I think this is actually a better matchup for Cain than Herring was ,I do not think this match is really going to last that long,I see Cain GnP Kongo out in the first or the second,I do not see this one making it to a decision

I like the herring fight better simply because he’s got more grit and a better chin than Kongo. I still like Cain in the fight. He’s got all the tools and Kongo’s defensive liabilities are tailor made for him to flex his wrestling and grappling game if he’s not having success on the feet.

I think this could be a classic mix of styles, but imo whoever wins they will win by TKO, I’m not really sure why you think Kongo has a suspect chin as I can not remember him being even stunned by stikes, although I know Yvel stopped him by TKO years ago.

I agree with you scott. I think Kongo is a better fight for Cain stylistically. Cain’s wrestling is very good. Cain destroyed O’brian who completely controlled Herring with his wrestling. I think Cain gets the take down when he wants. I think Kong’s conditioning will make a big deal as to when this fight ends. If Kongo can stay active and avoid damage, I’ll give Cain the UD.

Ultimately I think Kongo gets Tko’d in the 2nd.

I would like to agree with NNR. Herrings GRIT, toughness and scrappiness make him a tough match up for Cain….but I have a feeling Cain was going to lose this fight to both Kongo and Herring. UFC HW division had 3 prospects: Cain, carwin, Dos Santos…everything has been going peaches n cream for the 3 new heavyweights….I have a feeling that Cain is going to get Ko’ed. THat doesnt mean he isnt a great talent with a helluva future…I just think he is going to make the mostake of trying to stand with Kongo, which will prove to be his down fall!

Still c big things from Cain in the Future! kongo keeps getting better and is championship material, especially in the UFC’s weak Heavyweight division./…Problem is all the BIg Strong wrestlers in the division. HIs wrestling still needs to improve at least 2 notches before having any shot against the big bad wrestlers at HW!

Well,i point it out before that Cain is a perfect match up for Congo.He said(Congo)that he was ready for a title shot…and the top 4 guy of the HW division are good at Wrestling or Jits.Cain is no way near these guys YET.I think that Congo,can win this one if…he can get back up on his feet as quick as possible after been taken down!If Cain choose to stand and bang with Congo…we will see the first loss of Velasquez!

Agreed, Kongo has better wrestling then before now that he is at Wolfslair. And Cain has good boxing but no where near the stand up that Kongo has. I have a feeling it will be a KO for Cheik and he will be the next to challenge for the belt with his win.

Gonna have to disagree with you ehog, John and NNR and others. Cain’s wrestling is top notch and will prove to be too much for Kongo. Cheick has a much improved takedown defense as of late which will make the feat of taking him down no easy task for the wrestler. Although I Cain’s reckless abandon with regards to not using his wrestling skills and deciding to stand and throw ala the fight with Denis Stojnic. I think he’ll respect the striking of Kongo too much to not use his wrestling a lot more to grind out the GnP victory in the 2nd.

^^^^ Scott’s got it right.

If Kongo gets a title shot with a win here, how do you guys think he’ll do vs Mir or Lesnar?

I can see Lesnar trying to stand with him for a bit, then getting knee’d in the face too much, before taking him down and laying on him for 4 rounds.

Vs Mir, I can see Kongo beating him up on the feet and the ground, similar to the Vera beating. But I can also see Mir sweeping Kongo and tapping him to an armbar/kimura.

Or you can think Kongo vs Carwin for a title shot, in which Kongo gets KO’d in under 3 minutes, or loses a UD. I dont see him beating Carwin.

Of the 3 HW prospects, Carwin is for sure the best, and then Dos Santos. Cain is the only one that hasn’t faced an actual contender. The other two knocked out guys that were poised to be in title contention. Very interesting to see the aftermath of this fight.

Scott — I agree with your points.

Me too. I agree with Scott.

I like Kongo but he’s done nothing to show he’s a potential champion yet. After losing to Herring he’s beaten Evenson, who clearly isn’t UFC material, Al Turk, who is yet to prove himself in the UFC (other than the respectable quality of being able to take a beating), and Hardonk, who I like a lot but is one-dimensional.

Coming off three in a row over these fighters suggests nothing about his ability to be consistent against higher echelon, championship quality fighters.

Admittedly, Kongo did beat Cro Cop, which was his most impressive victory in the UFC, but he hasn’t done anything else to show he is a potential champion, and Cro Cop wasn’t too impressive in the UFC either. I hope he shines a little more upon his return though.

Kongo has an impressive frame but he is pretty sluggish. Notwithstanding his evident skills as a striker, they’ve not been as impressive as I would have thought.

I’m not saying he’s not improving and won’t possibly reach that level because he clearly improves every time, but his resume isn’t much to go by.

Cain should take this one as Scott said. But as we know, anything can happen, and this match-up is better than Cain/Herring anyway.

Lets be Fair JOhnny! Kongo beat Herring. THat was one of the top 5 worst judging decisions that ever happened in the uFC. I watched that fight about 10 times in a row, in slow motion….I pretty much have that entire fight tattooed in my Brain and I can say with certainty…that there was NO WAY Kongo lost to Herring.
I even Timed the fight and this is what I came up with. Kongo dominated that fight for 11/15 minutes. Herring only was winning about 4 minutes of the fight…spread out over 3 rounds! There is no way in hell that you lose 11/15 minutes and still win the fight! Terrible decision.

aS for Kongo getting a title shot. THis is what I have to say about that: Kongo is a beast and would make for an awesome challenger for the heavyweight title. He is easily the best striker at heavyweight followed by dos Santos. Heavyweight division is basically infested with grapplers…so Kongo stylistically will bring a nice change of pace to a heavyweight title fight. do I think that Kongo has beaten the top of competition that has EARNED him the right to fight for the title? NO he hasnt, but that isnt really his fault. Kongo has beaten EVERYONE the UFC put in front of him. He faced Herring who was clearly in the best shape of his entire career, and I am HONESTLY CONVINCED that he won that fight (which is his only loss in a long time).

The problem is that Joe Silva has done a TERRIBLE JOB of putting kongo in meaningful match ups. It seems like he is always matched up against some B-level fighter. He DESTROYS them ALL!!! As a fighter all you can do is beat everyone that your boss puts in front of you. Kongo has done that, and he usually brutally FINISHES all his opponents. I cant hold it against Kongo that they dont give him any real competition. Kongo has went on a tear. He is ALWAYS improving. He DESTROYS EVERYONE that he is asked to fight…if he can beat Cain, I say let him fight for the title!

Someone asked how I think kongo would match up against Brock n Mir:

Kongo needs to hope that Brock is confident in his new found stand up that hopefully he will try to trade with Kongo. If Brock strikes with Kongo for more then a minute. Kongo could BEAT BROCK. But all brock would have to do to beat Kongo is make it into a wrestling match, and Kongo would not be able to stand back up!

as for Mir, If Kongo uses his BRAIN, he could Annihilate MIr! I think Kongo is too Athletic and strong to be taken down by MIr. Mir would be forced to stand with Kongo, and would get LIT UP in the process. No doubt in my mind that Kongo would drop Mir a few times throughout the fight and thats where kongo needs to use his BRAIN! He cant follow Mir to the ground after he drops Mir. it sucks, but Kongo would have to just let Mir recover and stand back up, then he can light him up again. I think it would be pretty easy for Kongo to win against Mir. All he needs to do is use his freakishly long limbs to keep his distance against MIr and just Brutally Pick him apart. Throw a few Front kicks at Mir to back him up whenever he gets close, and thats a very winnable fight for Kongo!

I was asking how Kongo would match up vs the HW belt-holders John. I agree with most of that. Brock would get tagged for a round or two, then lay on Kongo for the rest of the fight and win a decision. I have FULL confidence that Kongo would drop Mir, and him not being intelligent enough to stand up. Kongo has some ferocious GnP, so he would jump on for the kill, and probably get tapped.

thats what I worry about with the Kongo/Mir match up!

is it just me or has weekends sort of suck when it comes to mma news.On to the old story at hand,I think Kongo is going to have problems with either champion,I just do not have any faith what so ever in Kongo’s takedown defense,odviously he would match up better with Mir,due to the fact that he will be on top unlike what would happen with Brock.I could see him being able to beat Mir,but I can not see anyway,except catching Brock with a shot ,but I just do not see Brock trying to stand and bang with Kongo,so I see him being murdered by Brock.I just do not think Kongo can beat a wrestler,he has made himself very easy to gameplan for,so I see Cain beating Kongo very easily,I just do not understand why certain fighters refuse to work on their weakness.We all know Kongo can strike ,he could take a year off from striking and still be great at it ,get your butt on the matt ,and work on your wrestling,because that is what it is going to take for him ever to become champion in the UFC

john- to address the classy post you left me in the other thread… I also apologize, I probably overreacted. We usually have awesome debates and things got out of hand there.

I am typing with one hand right now and this site won’t be seeing a lot of me for the next 4-6 weeks (cue sighs of relief from the regs). I fractured my wrist in three places last night screwing around while drinking. I am in the best shape of my life and I work in a gym so this is a certifiable NIGHTMARE scenario for me right now. I spent six hours in Emergency last night (Canadian health care hs its pros and cons :-().

I’ll be reading as always guys, but typing’s a BJ Penn right now (see what I did there, O damn?). Hope everbody’s weekend went better than mine. Peace.

Damn that s..ks JJ!You should have ask a girl to workout your “John..son” instead to go wild and broke
             (D!<k)
your wrist!Stop been a “little Penn” and man up! ;)

You can’t be worst,than me…I still,type with one hand b/c i can’t find my keystrokes on my keyboard.I f*#@ing,type 5 words/min.Plus i have to double check,to not makes too many mistakes.You can’t be worst,than that bro!
Jocking aside…I understand you man,that’s terrible and i hope that you get better soon.
Don’t priv us of your “Dark and Ominous” humor…it would be hard to go 4 to 6 weeks w/o it!
Oh and maybe it,would be good to stop picking on john.Just bad,unlucky stuff happens to you(Lips,Wrist)ever since.Just a suggestion buddy…! :lol:

Good post, John. Valid points. A lot of questions will be answered about Kongo based on his performance against Cain. Even if he loses, which I think he will, if his performance is still good enough, if he can give some back to Cain, then at least he’s in the same bracket of skill. Even though I think he’ll lose to Cain, I hope he wins.

The(D!<k) was supposed to be place under john’s name…Damn you mania to wasting my joke!! ;)

thanks for such a valuable analysis! lol, just teasing..no Offense!

agreed dave.

i don’t think so, i think timmy would actually work on a takedown don’t totally discredit sylvia as a striker either the only person to make him look stupid standing was fedor, randy kinda did but sylvia had nog on the verge of a finish before he left…

Tim (fight for descision win)Sylvia would not make it out of the first round with Kongo. Nog made him look good just as Nog made a lot of you think that Mir has excellent stand up. You are probably the same people who think Matt Hamill has great stand up. I do not count Mir as top 5. He is one of the most overrated fighters in the UFC. He just about beat an experienced Lesner and a Nog who was just a human punchung bag for that match. Kongo would destroy Mir, he wouldn’t see the end of the second round. Mir would not be able to take him down and would not be able to handle the pressure of Kongos onslaught.

GREAT POST ADE!!! Finally someone with some sense around here about MIr! I cant believe the UFC has fooled all of you Die hard fans into thinking MIr is actually a quality Heavyweight. I wouldnt even rank him in the top 15!

I truly believe that Kongo would Destroy sylvia and MIR, but struggle against all the wrestlers. Lucky for him, I have a feeling that Cain is going to want to stand with Kongo, which is STUPID if you ask me!

Holy shit! I wholeheartedly agree with john about Mir! I’ve been saying for awhile now that Mir will be irrelevant in the heavyweight picture a couple of years from now. He would be out of the top 10 by now if he was active. He beat zombie Nog who was not only out of his prime, but recovering from a staph infection and out out of shape (coming in heavier than he ever has). Mir blows and even if he does manage to beat Lesnar again he’ll still be exposed eventually.

Mir is sh*t, he’ll be irrelevant in 6 months! Ironically it’s Brock who’s the only top heavyweight he has even a 10% chance of beating and that’s only coz he’s still comparatively green. Gatekeepers like Herring would own him easily, he’s not even top 20!

I’m not saying he’s been in there with “top” competition, just miles better competition than the cans from cage rage who Al Turks beaten. Have you ever seen a cage rage show pal??? The standard’s shocking!

Idk i Think Kongo is almost just as impressive physically.

He’s TALL he’s HUGE and looks like hes CARVED out of STONE!

Yeah coz Kongo’s got so many KO’s under his belt hasn’t he??? His only chance of success is to employ his usual knee to the ball sack and hope Lesnars balls are as big as his oversized head, coz that’s the only way Brocks going down!