Preliminary thoughts on Ortiz / Liddell II
I've been asked a couple times already for my thoughts on the upcoming Ortiz vs. Liddell rematch at UFC 66. Here goes:
There's no question that Liddell (remember everyone: two d's, two l's) has been amazing and is one of the best kickboxer/strikers in the world. What amazes me the most about Chuck isn't his striking per se, but his seemingly unfailable ability to get his opponents to abandon their gameplans the second they step foot in the ring with him. Well, that and he's one of the best counter-punchers to ever lace up the gloves.
Its waaaay to early for me to release a formal pick in this fight, as we'll have the usual inside information from Big Bear as well as the Liddell training camp to look at, plus watch for any training injuries or anything else that comes up in the next three weeks.
But the line for this fight is currently set at Liddell winning about 70% of the time, and I think....
If you're interested in reading the rest of my prelminary thoughts on Ortiz / Liddell II, please head over to UFCjunkie.com for the rest.
As you'll see announced on UFCjunkie.com, i've joined the UFCjunkie.com team and will be contributing content for them going forward. If you're a regular reader of my blog, or have been following my UFC picks, i'd certainly appreciate if you headed over and had anything positive to comment in this thread
I'll certainly still update my blog with just as much regularity, if not more, going forward. But expect to see a lot from me on UFCjunkie.com from here... and a lot of new exciting developments for the site, as well.
Labels: MMA, UFC, UFCjunkie.com
posted by Performify at 10:06 PM
2 Comments:
"Chuck is aging, and was very out of shape for his last fight."
How do you know he was out of shape for his last fight? I'm not doubting you, I'm just curious as to how you came to that conclusion.
I think the key there is the next sentence: (in his physical appearance, not necessarily in his performance as we didn't get to see anything conclusive there)
Its tough to say either way. Chuck's physical appearance has definitely softened. Tito poking at his gut in the in-ring post-fight appearance, where Ortiz said "we should wait a bit, give you time to lose that gut" referring to scheduling the fight. And Chuck retorting something to the effect of "sorry, it's permanent now".
Its impossible to say if the softening of Chuck's physical appearance, aka the gut, 1) is still going to be with him, we won't know that until weighins but its a good bet his physical condition won't be much different from the Sobral fight and more importantly 2) whether or not the change in physical appearance actually affects his conditioning in the negative.
I'm more pointing it out as a potential red flag, a warning sign, not a conclusive item to take action on... yet.
Post a Comment
<< Home