In your opinion, what rank does he have for his striking ability in the Light Heavyweight division? I'll throw the major names (UFC only) Machida, Spider, Shogun, Forrest, Rashad, Jardine, Thiago Silva, Liddell, Ortiz, Bon Jones, Belfort, Franklin, Henderson, Cane,Wanderlai, Vera I think for me, he is behind those guys Machida, Spider, Shogun and Franklin, yes dear lord, Franklin and Vera So he would be the 6thbest striker in my opinion in the UFC LHW. Agree, disagree? Make your list ! I might have forget someone !
Rampage is 10 times the striker Franklin is. As for the rest bar Spider and maybe Shogun its a moot point. Way too much is being made of Machida. Frankly im tired of it. Rampage though has been tried and tested. He made a brief foray into the K1 after being challenged by Abidi. Twice he handed him his ass under K1 rules. Rampage is a bonafide puncher and striker. I do think he's fallen in love with his standup too much though and neglected his wrestling.
But his fight vs Forrest and Jardine, made me realise that I was overrating his standup. He is predictable. And yeah Franklin, I mean he tooled Hendo standing, something Rampage wasnt really able to do as clear as Franklin(I know, he used his wrestling to beat him but still). Franklin might not have the power or the accuracy of Rampage, but he is very good with his feet, and work with combination.
Offensively he is just outside the very top; he's in like group 1b rather than 1a if you will. Defensively he is well behind the top guys, he essentially lost his belt because his complete inability to stop almost any leg kicks at all over 5 rounds. He also lost both fights against Wanderlei and his fight against Shogun because he is pretty bad at defending the clinch. If it was just boxing he would be as good as anybody in LHW, but it isn't; when he goes against guys with a well rounded striking attack involving more than punches he is very hit or miss, more miss than hit. What's discouraging is there hasn't really been any marked improvement either; his boxing keeps getting better and everything else stays the same or worse.
For what it's worth, I think his striking kept him from losing to Griffin on my card. I scored their fight a draw.
Its strong but very flawed he has no Muay Thai game its ok not to throw kicks but its horrible not to know how to defend the Thai clinch or check kicks. In response to you Scur Franklin is not as good in boxing as Rampage but he is a more complete striker.
He never lost his belt, that **** was stolen from him. People fell in love with Forest and just liked him.
Right, that explains it. The judges took into account fan's feelings. It wasn't that Forrest won two clear rounds and 1 close one. Either way its irrelevant, Rampage could have won if he didn't get the **** kicked out of his leg over and over and over and over.
STFU about that so called robbery people its not a robbery when you get your leg kicked in, mounted, almost guillotined, almost triangle choked, outworked, beat in the clinch etc. Forrest probablly won the 2nd round 10-8 the only clear round for Rampage is the 1st round he was badly losing until he scored that ONE KD
I watched this fight a couple of times and it wasn't even close. Can't beleive ppl still call this a robbery, it was not a difficult fight to score, unless you thought it was a boxing match.
Even then Forrest still wins when one throws 1 punch a minute and the other throws 4-5 combos per minute who wins ? Usually the active guy unless he gets hurt and he was only hurt once back in round 1.
