hrmmmm on both
i was eyeing niinimaki's debut.. but his game is centered on his td's, which are pretty awesome... does he really wanna grapple with yahya!?
man idk what to do here.
not sure on maynard +100, either. that price would've been dreamy a couple years ago. maybe not even a couple years ago. right now, idk.
This whole card fucking suuuuuuuuuuuucks!!!!!!! Like seriously, it looks like a Legacy Fighting Championship card on HDNet Fights. I mean, remove Diaz/Maynard and you essentially have a Legacy FC event. I'm a super hardcore MMA geek & follow even the most obscure of MMA events so I recognize most fighters; however, some of the names on this card are even vague to me.
Nate Diaz vs. Gray Maynard
TBA vs. TBA
"TUF 18" men's tournament final
TBA vs. TBA
"TUF 18" women's tournament final
Walter Harris vs. Jared Rosholt
Maximo Blanco vs. Akira Corassani
Tom Niinimaki vs. Rani Yahya
Drew Dober vs. Sean Spencer
Ryan Benoit vs. Joshua Sampo
What's worse, the betting aspect of it sucks more than the card itself.
Akira +200 is nice. He looked improved in his last fight, and surprised a lot of people who thought he was still a scrub. He took shots from the hard hitting Robbie Peralta, and Blanco hasn't finished anyone since he fought in Japan in 2010.
As for Maynard, he's been overrated for years imo. The trilogy vs. Edgar made him a household name. Till this day, people still overrate his power and think he's some good boxer, when he barely has any finished and still gases in the 2nd round. No matter how good his physique has looked, the team he's been on, or the hair cut he's decided to go with, he's still the same old Gray that hasn't improved much inside the octagon (where it matters).
Agree w/ Maynard being vastly overrated, from KO'ing himself vs. Emerson to having his ONLY finish in 12 UFC fights come against the vaunted attack of Joe Veres, dude is just overrated. Entering the UFC his early fights were predominantly lay and pray exhibitions and when he fought Frankie he was just so much larger of a man that he was able to bully around the smaller guy making him look impressive. It was not as if his boxing was great, but his punches had so much more impact on them it appeared as such. It looked like a WW fighting a BW & Gray was just knocking Frankie around with each shot. To use a metaphor it was akin to them fighting inside a pinball-machine. The Octagon was the pinball machine, Gray was the flippers, and Frankie was the pinball.
Gray has very little skill to offer the fight game. Essentially, he your prototypical wrestle-boxer from the early 2000s w/ very little evolution. Primarily, Gray is a bigger stronger version of Sean Sherk but w/ worse cardio. Gray, like most great D-1 wrestling champs (even the most one dimensional of them) can be extremely competitive in the sport. However, it looks as if he hit his ceiling in 2011 while other fighters like TJ Grant are still rapidly evolving. Whether Nate has hit his apex is unknown atm, but regardless, his best should be good enough to defeat the Maynard we have today.
