Man thats a great move! Slide along the floor whilst your opponent evades the takedown. Aoki really needs to work on his striking. He`s becoming way to predictable. He`s untouchable on the mat and id love to see a pure Jujitsu fight between himself and BJ Penn.
Why bother with anything else? His style clearly is enough to beat some of the best fighters in the weightclass.
This is true. He is a has GREAT Jujitsu. But in the world of mixed martial arts he needs in my opinion to be a bit more rounded. There was a time when Coleman Hughes and Shamrocks one dimension worked for them. Aoki may be the same. Just an observation.
Obviously Aoki's one dimension is effective enough. The thing is, he doesn't really even need to take his opponent down. All he needs to do is get a hold of them in any way possible and he is in a position to submit them, whether standing, half standing, or on the ground. He can pull guard with the best of them as well. However, as far as pure BJJ goes, he's not quite on Penn's level, even though he appears more impressive in MMA because of his smaller skill-set, which basically limits him to ground work, whereas Penn is as well versed as they come anywhere. Penn is probably the only LW I'd pick with 100% confidence over Aoki. I just can't see him winning any way.
Aoki may be predictable. But it works for him. I'd like to see him fight Penn also. But I think BJ would maul him.
I just dislike Aoki. No doubt hes got some slick BJJ but I just hated him butt scooting around the ring for 45 seconds. For gods sakes it was embarassing.
Clearly you don't know that type of thinking gets fighters knocked out. And Aoki wants to fight penn? With no standup skills? Penn would kill that kid.
It's probably better for Aoki to have no standup skills and just try to grab his opponent than to get mediocre standup skills and just get himself KOd. If Aoki REALLY wants to spend the time necessary to develop a decent standup game, he is still only going to use his striking to enter a clinch as soon as possible... I don't get it. It's like saying CroCop really needs to work on learning some submissions, just in case. All Aoki needs as far as striking goes is enough to get him close to his opponent, just like all great strikers need is to learn to NOT get submitted.
But even Cro Cop spends alot of time training ground fighting. Cro Cop actually has more to offer on the ground than Aoki standing up. Atleast Cro Cop has an idea what to do on the ground, Aoki would get murdered by Penn on the feet, and if they hit the ground after that it may be Penn's fight to take cause Aoki would be waxed already waiting to be finished cause Penn put to much hands on him.
