Friday, November 7, 2014

Wild Wolf against The Bama Beast

Tomorrow night during Bisping vs Rockhold, I am interested in another bout, which features the Wild Wolf aka Jumabieke Tuerxun.  Jumabieke is from ethnic Kazakh background, but represents China.  He will be fighting the Bama Beast aka Marcus Brimage, a strong fighter that parcticipated in the Ultimate Fighter.

Both the fighters are on a losing streak, so thy must both feel a sense of pressure to win in order to keep their UFC contract.  It looks like Brimage has fought tougher opponents than Jumabieke.  Brimage has lost to Connor McGregor, while Bieke's lost was to Lleando Issa.  To Bieke's credit, I think he was winning that fight with his striking until he got caught in a submission in the third round.

Looks like everyone is expecting Brimage to easily defeat the Wild Wolf tomorrow night.  Call it bias or wishful thinking, I feel like Jumabieke's striking looked good in his last fight against Issa.  He made the mistake of trying to take Issa out with one big punch, which I think cost him the fight.  The fight with Brimage, undoubtedly will be a tough one.

He has to use his wrestling background to counter Brimage's takedown attempts and land some solid punches if Brimage attempts to brawl.  The exchanges during the brawl will be the opportunities for Jumabieke to land his power shots like he did against Issa.

The Wild Wolf reminds me of a smaller, Kazakh version of Dan Henderson.  Hopefully he can prove all the online fight journalists wrong!

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Hunt for the Title - UFC 180

With Cain out due to injury, Mark Hunt gets a shot at the interim heavyweight title.  It is too bad that Hunt will not have proper time to train and will have to focus on making weight instead of training for a former world champion in bjj, who has become an amazing muay thai fighter under the great master Rafael Corderiro.

Although I like the resurgence of Werdum, I am rooting for Hunt.  Alistair Overeem called him the strongest fighter he has ever faced and we know Overeem has faced the best in both kickboxing in K-1 and in MMA as well.  If Hunt can fight off the takedown of Werdum and land some of his powerful punches, he could pull it off.

The outcome of this fight will depend on how well Hunt can prevent the take downs and improved his grappling versus how much Werdum has improved in his striking since the uppercut knockout by Junior Dos Santos.  If the fight takes place on the feet, between Hunt's thunderous punches and his granite chin, Werdum might end up on the floor staring towards the heavens, as Hunt walks off after one of his 'Roy Nelson' dropping uppercuts!

Benson Henderson Retires

After his loss to Usman Nurmagomdeov, Benson "Smooth" Henderson left his gloves in the middle of the Bellator cage after a long MM...