Re: UFC 76
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I've already placed heavy bets on fitch and tyson griffin, but I'm worried about both.
Upon re-reviewing fitch's past several things have been brought to my attention. First, his wins appear to be extremely quality but we need to step back and realize that none of his opponents APPEARED to be as good as they are now back then. Initially, I attributed this to Fitch making them look bad...but that may not be completely true.
1. Fitch seems to know how to defend subs very well, but he definitely gets caught in them often. This is not good vs Diego..not good at all. Fitch was caught in a guilliotine by burkman, caught by roan and caught by hironaka. He got out of all of these for many reasons, but it's still not a good thing vs diego. You don't want to find urself defending a sub that has been slapped on by diego.
2. Despite being a very good wrestler with good td's and top control from the guard he gets taken down quite a bit. A couple times by Carneiro, 2-3 by Burkman, 2 by Larson, Joslin took him down 2-3 times, and pretty sure Hironaka got him down once. He has a good ability to get back up though (moreso if they don't properly secure the takedown).
3. He has heavy hands and above average striking, but his gnp is poor unless his opponent is hurt. Joslin, Alves and maybe burkman all beat him standing.
4. His bjj. He is good at taking the back when opponents give it up, but often gets found in bad positions or subs in scrambles (about 50/50 with getting dominant position). He is not good off his back, and mainly stays in the guard with no passing attempts while on top. His rnc wins in the UFC have come when his opponent s were gassed, pulled the arm down for him, or were already rocked by punches; so they were impressive, but not without help.
5. His wins look more impressive than they were. Larson seemed to gas in their fight, Roan was arguably winning the first round, Thiago hurt him bad standing and recovered very well until he ran into two upkicks, and hironaka faired well also. Fitch gets points for coming back from adversity and winning, but he isn't an invulnerable.
What does this mean? This means Fitch is a well rounded fighter but that doesn't mean he doesn't have holes which diego can exploit. Plus diego seems to have the tools to attack all his weaknesses. all this thinking has got me even more pumped for this fight, but way less pumped for my money.
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I agree, what's your problem with Griffin though? He is way better wrestler then Tavares and also has great jitz, as well as good standup.
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I can't yet put into words what my issue with griffin is yet. obviously I still think both Fitch and Tyson are decent favorites...but previous to my post above I just felt like "jon fitch had something missing, maybe mentally". Then I took the time to re-review all his fights adn came up with the summary above, I'm not sure what my issue with Tyson Griffin is...maybe it's that he seems to be able to get outworked by stiff competition and I'm worried tavares will do the same. Barring a huge line shift, I'm not hedging either of my bets though and even then I may choose to keep my full positions. So take that FWIW.
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