UFC 283: Teixeira vs. Hill

The official Tapology discussion thread for the event!

Also speaking of marcos, he is somehow sitting as an underdog which is just laughable to me

Craig is a submission specialist no doubt but that doesn't mean he isn't well rounded. When I say well rounded I just mean he's competent enough anywhere in the cage to be in a fight with anyone. He also has a very high fight IQ on top of being extremely tough. That's how he beats guys like Krylov, Hill and Ankalaev. You could maybe argue the Krylov and Hill wins were just his grappling carrying him but beating Ankalaev right at the buzzer required serious toughness and fight IQ.

I'm not saying Paul Craig can even KO him but I'm having a hard time following your logic. You're saying Walker has a massive advantage on the feet whilst simultaneously mentioning he has no chin and bad fight IQ. That's not exactly a great argument. Walker has 6 inches of reach in this fight and his path to victory is landing a bomb early in front of his home crowd on a guy that's been knocked out 3 times in the UFC by LHW's all ranked lower than Walker.

But Paul Craig is 5-1-1 since the last time that's happened and he has two finish wins over fighters Walker has lost to. He has the skill and fight IQ to negate Walkers size and power. That's the simplest way I can word it. I could easily see Walker just feeding off the crowd and steamrolling Craig in 30 seconds. Very possible. Also possible that Craig sees it coming and he has Johnny tapping to something in no time.  50/50 fight and I just lean Craig because the two have fought comparable competition and he's been much better in the UFC overall. 

Lol, I was lurking here for a couple weeks before creating an account. Been watching MMA for years and thought about betting for some time. After all my picks for the UFC 281 main event won, I decided it was time to start making money from this. So I was studying most pages from the last couple events to see what the consensus was for fighters I wasn't as familiar with, and I noticed baremaras was consistently calling fights correctly.

I was using Sherdog to check records before but a friend told me Tapology is much better, and I now agree. I like that this site includes opponent's records, ranking history, cancelled fights, and a lot more other info, plus it's just more pleasant to look at.

If you want to ask the mods to compare IP addresses, I don't mind. Lmao.

@foppa you're missing my point. IM saying yes he has a bad chin, but Craig doesn't have striking to chin him. He is a much more dynamic striker with a massive size advantage. Craig’s fight iq is nonexistent as well he's just get you in his guard or bust. also those three that you mention all willingly went to the ground with him. that's not fight iq that taking advantage of fighters being dumb

* Edited at 01.19.2023, 10:39 AM ET *

Fake As FooK

If you don't have acaunt, you haven't access in the whole site... picks... forum... etc... ! If i remember correctly you can only see some rankings... !?

Marcos fought an absolute can on DWCS and somehow didn't get a finish despite landing a crazy amount of strikes. I actually feel the exact opposite about him as you do. I don't find him crazy impressive for a guy who's 13-0. The combined record of his last 4 opponents is 29-20. That's...not great. In that same time period, Saimon was 5-0 against a combined record of 37-14-3. That was before fighting Gravely. 

Olivera did really well against a very solid fighter in Gravely. However, Gravely just wrestled him for close to 80% of the fight. Olivera was more efficient with his striking and almost out-landed Gravely overall. It was a loss but one where I thought he fought exceptionally well. Olivera has nice reach but he's very short. It's unfortunate he can't make the cut to flyweight. The overall take away as far as this fight is concerned is that Gravely is several tiers above anybody that Marcos has ever fought. 

All I'm saying is the odds on that one make perfect sense to me whereas the Tap votes seem to be heavily skewed, likely due to many just looking at Marcos record and going off that alone. Olivera is a slight favorite but the Tap votes are 90% Marcos. Marcos definitely has a chance but I'm definitely going with the more experienced fighter that will be surely feeding off of the hometown crowd. 

@foppa Brandon lewis isn’t as bad as everyone thinks, just been fed to two solid guys on dwcs. Compared to his regional tape, it’s clear to see marcos has improved a ton. His striking looked great against Lewis, he defended practically every takedown, and just overall whooped him in every sense of mma. Oliviera may have fought gravely but that doesn’t really mean anything; gravely isn’t a striker, marcos would have an advantage there against him too. He’s got predictable striking, bad gas tank, bad wrestling, and his only threat on the ground is a guillotine, which he only uses when people wrestle him. Marcos is a striker so he already takes away the best part of oliviera’s game and forces him to fight where he’s weaker. You say he did alright sgainst gravely (which I disagree with I thought he looked terrible) but have you seen his Dwcs fight where he barely sc****d by Jose alday. He went life or death with a very bad fighter and gassed out in the end. I get it’s easy to fade marcos because level of competition but he’s really not that bad; just rewatch his fight vs Lewis. I wasn’t impressed then I went back and left very impressed with him. He completely destroyed lewis everywhere. I rate Lewis’s wrestling much higher than I do oliviera’s and he went 2/13 and Marcos got up everytime he got taken down. If you’ve only seen the gravely fight watch the rest of my saimon’s regional fights, he’s awful

* Edited at 01.19.2023, 11:16 AM ET *

How is taking advantage of what your opponents give you not good fight IQ? You're also kind of non-chalantly saying them going to the ground with him was an automatic death sentence. At least, that's how you're framing it.? It's still bad fight IQ, especially in Ankalaevs case where he was clearly dominating, but in none of those situations was it guaranteed Craig would have success. These three particular fighters we're reference are all very good on the ground in their own right. Hill is still gaining experience but has good jiu jitsu. Ankalaev's grappling skill is apparent to anyone that seriously watches this sport while Krylov has more than half of his nearly 30 wins by submission. 

Craig doesn't and almost certainly wont rely on his striking to try to beat Walker. If Craig can survive the first 2 minutes of this fight he has a very solid chance of winning. He probably ends up attempting close to 10 takedowns and if he's only successful on 2-3 it wouldn't surprise me (Krylov went 3-8). I just don't see the discrepancy you see in either fighters chances for a finish. I think Craig can very easily submit walker just as easily as Walker could KO Craig. Pretty sure Walker has like the largest wingspan in the promotion behind Pavlovich and Jon Jones. 

Bro have you seen those three fights? ankalaev was working him to a 30-27 and Craig got a Hail Mary sub, Krylov flash Ko'ed him three times before he got a hail mary sub, and hill he literally just dragged down to the ground. Its not good fight iq because he literally was getting his ass kicked in 2/3 of those fights before getting a sub because he has a good, active guard. Sandbagging until you find an opening is not good fight iq at all, if you think it is then idk what to tell you.  

as for "kind of non-chalantly saying them going to the ground with him was an automatic death sentence. At least, that's how you're framing it" no I am not, Im acknowledging that Craig is a one trick pony and his opponents played into his game. If you play in Craig's guard you are at risk of getting triangle choked. That's his one trick and he happens to be very good at that one trick. 

The fact that Craigs gameplan is to get ******* destroyed until his opponent makes a mistake isn't a good gameplan whatsoever. He's relying on losing a whole fight until he finds one moment, and that's if his opponents grapple with him. 

as for walker and getting the finish. We've seen multiple times Craig has nothing to offer on the feet. If you don't respect his takedowns you can easily ko him. that's why he has so many bad losses on his record

* Edited at 01.19.2023, 11:24 AM ET *

Yeah idk what else to say other than I just don't rate Lewis as highly as you do. He's clearly a great athlete with some developing skills and a monster chin but that's about it. The fact that Marcos didn't finish Lewis on DWCS is a huge reason why I'm just not super high on him. I mean he drops him with a front kick to the chin straight up the middle in the first round after already landing clean a few times. You have to finish a really inexperienced guy like that IMO when you're already 12-0 and I just wasn't left super impressed. I definitely think he has UFC caliber skils and was glad he was signed but I think Olivera takes this. 

Now that I'm typing it all out, my argument is pretty much the difference in experience and QOC on top of the hometown crowd probably being too much for a debuting fighter like Marcos. Doesn't sound very convincing when you type it out for a "lock", I admit, but I'm still pretty confident. If I'm wrong, so be it. 

I don't rate lewis that high at all, I don't think not being able to finish someone is a bad thing, especially considering Marcos only has a 56% finish rate. Take Javid for example, he's not low level but he doesn't finish anyone. Lewis is just a tough son of a *****, he took an ass whooping against mo miller too and still didn't get finished. he's just a tough guy. I don't think not being able to finish him is a reason to not be impressed with a fighter, but that's just me

* Edited at 01.19.2023, 11:27 AM ET *

Again, I can't word it any simpler than taking what your opponent gives you to obviously be apart of having good fight IQ. The end result of the fight is all that matters. You very mundanely describe it as getting "sand bagged until you find an opening" like Paul Craig is the only fighter ever to get a comeback win or be in a close fight where you take a lot of damage in order to win a fight. It's MMA. Everyone takes damage. 

We're hyper-focusing on 3 fights and thats not the entirety of Craig's career. The main point is, regardless of how Craig did it, he finished 2 ranked opponents that Walker has lost too. I could just as easily refer to Walker as a one trick pony, because that's exactly what he is. He's a power puncher who very rarely sees a 2nd round.

I'm not sure why we ended up describing this so closely. All I said was I think Paul Craig was pretty close to a lock (for me) while readily admitting it's because I think Johnny Walker isn't that good. To be really fair, neither of them are very good; there's only 6-7 really good LHW fighters in the promotion. 

I see what you’re saying but there’s a difference. A one trick pony is somebody who quite literally only has one way of winning a fight (I’m not counting the shogun fights because shogun is a washed can at this point). Craig has literally never won a fight that hasn’t gone to the ground. I don’t understand how you can call him waiting for an opponent to make a mistake having good fight iq. Craig goes into fights and says “im outmatched everywhere, I’m gonna get my ass kicked until they go to the ground with me”. That is just an awful awful awful gameplan. I’m not gonna argue this point with you though h because we have different understandings of what fight iq is. Me, I can’t see how being willing to lose on the scorecards just to win one moment of a fight is good fight iq at all 

Walker barely leaving the first round is not even close to the same thing as what Paul Craig does. Walker doesn’t have a signature move that he relys on to win fights, he’s a dynamic striker who uses his size and athleticism to knock out his opponents. He’s got grappling too. Sure it may not be great but he literally just won a fight using it. Walker has more than one way to win a fight where Craig does not. 

Now, before you say “so you’re telling me walker will grapple with Craig because he’s not a one trick pony” no, that’s not what I’m saying, I’m saying there’s a difference. Walker is what you would call a glass cannon, not a one trick pony.

if johnny walker was so one dimensional and only a power puncher, wouldn't he get completely ran over by ion cutelaba on the ground (a dude with actual legit grappling credentials)? instead, not only did he match the grappling but also ended up subbing him as well

@baremars That’s exactly what I’m saying