearly not moving right, as if he was injured. at one point, he was getting up after a scramble, and he jerked, almost like he was having a back spasm.

still, he acted like Evans didn’t wanna fight, but he got stomped for 2 rounds.

29

I call it BS.

If the guy is injured then don’t fight, Dana and Joe Silva have express many times that they prefer to replace the fighter than to tarnish his record and risk his carreer