The same applies to Junior too, would love to see that fight for the same reasons you would the Jones match
I think Cormier would put Dos Santos on his back. I would probably pick Cormier by decision in a 3 round fight.
EXCELLENT MATCH UP, no doubt, Haggis said it well stating it could go many different ways. Here is the thing that hit me, Dan no doubt has superiour wrestling, however, he does not have the most explosive speed to close space. Yes he has great speed and strength, however, even a guy like Brock had that speed before he got gun shy that i dont think Dan has. No i dont think Brock would of beat JDS, i think he was a experiment that did the job until his lack of experience and skills were found out. My point is i dont see Dan dumping JDS on his BACK with ease. I would be shocked if Dan didnt put him down once or twice, i just dont see Dan having a easy ride putting JDS down simply because of his awesome wrestling base time and time again. JDS is agile, fleet footed and i dont think Dan is going to go in there thinking that he needs to bum rush JDS time and again as the risk to burn himself out would be to great. Witch to me means they will for sure be TRADING a good many shots. Now Dan's shots are so good he could take JDS out for all i know, however, JDS hammering away at Dan's face over time and pulverizing it even little by little into a victory is very probable as well. Tough pick.
At the moment this question is easy. Dos Santos wins. He destroys him standing. He has the best TDD and get back up, to combat Cormiers best Takedows. Cormier has weak GnP at this point in time, so even though I dont know JDS ground game he is training under the Noguera brothers, so I presume he would have the advantage here also.
I really like, for the most part, that the HW division is still choc-a-bloc full of interesting striker v grappler match ups, this being at the top of the list
Agree with every point you make, just not as intensely as you make them. Regardless you could be dead bang right about everything including on the ground where he is no slouch. Yes i think he has at least one defeat by submission, however, it was early in his career and those mistakes built upon can really improve how seriously one takes their ground game after that.
I feel that many fights at the top level are like this. Especially in the heavier divisions, where one strike can significantly alter the course of a fight even if it doesn't lead directly to a stoppage. If Cigano lands a sweet hook on the button in the first round and Cormier eats it and doesn't get staggered/stopped right there, it can still have a massive effect on him. It can affect his balance and reflexes. It can make him slightly hesitant to pull the trigger or close distance. It can make him disengage from future takedown attempts when Junior punches back at him, instead of powering through anyway. If Cigano never lands that initial hook and Cormier doesn't feel the power early on, then Cormier may well be a lot more confident and aggressive, may commit more to his attacks, and may then be a lot more successful. This is something that I think many fans don't really acknowlege. Many fights, you can run them 5 times and not only get different outcomes, but entirely different paths to the different outcomes. An obvious example is JDS-Cain. Junior landed that punch, scrambled his balance and then immediately laid him out. First round KO in a walkover. Does that mean that Cain was always outclassed and was never going to be competitive? Of course not. All we know is that Cain got tooled - on THAT night. That's not taking anything away from Cigano's win, but it's foolish to assume that Junior can dismantle Cain with ease any time they fight. :smoke :hat
Top ten heavies in MMA are- 1. Junior Dos Santos UFC champ 2. A. Overeem Lineal champ 3. C. Velaquez 4. D. Cormier 5. F. Werdum 6. J. Barnett 7. F. Mir 8. A. Silva 9. S. Struve 10. Nogueira
Yep Haggis, when i used to box in the am's and moved up in class a bit, lol, well i remember getting tagged early by a dude that could really throw compared to my level and skill. The thing is , nobody KNEW that i got tagged so badly EXCEPT me. The punch didnt land fully flush but even not landing fullly flush the first thing that went through my mind is, "DO NOT LET THIS GUY LAND FLUSH" and thus i CHANGED my entire MIND SET from those first few punches. This is the HUGE "X" factor with a guy like JDS's power and hand speed. His takedown defense ends up becoming as great as it is because whoever is trying to take him down becomes aware they will most likely have to eat one or more good shots before they can even attempt to ground him. If those shots are of NO CONCERN then attempting to ground him by closing space becomes no concern, if not then whole new ball game. And yes on the different match ups having the REALITY to turn out very very differently depending upon the NITE in question and a infinite amount of other factors all the way down to when a guy blinks and chooses to take a few deep breaths at the wrong time or does so at the right time. I remember Fedor's fight with Arlovski, this was when Fedor was still the king so to speak if i recall, Arlovski was in my opinion very much competitive with Fedor from the get go of that short fight. I thought he was getting the better of Fedor for sure. Arlovski hammers Fedor with a shot and Fedor goes back into the ropes looking submissive and off balance only to use that RUSE to bounce back off the ropes and lay Arlovski right out. Yep he didnt have the best chin, lol, my point is that a entire fight can turn on one good clean shot and if Fedor misses that punch Arlovski could have ended up taking him out in the next minute for all we really know.
It's a great fight. What makes it so interesting to me is that I've never seen either man in genuine trouble. Both seem to take charge early in fights then settle into an effective rhythm. I'm looking forward the Velasquez rematch for the same reason, I don't see Cain being stopped early this time, so JDS should be pushed a lot harder.
