Never said he has a decent shot, just saying he has a bigger shot than Sonnen, Rashad, Hendo, Shogun(I say Hendo bc his cardio is questionable, has no subs off his back, is smaller than Fedor). Now I know Hendo beat Fedor, but we have to keep stylistical matchups in consideration(I think fedor stylistacally is better to beat Jones than Hendos).
Todays fighters are way too worried sometimes about their reputation, especially after loads of trashtalking, no one wants to be embarrassad. I mean, the whole rashad jones build-up, Rampage-Rashad buildup made so no one really wanted to commit, rather both of them were more concerned with not losing in an embarrasing way.
As long as the fights lasted, they were close, I mean Hendo Fedor fight, he rocked Hendo just before getting rocked himself(I thought Herb could have let the fight go on for a sec or two to see if he was able to recover) and they exchanged some with both damaging the other. The one with Big foot the 1st round was competetive(dont remember who won 1st round though) but the 2nd was for sure a massacre and that comes from the fact that Fedor isn't what he used to be and the fact that he is a small HW facing a big HW with good ground n pound/grappling so he could never get out of there.
I think they all have pretty slim shots, and you might be splitting hairs by the time you get to Sonnen and Fedor. But I'd rather have Machida by a good amount over any of them, then Gustafsson, then Hendo/Rashad/Shogun, then Sonnen/Fedor. I personally would feel a lot more comfortable betting on a fighter who has recently proven he can beat high level fighters than a dude who hasn't beaten a decent fighter in 3 years.
All I can really say to sum this all up is that I don't understand the starry eyed glasses everyone seems to have WRT to Fedor. I think one of the first lessons everyone learns about handicapping is to ignore fan allegiances, and if you look at the objective facts, it doesn't seem hard to me to comprehend that Fedor doesn't have what it takes to beat top fighters any more. Sure, I could be wrong but the evidence doesn't point that way.
I'd go with Machida, Gustafsson, Fedor/Hendo, Rashad(I'd put Rashad up higher if he actually had a good gameplan and followed it), Sonnen and lastly Shogun. But yeah, all of them draw very slim, u'd have to go up to top 5 HW's to start finding people who actually have decent shots to beat him.
Fedor was so good partly bc the division was bad but also because he always seemed to find a way to win and had a really good overall game, very good hand speed for a HW and on top of that good cardio, good chin and basically had a killer warrior spirit.
He's lost a bit of everything it seems today and the fact that the skill level of the HW has gone up.
People are tentative against Jones because they don't want to end up on bottom. Jones' gameplan is usually to use his massive reach advantage to pick people apart from way outside. When they close the distance he simply dumps them on their ass and they have to deal with his top game, which might be the best in all of MMA right now. That's why Rashad and Vitor looked tentative, they didn't want to get taken down. But I do agree that Rashad needed to go for it at some point and he just didn't.
If Fedor came in winging punches, Jones would simply take him down and work him over from the top. Fedor's best chance would be to get in a punch that hurts Jones or get a sub from bottom, both seem like very low % options to me.
Hendo's best chance is obviously the H-Bomb. He has a better chance then Fedor of stuffing the takedown once he gets inside but he still ends up on his back more often than not. Once he's on bottom he's probably drawing dead.
Sonnen's best chance is to get takedowns of his own. If he can't get the takedown he doesn't have too many ways to win other than wall-n-stall. But if he can get the takedown then his chances go way up.
Both Fedor and Hendo are going to be on their back no matter what, but Fedor actually has submissions off his back which Hendo doesn't.
Unless you got great timing like Machida does, you're not going to beat Jones in the standup and since Rashad doesn't have it, he needs to start throwing down and mixing it up which he didnt do last time. And to be honest, his standup isn't that great, he was losing the fight to forrest until he tko'd him in the last round or smth. Vitors gameplan also baffled me, he was dropping to full guard but why wasnt he just going in and throwing down if he's not afraid of the takedown to end up in full guard is beyond me.
You have to take chances if you want to win against Jones if you can't handle his reach(which Machida did alright in 1st round imo) and standup.
Sonnen strength is unfortunately Bones strength and added the fact that Bones will be a lot bigger than Sonnen is, he is going to get demolished.
Honestly Chael has a better shot than anyone else at MW against Anderson. A wrestler who isnt afraid to spam takedowns and has a good power double and submission defense. Chael gameplan and don't get tapped basically. Chael might pull it off 1 in 5 or 6 fights or so, I don't see anyone else below LHW standing a chance against Silva - GSP bulking up and following the Chael wrestling-based gameplan is the next best shot but Silva is favored there too
I think chael is a superior wrestler than GSP, if chael can't get the job done I don't see how GSP could do it .. That being said, as a ufc fan boy I've been waiting for that fight for years now.
Also curious on who you guys would pick if Anderson vs jones.. I would easily be taking Anderson but have heard alot say other wise.
jones on short notice, anderson with a full camp (assuming the fight happens soon given andersons age and anderson is completely injury free for the fight)
have to remember anderson's chin is better than anyone that jones has faced, and every round starts standing and jones' chin hasn't really been tested - if jones doesn't finish anderson fast, the start of each new round is a really dangerous time for him
both guys have a path to victory but i'd lean anderson assuming he was given a full proper camp to bulk properly to a legit 205 and not a fat 205 like he was against bonnar
Jones, weight difference too big and jones wrestling(as hes shown in the cage) is too good. His ground n pound makes people quit and that is what I think it's going to happen. He makes people look really bad, top ranked fighters look like they have never fought basically.
Wow. Just saw Jake Shields is out 6 months for using a banned substance. I was looking in my database to see if my Tapology import is working properly and randomly chose UFC 150 as my test case. Noticed Shields - Herman was marked as a No Contest and was like wtf? Checked Sherdog and he's been turfed. Considering he already gets booed in like every fight, it's going to be deafening when he comes back from this.
yeah they havent sorted out what the drug was, but i read about it on an mma site a few days ago
shields is meh anyway now, i mean, he has boring fights, lost his title shot at WW and even if he works his way to one at MW will he ever beat Silva? nope.
Shields is an alright gatekeeper but nothing more than that. Don't see him being any threat to Silva what so ever, I mean, what is Shields going to do that Maia couldn't do?
