This Friday, former Strikeforce middleweight champion Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza squares off against the former DREAM light heavyweight, middleweight and Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Gegard Mousasi at UFC Fight Night 50.
Souza and Mousasi will be headlining the card, a rematch of a fight they had back in 2008 with the DREAM middleweight title on the line. That fight ended early in the first round when Mousasi landed a brutal upkick and knocked Souza out cold.
Each fighter has done very well for himself since that time, as Souza has gone 10-1 (1 NC) while Mousasi has gone 11-2-1.
While each fighter has improved by leaps and bounds since that time, there’s still plenty that can be learned from their first fight heading into the second.
At the beginning of the fight, Mousasi clearly has control of the ring, as he simply walks Souza down, constantly keeping him on his heels.
Then, when backed up nearly all the way to the ropes, Souza simply lunges at Mousasi‘s legs looking for a takedown, which Mousasi easily avoids. However, Jacare is able to use that opportunity to stay right on Mousasi and work for another takedown, which he gets with some help from the ropes.
Not only did Jacare score the takedown, but he did it by completely lifting Mousasi and slamming him onto the canvas directly into side control. Mousasi is able to get to half-guard rather quickly and looks for an escape, but Souza isn’t having any of it.
Mousasi then shows good ground striking defense, as he is able to grab and control the left arm of Souza to prevent him from throwing any punches.
There wasn’t a whole lot that happened on the ground, as Mousasi showed good defense and Jacare resorted to simply holding on tight but still looking to pass.
Mousasi is then able to work to a half-butterfly guard and briefly push Souza off him from there. Once Souza is pushed away, he immediately looks to throw punches and work back to the ground.
Souza throws a wild, diving right hand, while Mousasi throws two upkicks. The first upkick misses, but the second lands square on the jaw of Souza and knocks him out cold. Mousasi throws a number of quick punches before realizing that Souza is out and putting his hands up.
The fight officially ended at 2:15 of the first round with a knockout victory by way of upkick for Mousasi.
Even though Mousasi earned the victory, and their grappling appeared to almost negate one another’s, Souza looked like he could have had a serious chance to win if the fight stayed on the ground. Eventually, he would have seen an opening and could have capitalized on it.
On the other hand, Mousasi showed more control on the feet and could have possibly ended the fight that way, as he was able to keep Souza backing up.
Both fighters have improved drastically, with Jacare a serious threat on the feet now and Mousasi having shown off his ground game in a beatdown of Mark Munoz. Jacare may still have an advantage on the ground, and Mousasi may still have an advantage on the feet, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t end the fight anywhere.
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