Topic: Bellator MMA vs. RIZIN 1
Bellator MMA vs. RIZIN 1
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- Saturday 12.31.2022 at 05:00 AM ET
- U.S. Broadcast: Showtime (tape-delayed)
- Promotion: Bellator MMA
- Ownership: Bellator Sport Worldwide, LLC
- Co-Promoter: RIZIN Fighting Federation
- Venue: Saitama Super Arena
- Location: Saitama, Japan
- Enclosure: Ring
- MMA Bouts: 5
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Promotion Links:
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Event Links:
| Bout | Info | |
|---|---|---|
| AJ McKee Jr. defeats Roberto de Souza via Decision, Unanimous | 3 Rounds, 15:00 Total Bout Page | |
| Patricio Pitbull defeats Kleber Koike Erbst via Decision, Unanimous | 3 Rounds, 15:00 Total Bout Page | |
| Kyoji Horiguchi defeats Hiromasa Ougikubo via Decision, Unanimous | 3 Rounds Bout Page | |
| Juan Archuleta defeats Soo Chul Kim via Decision, Split | 3 Rounds, 15:00 Total Bout Page | |
| Gadzhi Rabadanov defeats Koji Takeda via Decision, Unanimous | 3 Rounds, 15:00 Total Bout Page |
Responses Page 4
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- Hippie
12.27.2022 | 11:58 AM ET
Predictions: 5 of 5 Winners, 3 Perfect, 325 Points | Tied for 359th
12.27.2022 | 12:56 PM ET
Predictions: 3 of 5 Winners, 2 Perfect, 200 Points | Tied for 1148th
"I know many a troops that I visit when I went to Iraq in 2005... 2-uh excuse me in 19-or.. 05' 06' 07' 08' 09' 2010 2011. I went from the Korwaiten border! All the way up to the Turkish border!" -Tito Ortiz
12.27.2022 | 1:07 PM ET
Predictions: 3 of 5 Winners, 3 Perfect, 225 Points | Tied for 1055th
* Edited at 12.27.2022, 1:08 PM ET *
"“Unfortunately you can’t talk like that on FOX” - Joe Rogan"
12.27.2022 | 1:26 PM ET
If you build it, they will come? or will they.
Predictions: 5 of 5 Winners, 3 Perfect, 325 Points | Tied for 359th
12.27.2022 | 1:37 PM ET
Predictions: 3 of 5 Winners, 2 Perfect, 200 Points | Tied for 1148th
"I know many a troops that I visit when I went to Iraq in 2005... 2-uh excuse me in 19-or.. 05' 06' 07' 08' 09' 2010 2011. I went from the Korwaiten border! All the way up to the Turkish border!" -Tito Ortiz
12.27.2022 | 1:40 PM ET
Predictions: 3 of 5 Winners, 2 Perfect, 200 Points | Tied for 1148th
"I know many a troops that I visit when I went to Iraq in 2005... 2-uh excuse me in 19-or.. 05' 06' 07' 08' 09' 2010 2011. I went from the Korwaiten border! All the way up to the Turkish border!" -Tito Ortiz
12.27.2022 | 1:46 PM ET
Predictions: 3 of 5 Winners, 3 Perfect, 225 Points | Tied for 1055th
"“Unfortunately you can’t talk like that on FOX” - Joe Rogan"
12.27.2022 | 1:58 PM ET
Predictions: 3 of 5 Winners, 2 Perfect, 200 Points | Tied for 1148th
"I know many a troops that I visit when I went to Iraq in 2005... 2-uh excuse me in 19-or.. 05' 06' 07' 08' 09' 2010 2011. I went from the Korwaiten border! All the way up to the Turkish border!" -Tito Ortiz
12.27.2022 | 2:00 PM ET
Predictions: 3 of 5 Winners, 3 Perfect, 225 Points | Tied for 1055th
"“Unfortunately you can’t talk like that on FOX” - Joe Rogan"
12.27.2022 | 4:30 PM ET
Prediction Comments
Predictions: 5 of 5 Winners, 1 Perfect, 275 Points | Tied for 715th
Patricio Pitbull, DEC
complete mismatch here and I find it hilarious that the odds jumped a tiny bit in Koike's favor the last couple of days, more free money for me I guess
for people wondering, this isn't the classic striker vs grappler match up that we've seen time and time again in MMA. this fight is quite literally an actual elite MMA fighter against a BJJ player with bad wrestling, bad striking defense, bad striking with his hands and semi-decent kicks.
starting with pitbull, he's going to be the significantly smaller fighter in this matchup - something that has basically been a theme his entire career. specifically this size disadvantage he's had to deal with for years though, has led him to develop incredible fight iq, elite distance management, willingness to control the center of the octagon at all times and at the same time unmatched ability to fight off his back foot. he can be described as one of the best if not the best fighter that's never fought in the UFC and adding on to that, quite possibly one of the most technical strikers ever and certainly one of the best counter punchers to ever fight in MMA.
after that preface, delving into the more technical aspects of his game helps us realize how good and technically sound he really is. looking at his fighting stance and guard, he has taken many things from various schools of striking and stirred them into the perfect mix. specifically, he has adopted a wide stance that's generally seen among brazilian fighters that have taken a liking to karate, offensively his guard pertains to the old school boxing guard (this guard has many weird names like the old english, irish fighting, bare knuckle stance etc etc) that many old school fighters like Rocky Marciano successfully used and defensively he's also very confident at occasionally using the high guard (this guard has been widely used and popularized by mexican boxers). on top of his very proficient and educated stance/guard, he also possesses decent head movement used to create multiple angles for his attacks and has developed really good hand-fighting and feints, nullifying his reach disadvantage. moving on to the strikes he likes to use and the attacks that his striking depends on, the check left hook is basically what his striking game has been almost entirely built on. he has become a master at knowing when to actually throw the check hook with the intent to land and when to throw it with the intent to feint and a logical continuation of having a ridiculously dangerous check left hook is massively increasing his chances of landing his patent counter right overhand/cross. touching a little bit more on the check left hook, he is absolutely elite at pulling off the MMA version of the "pull counter", which is basically him timing the step back perfectly against an opponent that's moving forward and lunging forward with a counter check left hook. additionally, because of how sophisticated and patient his striking has become, he likes to fill the void inbetween his attacks with nasty kicks to the calf - worth noting that he's way more successful with his leg kicks against southpaw stanced opponents. another addition to his striking that we've seen lately against McKee and Borics (two way taller opponents) are his massive strikes to the body. when it comes to his grappling and wrestling, he quite possily has the best anti-wrestling we've ever seen in MMA. elite takedown defense, elite scrambling, elite cagefighting, elite ability to reverse positions and even when he decides to offensively grapple, he still possses elite ability to take people down, elite ability to advance positions from half guard into potentially full mount and during scrambles he's very quick at taking people's backs and controlling them in back mount. a very striking example of how elite his grappling is are the McKee 2 and Archuleta fights. specifically, he made Archuleta - a D1 wrestler - look like an absolute amateur in the grappling exchanges, easily stuffing the vast majority of archuleta's takedowns, reversing him and either controlling him or getting close to threatening a submission.
moving on to the very few weaknesses that pitbull might have, the glaring weakness lies in his inability to defend a specific set of strikes at a high level. what I mean by that is that many times in the past his guard has been split in half by straight shots down the middle (more specifically, borics had success with the jab down the middle and mckee had success with the straight left down the middle). additionally, he has shown content with getting hit by kicks to his lead leg and body. lastly, his main signature submission - the guillotine - doesn't really have a high success rate against high level grapplers and IMO his age is slowly starting to creep up with his gas tank potentially having shown weakness in the 5th round against borics (this shouldnt matter much as hes fighting a 3 round fight against Koike).
when it comes to Koike, I personally do not rate him very high and I'll go as far as to say that every time he faces a high level wrestler, he gets dominated on the ground, an area which is supposed to be his domain (Gamrot absolutely battered him and a lot of his Rizin fights look like set ups of people willingly staying in Koike's guard, there's a reason why most of his submissions are triangles). his bjj is absolutely insane but that's about it. his striking defense is bad (in fairness to him, it was way worse in KSW but he's worked on it a tiny bit with his move to Rizin), his striking offense is basically super reliant on kicks but he lacks the speed, power and whipping factor behind them. additionally, his physique seems to have deteroriated a bit from his KSW days (this should be important as pitbull is going to end up being the way stronger fighter) and his wrestling is basically non existent.
moving away from the generalities and focusing on the technicalities, Koike - even though not a very good striker - switches stances a lot and tries to confuse his opponent with unorthodox movements with his guard. he relies heavily on his kicking game but even then it can still be described as very one dimensional as he lacks large variety of kicks and basically falls back to 3-4 specific kicks. his best kick is the front teep kick to either the body or the face and he executes at an above average level the right high kick and the right leg kick. on top of his lack of variety of kicks, another reason his kicking game can be described as one dimensional is his inability to properly position his guard each time he throws kicks. specifically, he very blatantly drops both of his hands but even moreso his left hand (making himself open for the counter right - something that pitbull is an absolute expert at recognizing and executing) each time he throws a kick. his standup game, aside from his kicks, can basically be boiled down to either expecting you to lung at him and him trying to clinch you up using your momentum against you or him lunging at you, failing to land and then either pulling guard and trying to submit you or eating a shot and pretending to be hurt expecting you to follow him down into his guard. lastly, concerning his striking, he has absolutely terrible footwork and literally has to resort to dragging his feet on the mat. touching a bit more on his takedown ability and wrestling, his ability to wrestle is basically non existent and the vast vast majority of his """takedowns"""" come from either him pulling guard or what we call o-goshi in bjj, basically a modified hip throw.
my prediction for this matchup is pretty straight forward. I expect an absolute domination and potentially a stoppage by Pitbull (not banking on the stoppage as there might be a lot of clinching plus Koike has shown to have a great chin and Pitbull has been way too patient with his striking lately). Pitbull has the skillset to absolutely nullify any threat that Koike possesses. he has the grappling ability to avoid the ground with Koike and I'll go as far as to say he has the wrestling ability to even do some damage on the ground (I wouldn't suggest this route for Pitbull but the skillset is there). he also has the striking prowess to avoid any potential kicking threats from Koibe (Koibe specifically only throws kicks with his right leg aka towards pitbull's left side while pitbull only slightly dips his head to the right side - which is how McKee caught him - so I'll be very surprised if any high kicks even land clean for Koibe)
* Edited at 12.27.2022, 4:49 PM ET *
12.27.2022 | 7:27 PM ET
Predictions: 3 of 5 Winners, 2 Perfect, 200 Points | Tied for 1148th
"I know many a troops that I visit when I went to Iraq in 2005... 2-uh excuse me in 19-or.. 05' 06' 07' 08' 09' 2010 2011. I went from the Korwaiten border! All the way up to the Turkish border!" -Tito Ortiz
12.28.2022 | 5:13 AM ET
Bananas
I agree that this should be a shoutout for Pitbull. But I am going for a decision here rather than a finish.
"Positivity is a positive"
12.28.2022 | 12:35 PM ET
"Meat on the Table"
Predictions: 2 of 5 Winners, 1 Perfect, 125 Points | Tied for 1312th
"It doesn't matter what part of the world we are from. We are brothers and sisters together as one." kjh Home of the Michigan Tech Huskies, Copper Kings and Portage Lake Pioneers! Go Teams!
12.28.2022 | 2:36 PM ET
Predictions: 5 of 5 Winners, 1 Perfect, 275 Points | Tied for 715th
not because I dont think he's going to win, I just doubt he's had a significant serious camp leading up to this fight and judging from the footage leading up to the fight of him, he cares more about putting on a show for the fans than actually winning the fight as convincingly and as easily as possibly
12.28.2022 | 4:07 PM ET
Bananas
Similarly, I don't trust AJ McKee. Never have, never will. Always thought he was arrogant and over hyped. Will he likely win? Sure. But I would not put it past him to try to take it to the ground against Souza to show off how much of a better grappler he is.
And if there is one thing you don't do against Souza, that's take it to the ground. From what I've seen of him his BJJ is phenomenal
"Positivity is a positive"
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- Hippie
12.28.2022 | 4:12 PM ET
Predictions: 5 of 5 Winners, 3 Perfect, 325 Points | Tied for 359th
12.28.2022 | 4:16 PM ET
Bananas
"Positivity is a positive"
12.28.2022 | 4:31 PM ET
Predictions: 5 of 5 Winners, 1 Perfect, 275 Points | Tied for 715th
I don't know if you're keeping up with Jewish news but, apparently, there's this huge buzz about the Jews potentially having found their Messiah in Israel. my initial thoughts to the potential of that happening is that's good and all but what about tapology? why isn't tapology making international news headlines and breaking news all across the world for having found their own Messiah, none other than me, you and andrew.
I feel like we need to tighten up our marketing skills and expand our influence on a broader scale because our appearance and our presence on tapology is just as important if not more important than the jewish people having found their Messiah. thank god that time doesn't stop and we can finally achieve this goal in the blessed year of 2023, along with making a **** ton of more money.
god bless everyone
* Edited at 12.28.2022, 4:33 PM ET *
12.28.2022 | 5:06 PM ET
Predictions: 3 of 5 Winners, 2 Perfect, 200 Points | Tied for 1148th
"I know many a troops that I visit when I went to Iraq in 2005... 2-uh excuse me in 19-or.. 05' 06' 07' 08' 09' 2010 2011. I went from the Korwaiten border! All the way up to the Turkish border!" -Tito Ortiz