“I hate luxury. I exercise moderation…It will be easy to forget your vision and purpose when you have fine clothes, fast horses and beautiful women. [In which case], you will be no better than a slave, and you will surely lose everything.
." Genghis Khan
Su Mudaerji probably is the most exciting fighter east of the Caucasus mountains since the Dagestani Eagle has retired from the UFC. Coincidentally, Su Mudaerji, whose Tibetan name is Sonam Dhargye, also goes by the nickname Tibetan "Eagle."
Besides his armbar loss to Louis Smolka, he has defeated three good fighters in a row. He is set to fight Tim Elliott next on June 26, 2021.
Guido is coming off of his loss to Marlon Vera in November of 2018 and Danaa Batgerel is also coming off of a loss to fellow country-man, Heili Alateng. Danaa has a noteable win over Kai Kara-France.
Odds makers are giving a slight edge to Danaa probably due to Guido being out of action for over a year, his age and perhaps Danaa's decent wrestling. Danaa has two submission wins on his record and most of Guido's losses have come via submission. If Danaa can mix it up and take Guido down, there might be his chance to win either by submission or ground and pound.
After a long hiatus, I am back to writing on my blog.
First of all, there is a good boxing scrap coming up on February 8th - fight between Gary Russell Jr and Tugstsogt Nyambayar of Mongolia. Russell is the champion and Nyambayar the challenger as well as the underdog. Looks like everyone expects Russell Jr to win, but having watched some of Nyambayar's fights, it should be exciting. He brings good technique and a powerful right hand as well as an aggressive style, which is fun to watch:
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!
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!
Ronaldo 'Jacare' Souza is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu wiz that transitioned into MMA. He recently beat Ed Herman and will soon be fighting in the UFC. UFC has not announced who he will be fighting next, but I am excited to see how he does. His striking has improved greatly since joining Team Nogueira and training with the likes of Anderson Silva, Junior Dos Santos, Lil Nog etc.. He showed by knocking out Derek Brunson that he is not a one dimensional fighter anymore.
