MMA: Past Fight Discussion

[Egg Shen]

if you're interested in sports or tragic stories, The Smashing Machine is a must see.

[jimufctna24]

Underachiever - Melvin Guillard

 

 

Maybe the most naturally gifted and athletic lightweight alive today.

 

For those of you who are new to the sport, it would amaze you how long Melvin has been touted as having the gifts but not using them to his full potential, I am amazed he is not even 30 yet. He has always been very quick and very powerful. His knockout victory in his lightweight debut in 2006 is scary to watch and still gets played in highlight reels to this day. His body punch victory a few months later against Gabe Ruediger was also very impressive.

 

Then as always the wheels fell off, Joe Stevenson is a decent fighter who works very hard, there are a lot of fighters though who should beat them if they fight right and work hard, Melvin did neither. He accused Stevenson of indulging in PED before the bout then himself got busted for cocaine, but what happened in the cage was more telling and annoying, he threw wild looping punches that Stevenson countered easy and dropped him, then in Joe Daddy's strongest area the ground Melvin had no hope and was subbed with ease. Melvin should/could have won that fight if would have boxed a bit smarter and not been so wild, he was a mental midget that night.

 

It is a trend that would follow, he did the same against Joe Lauzon, again a fighter he is streets better than standing and would have been a easy knockout if he would have taken his time, it was a mirror of the Stevenson fight some 4 and a half years on, he came out too emotional got caught by a guy he should have beaten. His grasp of the ground game has also let him down and despite improving his striking technique even more he has never improved his submission defense as he gets caught way more than a man of his athletic talents should.

 

He can beat grapplers when he fights proper, Jim Miller he should have beat. He was lighting him up before he allowed himself to be dragged into a ground battle, when he fights smart look what he has done to wrestlers/grapplers. A TKO over the Evan Durham and Shane Roller, the former of which is a big deal. He is just not consistent enough, he never loses because he is inferior he lose because he gets too emotional, loses concentration or fights the wrong gameplan.

 

The Cerrone fight is a tough one, he was winning but it was a shootout and could have gone either way. I could say he should have boxed smarter and less wild and I do think like Nate Diaz he would have been able to win. But I see why he rushed into finish when he did as that worked with Evan Durham and others, so I will let him off there.

 

Despite being young, Melvin has changed camps and been around so long I cannot see change for him. He should have had a title shot by now, wins over Dennis Siver, Roller, Tibau, Stephens and Durham prove he can beat top 20 guys and people have done a lot less than that to get title shots, but he has just not done it consistently enough. He has the power and the speed, but lacks the discipline and fight I.Q to turn his athletic gifts into gold. Which is a real shame.

Edited September 18, 2012 by jimufctna24

[Egg Shen]

yep, Melvin's gonna go down as one of the great underachiever's. He's clearly gifted but i don't know a fighter that folds under pressure quite like Melvin, if he gets in any kind of trouble during a fight that's usually the end, i don't think ive ever seen him fight through adversity, it's almost like he can't be afforded to make 1 mistake.

[wandshogun09]

Yeah I've always said Melvin's one of my favourite lightweights. I've had a bit of a soft spot for him since TUF 2. He was a cocky little shit on that show but he was a likeable rogue and you can tell deep down he's a good lad.

 

I always remember this from his TUF days

 

 

As said he's got all the physical tools you could ask for, tons of talent. He was a veteran already when he went on TUF at like 22 or 23 or whatever he was. He was fighting almost every month in his early career.

 

And he's got a fair bit of charisma about him. Huge power, probably one of the hardest hitting 155ers in the world no exaggeration. Combine that with his lightning fast speed, his reflexes, his excellent and underrated takedown defence, his wrestling background and he should be doing a lot better than he has been. It's only mental lapses which have held him back, and submission defence, although he has made strides in that area I think recently. If you look at his fight with Fabricio Camoes (a 3rd degree BJJ blackbelt), he showed really good defensive BJJ.

 

There's been times where he's looked like a world beater;

 

His vicious one punch KO of Rick Davis

 

Still one of the most devastating knockouts in UFC history. A KO punch doesn't get any more brutal than that. Davis was out the nanosecond it connected.

 

His brutal body shot TKO of Gabe Ruediger

 

It's very rare you see a straight punch to the body used in MMA. It's an effective tool in Boxing but only a handful of MMA guys use it. Junior Dos Santos and Paul Daley have used it pretty regularly. But most of the time if you see a body shot finish in MMA it's usually a kick or a knee or maybe a hook. This one was straight down the middle right into Mr Colonic's bread basket.

 

Destroying Dennis Siver in 36 seconds

 

Siver has always been thought of as one of the best strikers in the lower weight classes. He's got a bit of a weird style which is sort of a mix between European kickboxing with Karate strikes mixed in. And we've all seen what his spinning back kick to the body can do.

 

So Melvin running through him how he did was one of the most impressive showings of his career. To this day that's the only TKO loss on Siver's record in a 28 fight career.

 

Blasting Evan Dunham inside a round

 

Dunham was making waves at 155 at this point and was thought of as a possible future title contender. He was coming off a loss to Sean Sherk but most thought he should have got the nod in that fight. Apart from that he was undefeated with wins over Tyson Griffin, Efrain Escudero and Marcus Aurelio on his record.

 

Most, including me, were picking Dunham to exploit Melvin's suspect BJJ defence but Melvin showed that when he's on he can fuck anyone's night up.

 

But then there's the mental lapses for whatever reason. It seems like every time he's gaining some serious momentum he hits a speed bump and drops a fight and it sets him back. I think people forget the effect him losing his Dad in that Hurricane early in his UFC run would have had on him mentally.

 

And take into account if things went slightly different and he made some slight adjustments Guillard's record could well have Nate Diaz, Jim Miller and Donald Cerrone in his win column. All three of them fights he was winning and then either slipped up and got caught (Miller/Cerrone) or made a silly error when he was cruising to what appeared to be a sure fire win (vs Diaz).

 

On his day Melvin Guillard can trouble anyone at 155. Anyone. I'm sticking to that. He has the kind of power and speed where if he catches anyone in the division he can switch their lights off.

 

 

Yes.

[jimufctna24]

But then there's the mental lapses for whatever reason. It seems like every time he's gaining some serious momentum he hits a speed bump and drops a fight and it sets him back. I think people forget the effect him losing his Dad in that Hurricane early in his UFC run would have had on him mentally.

That is true, I think that happened before the Stevenson fight.

 

However, he did the same thing against Joe Lauzon where he got over-emotional as he was fighting in his hometown. He just cannot control his emotion.

 

I like him as well, I like a fighter to be cocky and bit of a showman. He could be a big star, maybe as big as his current stablemate Rashad Evans, if he controlled his emotion and learnt better BJJ defense.

 

I did not see the fight in July where he showed he had improved his BJJ defense, so maybe he is doing something right.

Edited September 19, 2012 by jimufctna24

[jimufctna24]

Wand Request

 

Underachiever Gabriel Gonzaga

 

 

The Heavyweight scene in 2005 in the UFC was not great to say the least. Andrei Arlovski progression was the only thing worth wild in 2005, Pride had all the other great heavies, and decent prospects were hard to come by.

 

The UFC rolled the dice, they dug up relics like Tre Telligman, signed Pride reject Assurio Silva and had a bunch of guys who were fed to Arlovski who were King Of Cafe quality (Eilers and Buentello) sure the fights were mostly good, but if you wanted quality, UFC was not the place to be.

 

Even the signing of Gonzaga made me sigh at the time, in a age where the quality of fighters is not as easy to determine, all I had was Sherdog forums and Fight Founder. Gonzaga had a loss to a Wedum, which made me feel even more inferior as a UFC fan, they get the winner and we get the loser was my mentality.

 

His debut made me cringe, it was horrible. Joe Rogan blasted it on commentary, Paul Buentello shouted insults from cage side. It was a debacle, that made UFC HW look even more worse than they already had, and that is saying something. Gabe won with a nice KO, but it was Kevin Jordan, a man about as worthy as a place in the UFC as Tim Sylvia is in a beauty contest.

 

The HW scene got even worse, other than rising star Brandon Vera, we were treated to Fat Mir, the Monson vs Cruz stalemate classic and the exposure of Arlovski. Tim Sylvia was champ and the division looked like a utter shit. In this time however Gabe quietly, put a few wins on his record with finishes, against cans yeah, but he was keeping his place on the roster at least. He just needed a platform to make us all forget his debut.

 

Then the division was turned on its head, Vera was gone, but we got Cro Cop and Couture destroyed Sloth boy. As the UFC had run out of cans with Sanchez already been fed to Cro Cop, they needed a Heavy to face Cro Cop to spring board him to fight Couture, Gabe got the call.

 

Not only did the UFC value Cro Cop for their European expansion but they knew Cro Cop vs Randy would be their summer blockbuster, with Pride gone and Nog, Werdum and the strong rumor of Fedor coming aboard, the UFC had made a amazing turnaround in terms of HW quality. Gabe was not expected to win or trouble Gonzaga, just be headkicked.

 

What amazed me was and what people forget was how much a beating Gabe put on Micro, before the KO. Gabe was elbowing Cro Cop to shit, why the ref stood them up I have not a clue. Karma was on Gabes side, he did the legendary leg kick and caused a massive upset almost trumping Serra a few weeks before. Remember, Cro Cop has only 6 months earlier won the OP GP, and looked unbeatable.

 

We were all shocked, was Gabe the best? Well no, I picked him to beat Randy like most, but that night we learnt a lot about Gabe. He in the vein on Big Foot Silva, is either going to have control or crumble. Gabe does a lot of things well when he chooses to use them, he has hard leg kicks, hard ground and pound and is actually a beast with his submissions.

 

If you can catch him though he usually gets knocked out, he does not fight to his strengths. He has at times showed decent boxing, he had Shane Carwin on shaky legs before Carwin caught him, but he is not good enough to trade, he gets hit too easy and crumbles too easy (see the 2nd Werdum fight)

 

Losing to JDS is no shame, that is horrible match up for him. A tepid fight with Schaub was maybe the time we understood he was never going to be what we thought he might be in 2007, but to be fair he never loses to cans if you look at his record.

 

If Gabe fought a different way that disguised his weaknesses, he could have been more. Anyone with his power, size, BJJ skills and Gnp should do well, but his ability to crumble, break mentally and at times choke and have stinkers have made him a underachiever in my eyes. Like Big Foot and Buster Douglas he has that one night in his career where everything was pretty perfect.

Edited October 4, 2012 by jimufctna24

[wandshogun09]

Good stuff Jim and I agree. The last paragraph especially is bang on.

 

A lot forget that Gonzaga was beating Cro Cop up long before the headkick of doom. He fought the perfect fight tactically. Cro Cop landed one kick and Gonzaga put him on his back and went to town with the elbows, which is something Mirko had never dealt with before because they didn't allow elbow strikes in either Pride or K-1. He battered Mirko.

 

The standup was dodgy as fuck and reeked of the ref trying to tip the fight in Cro Cop's favour in my opinion. Gonzaga was working and causing damage, there were no grounds for the standup to me. But the wheels were already in motion, Cro Cop was rattled by then and the standup wasn't the advantage you'd expect. I think he might still have been a little hurt from the G&P and was hesitant to strike and get taken down again.

 

Then right when he had Mirko thinking takedown he went high and wiped Mirko out with his own signature weapon. Perfectly executed fight and defo his Douglas/Tyson moment.

[jimufctna24]

Thanks man, I enjoyed your Lennox Lewis write up in the Boxing thread I just stumbled across.

 

If anyone has anyone else they consider a underachiever, let me know I would be happy to do another write up provided I agree (which I probably would)

[wandshogun09]

Brandon Vera would be an obvious choice.

 

Also, Tyson Griffin, Little Nog and Thiago Alves are all guys who I actually think should have achieved more considering their talent and skillsets.

 

Oh and Kevin Randleman. A highly skilled wrestler with freakish strength, heavy hands when he let them go and a very marketable look. With better training/career choices I think he could have been a breakout star in the days of Liddell and Ortiz.

 

Frank Shamrock could be another. Was ruling the UFC middleweight ranks and then took what, 2 or 3 years off? At his physical peak.Then came back for one fight and took another 3 years out. Madness. He let probably his best years go by while he was inactive. We might never have seen a truly prime Frank Shamrock.

[jimufctna24]

All of them I agree with so I will do a few when I have feel the motivation and have a 30 min window.

 

Frank is one I would enjoy doing, because from 1999-2003 I could suggest plenty of match-ups for him to enhance his legacy.

 

Lil Nog would be interesting as well, Vera as said is obvious and Tyson Griffin is a bit of a forgotten talent. Good suggestions.

[Egg Shen]

Kevin Randleman had it all apart from the fight style.

 

What about Ricardo Arona? a man that on the day Pride closed it's doors was considered one of the best fighters in the world...then nothing? he fought once 3 years ago and that was it. Arona's the one Pride guy that truly missed the boat when the Pride guys went looking for new work. He was a deceptively old school style fighter in a quickly evolving sport but he made it work for him (like his good buddy Paulo Filho who you could also add to the list).

 

 

Aleksander Emelianenko is another. Never on the level of his brother, but had a rough house, boxing style that would have gone over a treat in America, legal and health issues got in the way and Aleks has spent the best part of the last 6 years turning up on random Russian MMA cards with mixed results.

 

[jimufctna24]

Aleks is someone I would enjoy doing.

 

Filho is another Vera a bit too obvious, I cannot believe I did not think of him. Arona I would have to concentrate on him being inactive after Pride as said, I am not sure how well he would have done to be honest, but there is certainly a argument there.

 

Again some good suggestions.

[wandshogun09]

Ricardo Arona might be the very definition of an underachiever. The fact we didn't even think of him or remember him before for this speaks volumes about how he's let his career slip by and basically fade away.

 

His striking was never polished, although he could hold his own even against Wandy at times. But his grappling could have took him a long way in the UFC 205 division in my opinion. Pre-Jones era at least.

 

Take Arona's ground game and add elbows to the equation and you have a threat to any 205er.

 

I'm sure right now he's having a great time surfing on the beaches of Rio and perfecting his top game on fit Brazilian girls. Good for him. But give it 10 years or so when it's too late for comebacks and I bet he'll regret not staying in MMA and seeing how far he could have gone. Then again, maybe he won't regret it? Maybe his heart was never truly in it and he's saved enough money and got enough other stuff going on that he doesn't need to fight. Who knows.

 

He's maybe the biggest "what if?" in MMA.

[jimufctna24]

Frank Shamrock - Underachiever

 

 

Whilst most casual and hardcore fans know him today as a relic from the 90's who bad mouths Dana to stay relevant, back in 2005 Frank was a bit of a folk hero to the underground audience. MMA snobs who despised the new fans who joined through the first season of TUF held Frank and BJ Penn as being too smart, too talented and too cool to be part of the Zuffa company as it was exploding.

 

Frank was seen as they guy who was the best P4P of his day, who beat the Zuffa poster boy, and was too smart to stick around in a sport with no money. He became more of a folk hero when he would not sign up totally with Zuffa, despite being a commentator when Dana first bought it. For the anti-Dana mob, he was their poster boy.

 

Whilst all this was going on though, he was doing what Ali was accused of, his morals got in the way of his prime. Fighting twice in 7 years, and then only beating average opposition for his time, Frank did not do all he could at this point. If you agree with his views or not is not important for this write up, its what he could have done in the period.

 

He was just 26 when he handled Tito, if he would have not retired he could have gone several routes. Lets start with Japan, he got some coin out of there with his win over Elvis Sinosic, so why not milk the cow. If he would have been up for it when Ken came to Japan in 2000 Frank could have fought him, despite the size advantage of Ken he would have won in my view as well. Too skilled and too much cardio for Ken, his stand up was a bit better also.

 

Many felt he could have given Sakuraba a loss, this would have been before Wanderlai became the man to beat him so it would have meant a lot. Wanderlai in 2000/2001 he would have stood a reasonable chance against if he chose to fight proper. Maybe get some takedowns and outlast him. Frank was ahead of everyone with his cardio for his time. Maybe he could have had another go around with Bas, he could have done some good stuff in Pride.

 

As for the UFC I am going to suggest a route many won't think of. Frank was a very small 205lbs, 185lbs would have been a better bet. The MW class in the UFC at this period struggled to find a consistent identity, out of them I only see Lindland giving Frank problems. I would have him over Baroni, Castillio, Bustamante, Menne and Tanner. He could have given a bit of star power to the weight class and I think would have become Champion.

 

There is a theory of why he left the sport was to safeguard himself, he felt the sport catching up and wanted to remembered as a great. His comeback was not the best, he did draw mega bucks though. I will be generous and say you cannot disregard how good he could have been 1999-2005 on his fights with Renzo, Cung and Diaz.

 

As time has gone on, its a shame that a guy he once showed the sport its way in terms of training and cardio has been demonized the way he has, sure it could be seen as his own fault with his outspoken views, but its still a shame. Still he is a Hall Of Famer, but he could have been seen in a much more positive light if he would have done things differently, he maybe could have been seen as a better fighter if he took a gamble in the 1999-2005 period.

Edited October 5, 2012 by jimufctna24

[wandshogun09]

Very good read again Jim.

 

There were a bunch of really interesting fights for Frank which I wished we'd have seen. Sakuraba is the big one for me. They were two true pioneers of MMA, especially being smaller guys and they were two of the first really complete MMA fighters.

 

Fights with Vitor Belfort and Dan Henderson could have been great as well. He had that grappling match with Hendo which Frank won by heel hook but that fight under MMA rules in UFC or especially Pride could have been something special.

 

Wandy, Chuck and a Tito rematch would all be fights worth seeing but I agree that 185 would have been a better fit back then. He was undersized for the 205ers coming through and the 185 class was fairly thin on guys who would trouble him.

 

I'd recommend giving Frank's UFC fight with Jeremy Horn a look if you find it. And the Enson Inoue fight from Vale Tudo Japan. Both entertaining in different ways.