Bellator 120 - Alvarez vs. Chandler

[Jasen777]

3rd round of the main event (not counting the TNA match) was absolutely 10-8. You simply can not score that equal to the one of the 2 rounds before. Chandler sure gave up his back alot. Hand on the ground rule is bull.

Two of the refs gave Brooks the fifth round, did they not see the last minute (I had a slight edge for Brooks in the round until then). I have it 47-47. Really though to say judges as a whole, draw certainly would seem the fair outcome, though maybe Chandler took more damage. Appearntly the announced one of the judge's score wrong. one had it 48-46. Would have been interested in a fightmetric score.

[REDDzone]

Rampage and Mo need to take the re-match straight to TNA. That post-fight trash/re-match talk was so forced.

Who do you think are more bffs...Mo and Rampage or Rashad and Rampage?

[cgf]

Tito beat the Bellator MW champ via submission?? WTF?! Was this fight at a catch weight?

Nope it was at 205, dude was around 201 I think. Was an alright fight for what it was, although it just proved how crucial being bigger and stronger is if you can get on top, just like Bigfoot-Fedor or Brock's entire career.

Which makes me love Lyoto so much more he fought around the same size as Shlemenko was at tonight and became UFC champ at 205, while throwing around a younger, although still old, Tito. Why can't the weidman fight be right now?

Michael Page do what he do. I know nothing about the guy he beat but seeing this kid start to get into some real top tier opposition will be interesting as all hell.

Volkov-Ivanov was a fun fight, I was pulling for Ivanov but I like both guys. Like other Sambo masters like Minakov and Khabib Ivanov needs to get a lot better with his striking and most of all his head movement, but there was some good movement at some times. Curious to see how he bounces back from that, we haven't seen too much growth from Minakov in that area yet, so hopefully Ivanov takes to it quicker, because he's not got the same size and power as Minakov, so he'll need to round out his game a lot quicker.

[REDDzone]

Volkov-Ivanov was a fun fight, I was pulling for Ivanov but I like both guys. Like other Sambo masters like Minakov and Khabib Ivanov needs to get a lot better with his striking and most of all his head movement, but there was some good movement at some times. Curious to see how he bounces back from that, we haven't seen too much growth from Minakov in that area yet, so hopefully Ivanov takes to it quicker, because he's not got the same size and power as Minakov, so he'll need to round out his game a lot quicker.

I haven't seen the fight yet so I am sure you are correct about the striking thing, but from the gif I saw it looked like it was a terribly sloppy throw that did Ivanov in. I still don't really understand how he got his back taken when he had the underhook.

[cgf]

Volkov-Ivanov was a fun fight, I was pulling for Ivanov but I like both guys. Like other Sambo masters like Minakov and Khabib Ivanov needs to get a lot better with his striking and most of all his head movement, but there was some good movement at some times. Curious to see how he bounces back from that, we haven't seen too much growth from Minakov in that area yet, so hopefully Ivanov takes to it quicker, because he's not got the same size and power as Minakov, so he'll need to round out his game a lot quicker.

I haven't seen the fight yet so I am sure you are correct about the striking thing, but from the gif I saw it looked like it was a terribly sloppy throw that did Ivanov in. I still don't really understand how he got his back taken when he had the underhook.

It was, I watched in the middle of the night kind of high so am not completely sure how that happened myself, although the size difference clearly played a factor since Ivanov is quite small for a heavy, and while volkov is lanky as hell, he's a massive human being and when they were clinched up against the cage you could see volkov just powering his way to staying on his feet. Granted I do think volkov has improved his TDD quite a bit since the minakov fight, but it was still the size and strength that was decisive in this fight.

The reason I went off on Ivanov's striking though is because I was so shocked to find myself agreeing with teh russian commentators for once as they went on and on about how Ivanov was relying almost exclusively on individual looping hooks when he wasn't looking for the takedown. And if you're going to be a small heavy who's bread and butter is great clinch grappling, you've gotta be able to work inside and control fights from the pocket so that these monsters are busy trying to figure out how to keep you from mauling their face off before you step in to utilize those beautiful sambo throws and take them down already a little dazed.

[Bernman]

Ivanov was actually winning what there was of the striking, against a stand-up beast in Volkov, so I don't know how you can make too much of a criticism of him for that aspect of his performance.

The clear issues to me were his struggles with getting Volkov to the ground to implement his superior top game to Volkov's bottom. That struggle eventually led to a desperation throw where he didn't control Ivanov's body and let him slip to the back. But his problem with the td's was hardly his size. That was a major advantage for him since he was heavier than Volkov, and also the weight was distributed over much less area. So physically, he should have been able to win the battle in close easily once he closed distance safely, which he didn't have much problem with. His issue was how low he wasn't getting on Volkov's body to secure td's on the lankier guy. He should have been crouching more, and shooting for double and single legs. As long as Volkov's arms are, he still shouldn't been able to stop him if he went low and with the element of surprise. But he didn't do the former much, and not the latter at all. That's because his base is sambo rather than wrestling.

The adjustment he needs to make to win more in the future is lean more toward wrestling instead of sambo. Sure, his striking could get better, but IMO it's solid. He won the striking against Hale and Ivanov. What there was of it against Johnson was even. His movement on the feet is pretty intelligent. He's far outside, and then he's inside suddenly. He could throw straighter strikes at distance, and do more separating momentarily from the clinch to strike and then clinching back up again. But the big thing is his takedown style. He needs to change that so he can play to his biggest strength against opponents. I think that would also diminish him wearing down in fights because he wouldn't have to work so hard to td's. I think he has the tools to bounce back, and maybe even be a champion in the future. It's just a matter of making the proper adjustments after his 1st loss, like a lot of fighters. Hopefully he has the capacity, and that coma didn't take too much out of him. I'll be rooting for him along the way.

[cgf]

I'm just making a note for myself to come back to and expand on later, but I think the key difference is whether you attribute the way the striking went to Volkov overplaying the TD, and so neutering his own striking, which can be dynamic, or whether you attribute that to Ivanov's striking prowess. To me it seemed like Volkov was just going to do anything he could to make sure he didn't get Minakov'd again, as while Ivanov did have a couple moments where he weaved around Volkov's strikes very nicely, but those were the exception and again looked like they were more attributal to Volkov being inaccurate as he searched for space rather than on Ivaonv Anderson'ing his way through, plus his own striking was very basic, minimal and simplistic, which isn't always bad, unless you're fighting a much longer fighter and need to get work done on the inside to set up the TD.

Again just one quick thought, will be back later to finish and address the rest of your post.

And did he really outweigh Volkov? That's crazy, visually he looked not just shorter but a lot smaller as well, kinda like Hendo when he gets in there with the freakier LHWs.

Something else I'll hopefully touch on is how watching fedor learn to use his striking to allow him to dominate with his sambo is certainly something that comes to mind whenever I watch anyone who's base is throw-based grappling, and so I may be extra hard because I want him to learn to be able to use his striking to set up those beautiful throws that Sambo has. As I know I have done with Khabib and Minakov before.

[REDDzone]

Not sure where to put this, but listening to the mmahour, and Alvarez says it makes sense that he would fight Brooks next. Says Brooks won, he is the interim champion and it makes sense that they would fight. Says he leaves it up to bellator and he isn't sure who they will have him fight but he Brooks makes sense, if he fights Chandler then that means bellator made the decision.

Kind of interesting since IIRC Bjorn kind of made it seem like it was Eddie's choice. If that's true, expect Alvarez/Brooks.

[REDDzone]

You guys have to listen to this mmahour, they brought up Brooks and Alvarez at the same time. The back and forth is awesome.

Alvarez just told Brooks that he wants to fight him instead of Chandler because he's the easier opponent and basically that he wants to get out of there with the easier matchup.

[Bernman]

From what I gather, they made it (he didn't ask for it) Eddie's choice to fight Chandler, not to not fight Chandler. They wanted to play on his machismo to get him to rematch Chandler because that's the tougher fight on paper, increasing the chances Eddie would leave on a loss, but Eddie didn't take the bait. Now they ultimately could end up making Chandler-Alvarez 3 anyway, ridiculously, but they'll piss off more fighters and fans if they do it. I'm half expecting they will still because they don't want Eddie to leave as champion, tarnishing another one of their championships. Don't get me wrong, I think Brooks has a decent chance to beat him, as he looked vastly improved against Chandler on the feet thanks in part to the tutelage of Thiago Alves, and he has excellent MMA wrestling, but Chandler still won according to most, and the same could be said the 2nd time against Eddie.

I haven't watched the MMA Hour lately, but I guess I'll have to check it out. More bad press for Bellator it sounds like.

On a more positive note for Bellator, reliable sources are now reporting this event pulled over 100k ppv buys. That's a record for non Zuffa/UFC ppv's. They have Rampage's appearances on Craig Ferguson and ESPN Sports Nation to thank in part. That was good crossover promotion for them. Also, it ended being a pretty fun card. I'm looking forward to the next one, especially now that they are admitting there was too much content between fights. This is the type of card I see them putting together for it....

Quinton Jackson vs. Tito Ortiz
Eddie Alvarez vs. Will Brooks/Michael Chandler
Eduardo Dantas vs. Joe Warren
Michael Page vs. TBA (tourney final?)
Liam McGeary vs. TBA (tourney final)

The main event would be for the casuals. The rest is plenty meaty for the hardcores.

[REDDzone]

I haven't watched the MMA Hour lately, but I guess I'll have to check it out. More bad press for Bellator it sounds like.

It was interesting but Ariel told a story. I guess once he cornered Bjorn by bringing Eddie on at the same time in the middle of their contract dispute / lawsuit. Bjorn got super pissed and bellator contacted Ariel really upset and banned all bellator fighters from interviewing with Ariel and banned Ariel from going to their events, etc.

Kind of explains a lot.