BoxRec

Hes fighting gonzalez next. They may as well toss him in with Rory.

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:Hes fighting gonzalez next. They may as well toss him in with Rory.

Not gonna lie- never even heard of him.

I give Gonzalez a good 40% chance of beating Page. Page has a flair for the spectacular but his opponents have been woeful. Gonzalez is his first legit test and no pushover. His record looks bad but he's won 5 straight against better opponents than Page has been facing.

jujigatame wrote:I give Gonzalez a good 40% chance of beating Page. Page has a flair for the spectacular but his opponents have been woeful. Gonzalez is his first legit test and no pushover. His record looks bad but he's won 5 straight against better opponents than Page has been facing.

How does Gonzalez match up with Daley?

What a beast Maia is.

Pettis is still so dangerous but going life and death with Charles oliveira is a bit of a worry IMO. He was winning the stand up but he got tagged a lot. Pettis vs Aldo or McGregor would be fire works though.

lefty wrote:What a beast Maia is.

Not even 2 mins, he seems to be improving as an MMA fighter even at 38

God I hate TAMs style striking there has so much superfluous movement and wasted energy. I like fighters with good movement but there's is normally not that good IMO. Having said that good win by Paige, surprised she's only 22 I thought she was older. Always enjoy seeing Rawlings get knocked out.

Fvck mma. There's a reason that the undersized suit wearin leprechaun sells tickets. It ain't about double digit minutes of same sex dry humping.

jujigatame wrote:Ben Henderson is looking more and more shot in every fight. He was totally non-competitive against Koreshkov, then last night he was losing to a 145er (albeit an excellent one in Patricio Freire) and won by a freak injury TKO. I dunno what happened to Bendo but he looks really timid and unable to pull the trigger now. He's only 32 so you wouldn't think he'd have declined that much from his prime.

That's why he's in bellator

i see bellator also have rory macdonald now

lefty wrote:

jujigatame wrote:I give Gonzalez a good 40% chance of beating Page. Page has a flair for the spectacular but his opponents have been woeful. Gonzalez is his first legit test and no pushover. His record looks bad but he's won 5 straight against better opponents than Page has been facing.

How does Gonzalez match up with Daley?

I think he'd beat Daley. Daley has always been super overrated to me. Gonzalez is one of those guys who doesn't do anything spectacular, but is pretty good at everything and is very tough and aggressive.

I see it the other way, unless I have him confused with someone else, from what I recall of Gonzalez he'll find Pages athleticism difficult to deal with as he'll have quite a deficit there.

Oiky wrote:i see bellator also have rory macdonald now

Yeah. Can't blame him. Bellator is a Viacom company. They definitely have the money to give these athletes.

Impractical Poster wrote:

Oiky wrote:i see bellator also have rory macdonald now

Yeah. Can't blame him. Bellator is a Viacom company. They definitely have the money to give these athletes.

I don't think he would've gotten a shot in the UFC anytime soon though. Last time I watched him once he got punched in the nose he seemed to fold a bit. It's understandable but that could mean he's done at the top level until he gets over that. And I wonder if that factors into his thinking at all.

p4p1 wrote:

Impractical Poster wrote:

Oiky wrote:i see bellator also have rory macdonald now

Yeah. Can't blame him. Bellator is a Viacom company. They definitely have the money to give these athletes.

I don't think he would've gotten a shot in the UFC anytime soon though. Last time I watched him once he got punched in the nose he seemed to fold a bit. It's understandable but that could mean he's done at the top level until he gets over that. And I wonder if that factors into his thinking at all.

I wouldn't doubt it. Get paid more for fighting a shallower talent pool may be just the thing for him at this point in time.

From the sounds of it, Bellator offered Bendo and Rory quite a bit more than the UFC had been paying them.

Touched in the nose and folded? Against Lawler in one of the greatest fights ever? Wow

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:Touched in the nose and folded? Against Lawler in one of the greatest fights ever? Wow

After Lawler obviously, it wasn't a complete fold but there were parts of the Thompson fight after getting a bleeding nose again that he looked ready to quit. To his credit he didn't but it looked like the pain he would've experienced after the Lawler fight may have effected him in this fight IMO.

p4p1 wrote:

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:Touched in the nose and folded? Against Lawler in one of the greatest fights ever? Wow

After Lawler obviously, it wasn't a complete fold but there were parts of the Thompson fight after getting a bleeding nose again that he looked ready to quit. To his credit he didn't but it looked like the pain he would've experienced after the Lawler fight may have effected him in this fight IMO.

Oh, I didn't see that. Just a tough match up for a guy on his way out of the UFC.

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:

p4p1 wrote:

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:Touched in the nose and folded? Against Lawler in one of the greatest fights ever? Wow

After Lawler obviously, it wasn't a complete fold but there were parts of the Thompson fight after getting a bleeding nose again that he looked ready to quit. To his credit he didn't but it looked like the pain he would've experienced after the Lawler fight may have effected him in this fight IMO.

Oh, I didn't see that. Just a tough match up for a guy on his way out of the UFC.

I wouldn't use the word fold but he was gun shy and very wary of being hit in the face. Can't blame him.

Tomasino wrote:

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:

p4p1 wrote: After Lawler obviously, it wasn't a complete fold but there were parts of the Thompson fight after getting a bleeding nose again that he looked ready to quit. To his credit he didn't but it looked like the pain he would've experienced after the Lawler fight may have effected him in this fight IMO.

Oh, I didn't see that. Just a tough match up for a guy on his way out of the UFC.

I wouldn't use the word fold but he was gun shy and very wary of being hit in the face. Can't blame him.

Too each their own, it's not like Thompson was pressing him and he didn't fight back. All around shitty fight. I think he knew he was leaving and wasn't going to bother with any blood and guts.

Can't really blame him after that fight with Robbie. That fight probably left both of those guys with some stuff they will carry around with them for the rest of their lives.

Wonderboy vs Maia would be very intriguing to me. On the feet Maia would get lit up- it would be about whether Wonderboy could survive not getting taken down. His TDD has improved a lot since training with Weidman. On the flipside Maia's ability to take guys down has also improved quite a bit.

He's always had amazing BJJ but in years gone by his takedowns wernt always good enough to get it to the ground- Silva fight being a good example. I also think for awhile he was too fixated on trying to be a good striker and neglected his biggest strength somewhat.

That fight isn't gonna happen for awhile atleast though, if at all so it doesn't really matter lol.

lefty wrote:Wonderboy vs Maia would be very intriguing to me. On the feet Maia would get lit up- it would be about whether Wonderboy could survive not getting taken down. His TDD has improved a lot since training with Weidman. On the flipside Maia's ability to take guys down has also improved quite a bit.

He's always had amazing BJJ but in years gone by his takedowns wernt always good enough to get it to the ground- Silva fight being a good example. I also think for awhile he was too fixated on trying to be a good striker and neglected his biggest strength somewhat.

That fight isn't gonna happen for awhile atleast though, if at all so it doesn't really matter lol.

Thompson/Maia is a very intriguing match-up. These days, it seems if Maia can get both hands on you, you're going down. As DC stated in his prefight analysis of Maia/Condit, Maia has developed a hybrid style of fighting where he has literally fused wrestling and BJJ together. He uses them both simultaneously. This will be very difficult for anyone to defend against at this point in time.

I decided to go back and watch some more of the Bellator fights and get more familiar with some of the guys I don't know a whole lot about.

First up I watched Daley vs Lima- my impressions are that Daley looked the better striker by a little bit to me but there wasn't a whole lot in it. The difference was that Lima could take Daleys power but vice versa the same couldnt be said. Lima also had the superior grappling and the better wrestling (no shit). On his back Daley looks like a fish on land. He doesn't look like he has a clue what to do.

I then went and watched Page vs Cyborg again - the difference in speed, athleticism and reflexes was striking. Cyborg actually looked pretty intimidated.
That said- Page gets reckless with his striking. In the 1st he throws a flying knee which Cyborg sees coming off a mile off and proceeds to catch one of his legs and goes for a single leg which does a good job of defending at first up against the cage.

Cyborg then quickly changes the angle and whilst still holding one leg manages to get the takedown. Page does an adequate job momentarily of holding Cyborg in half guard but it doesn't take Cyborg long before he breaks free of half guard and gets to side control. Page does a decent job of stopping himself getting mounted but is still getting controlled.

In summary I feel like I have a better gauge of Page. I actually believe he is faster than Wonderboy which is impressive as he's no slouch in that department himself.

However where I think Thompson excels over page in his striking is when he chooses to use it. He won't throw a wild knee like page does and he's just more intelligent with it I think. That and his superior take down defence and you can see he's a more well rounded operator.

BJJ wise I'm not really sure who is superior as I've not seen them both on the ground a ton to gauge it.