Yeah, Sonnen's top game > shoguns bottom... By a big margin. You guys have got me all excited about shogun opening as a fav, gonna be somewhat disappointed if he docent now lol

In the UFC fights he was in shape for he didn't end up on his back, Machada 1-2 , forrest 2 and Chuck. In his other fights he looked pretty terrible on the feet and on the ground.

The only really good grappling at all I can think of was when he dropped for a leglock vs chuck which came pretty close.

He also tried a leglock vs. Gus.

Not really taking sides here, just wanted to study up.
AORN i'm thinking Chael by -150 or even up towards -200. After that i might look for Shogun.

This could change wildly due to watching tape and listening to arguments.

Keep in mind whenever someone trains to fight Sonnen they become the best they've ever been at stopping specifically double-leg takedowns.

I think we can expect Shogun's double-leg TDD to be the best it's ever been for this fight as Bisping's was against Chael.

Sonnen has no other weapon. When he shoots for a takedown, it should never be by surprise.

When Shogun (or anyone) fights Bones, they have to worry about punches, knees, elbows, kicks and trips/throws. That makes his takedowns more effective than if he had no other weapons like Chael.

When Bisping fought Wanderlei, he had to worry about getting KO'd and probably didn't drill any TDD leading up to that fight.

That's why it's amazing that Sonnen still took down Silva, Okami, Marquardt and all those guys so easily even though that's his only weapon!

Its very hard to become good enough at stopping takedowns in a camp let alone half a camp. If not it would take a year to get to the olympics.

Let's not get carried away and think Shoguns TDD is useless, it's far from it. Sonnen had trouble with Bispings TDD and Bispings TDD is good but it's not worldly or anything like that. Sure, if Shoguns shape is bad and he gets tired after first round, I can see Sonnen taking him down and winning via unam decision. But I think Shogun will be able to fend of Sonnens initial attempts and I think that Shoguns standup is going to be too much for Sonnen.

This, I don't get why people ITT sometimes think fighters can just "practice TDD" and they're good. It takes YEARS to get to the point in wrestling these guys get to, you think practicing for a few weeks means you're gonna be good to stop them?

@anteatereater, all those guys have terrible TDD except Okami.

@kingofcool The Pride stuff should all be very relevant as far as the grappling goes, that's the one thing that should continue to carry over for fighters since a bottom game like that is mostly based on technique/flexibility rather than athleticism. I don't think anyone besides Jones has ever done significant damage to Shogun from his guard.

Well, I admit my argument would be a lot stronger if the fight was 5 months away instead of a little over 2.

But Shogun doesn't need to get anywhere near "the point in wrestling these guys get to" in order to increase his chances of winning through practicing TDD.

If he can reduce Chael's success rate from say 75% to 50% by focusing a huge chunk of training time on it, that should increase his chances of hurting Chael standing at some point and winning the fight.

I assume that's what Bisping did and Chael only went 4-for-7 on TDs in that fight, and that made Bisping much better than a 4-to-1 dog.

I am not trying to make the case that Shogun should be the favorite. I really don't know.

I am only warning people not to assume that because others fighters with inferior wrestling to Chael were able to take down Shogun, that means Chael will be able to do it even more easily, especially if they took him from the clinch. Shogun will know what's coming and also won't need to respect Chael's striking like he does against other fighters.

Please let me be wrong. I would love to see Shogun on his back eating elbow sandwiches all night.

When talking about Chael everyone seems to think anyone with a decent guard has a good shot. (obviously shogun dosent just have a "decent" guard)

While sure his 8 sub losses can't be ignored, it is important to factor that he has spoken openly about seeing a sports sociologist, and has worked alot on the mental part, which he mainly atributes 4/8 of those too (which is fair as he was winning the fight easily, and then barley attempted to escape) 2/8 came 10 years ago.. 1 came to one if MMA's finest grapplers, 1 in the 5th round of a fight vs a black belt.

Also he started working with vinny after the first silva fight, and since then the wrestler that just laid in your guard, has submitted former WEC lhw champ, and smashed the guard of a pretty high level black belt in silva, and mounted him.

Think those 8 sub losses can be deceiving

If he can reduce a wrestler if chaels magnitude by 25% in 2months I would be shocked.

Also people under rate bispings TDD, and how good he is at keeping his balance when pressed up against that cage. If he went 4-7, I would be surprised if he would have done worst that 3-7 without all the TDD training

I agree. He's a different fighter now and also he's TRT'ing. I can't help but assume that TRT is a big part of why he suddenly became awesome.

Another point is just because someone (Shogun) is a BJJ black belt, doesn't necessarily mean he is still dangerous (and he only has one submission win in his career anyway). Wandy is a BJJ BB and was probably dangerous on the ground like 12 years ago, but I doubt he or Shogun practice BJJ enough these days to still be close to that level.

Look what happened to Demain Maia when he decided to focus his training on stand-up for those three years after Nate KO'd him. His grappling went to hell.

His grappling didn't go to hell, he just didn't pursue grappling as much as before but decided to focus on the standup. And beside, even if he wanted, he couldn't get down wrestlers like Weidman because Weidmans wrestling is too elite, and so he had to drop down to be able to overpower people with his ridic grappling game.

You might be right. He did go 0-13 on takedown attempts in the Anderson Silva fight and has only one submission in his last 12 fights. I was going by that.

And he couldn't finish Santiago despite having him down all night, but I just found out Santiago has never been submitted and is a BJJ black belt himself.

So I take it back.

Funny that he went 0-13 vs Anderson Silva and 7-17 vs Jon Fitch on takedowns.

Always nice to see UFC guys being open about their mindset coaching

All of this would be more relevant if he wasn't moving up in weight and if his by far best performance wasn't when he was on tonnes of Test against an injured opponent. This is a US fight so his TRT doses will be lower and his TD success at MW wont necessarily convert to LHW.

I could easily be wrong here and Shogun is stuck on his back for 5 rounds but just don't see it happening.

Didn't look much into when he failed his test, but wasnt he barely over? Didn't think there was enough of a advantage to make much of a difference.

Also he did TD, smash the gaurd and mount silva in the 2nd fight... I don't think ppl get how impressive that is, that 1 round might be more impressive than any of his rounds in first fight, including the 10-8s

Yeah, I think that's just proof of how much size really does matter. The AS silva fight was very weird, he tried closing in but his takedown attempts were very strange and he never got to really engage with AS in the standup to setup a takedown/clinch or even get the chance to shoot from afar succesfully. In the Fitch fight, he just basically bumrushed Fitch like Sonnen does and Fitch was unable to move out of the way and/or hurt him in the standing. I think that has a lot to do actually, Fitch has never been a power/precise striker while AS shots did a lot more damage.

I think it may have been bc a guy like Silva is leaving a lot of openings because he tries to get up as soon as possible. He's not the guy like some fighters who just try not to get hit and so just stay in the guard and never go up.

But again remember, this is a different weight class and I bet it's a lot easier for Sonnen to get takedowns in MW than it is in LHW, so that should be an important factor.

Sonnen wasn't just over on the TRT it makes a huge difference:

"Sonnen had an overly high level of T/E (Testosterone/Epitestosterone) in his urine sample—16-9:1. The allowed ratio by NSAC (Nevada State Athletic Commission) is 6-1, which means he was nearly three-times over said ratio."

Lutter also looked like he had silva in danger from the top position as did henderson for one round.

Even the current 6-1 legal limit is really high and it looks like they'll be dropping it to 4-1 soon making him 4 times over!

I remember then taking him down, and maybe I'm wrong, but did they ever pass his guard? Also silva is much better than shogun on the feet, not like shogun is going to be able to put him away at will when on the feet... Will probably take a couple of minutes.

Edit: okay, wasn't really sure how over he was, sonnen says he was like .1, never really believed that either though

Lutter had him mounted. Spider defended by grabbing Lutter's neck with both hands. IIRC Lutter made an ill-fated armbar attempt reminiscent of Struve against Hunt in the 1st round and lost the position.

Lutter won the first round against both Anderson Silva and Rich Franklin.

Spider finished Lutter in round 2 from his back, so I guess Lutter had him down again. I don't remember how they got there.

IIRC, Hendo never passed guard but pretty certainly won the first round.

Rampage Jackson's Debut on IMPACT WRESTLING - June 6, 2013 (4:16)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9XwpKFl4i8

lmao, such a perfect role for rampage.. almost makes me want to start watching wrestling again...and wow angle looks pretty old from when i was watching

Suits Rampage pretty good considering he was a bit more talk towards the end. I'm happy for him, he gets some money and will be able to fight cans in Bellator as well. Win win situation for him really.

Angle looks like he has a dumbell lodged in the back of his neck

Taking Jason High +345 for a half unit. That price is getting out of hand.