Jakro's MMA Musings

Fun weekend of MMA is over. I am still gonna need to watch the ONE FC card, but UFC had a decent event, Bellator so-so. Anyway, let's talk about the UFC Singapore fights. The main event went pretty much as I expected it to go, with Maia showing more overall refined striking, and getting the better of ground exchanges as well. Askren perhaps surprised a little that he managed to tag Maia with some solid shots on the feet and in hindsight it is easy to wonder if he would have been better off keeping it standing. Pretty much every time Askren got it to the ground, he got reversed or threatened with a sub. Guess the guy can't help his instincts, and at this level having as gaping of a hole in your game as his striking is will be his demise. Entertaining fight nonetheless, and cements Maia's status as one of my all-time favorites. In the co-main, Michael Johnson somehow threw away another fight. I don't know what's next for him, although Ray looked improved there w...

Did not have time this week to write any post-fight analysis from last weekend's event, so I will pull together all the numbers after this event is over. In the meantime let's get to the Singapore card's previews. This is the first card since I started doing these careful previews where I have fighter's that I already previewed before. Main Event: Demian Maia vs. Ben Askren This should be grapplefest, and in all likelyhood it probably will be. I mean I think it would be wise for Maia to stand and bang considering how Askren has no striking whatsoever. Maia at least managed to bloody up Colby Covington, as rudimentary as his striking offense also is. The problem is Askren probably won't want to stand even with Maia, his instincts are always just to go for takedown immediately and just keep trying until he gets it down. We have never really seen Maia defend a takedown, cause no one sane would try to take him down. So he probably won't have the greatest sprawl...

I already wrote that I won't be doing these this weekend, but I ended up scrambling something together with a marathon UFC watching session at the last minute. Main Event: Dominick Reyes vs. Chris Weidman So for research I watched the latest Oezdemir fight from Reyes. He got something of a controversial decision to keep his unbeaten record, but watching that fight I was not nearly as sure as the commentators that Oezdemir was winning it. He seemed to land with a lot power, but Reyes was blocking a lot of it. In the end it was an extremely close fight that shows us pretty accurately where Reyes is at the moment - not quite elite, but one of the better fighters of the division. So what of Chris Weidman? Well I do think he is a great fighter that also has been criminally underrated. He has probably been winning a lot of the recent fights he had, until getting KOd late on. That is the problem. The running theme here has been that the chin tends to not come back, it tends to only d...

We got a great event from Tampa Bay, though unfortunately as it was I hardly saw most of the main card thanks to the technical difficulties I kept experiencing. Anyway from the little pieces of the fights I saw I will try to write a little bit of post-fight analysis. Main Card The Main Event went exactly as expected, though it was perhaps even more one-sided than most of us would have expected. Joanna still has been only beaten by Rose with her outstanding striking and Valentina through simply being so much bigger, no one else can touch her. With Rose having little interest in being the Champ, perhaps Joanna should challenge for the title next? Co-Main also went very much like expected, with Kron Gracie's lack of well rounded MMA game getting harshly exposed. Cub might be aging and on his way out, but he is hardly shot, he can still take a punch, stay upright and moves well. Kron on the other hand needs to stop being arrogant that BJJ solves all problems and learn some offensi...

Main Event: Joanna Jerdzejczyk vs. Michelle Waterson This one should be pretty clear, if the Joanna of old shows up. She has only ever been beaten by powerful strikers like Rose and girls bigger than her like Valentina. Waterson is very technically clean and admittedly strong for her size, but she is still at a strength disadvantage here and has never really been the kind of hard shotting KO striker. The only questionmark is where is Joanna mentally, was her cut terrible and how badly she has faded. Still, she has so much of that skill and experience to rely on that I believe even second-rate her can beat Waterson in a kickboxing match. Could Waterson then take her down and submit her or at least dominate the fight on the ground... well many have tried, but Joanna has one of the best takedown defenses in the division and generally has just feasted on people trying to wrestle her. Again, Waterson is a very technical grappler, but just does not possess the kind of raw strength to rag...

So somehow my ass ended up taking a whole few days to get to writing these... anyway, I will make it quick cause week is already halfway and we have more UFC events to cover. Main Card Although in the end I conceded in my preview that the fight between Adesanya and Whittaker seemed more 50-50, I really could not see how Whittaker would pull the victory off. In the end I was right as Adesanya completely picked him apart, badly knocking him down in the first before completely finishing him off in the second.  Whittaker was in the fight for most of the first round but struggled to connect anything solid, Adesanya just is so defensively masterful, despite playing a dangerous game of inches by fighting with his hands down. The challenge that Costa poses him is even higher risks and for even higher periods, but that will have to be discussed when it happens. In the Co-Main I was very disappointed with Al, perhaps he just has lost the best killer instinct he has, but I expecte...

Some tricky fights to predict in this event just like all the others, but I feel actually pretty confident that it will be a good event. Let's get straight to it. Main Event: Robert Whittaker vs. Israel Adesanya Adesanya has really skyrocketed right to the top of UFC's middleweight division and comes to the title fight with unbeaten record, having hardly shown any chinks in his armor. Only in his last fight against Kelvin Gastelum he showed any real vulnerabilities. However, I would argue it only made him look more impressive, to get put through adversity, getting badly rocked and still rallying to a dominant finish. Even with some bad moments, Adesanya easily won that fight and arguably should have gotten a stoppage on the 25th minute. Regardless, he has the best striking in the UFC middleweight division at the moment. Gastelum managed to hurt him, but I would also say Gastelum is one of the best boxers in UFC, so that does not mean so much in the end. It would be...

Yea yea, this is really late. Sorry, my normal routine has been a little bit broken lately. Anyway, as I predicted, it was a tricky evening to predict and although I got over half right, I still ended up with my second losing night in bets since starting to write proper analysis of each fight. Let's get to dissecting fights. Main Card Normally when I write my predictions I don't read other people's previews before I have completely finished my own - that way I have to rely on completely my own perceptions and not be swayed one way or another by public opinion. However, I was wandering in Bloody Elbow couple of nights before the event and read someone's piece about it. Needless to say it was very critical of Jared Cannonier. I swear I would have picked him had I not read that thing. As it happened, I ended up not trusting my own perceptions that Killa Gorilla's power and leg kicks would become too much of a problem for Hermansson and instead went for latter j...