Ultimate Fight Night 12

Nate Diaz vs. Alvin Robinson
Originally posted to Wider-Vision on January 10th.


Robinson successfully fought off Jorge Gurgel (Rich Franklin's BJJ
coach) for nearly the entire 1st round. He managed to take Gurgel down
and hold him down nearly the entire round, without getting in any sub
danger. He then managed to take Gurgel down in the second, and ride him
for most of the following 5 minutes, and draining Gurgel's gas tank for a
repeat performance in the third. The Gurgel fight is very, very relevant
because Gurgel's greatest strength (and only one he displayed in that
fight) was BJJ. And Ceasar Gracie JJ is pretty much Diaz' only dangerous
weapon.



Given that, Robinson should be able to hold off Diaz' submission
attempts for three rounds. Given Diaz' small stature, and Robinson's
much larger stature, a Diaz KO seems unlikely. Diaz' only KO's have come
between 2 fighters with 8 fights and only 1 win between them. Which
leads to the question, can he keep Robinson down for 2 rounds out of 3?
He has some great sweeps. The kid knows kimura like Rosie O' Donnell
knows doughnut.



The options:

Diaz by TKO? Nope.

Diaz by sub? Not impossible, but very difficult. Robinson is no
stranger to sub defence.

Diaz by decision? He needs to spend most of 2 rounds of 3 on top.
Gurgel passed his gaurd like a hot knife passes through butter in the
first round of their fight. And Diaz has an incredibly active gaurd. A
few sweeps are definately doable, even if takedowns aren't.



Alvin by TKO? Unlikely. Diaz can take a large amount of punishment,
and Robinson has only 1 KO to his credit.

Alvin by sub? No chance. Diaz' sub defence is waaay too good.

Alvin by decision? This seems the most likely. He has to hold down
a physically weaker fighter, but with a verry active gaurd. This is no
short order.



The hype:

Diaz is the winner of the Ultimate Fighter 5. He was losing in the
final before Manny Gamburian dislocated his own shoulder on a takedown
attempt, but there is no shame in that... Manny has the talent and skills
to be a top 5 Lightweight in the UFC... if he can find a way to keep his
shoulder in place. (It is a recurring injury)



Robinson has two fights in the UFC, one of them a first round KO to
LW top 5 fighter Kenny Florian. This KO is not helping his public
perception. But then, Diaz is no Florian.



I give this fight 55/45 to Robinson. With our 5% margin for error,
and the current line of +151 for Robinson, (40% win rate) gives us a 10%
advantage. 10% = 2 units.



If there is a Over/Under bet on time, we will soooooooo be jumping on
the over/decision bet. I think the decision bet is good to -200, the
over half of rnd 2 bet good to -300.



Bet 1.32 units to win 2 units on Alvin Robinson




The rest of my picks for this event (There are more) can be found here

UFC 80

BJ Penn vs. Joe Stevenson

Originally posted to Jan 10, 2008 @ http://www.wider-vision.com/sports/mma




The major strength of BJ's game is his circus contortionist flexibility. He does the splits to defend single leg
takedowns. He can bring his legs up to his head without pulling them. He creates all sorts of situations on the
ground that fighters simply don't see. Randy Couture (#1 or #2 heavyweight in the world) has trained a couple of weeks
with BJ, and said he has a very hard time taking him down, and cannot keep him there.



Joe seems to pick up the majority of his wins via submission. Joe's ground game from the bottom seems to consist
mostly of a very strong left-side guillotine choke. Joe seems very willing to pull gaurd and go to his back on
purpose, if it means he can get a guillotine attempt in. He may get away with this on lesser fighters, but to say BJ
is unlikely to get caught in a guillotine is a bit of an understatement. (Does BJ even try double-leg takedowns?)
If Joe pulls a guillotine/gaurd, he can expect to spend the rest of the round on his back, assuming he doesn't get
tapped out.



The Hype: BJ is back! BJ is back! He's re-dedicated himself to training! Right. I'll believe that
when I see it. In the Pulver fight, he wasn't the ripped, low body fat BJ from his earlier lightweight days. Even at
155, he was still carrying a lot of "puppy fat". (I'm saying puppy, and he's my age. I guess some people age better
than others.) His apparent strength advantage on Pulver came more from the fact that he was fighting a
featherweight... not a lightweight. And that was the fight was one of those "This time... it's personal" affairs.



Show me a picture of BJ on a treadmill with a time stamp reading more than 10 minutes on it, and maybe I'll be
convinced. Until then, I'm not holding my admittedly shallow breath. Unfortunately, this is not translating into a
betting line advantage. It is well known that BJ's conditioning simply isn't up to snuff.



The Reality:I think Stevenson is in for some big problems. Here's why:

The reason BJJ has become such a non-force at the highest levels of MMA now is because all of the top fighters are
now very well versed in submission defence, at the very least. Most are also BJJ black belts, or Gracie purple/brown
belts. And they all train BJJ defence every day. But there in lies the problem. They can only train against the BJJ
of the other guys in their camp. The ONLY way to train against circus contortionist BJJ is to train against BJ.
There is NO ONE else that brings his style of Jiu-Jitsu to the table.



While I don't think Joe Daddy has the hands, takedown or ground skills to finish BJ, I also don't think BJ has the
conditioning to win 5 rounds. If BJ doesn't get a tapout or a TKO in the first three rounds, he had better win them
all, because he's probably not going to have much left for rounds 4 or 5. Don't get me wrong...I love BJ. He's laid
back, relaxed, super-talented, likes to party it up, and seems like an all-around fun guy to hang around. But we have
to be objective. 25 mintues is a full week worth of cardio for BJ.



I give this fight to BJ 75% of the time. Given the current Pinnacle odds of -262 on BJ, (72% BJ) and my 5%
margin for error, that makes the fight a no play.