Why can GSP so easily takedown these great wrestlers?

Why on earth was that a lucky kick? Gonzaga owned Cro Cop that entire round, and then knocked him out brutally. Gonzaga landed another brutal high kick against Couture, breaking his arm when Randy blocked it... and then another one tha landed flush on Randy. Obviously, Gonzaga has some solid high kicks. Gonzaga would have just as good a chance to knock Mirko out again if they rematched.

However, Cro-Cop would own him in a kickboxing match... which is exactly the point that we have been making over and over again. The fact that it is an MMA match, with so much more to think about, and defend... it makes situatons like that much more likely. Better wrestlers get taken down, and better strikers get knocked out.

 

Bridgeport, eh?

 

No doubt cop would own him. Lucky is the wrong word because Gonzaga worked cop in the ground and also shook him up with some elbows. It was a perfect setup for that kick which Gonzaga will never land again in his MMA career.

As with the GSP/Koscheck fight. There was no setup..nothing going on..it was a boring fight. GSP just shot and that was it. Again you missed the point. GSP has been training with world class wrestlers.....his wrestling is so so miles ahead of Gonzagas "kickboxing". What we say here is that in a pure wrestling match with Koscheck with adequate preparation..I cant say that koscheck beats GSP. You have to consider GSPs advantages..speed, power and athleticsm.

You put Gonzaga and Crocop in K1 I know Crocop would win..thats a big difference

 

I gotta jump back in here.

First of all, Cro Cop isn't the same kickboxer he was when he was in Pride and definitely not in K-1. It was an isolated strike that he got hit with when he was still dazed from being Elbowed in the head on the ground. I went over this earlier, about 60 pages back why striking is slightly different in that 1 mistake can lead to you going to sleep. Now if Gonzaga had outstruck him and dominated a stand-up battle over the course an entire fight, then the question can be raised. Just like with Kongo. If Kongo and CroCop fought a kickboxing fight THAT SAME NIGHT I wouldn't count Kongo out from beating him, because that is basically what happened.....he won the standup consistently throughout the fight.

Cro Cop is just a bad example because in his prime Kongo couldn't touch him, but this deteriorated and unmotivated version might very well get beat by him in kickboxing, and he already did in MMA.

If Gabriel Gonzaga was consistently outstriking and dominating former K-1 Stars on their feet in the Octogan then the question would have to be raised whether or not he could beat them in a Kickboxing match......sorry Widdow atsch

 

I live in the city next to Bridgeport.

 

Martins Ferry or Bellaire. Did you go to highschool there too?

 

In his prime? C'mon man Cro-Cop was fighting at his BEST EVER, immediately before he came over to the UFC. He comes over, gets owned, and all of the sudden he is washed up. The man had just DOMINATED the open weight GP. Cro-Cop is definitely not over the hill... Gonzaga just proved once against that Cro-Cop gets flustered as hell when he is bullied. When you bring the fight to Cro-Cop, he isn't half of the fighter that he is when he brings the fight to you. He's a frontrunner.

Anyways... once again... you are splitting hairs. What's the difference between a person getting hit with strikes that hey would normally avoid, and a person getting taken down when they normally wouldn't? MMA is too broad... and you have too many variables to stay on top of your normal game 100%. Guys are going to take you down, who wouldn't have a chance in hell to take you down if you were prepared for a wrestling match. Guys are going to out strike you... who you could toy with in a boxing, or kickboxing match. That is because you can't box, or kickbox in an MMA fight, and you can't just wrestling in an MMA match, against the top fighters. You have to be able to do it all, or at least do the other stuff good enough to get you where you need to be in order to accent your strengths. Guys normally overcompensate for their weaknesses in an MMA fight. A striker, focuses more on not being taken down... and a wrestler focuses more on not being tagged over and over. So... it leaves a striker vulnerable to be hit as he is worried about being taken down, and leaves a wrestler vulnerable to be taken down, as he is so caught up in trying to protect himself on his feet.

Then, you have a guy like GSP who can strike well, wrestle well, and his sub game is good. Best of all, he transitions into the different forms as good as anyone. So, unless you can hang with him in all three, you are in trouble.

 

Martins Ferry... Yes.

 

Rampage has either taken down or repeatedly stuffed the takedowns of Henderson, Lindland, and Randleman.

Thats 2 olympians, and a 2x NCAA champion, better wrestlers than GSP has ever faced, including Koscheck.

Busta outwrestled Lindland, who is again more proven than even Koscheck, to a much higher degree than GSP did to Kos.

As for the pinning combinations, no, I realized you just don't get it. GSP obviously does them, but he has no reason to master them, in fact he has a very high incentive to forget as much of the wrestling specific, especially freestyle which transfers less of the ground game than folkstyle, ground-game as possible since it can lead to bad habits in MMA.

Seriously, all of you, go watch a wrestling match on Youtube, see if it looks anything like MMA. The wrestlers are bent over, handfighting, not allowed to avoid contact, and on and on and on, its just not the same idea. The techniques obviosly transfer, but the execution of them is just different

 

If it was just for what GSP did in the Octogan you guys would be alot more convincing. But I'm sorry, I don't buy that his Olympic Training partners and coach would mislead him. And I have no reason to believe that he would lie about it. But anyway.....

It's all good. This thread has obviously gotten carried away.

 

Did you wrestle for Babe Sidon?

 

I feel like I am being stalked. Do you know Babe, and/or the area... or are you trying to google me?:think

 

I know a bit about that area and wrestling.

 

2 hours later:

:rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl

 

This thread needs moved to Sherdog.