Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira and Stefan Struve seem to be on a UFC collision course.Struve called for a fight against the legendary heavyweight, and Nogueira seemed open. However, according to Norueira’s manager, Ed Soares, “Minotauro” will be o…
Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira and Stefan Struve seem to be on a UFC collision course.
Regardless, this fight seems like the next step for both men, and it is a logical fight. Both fighters are coming off losses so it makes a lot of sense for all parties involved, and it would be an entertaining heavyweight battle.
Here is how the potential heavyweight scrap breaks down.
Saying that three-time UFC title challenger Chael Sonnen believes Antonio Rogerio Nogueira faked an injury prior to a scheduled UFC 161 bout with Mauricio Rua would be an understatement. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, “The American Gang…
Saying that three-time UFC title challenger ChaelSonnen believes Antonio Rogerio Nogueira faked an injury prior to a scheduled UFC 161 bout with Mauricio Rua would be an understatement.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, “The American Gangster” blasted his Brazilian adversary for withdrawing from a heavily anticipated rematch with “Shogun” roughly three weeks before the match up due to a back injury.
“Little Chicken Belly Nog pulled the same scumbag move that he does every time, lets the UFC put out posters, commercials, doing everything to promote him, knowing full well he’s not going to do the fight,” Sonnen said. “Once again he calls in sick, three weeks early. In no industry on earth can you do that. Nobody can call their boss and say ‘Hey, boss, 20 days from now, I’m not going to feel good’. So he calls in sick three weeks early… it was a ruse from the beginning, and basically, I just wanted to help out.”
Sonnen was willing to step up to the plate and fight Rua with less than two weeks notice, but instead, a showdown between Rua and Sonnen will headline UFC on FOX Sports 1: #1 this August (via MMA Fighting).
“Little Nog‘s” recent career has been plagued with injuries, not fighting at all in 2012 and only stepping inside the Octagon once in 2013 thus far.
Nevertheless, back-to-back wins over former divisional champions Tito Ortiz and Rashad Evans have earned Nogueira the number 5 spot in the UFC’s official light heavyweight rankings.
While Rua is a former UFC titleholder in his own right, he is just 3-4 in his past seven fights, a far cry from his dominant 13-1 run under the PRIDE banner.
Sonnen has lost consecutive fights to Anderson Silva and Jon Jones, fighting for the UFC middleweight and light heavyweight titles, respectively, though he has notched a 7-1 record in his last eight non-title bouts.
Should Sonnen take out Shogun in Boston on August 17, would the fans be interested in seeing him settle the score with Nogueira in his next fight?
JohnHeinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA Editor for eDraft.com and contributes MMA videos to The Young Turks Sports Show.
It’s hard to keep a good fighter down, and even while healing up a broken jaw, UFC Stefan Struve is already eyeing his return to action later this year where he hopes to face a true legend in the sport. Struve is currently spending some time in Los Ang…
It’s hard to keep a good fighter down, and even while healing up a broken jaw, UFC Stefan Struve is already eyeing his return to action later this year where he hopes to face a true legend in the sport.
Struve is currently spending some time in Los Angeles training and just waiting for a doctor’s appointment in a few weeks to hopefully gain clearance to get back into MMA sparring for his return to the Octagon in the late summer or early fall.
“The first couple of weeks weren’t too good, couldn’t really chew or whatever, but from the start, I could eat,” Struve told Bleacher Report about his recovery on Monday.
“I just put it in a blender and eat that way. I thought it would be a lot worse. The worst part was I had to wait nine days for surgery when I got back from Japan because they thought I might have a bacteria with me from the hospital over there, so that was the hardest part, the waiting.The rest, it’s healed really good.I go home in two weeks to Holland, and the week after I have an appointment to get cleared.
“I plan to be back in September/October, so no need to rush it.That’s what I’m looking at, and hopefully, that’s going to work.”
Even in the short time that Struve has been inactive, healing his jaw, the heavyweight division has changed dramatically. Junior dos Santos is once again the top contender in the division, Fabricio Werdum is storming his way up the rankings, and Stipe Miocic, whom Struve defeated in 2012, just put on a dominant performance over top five-ranked heavyweight Roy Nelson.
Struve knows, when he jumps back into the fray later this year, the division could be changed yet again, but he’s hoping to get back on winning track while facing one of the greatest heavyweights of all time.
“A fight I always wanted to have is a fight with Big Nog,” Struve said about his desire to face former UFC and Pride champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. “I would still love to have that fight. I think it makes a lot of sense right now since we’re both coming off a loss. That’s definitely a fight I would love to have around then.”
Nogueira has been a mainstay around the top 10 of the heavyweight division for more than a decade, and while he is coming off a defeat in his last fight against Werdum at UFC on Fuel 10, Struve knows he’s still as dangerous as he’s ever been.
One thing he wants to make clear, however, is that he doesn’t want his desire to face Nogueira to be perceived as a “call out.”He wants to face the former champion because it would be an honor to share the Octagon with him and believes they would put on a fight to remember in heavyweight history.
“I’ve got a ton of respect for him, and he knows that I respect him a lot,” Struve stated. “I’ve been watching him since I was 10 or 11 years old. I remember waking up Sunday mornings in Holland and putting on the computer trying to get my Pride stream going to watch Nogueira.”
“He’s always been one of my favorites, if not my favorite fighter. The way he fights with that much heart and always finding a way to win. It’s been awesome to watch him fight, and I think the fans would really want to see that matchup too. I think it’s a really great fight to make. Fireworks are guaranteed in my opinion.”
Over the last few years, Nogueira has gone just 3-3 while dealing with a mounting list of injuries that have slowed him down for several months at a time during certain points. Despite the .500 record, Struve believes that Nogueira is still one of the best heavyweights in the world and that’s exactly why he wants to face him next.
“People change their opinions every single minute. Especially in this sport, you lose one fight, and you’re the worst fighter in the world, and then, you win your next one and you only have to beat Cain (Velasquez) or Junior (dos Santos) to become champ in their opinion,” Struve commented.
“He’s a great fighter. I’ve got a ton of respect for him and things change really fast, especially in this division. One punch can change everything.”
Nogueira is currently healing up from having surgery on his arm and should be cleared for training in about three months.It may push back Struve’s timeline for a return, but with Nogueira as his top choice as an opponent, he’s ready to sign the contract today if the UFC sent him the bout agreement.
“I would love to test my skill against him,” Struve said. “I think it makes a lot of sense with both of us coming off a loss, and I think our styles match up really well.Just for me, it’s a matter of signing a contract if they want to do it.”
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and all quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
UFC on Fuel 10 provided some exciting matchups and as many of you will have already heard, broke the promotion’s record for most submission wins on a card. It is always good to be reminded that cards which are short big-name matches can still provide i…
UFC on Fuel 10 provided some exciting matchups and as many of you will have already heard, broke the promotion’s record for most submission wins on a card. It is always good to be reminded that cards which are short big-name matches can still provide incredible entertainment.
Today I would like to talk about three fights which took place last night, Fabricio Werdum vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Thiago Silva vs. Rafael Feijao from UFC on Fuel 10, and MamedKhalidov vs. Melvin Manhoef from KSW 23.
These matches provide wonderful examples of several different principles in combat sports, and I hope you will join me in appreciating them.
Fabricio Werdum vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
I spoke in the lead up to this fight about Werdum’s improved kicking and love of the collar tie vs. Big Nog‘s new “clinch against the fence” style. I believed that much of the match would come down to Nogueira’s ability to take Werdum to the fence.
I have previously criticized Werdum’s ringcraft, as he routinely fights just a foot or so from the fence on the feet, and I shall not be changing my view of that today, as he did exactly the same thing against Nogueira. The main issue was that unless an opponent has Stefan Struve levels of obliviousness to where he is in the cage, he is not going to run right onto the fence.
Instead it is up to the aggressor, in this case this was Nogueira, to rush the fighter who is along the fence and close the distance between himself and the fence, while keeping his opponent in between. Nogueira just looked too slow and tentative to do anything about it most of the time and let Werdum move around half of the octagon along the fence.
Nogueira attempted to get in with his jab over and over but just as often got caught with a punch or a hard inside low kick. When he did close the distance, he often did it too slowly and head first, allowing Werdum to grab the back of Nog‘s head and use his forearms to keep separation between them in a double collar tie.
Nogueira did eventually get to his favourite position: against the fence with an underhook, his head underneath Werdum’s and working to free his other hand in order land slapping punches to the head and body.
However, Nog just isn’t a great wrestler and Werdum has been working on his own wrestling constantly, allowing him to shift his hips out and escape or work for a single or double collar tie after very brief periods of clinch fighting.
The ground work in the early going of the fight was extremely entertaining as Nogueira kept fighting back to his half guard and working to get under Werdum (something which he did remarkably well in their first bout), but Werdum had the good sense to use his top position from an MMA perspective rather than a grappling one and hammered Nog with some good strikes.
What marked the end of the bout for Nogueira, however, was a tactical decision with his grappling which is almost equivalent to poor ring craft in the stand up portion of the fight.
First, Werdum baited Nogueira into overcommitting on his clinch strikes, then turned Nogueira and threatened the takedown. This caused Nogueira to drop for the guillotine and give up top position to the younger, slicker grappler.
Werdum, with his back to the fence, gripped Nogueira’s punching hand and as Nogueira broke free and threw a punch, Werdum used the opportunity to secure an underhook on that side. From here, he turned Nogueira onto the fence and ducked down onto a single-leg attempt.
Smart stuff to bait Nogueira into opening himself up with the punch. From here Nogueira, obviously pressured by the threat of the takedown, fell back into a guillotine which Werdum briefly turned to his side to escape, then came up on top in Nogueira’s guard. Moments later, he was on Nogueira’s back and moving to lock in the fight-finishing armbar.
Grabbing a guillotine and jumping guard, particularly with arm-in guillotines, just doesn’t work very well against the elite grapplers in MMA. Alan Belcher recently threw away a decision win to world-class blanket YushinOkami by jumping guard with a guillotine and giving away a round on two separate occasions.
Nogueira famously threw away a win over the turtled and hurt Frank Mir by jumping on a guillotine attempt and flopping to his back, giving Mir top position.
Against Werdum, Nog didn’t lose so immediately that we can entirely blame the guillotine attempt, but it seems like Nogueira gave away a move to the ground that favoured Fabricio in hopes of finishing what is ultimately a low-percentage submission for most fighters.
Obviously, it is commendable that these fighters are attempting to finish fights and stay active when otherwise they will just be attempting to fight their way off the fence and defend takedowns, but against good or better grapplers (and Werdum is one of the best in the world), it is often the case that if the submission fails, the guillotine-attempting fighter will lose himself the round and possibly the fight.
Risky guillotine aside, Nogueira is not nearly as durable as he once was, and incremental improvements in punching power and wrestling aren’t going to stop him from getting hurt or losing. Nog looked sluggish on the feet and struggled to even get to the clinch where he has been staying safe in his last few bouts.
It would not be a great shame for Nogueira to accept that he is one of the best MMA fighters ever and to retire to focus on training his many great students.
Thiago Silva vs Rafael Feijao
Rafael Feijao is an interesting fighter but ultimately a very limited one. He has a hard right hand and can stuff takedowns well, as well as a good right low kick, but that’s about it.
He can put decent power in his other strikes but he just isn’t all that practised or scientific in landing them. Against Silva, he simply came forward with the same jab-to-overhand-right combination again and again. He ducked out nicely afterwards and avoided many counter blows but ultimately achieved very little with his predictable attacks.
What Feijao offered was the perfect fight for Thiago Silva. Silva is a good banger with both hands who is pretty good at avoiding punches in the pocket. He doesn’t do a great job cutting off the cage and gets frustrated extremely easily. This is how LyotoMachida and Alexander Gustaffson had such great success against Silva while Keith Jardine ended the night staring at the stadium ceiling.
Whenever an opponent retreats more than once, Silva throws his arms out then rushes in with his chin out in front of him and nothing to stop his opponent from punching him as he comes in.
When his opponent obliges him with a brawl, however, he can work his great counter left hook, heavy right hand and decent jab. Silva’s jab worked well against Feijao, who ended up getting battered against the cage.
The final punch of the flurry was a right hook which sailed between Feijao‘s forearms. While Silva achieved this by muscling Feijao to his side with punches, it can be achieved more readily with a leap to the side a la the great Mike Tyson.
Pat Barry’s knockout of Shane Del Rosario came off an almost identical hook which entered from in front of his opponent rather than the side.GIF of the Barry knockout here.
I often don’t get chance to talk about promotions outside of the UFC, but I thought I’d sneak this in here. If you get the chance, watch Khalidov vs. Manhoef from KSW, because it was a good tactical showing by Khalidov.
Melvin Manhoef is not bad at sprawling. He is ridiculously strong and explosive, and he has sprawled on takedown attempts from decent wrestlers before. What Khalidov did was to make his job much, much easier by using kicks to set up his takedown attempts.
I previously spoke about how I enjoyed the young Chris Weidman’s use of high kicks to stand Mark Munoz up and then shoot in for Munoz’s hips with great success. Khalidov did much the same thing in using his kicks and punches to trouble Manhoef, who was clearly expecting to have to sprawl from the get go.
Using kicks to set up his shot, Khalidov got Manhoef down for a split second then switched to a guillotine as soon as Manhoef was working his way up. This wasn’t Manhoef‘s weak submission defence, this was an excellent example of mixing it all together by an up-and-coming fighter from the new generation.
Pick up Jack’s ebooks Advanced Striking and Elementary Striking at his blog, Fights Gone By.
At UFC on Fuel 10, two of the best submission artists in the history of the heavyweight division met, but ultimately, it was Fabricio Werdum who came away with the victory.Facing former Pride champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in a rematch from a fight …
At UFC on Fuel 10, two of the best submission artists in the history of the heavyweight division met, but ultimately, it was Fabricio Werdum who came away with the victory.
Facing former Pride champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in a rematch from a fight the pair had all the way back in 2006, Werdum was crafty with his attacks and ultimately put away his old foe with a slick armbar submission.
It’s never easy to catch a submission on a fighter as skilled as Nogueira, but Werdum had no problem taking the fight to the mat and looking to put him away on the ground.
Werdum’s slick submission put Nogueira away in the second round—marking only the second time in his career that Nogueira has been finished on the ground.
Following the fight, undefeated UFC lightweight Myles Jury took to the training room to break down the footage of what happened in the fight between Werdum and Nogueira.
In this step-by-step video, Jury walks through exactly what Werdum did right to catch Nogueira’s arm and put him away.
If you tuned into UFC on Fuel 10 on Saturday night, you got to hear Bruce Buffer call out “and the winner by submission” multiple times over the course of the event. In fact, all but four fights on the card ended via some form of submission. …
If you tuned into UFC on Fuel 10 on Saturday night, you got to hear Bruce Buffer call out “and the winner by submission” multiple times over the course of the event.
In fact, all but four fights on the card ended via some form of submission. The two bouts headlining the Brazil fight card did not deviate from that pattern, but the light heavyweight scrap that preceded the co-main event sure did.
Thiago Silva and Rafael Cavalcante both possess black belts in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but neither fighter showed any interest in showcasing their ground skills on Saturday night. Instead, it looked like their only focus was ending the fight with one punch—something that Silva accomplished when he blasted Cavalcante with an uppercut, putting the seemingly gassed former Strikeforce champion down and out in the first round.
Leonardo Santos took home The Ultimate Fighter Brazil: 2 title when he earned a second-round tapout victory over William Macario. Santos, fighting out of Nova Uniao, then leapt from the Octagon in search of teammate, UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo. When Santos found Aldo in the crowd, the two embraced in celebration before Santos returned to the Octagon to have his hand raised in victory.
The main event, somewhat surprisingly, did end in submission. The thinking heading into this fight was that Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts Fabricio Werdum and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira would be reluctant to take the fight to the ground. Each man knew what the other could accomplish on the mat.
When the fight began, Nogueira wanted to keep the fight standing, but Werdum, the world jiu-jitsu champion, did not. Werdum’s takedowns decided that the fight was going to the mat, where he was able to verbally submit Nogueira.
Check out the video highlights for the three fights that headlined UFC on Fuel 10.
