dos Anjos vs. Covington

This is the official discussion thread for dos Anjos vs. Covington. Let's see what you've got.

RDA is gonna badly hurt and humiliate him. Beats him to a pulp standing, guillotine when Colby panic-shoots.

Can Rda keep a larger grappler off of him for enough time to put together significant offense on the feet? I think that will tell where the fight is going. Rda can go 5 rounds, but he will have a heavier grappler hanging on him. There is a big gap between Rda's striking and where Colby is on the feet.

I think a great strategy would be for Rda to start shooting. He is an excellent grappler and can at least keep Colby guessing and going on the defensive. We see what Colby's game looks like when he a defense first grappler. It wasn't a K-1 display against Maia. I think if those same opportunities are there for Rda, he gets the finish. Plus I'm interested to see where Colby's conditioning is come 4 and 5 if it makes it there.

Saying all this, most likely Colby will somehow score an out of nowhere ko. That would probably be the best illustration for how unpredictable this sport is.

RDA all day folks. Covington is way over hyped after beating Maia. 

demian landed strikes on colby, dos anjos should feast there.

Interesting fight here. Covington has some of the best wrestling in the division and RDA has historically lost most of his fights in the UFC to better wrestlers. RDA's bottom game has never been anything special considering how advanced a black belt in BJJ he is, so if Covington can get enough top control early he may be able to wear RDA down. I'm still going with RDA though simply on being so well conditioned, and being the much more well rounded and experienced guy. I think RDA weathers any early storm and finishes Covington in the mid to late part of the fight.

Covington has been talking nonstop **** on everyone. I'm curious what he will say or say to Rogan if he wins. But I'll probably pick RDA to win this. Not even sure why Covington is fighting for the interim title... Although, he's training with some killers at a great gym.

* Edited at 06.04.2018, 11:57 AM ET *

Covington was a pretty forgettable guy to me before he started actin' a fool all the time. He's just another generic wrestler type without much else going for him. I expect RDA to outclass him.

Yeah, but the real greats are actually clever and witty and can back up their talk in the cage. Covington is just an ass. He better beat RDA at this point, cause no one is going to give a **** about his middle-school bully level **** talk once he gets his ass beat. 

He's done nothing but back up his talk up to this point. People always downplay anyone's skills who they don't like. Happened not too long ago with Barboza vs Lee ,Lee made it look as easy as he said it would look and everyone was saying Barboza would destroy him. Outside of the wheel kick that was a flawless performance. Colby's fight with Stun Gun was very impressive who else had outgrappled him like Colby did. This fight will remind everyone that RDA is just a lightweight and not a real welterweight this is first wrestler at 170 and Colby will smother him and bully him for 5 rounds. I see no reason why he can't do what Khabib did to him especially with the size,strenght advantage.


Colby's wrestling pressure is no joke he did way more damage to Maia and 15 minutes than Woodley or Usman both could do in 25. Guarantee if that was a 5 rounder Maia wouldn't answer the bell to round 4. Its funny how everyone says Maia outstruck him in the first round when the fight was scored 30-26 unanimously. Colby beat the **** out of him. And from what Ive heard he was injured going into the Alves fight and only stayed in the fight because he was dead broke.

#NerdBash2018

I think a lot of people overrate Maia's success in striking against Colby. The main reason Maia can get away with landing at times on much better strikers is because they're trying to avoid the ground at all costs. They all know his end game is to get it to the ground at any cost. Even his open guard and butterfly is dangerous because he's such an active guy at getting underhooks and sweeping. That opens up much more opportunity on the feet as they lower their hands to sprawl and get underhooks to defend the shot. 

A guy like RDA isn't the same kind of threat because despite being a high level BJJ black belt he hasn't shown to be all that active offensively off his back with submission attempts and sweeps. Better wrestlers have had success there in the past, so the issue of avoiding strikes to shoot in for a takedown is now an option for Colby, it opens up confidence in his own stand up too. I think one thing to watch out for is RDA's guillotine threat off the takedown. He came pretty close to catching Khabib a couple times in a tight choke when he got the takedown, and Colby has been caught with that before.

* Edited at 06.05.2018, 3:19 AM ET *

I disagree. Colby got busted open and was getting tagged by Maia in round 1. Maia was never a significant takedown threat to Colby either. Think Maia just gassed out from trying to actually strike. Colby's striking doesn't impress me.

His striking doesn't impress me either, just making a point that there are more factors at play many people seem to choose to ignore when comparing their striking. Maia is a takedown threat to anyone he can get close enough to get his hands locked around. As we've seen he can lock his hands around a single leg and just sit on his ass and sweep you from there. He doesn't have to put you down with a blast double. Colby can inversely use the threat of his hands to land against guys worried about being taken down and controlled. That's the beauty of MMA. Not all areas have to be equal for one fighter's style to adversely affect the outcome because of a perceived threat. That's why feinting is so important and fighter's like GSP dominate for so long.

* Edited at 06.05.2018, 3:37 AM ET *