UFC 77 Discussion thread

[Viscant]

Re: Storm, I don't really call it running away or timing out...I prefer rushing down in reverse. Always random finding SF/Marvel people here.

Anyways, I think everything you said is valid. There is a percent of the time that Anderson can win with a homerun strike or sub in the later rounds but it's pretty low. Off the top of my head and without consulting fight finder I can't think of any fight of Anderson's in a major org that he's finished that hasn't been first or 2nd round. His gas tank is notoriously shallow, so it would have to be a real miracle for him to have enough left to stop Rich. Like I said earlier though, I'm not betting this one and I'm just a big time Rich fan, so whatever, maybe I'm just being too hopeful.

While you're 100% right about AA doing significant damage with leg kicks in their 3rd fight, it stands to reason that Tim was already starting to feel his back problems by that point in his career. Too often, people use the steroids as the official demarcation point in Tim Sylvia's career. While that undeniably played a factor, it was only when his back started bothering him and kept getting repeated injuries that he became a decision fighter. It's impossible to put power on a right hand (especially if you have to lunge any, like off checking a leg kick) if you have any kind of back problems and as you'll notice, after the Assuerio Silva fight, he only threw a handful of right hands with any kind of bad intention on them for the next couple of years.

I dunno, maybe I'm just drinking the Miletich kool-aid but I believe it when people were telling me how bad Tim's back was during AA#3 and the Monson fight (to say nothing about how bad it was by the time Randy got a hold of him), so I think the old Tim has a really good shot of coming back in this fight. I don't think we even NEED the old Tim since the boring jab, jab, circle style would be enough to frustrate Vera, who really doesn't deal with that very well.

I suppose we'll see tomorrow, but I'm really confident in Tim in this one. I just don't see any scenario where Vera gets him into significant danger.