Tapology Forums
Giles vs Cummings breakdown
Anonymous Mode
You are not logged in to Tapology. When browsing anonymously, profanities and images are automatically removed from the forum.
05.15.2019 | 8:38 AM ET
Another fast breakdown, so forgive errors and poor composition.
Giles
I want to begin with talking about the holes I see in Trevin Giles game. I really am not impressed with him as a fighter, and see a lot of bad habits that he could get away with vs. lower tier competition. We can have a discussion about Cummings ability to expose these holes, but we need to start by looking at them.
I'm going to post a gif, then talk about what it tells me about Giles. Let me start with a compliment, because i'm going to get critical fast. I like that he looked for this 6 (uppercut) in a grappling transition (GIF).
Ok, now to the venom.
Take a look at how lazy he resets in his striking. Look at how he swings his hands all wide when he pulls back from a strike. That looks cool and relaxed, but it's just lazy, poor striking technique (GIF). You can get away with this when you either:
a) Have your opponent so scared and shelled up that they refuse to take advantage of openings b) Your opponent is simply worse at striking than you are.
This could easily be exposed by an experienced opponent getting out of range of your offering, and immediately pushing forward with a long combination, and as Cummings is southpaw you'd look for a 2-3 (lead power left, right hook behind it) or a 1-1-2 (jab jab left hand). Something to get you in range and expose him as he just pulls back all wide open and unprepared.
What do we see here (GIF). We see him overextend with a stupid combination into a clinch vs. a grappler that he was controlling with striking, get tripped without a lot of resistance and end up on his back. This is just woeful. So he tries to throw a 5-4 (lead uppercut - overhand right). First of all... why? It just speaks for itself. Not powerful, low IQ, all that.
(GIF) Anchors himself to the ground, doesn't try to get to his hip or stop holding Neto on him. This gif is short and it looks like maybe Neto just had his arm trapped, but this had been a slow process where Giles offered no intelligent resistance. Bad sign for his jiu-jitsu.
(GIF) I don't want to just rant and be disrespectful, because I'm a ***** who has never stepped in and fought, but dear lord this makes me throw up in my mouth. Do I need to tell you why... What kind of combination was that. Seriously. Yuck.
Giles is a guy that has been blessed by fighting true cans, essentially heavy bags. You might see the undefeated record, and that he finished his last 2 fights without a great deal of adversity as a big plus. But he should've finished both of these guys much earlier if he was anything special. I don't have gifs for it, but his debut vs. Bochnovic was really a poor performance also. He had the guy about as subdued as an opponent gets, and he took that long to finish him. He was in turtle, taking all the time in the world to figure out what he wanted to do next and where he should be positioned, not throwing strikes. That is a sign of an unseasoned grappler, and any solid martial artist isn't just going to shell up and give you half a round to decide where you need to grab, or what you need to do to advance your position.
Movsar Ivloev, the Dagestani who debuted recently in the Russia card is a perfect example. There is never a moment where he is inactive. Everything he is doing is instinct, it's technically correct, and if he's not working to advance position he is either making you carry his weight, or he's smashing you with knee's. It's a tsunami of technique, pressure and pain. I'm not judging Giles by that standard, but offering you an example of true excellence to describe why Giles is far from it.
I can't really see what Giles is great at? I hear he is a wrestler, but I don't see the technique in his debut. He isn't a particularly powerful puncher, he has atrocious shot selection, lazy striking habits, poor guard defense. I'm going to stop now, you get the point. Whatever you do, don't bet Giles.
Cummings
So naturally i'm thinking Cummings is the easiest dog pick of all time. But then I watched his tape and remembered he is a weird, awkward fighter. If he was just a little better this would be a no-brainer. He is an experienced southpaw fighter who seems to always make the fight a close back and forth, tough battle of meat and potatoes striking technique, with occasional clinches between those exchanges.
He is a bit stiff with his striking, he has the 1-1-2, he throws the 2 long, he doesn't back up much which I like. He has a solid chin, he has very good heart. He works well in the clinch, but never seems to go there for very long. He has good defensive wrestling technique, but never seems to work his offensive wrestling. He has nice submission skills, but always seems to use them in response to takedown attempts, rather than impose them on someone (GIF). He's just a very meat and potatoes fighter. This will mark his second fight up at middleweight, with his first coming against Smith. Smith is a wrestler, grinder type of fighter. Cummings broke his orbital early in the first round, but still fought on to win a close decision. I didn't see much that made me feel like MW Cummings is much different from WW Cummings.
I labelled this gif "Good D, better O", because I actually thought Cummings did a decent job here defensively, Michel just drove through him with better offense (GIF).
Prediction
I think you have to assume Cummings is going to try his tit for tat, meat & potatoes striking game here. I'd like to see him offensively wrestle, and I was looking for a fight where he did that, but couldn't find one. So I think clearly you can't bet Giles here, at least how I see it, even if he wins the guy has so many holes that haven't been exposed, he's a ticking time bomb for his first loss. Cummings is a very basic guy, but without question if I have to pick someone here i'm picking Cummings. This probably ends up being way closer than it needs to be, with Cummings trading tit for tat maybe landing his long left, Giles does some of those over exaggerated stupid combo's, Cummings just stays slow and doesn't press forward exposing those holes.
At it's most basic level, Cummings just does **** that makes sense, and because Giles isn't likely to finish him (because I don't think he's that powerful), I trust Cummings to do **** that makes sense and win 2 rounds at least, if not submit him.
With out question i'm picking Cummings, but I can't confidently state he will win this fight, just based on what i've seen from his approach. Stay tuned because I will think more about this from a betting perspective, and I think purely based on value Cummings at +135 is the bet.
Cummings via 30-27 unanimous decision (Method subject to change)
Lot's of break downs and betting analysis will be posted to my subreddit reddit.com/r/mmaester & discord chat https://discord.gg/66FAq7 . Breakdowns for Heinisch vs. Shoeface, Anderson vs. Spencer, Dawson vs Trizano and more.
Giles
I want to begin with talking about the holes I see in Trevin Giles game. I really am not impressed with him as a fighter, and see a lot of bad habits that he could get away with vs. lower tier competition. We can have a discussion about Cummings ability to expose these holes, but we need to start by looking at them.
I'm going to post a gif, then talk about what it tells me about Giles. Let me start with a compliment, because i'm going to get critical fast. I like that he looked for this 6 (uppercut) in a grappling transition (GIF).
Ok, now to the venom.
Take a look at how lazy he resets in his striking. Look at how he swings his hands all wide when he pulls back from a strike. That looks cool and relaxed, but it's just lazy, poor striking technique (GIF). You can get away with this when you either:
a) Have your opponent so scared and shelled up that they refuse to take advantage of openings b) Your opponent is simply worse at striking than you are.
This could easily be exposed by an experienced opponent getting out of range of your offering, and immediately pushing forward with a long combination, and as Cummings is southpaw you'd look for a 2-3 (lead power left, right hook behind it) or a 1-1-2 (jab jab left hand). Something to get you in range and expose him as he just pulls back all wide open and unprepared.
What do we see here (GIF). We see him overextend with a stupid combination into a clinch vs. a grappler that he was controlling with striking, get tripped without a lot of resistance and end up on his back. This is just woeful. So he tries to throw a 5-4 (lead uppercut - overhand right). First of all... why? It just speaks for itself. Not powerful, low IQ, all that.
(GIF) Anchors himself to the ground, doesn't try to get to his hip or stop holding Neto on him. This gif is short and it looks like maybe Neto just had his arm trapped, but this had been a slow process where Giles offered no intelligent resistance. Bad sign for his jiu-jitsu.
(GIF) I don't want to just rant and be disrespectful, because I'm a ***** who has never stepped in and fought, but dear lord this makes me throw up in my mouth. Do I need to tell you why... What kind of combination was that. Seriously. Yuck.
Giles is a guy that has been blessed by fighting true cans, essentially heavy bags. You might see the undefeated record, and that he finished his last 2 fights without a great deal of adversity as a big plus. But he should've finished both of these guys much earlier if he was anything special. I don't have gifs for it, but his debut vs. Bochnovic was really a poor performance also. He had the guy about as subdued as an opponent gets, and he took that long to finish him. He was in turtle, taking all the time in the world to figure out what he wanted to do next and where he should be positioned, not throwing strikes. That is a sign of an unseasoned grappler, and any solid martial artist isn't just going to shell up and give you half a round to decide where you need to grab, or what you need to do to advance your position.
Movsar Ivloev, the Dagestani who debuted recently in the Russia card is a perfect example. There is never a moment where he is inactive. Everything he is doing is instinct, it's technically correct, and if he's not working to advance position he is either making you carry his weight, or he's smashing you with knee's. It's a tsunami of technique, pressure and pain. I'm not judging Giles by that standard, but offering you an example of true excellence to describe why Giles is far from it.
I can't really see what Giles is great at? I hear he is a wrestler, but I don't see the technique in his debut. He isn't a particularly powerful puncher, he has atrocious shot selection, lazy striking habits, poor guard defense. I'm going to stop now, you get the point. Whatever you do, don't bet Giles.
Cummings
So naturally i'm thinking Cummings is the easiest dog pick of all time. But then I watched his tape and remembered he is a weird, awkward fighter. If he was just a little better this would be a no-brainer. He is an experienced southpaw fighter who seems to always make the fight a close back and forth, tough battle of meat and potatoes striking technique, with occasional clinches between those exchanges.
He is a bit stiff with his striking, he has the 1-1-2, he throws the 2 long, he doesn't back up much which I like. He has a solid chin, he has very good heart. He works well in the clinch, but never seems to go there for very long. He has good defensive wrestling technique, but never seems to work his offensive wrestling. He has nice submission skills, but always seems to use them in response to takedown attempts, rather than impose them on someone (GIF). He's just a very meat and potatoes fighter. This will mark his second fight up at middleweight, with his first coming against Smith. Smith is a wrestler, grinder type of fighter. Cummings broke his orbital early in the first round, but still fought on to win a close decision. I didn't see much that made me feel like MW Cummings is much different from WW Cummings.
I labelled this gif "Good D, better O", because I actually thought Cummings did a decent job here defensively, Michel just drove through him with better offense (GIF).
Prediction
I think you have to assume Cummings is going to try his tit for tat, meat & potatoes striking game here. I'd like to see him offensively wrestle, and I was looking for a fight where he did that, but couldn't find one. So I think clearly you can't bet Giles here, at least how I see it, even if he wins the guy has so many holes that haven't been exposed, he's a ticking time bomb for his first loss. Cummings is a very basic guy, but without question if I have to pick someone here i'm picking Cummings. This probably ends up being way closer than it needs to be, with Cummings trading tit for tat maybe landing his long left, Giles does some of those over exaggerated stupid combo's, Cummings just stays slow and doesn't press forward exposing those holes.
At it's most basic level, Cummings just does **** that makes sense, and because Giles isn't likely to finish him (because I don't think he's that powerful), I trust Cummings to do **** that makes sense and win 2 rounds at least, if not submit him.
With out question i'm picking Cummings, but I can't confidently state he will win this fight, just based on what i've seen from his approach. Stay tuned because I will think more about this from a betting perspective, and I think purely based on value Cummings at +135 is the bet.
Cummings via 30-27 unanimous decision (Method subject to change)
Lot's of break downs and betting analysis will be posted to my subreddit reddit.com/r/mmaester & discord chat https://discord.gg/66FAq7 . Breakdowns for Heinisch vs. Shoeface, Anderson vs. Spencer, Dawson vs Trizano and more.
* Edited at 05.15.2019, 8:44 AM ET *