I don’t necessarily think they are too far apart skill wise from each other. What my main concern for garbrandt is that he is very explosive and his style of fighting really seems to take a toll on his cardio, along with actually having worse cardio than tj as well.
For Tj:
-Smart pressure to get garbrandt working and tired. Lots of feints and kicks to keep him on his toes like the first fight, but more patient.
-Basically the same exact thing
For Cody it would be:
- Counter Tj’s kicks. Let tj throw his kicks at first, but he needs to be punished or at least feel a little hesitant so he doesn’t just freely throw kicks. Cody countered one leg kick tj threw but the body and head kicks were simply blocked or completely dodged using footwork, allowing TJ to throw them with no set up and no fear of repercusion
-Punch to the body. This will set up the headshots while simultaneously slowing tj down. Cody gets noticeably slower as the fight goes on, so he needs something to keep them on an even playing field in the later rounds.
-Stand his ground. This goes back to the first point of not allowing tj to do whatever the fuck he wants. Against Cruz it was all good to sit back and pace yourself because Cruz can’t lead like Tj can. Tj will slowly pick you apart if you allow him to pressure you and that’s something Cody can’t allow to happen. It needs to be a better balance of pacing himself yet letting tj know he’s going to engage with heat if you try him
What was weird was that even though TJ got floored at the end of the first, it was Cody who was noticeably less sharp by the second round. I don’t know if it was because he was out of shape, super excited that he knocked tj down, or a combination of both, but that looked really bad in my eyes.
In my opinion this fight really just comes down to conditioning and if Cody has improved his conditioning to keep up with TJ who just got a new S&C coach. So we know tj is gonna come in the best shape of his life.
But Cody can KO him early, because we have seen from the first fight that TJ is very aggressive and willing to get hit, and Cody has the power to knock anyone at 135 out. He’s also the fastest starter in the division with how many first round KO’s. I fully expect Cody to win the first round unless he completely shits the bed.