[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
otoko wrote:
I don’t think that was it. Sherk needed to establish his striking so he could set up a takedown. BJ is hard to take down and shooting in from outside without any offense would make it even harder.
Agreed. Sherk tried for a single leg early on, but soon realized that due to BJ’s flexibility/grappling ability, that he needed to tire BJ out a bit before trying to take it to the ground.
BJ’s jab was just working too well. You need a right hand counter for a jab. But BJ has such a straight right hand that he would beat Sherk to the punch. Which would make a right hand counter by Sherk ineffective. Sherk just could not pull the trigger.
Like I said before, Penn’s jab was working so well because Sherk just stood right where BJ wanted him. A good striker who has a height/reach advantage will almost always pick you apart if you do that.
I’d disagree though that you “need” a right hand counter for a jab. Yeah, obviously that’s one option, but far from the only one. The best defense would have been to not stand in Penn’s line of fire, or at the range that he wanted. Then lead off, rather than trying to counter punch. As the old saying goes, “the best defense is a good offense”.
I don’t think there is any shame for Sherk. BJ was just perfect. The credit goes to BJ for just shutting Sherk down. Everybody can say why Sherk didn’t do so and so but BJ made it that way.
Tons of credit to BJ, he looked awesome in that fight. But to suggest that Sherk’s game plan/strategy wasn’t also a lot to blame for his loss simply isn’t true IMO.
danew wrote:
I think Sherk is a guy who is smart in the cage and knows the game well. Because of that he knew that this matchup was difficult for him. It was a quandry to decide where to take the fight. Like you occasionally see with a wrestler, they have the ability to put the fight where they want, but not necessarily the ability to do anything there.
I think Sherk knew that BJ would put him in bad positions on the ground early (a la his fights with Hughes), so he thought he’d wear him down first and then overwhelm him (a la Hughes II). I agree that he should have def changed up the game much earlier because he was losing, but if you get in the cage you’ll know that its so hard sometimes to see what’s happening as its happening. That’s where you need your corner to be honest with you and give good advice. Fighters have to be very confident folks, and I think Sherk truly believed he was getting the better of it standing and his corner wasn’t telling him different. Tough spot.
Completely agree. His corner obviously had no idea how to tell him how to adjust his game plan. And once again, to be honest, it didn’t seem to me like he had learned any effective strategies for fighting a taller opponent (which seems odd since his training camp must have known that BJ had the height/reach advantage).[/quote]
I agree with alot of what you wrote. I think you are right about the “need” for a right hand counter. I just thought it was such a basic thing that it would have been thrown out there.
Sherk was pumping his jab to penetrate to get inside it seemed. That is one good way to get inside but you have to have alot of upperbody movement to get that done. Which as you said Sherk stood in Penn’s line of fire. So Sherk just ended up getting stuffed. Though even with alot of upperbody movement a taller guy with an excellent jab is going to make you eat some punches. I guess they didn’t have a way to adapt to that. Like shoulder roll and leaning down your right so the jab can’t hit you. To do that though you would have to counter more. Some really talented guys can pull out stuff like that in a fight when stuff isn’t working, like a Hopkins or young Toney for example. Some guys just fight one way all the time regardless if they are winning or losing like Trinidad.
So I agree that the game plan had flaws but I think they had a plan based on what tools Sherk has. With Penn executing I think that for this fight at least Sherk did the best he could and the gameplan was not the deciding factor, rather the bigger factor influencing the fight was Penn’s excellence. That is just my opinion.
