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Will tonight’s UFC fight be Takanori Gomi’s swan song? NOPE…
By Zach Arnold | August 1, 2010
Josh Gross touched upon this a little bit this week in his preview of Sunday’s Versus card for UFC. Griffin is replacing Joe Stevenson, who got hurt. Griffin is coming off of a loss to Evan Dunham from the Vancouver show last June.
“I think this is do-or-die for Gomi in the UFC essentially. He had his one fight, came in and fought Kenny Florian. He put in some effort in there that made him look like he could hang but at a certain point in the fight it was clear that he could not. How has he improved since then? His mental state? Those are things we don’t know. I would say that at least through the experience of being in the UFC, fighting in the cage like he did, realizing the level of competition that he’s about to face, he’s improved only because of the knowledge that he has now. He gets no break against (Tyson) Griffin. This guy has fought everybody, has fought everybody tough, has never been out of a fight. Never really been hurt in a fight. Yeah, he’s been threatened with some submission in there, but he’s fought everybody tooth-and-nail and I think he does that against Gomi. I just can’t see Gomi having a lot of success. One, he’s not going to, the submission of Griffin is not going to happen. Griffin can submit Gomi but I don’t see that, either. Gomi’s not going to out-wrestle Griffin and the question is can he out strike him? I think Griffin could strike with Gomi if he wanted to. Now that would be the riskiest game plan for him. The smartest way would probably be strike for a clinch, take Gomi down, muscle him, use his superior size, superior wrestling to really beat him up, but I think that’s probably what’s going to happen. Through that, Griffin may find a choke, may find a way to finish the fight earlier, but this one to me has decision written all over it.
“I think a pretty fun, competitive fight especially if Griffin decides to indulge Gomi on the feet. That’s really the difference here. What he’s going to that end, Griffin has worked so much on his boxing, I think he may do that a little. Remember, Gomi at his height, I mean he was known for standing and banging with people. This is someone who changed multiple times throughout his career. He started as a slow grappler, decisioning a lot of people but somewhere along the way he fell in love with striking, really found his power and was knocking people out but I just don’t see that against Griffin, who’s hung in there with some of the top fighters in that Lightweight division.”
I really don’t see the fighting ending any other way than decision. Griffin should finish him, but I doubt he will.
For what it’s worth, UFC is selling this San Diego event as a 4-hour PPV block in Japan for 3,150Y.
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Update (9 PM EST): Tyson Griffin did the one thing that allowed Gomi to have a shot in the fight and that was play the boxing game… and he paid for it badly. Congratulations to Mr. Gomi.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 50 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
“The smartest way would probably be strike for a clinch, take Gomi down, muscle him, use his SUPERIOR SIZE, superior wrestling to really beat him up”
LOL
Griffin is one of the smallest LWs in the UFC. Gomi looked WAY bigger than him at the weigh-ins.
Tyson Griffin striking for the clinch and takedowns? Jesus, what analysis.
As for Gomi – Griffin is a legit contender. How many years have passed since Gomi has beaten one of those? Why believe he’ll start now? PRIDE ICHIBAN~?
Well, so much for this fight being Gomi’s “swan song”. Gomi winning via one punch KO was pretty much EXACTLY how I thought this fight was going to end like. Maybe not so quickly, but nonetheless.
Huge fan of Gomi’s, but I am not sure that he can hang with the upper echelon of the UFC’s lightweight divisions. I see alot of similarities between him and Paul Daly.
Seriously. Beating Tyson Griffin will suddenly make him “fully adjusted to US MMA” and erase the fact that he’s fought like ass for several consecutive years now.
Pride Never Die!! Gomi!!!!!
I know this is pure sarcasm right 45?
I mean, it’d be awesome if it wasn’t.
Griffin is classless. He was KO’d. And even if he is debating the decision, he should have enough respect for his opponent to shake their hand and acknowledge their existence after the fight.
I thought it was a fine stoppage.
Funniest part was Griffin stumbling back while arguing ala Zab Judah in the Kostya Tszyu fight.
I will say this. Gomi is a MASTER of pouncing on a guy and throwing a thousand little punches WHILE looking at the referee going “Are you gonna stop this”
If you hate that stoppage, you wouldn’t be happy until Griffin was dead.
And I was wrong. Gomi wins by KO!
I have never been more happy to be wrong in my life!
After two rounds, Ellenberger looks gassed and John Howard is half blind and fighting like a total amateur. Can we get the real fighters out now?
Kinda weird they let Howard out with that horrifically swollen eye into the 3rd round but then random stop the fight because of it 2 minutes later; I didn’t see it get any worse…
Its like boxing. Cut is terrible and they should stop the fight, but hey, we’ll let you have one more round to make a miracle happen. In this case, he got about 90 seconds or so, couldn’t do anything, and they ended the fight before he took more damage. If Ellenberger knew what to do, it should have been easy. It took him forever to consider walking to Howard’s left and he seemed terrified to throw the right hand when Howard was never gonna see it coming….or to even shoot, for that matter.
Typically in a Boxing fight, though, they wait until the end of the round unless the cut gets even more horrific/dangerous – one of the prime examples I can think of offhand is Robinson-Turpin II or Jackson-Graham (when there was a stoppage threat due to Graham smacking Jackson silly for 3.5 rounds before the big bomb laid Graham out). I can’t recall Boxing stoppages mid-round that weren’t due to a guys face getting shredded up even more than it was at the start of the round (or the guy himself quitting because he couldn’t see).
Longer rounds/more rounds though in boxing – that plays into it a little. The other thing is that a guy with a bad cut will usually take enough neurological abuse to get stopped. In the case of Howard/Ellenberger, it was probably not gonna reach that point, but he’d take more hits to the eye for certain while clearly having lost any real potential to win. In boxing, usually you get something that looks more like Vasquez/Marquez IV, where the guy given one last round after a monster cut/swelling instead gets bombed out.
Honestly, I wouldn\’t have minded the call between Rounds 2 and 3 as it was pretty bad, I\’m just of the mindset that if the ring doctor doesn\’t feel it\’s bad enough to warrant a corner retirement and he allows it to go into another round, unless the guy is getting his faced cut into ribbons/swollen completely and has basically gone fetal, they should let it continue. Howard was going to lose on points anyway, but he wasn\’t in any sort of imminent damage danger (at least anymore than what he faced).
I had no problem with that stoppage.
Since the round starts on the feet, they let Howard try to pull off the miracle. Once he got taken down and was being set up to get more elbows bounced off his skull, they stopped it.
On a related note, Howard has zero takedown awareness. He just comes flying in looking to throw bombs and leaves himself wide open for the level change every time. He really needs to tone down his aggression if he ever hopes to become an upper echelon fighter.
Hate much?
Ellenberger looked gassed? He was breathing hard, but he never looked close to gassed. And Howard took a beating and was still threating with the KO throughout the entire fight.
He was huffing and puffing in the middle of the second round and his hands were by his sides from about the end of the first on. Howard went out throwing haymakers that were a mile wide like some generic KOTC no name. If he knew how to throw a combination, he would have been able to get Ellenberger out of there. Instead he kept swinging for the fences and got taken down repeatedly. Kinda a lame fight.
Ellenberger just wasn’t gassed. You are looking for things to hate on.
He had extremely impressive transitions from strikes to double legs in order to mix up his game. He’s not at GSP level, but that is GSP sort of stuff in terms of mixing it up.
It was a high level fight that showed solid striking, great ground and pound, and a lot of heart.
If you cannot appreciate MMA like that, I’m not sure why you are even watching the sport.
His activity level went to nothing. He was tired. Same thing happened when he fought Condit too when he had that fight seemingly in control.
Most of his double legs were defensive when Howard was charging him with shots. Look at the second round – Howard gets him shook twice with strikes at the beginning and with about 1:30 left in the round, and both times Howard throws wide shitty punches and ends up on his back. Whoopie. I was hoping for growth and got none. Ellenberger has a future as a gatekeeper to the top 30 and not a lot else.
High level? It didnt look that way at all. I agree both fighters showed heart and had an exciting fight but Howards stand up is horrible. Having power is not the only thing that makes a good striker. He uses no set-ups. He just wings big hooks from out of range and kicks every once and a while. No jabs no movement just lead hooks. He is not Roy jones so it didnt work. He is tough as shit and was willing to continue but his muay thai is weak
Activity level going down doesn’t mean gassed. Was he slower? A little bit. Was he gassed? Not even close.
You say the striking was like KOTC, but you always talk about how bad MMA striking is. David Haye, former World Cruiserweight Boxing Champion, said it best recently when discussing Toney/Couture….
“I know from training in MMA myself that the wrestling aspect ruins your punching power,” Haye said. “After a minute of grappling, your arms, back and shoulders fill with blood and even if you then find space to throw punches, your power is suddenly crap.
“And I hit a lot harder and I’m so much faster than James, and I couldn’t land a punch on fighters when all they wanted to do was take me down to the ground.”
Howard was outgrappled for a while. So him swinging haymakers doesn’t make him some sort of bad fighter. It means Ellenberger zapped his energy from his vicious ground and pound (evidence is in the eye).
It was a good fight between two Top 20 Welterweights who went after each other. Ellenberger is a guy who almost beat Top 10 Condit (and did on many people’s cards). To say he is a gatekeeper to the Top 30 is comical at best.
So, basically, David Haye is saying that fighters gas out really fast and throw sloppy punches after. Which is fine and dandy, but when Howard wasn’t gassed, he was throwing sloppy punches. Ellenberger was basically never throwing punches. Eventually we got to the point of repeated stalling on the mat as Ellenberger’s “great ground and pound” petered out to about one shot every 20 seconds.
There was nothing great about that fight. Nothing. It wouldn’t make a top 100 list at the end of the year.
BTW, who was ranking either guy in the top 20 at welterweight? It sure wasn’t consensus.
You will never be happy with MMA. You complain about the level of competition all of the time. When the reality of it is that punching will always look sloppy compared to boxing. The kicks will always look sloppy compared to kickboxing. The takedowns will always look sloppy compared to regular wrestling. So on, and so forth….
When it’s all combined, things look sloppy. Many techniques from each aspect don’t work in a fight. And having to defend against so many different skills and using your body to both use and defend that creates a different look in how the techniques look. Doesn’t mean it’s not high level.
You’ve always had this elitist attitude when it comes to MMA. Makes me wonder why you follow it to begin with. It’s never high enough level for you. And it never will be.
And I can’t think of 20 guys who would force Ellenberger outside of the Top 20. Why? Because there aren’t more then 20 guys who are above him.
Its sloppy by any set of standards. I could just cease applying standards to what I watch and expect from MMA. I guess I might enjoy it more if I thought of abject crap as being equally interesting as legitimate world title fights. But alas, I can’t do that.
Ellenberger wasn’t a top 20 welterweight coming into this fight. Neither was Howard. Ellenberger doesn’t really deserve to be a top 20 welterweight because of this win, either. So maybe I was rash, and he’s really a gatekeeper to the top 15 or 20. If that’s really the best we can say, then I’m still having a hard time giving a shit about watching the guy fight. He clearly has talent to be better, so its doubly frustrating to see it.
-Ellenberger looked like he was gassing to everyone I was watching with including myself.
-Whoever billed Howard as a striker is a idiot. I say this because on the UFC broadcast he was billed as a striker multiple times.
-This was not a world title fight so I don’t know why anyone would try to compare it to one.
-Most of Ellenberger’s shots weren’t defensive. The ones in the second round when he was actually back tracking, a different story.
-Howard had Ellenberger hurt twice where if we would’ve just picked his shots he coulda put the stamp on him.
-Alan, who is in you WW top 20? I can’t think of more than 15 guys off the top of my head I’d put in front of him.
-45, Ellenberger definately started losing gas in the second dude. He has a history of fading. Just watch the Condit fight.
-and I don’t think Ellenberger will be anything higher than #10 OR #11, but that doesn’t mean he’s terrible. 170 is the most stacked division in MMA.
Random question to all: Where do you rank Nick Diaz?
I’d probably have a healthy selection of guys you’d disagree with, edub, on account of numerous technicalities and the like. If you personally had him in your top 20, that’s fine, but looking over at various ratings, Ellenberger wasn’t really there. It was hardly a unanimous pick. Its sorta like saying that no one Fedor fought was rated in the top 5.
As for comparing it to a world title bout, that wasn’t the point of what I said. This is supposed to be the “Super Bowl of Mixed Martial Arts”, isn’t it? The pinnacle of the profession? The best fighters in the world? Okay, so I know that Ellenberger and Howard are not the best fighters in the world, but the whole gimmick here when people talk about narratives is that they are potentially building themselves up to be contenders. Well, if they aren’t fighting at the level that will make them legitimate contenders, we’re seeing guys who are journeymen and gatekeepers fight each other. That’s not something I particularly care about, otherwise I would make sure not to miss every Strikeforce or KOTC TV event.
I mean their can’t be an inbetween? Guys who are building up to a certain point that aren’t quite there yet, but still have the potential to make a run…
I dunno I think Ellenberger has a future as a gatekeeper at 170 to the top ten. Is that really that bad?
There’s in between, and Nick Diaz is that. Not as good as his fans may argue, better than his detractors claim. I don’t know if Nick can be more than that, and to top it off, Nick is in good, entertaining contests. Ellenberger seems to have talent for more, but doesn’t put in the work. Add to that the fact that he’s not necessarily a thrilling fighter, and I can’t say that it gets my blood pumping to see him work over a guy who’s not much more than OK and that I have no emotional attachment to whatsoever (John Howard used to be considered a boring ass fighter).
Also, I have no problem with dudes that are gatekeepers to whatever levels – there’s a place for Ellenberger in MMA just as there is Jeremy Horn. But don’t tell me that a card is “stacked” or whatever because a guy who is a midtier gatekeeper is fighting another guy of the same value or some noname prospect. That happens way, way too often regarding MMA cards.
Ah I can deal with that. I don’t think anyone was proclaiming this to be some type of stacked card though. Maybe for network it’s above par, but I personally don’t think it was anything special.
I put Diaz and Ellenberger in the same ballpark. Just for the simple fact we haven’t seen Diaz beat a wrestler yet since his “renaissance”, if you wanna call it that. I definately don’t think he’s anywhere near top 5 which some rankings committees seem to be on board with…
Does this win put Gomi back where he was before the Diaz fight? Hell no. But it was a legit win over good opposition. And Gomi was WAY bigger than Tyson
Yeah, I mean you can’t go taking away value from beating Tyson Griffin just because Gomi did it. Apparently he isn’t so far gone that he’s dead meat to every top 25 level lightweight, but can still get wins. He must be estatic he didn’t fight Joe Stevenson though – that would have probably been a different scenario.
The Aussie who’s name I can’t spell seems like a good next fight for him. Why not? That dude still needs seasoning, and Gomi just make himself valuable.
George Sotiropoulos?
Exactly. That guy had all sorts of trouble Pellegrino, who is basically an interchangeable gatekeeper sort of fighter. He isn’t ready for someone like BJ Penn or Grey Maynard, so let him get some more experience first. Gomi’s a name, got some skills, its a legit fight. And frankly, Sotiropoulos should win in the first round by submission.
People boo a Yushin Okami fight. I am shocked. SHOCKED. Not all his fault I suppose. Munoz had a gameplan of taking him down and couldn’t do it, and then had no adjustment.
Why are you even watching?
Hoping for better? Waiting for the main event to see Mr. Super Prospect in there with a good test?
Nice, quick stoppage by Jones – he’s being built up nicely and is showing that he has the tools to be a future LHW champion.
He basically shrugged off V-Mat’s strength and ended up dumping him himself. Wrestling ain’t the answer to stop this guy unless you’re Brock Lesnar or Cain Velasquez, basically.
I can bring a little light to this one since I was in the arena…if you look around in the crowd there were a million Munoz shirts. Check for big patches of red shirts and those are his cheering sections. I dont think people were booing Okami for being boring…he was actually the only one kinda bringing the fight.
Can’t hate on that. Jones gets down V-Mat, passed the guard, crucifix, and ‘bows to the dome. Time to move him to a legit striker. Thiago Silva would be a great fight.
If Thiago Silva can’t stop Rashad Evans’s takedowns for three rounds, how does he stop Jones’. The only logical step for him is to fight someone in the top 5 IE: Griffin, Rampage, Evans, Machida, Champ.
If a great wrestler can’t stop this guy from taking them down, what does Thiago Silva do? What about a prospect fight against Bader if/when he gets by Lil Nog?
Jones isn’t shooting doubles or trying to get the clinch. He’s throwing these guys around after they come to try and take him down. How does he deal as a counterpuncher? Aside from defending submissions (which he’s never really done against a top submission artist of any sort). Silva would ask those questions of him.
He initiated the takedowns on Vera(who I believe is a better striker than Silva), and he executed them better than Couture did. I dont think there is much difference in shooting a double, and initiating a clinch if the takedown comes 2 seconds later.
Bonnar is a lot better grappler than Silva, and Bones was never in any trouble with him. Andre Gusmao too.
You could be right that Silva brings Bones this test of a great striker with submissions, but IMO that is far far fetched. Bones would get the takedown, either pass or just smash Thiago into oblivion from the guard.
All of the guys U was pulling for won. That is cool.