Cain Velasquez is not on Andrei Arlovski's level

I watch MMA and think Brown Pride is overrated. He looked great against Jake O’Blanket, then get incredibly lucky against Kongo, in the sense that Kongo and his corner are really stupid. I think he’s a good fighter but not an automatic shoo-in for the HW title, which a lot of people on here seem to think he is. That, by definition, means that I think he is overrated.

PW how did he get incredibly lucky. I could uderstand if Cain caught him with a lucky punch but he dominated Kongo for 3 rounds. That’s not luck my friend the guy has got skills and to say he was lucky sounds pretty biased to me.

If you read what I wrote, you’ll see it said that he was lucky in terms of Kongo and his corner being stupid. Kongo knocked Brown Pride on his ass to start each round, then followed him to the ground. Had they spent about 1 minute on Google, they might have known that Brown Pride was an All-America wrestler and having Kongo attempt to grapple with him may not be the best strategy. Had Kongo used an intelligent fight plan (backing away from Brown Pride after knocking him down and forcing him back to his feet) Kongo would have won easily.

Really PW? You really think Kongo could have kept it standing if he wanted to?

well he kept trying to clinch with cain after he hurt him when he couldve just kept his distance and kept dropping him.

Of course he could have. Land a few shots, Cain drops, then back away and force him to stand back up. He foolishly tried to finish with GnP and got reversed every time because Cain is a vastly superior wrestler. Even lab rats only have to get shocked once or twice before they learn to stay away from the shock button.

dude, there’s no way Kongo could have kept that standing. If he could have, he would have. Why do you think Kongo loses everytime he fights a top wrestler? The fact is, he cracked Cain with some heavy shots and Cain ran right thru them for the takedown. I’m not saying that Cain is a shoe-in for the HW title, but this kid has performed extremely well, and his wrestling skills will take him a long way. He pretty much tooled Kongo.

As for Rothwell, I’ll quote Dean Wermer by saying “fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go thru life.” He must be drunk to say that Arlovski is better than Cain. Are you fvckin serious Ben??? It bugs me to hear people stay stupid shit….now i can’t wait to watch Cain pound this guy until he shits himself.

Arlovski about 2 years ago? probably better than Cain. Arlovski today? no freakin’ way.

haha spyder i think its u who has never seen MMA..

Believe it or not,,, Arlovski has a weak chin, so does Forrest. Some fighers can take a good punch (like Penn, like Nog) some can’t.

thats a contradiction itself because most mmartists have evolved from a single discipline.ok you can expect jj specialists and wrestlers to find it harder to learn how to strike but there are plenty of decent strikers in mma today.as for any striker being able to beat a mmartist,what about raymond daniels,one of the best strikers in the world embarassed by a z level fighter.did you not watch fight masters and deadliest warriore aswell where the mma fighters were faster/hit harder etc than single discipline fighters who had trained all their lives in the one martial art.

MMA striking is only sub-par if you hold it up in comparison to boxing or any other single-discipline combat sport. Go tell Anderson Silva that his striking is sub-par.

he meant mma striking in general. There are exceptions, Anderson being one of them.

Technique wise RoB is right about striking in MMA, the defence especially is poor at times. I’m surprised that AA didn’t work on his boxing defence during his time with Freddie Roach, especially considering that he’s got a questionable chin. Forrest has always had poor defence, in all of his fights he takes a lot of damage and Jardine is often caught by good strikers.

However JB makes a good point about there being more things to think about, which affects the striking styles as you can’t fight in a pure boxing stance if you are against an excellent wrestler because they’ll take you down, you have to be prepared to sprawl. Also boxers, kickboxers and thaiboxers only have to think about striking in training and fighting, mixed martial artists have to learn a well rounded arsenal so it’s little wonder that they aren’t as technically sound as most pro strikers.

The sport is still young and with the dominance of elusive fighters like Andy, Fedor and Machida, and to a lesser extent BJ, striking in MMA will continue to evolve. All 3 of those fighters listed are difficult to hit and can hit back with perfectly timed strikes that have KO power. When the sport develops internationally and becomes more mainstream, this style of striking will become more of the norm. There will be less stand and bang fighters with clumsy offense and no defence and more elusive fighters who focus on not getting hit and on counterpunching.

silva,machida,gsp,alves,penn,belfort,arlovski,cro cop,kongo,rutten,liddell,w.silva,pat barry,carlos condit,patrick cote etc etc .some of these may not be textbook strikers but all are extremely effective.

They are effective by MMA standards but that’s the point. MMA striking isn’t as fluid, lacks cohesiveness with the other aspects and simply repetitive combos. Also the simple fact that the workrate is very different makes it hard to fighters to grasp striking arts even after years of training. For example in an MMA fight a guy might throw 40 strikes in a bout while in K1 or MT or boxing, a guy throws several hundred shots. This definitely makes a difference in ingraining technique in a fighter. Timing, Range and fight environment also create big factors. Also in MMA people don’t look for openings. It’s always strike stop reset repeat. Same for the counterstriking. Only a silva, machida and rampage seem to be ones to look for opening created by strikes to hit again without moving away. Which makes them appear special while in a purely striking environment, they would be doing what is expected for any decent fighter. Defensively, i won’t even get into it.

Agree with most though Cote relies on power and his chin over technique, Condit has poor technique and gets caught too easily as the Ellenberger fight proved and AA doesn’t have the defense necessary to be a top striker, he’s got great offense but for a chinny fighter his defence should have been a key point to work on and it cost him against Sylvia, Fedor and Grim.

yes but it is all bout being effective and what style suits you.rampages head movement allows him to throw a punch at the same time his opponent is throwing a punch.moving into proffesional boxing hattons defence was near enough zero but his pressure and workrate allowed him to be a world champion and a good fighter in his prime.i bet most of the mma fighters could throw several hundred shots a round but they have to be weary of being taken down so i think theres more skill involved in mma striking imo because the fighters have to pick their shots very carefully.

Hatton got badly found out when he faced world class boxers in Money and Pacman, they both made him look like an amateur. Being good on the attack only gets you so far, without good defence you’re not going to be good at best, never great. That is why elusive fighters are the ones dominating boxing and MMA, they can hit just as hard as anyone but are a lot more accurate and never get hit back.

Right JB a boxer trains only on stand up striking with the hands and defending strikes It has been a pro sport for some time now so to get to the top you would have to be involved from a fairly early age like most pro sports athletes have. MMA is a sport were you use not only stand up hand striking but kicking striking even to the legs and grapple stand up a boxer might try the old hug but in MMA that move would put your ass down hard were they would be in MMA ground game does any boxer have a chance in a grappling match against any MMA fighter? You put a boxer and MMA fighter in the ring together with MMA rules the MMA would win 97% of the time as would a boxer if it was boxing rules You put the elite boxer and MMA in the percentage would be near 100%.

I’d say that the Spyder has nailed this one. I can’t believe there are people on this board that actually think that Arlovski is better than Cain. How many fights has Cain won now in the UFC? Arlovski can’t even beg his way into a prelim fight in the UFC anymore. There’s a reason for that. He may have been a stud at one point, but the guy has no relevance whatsoever when talking about top MMA fighters. Arlovski’s decline might actually be worse than Tim Sylvia’s……..and to think that the title was going back and forth between those two for a few years. The talent pool in the UFC has obviously come a long ways over the past few years.

so i guess the spyder joins john, introvert, roberto, and a few others in the lame @$$ hall of fame??