
Originally Posted by
MMAbetMASTA
This is what I posted in the other thread, in case you guys don't chekc that out.. Would love to hear your thoughts so that I can get more insight for my potential plays:
Kim impressed with his stand up against pierson (and really, in other fights outside of getting blasted away by condit or the last round against nate, he's done pretty darn well in the stand up department in most matches), so I think I would give him the edge in a prolonged stand up fight, which I INITIALLY thought the match would be - a stand up fight...
Like many i expected this fight to stay up because I thought maia for one, might not have the ground game approach in his mind and would choose to slug it out as he has against fellow grapplers of late, and two, Kim's base seems pretty solid and if it were to hit the ground I think it would be kim taking maia down, I initially thought kim would be able to stuff maia assumng maia even went for tds....
HOWEVER, after doing some more thorough research there are some things that have scared me now.
Brown was able to take kim down a few times in the 2nd and 3rd, took his back a couple times, and from other fights I've followed up on kim has had his back taken a few times and has been taken down and put in some bad spots (mostly based on his karo and brown fights, and didn't pierson take his back for a moment too as well as diaz? Also the condit sweep from the bottom as someone pointed out?)...
What I'm getting at is maia has underrated tds imo, and after doing some research I am not as sold on kim's base / tdd as I initially was... so now I give maia a better chance to get kim down... Also, I think maia is by far the best positional and sub grappler kim has faced, so if brown and others could put kim down and give him a few tight spots and / or reversals, what's gonna happen if maia is in those spots???
If I knew this could stay on the feet for 3 rounds I would be all over kim, but now that sounds a little easier said than done.
I realize the weight cut and maia's performances as of late might leave some to believe maia is either gonna bang on the feet for 3 rounds and not pursue a td, or is not gonna have the 'pep' or stength he once had to absolutely dominate people on the ground and would not fare well against a battle for position, especially with kim on top... Yet now I'm not so certain. Then again I'm really questioning how maia's cut is gonna be, because it seemed he really muscled up and put on some mass over the courese of his zuffa mw career, and now he is planning to cut a lot of that off??? He was already sluggish at mw and unlike other weight cuts for some fighters, I'm thinking this one might be worse off for maia...?
I was thinking kim was gonna be one of the only 'favorite' palys for me this card (depending on a few other fights I'm hoping to get a decent 'fav' line on), but now I'm not so certain about the paly. If I had decision option at +150 I'd be all over that, but I don't have props so I'm looking at a -135 SU line and now I can't pull the trigger.
Any new thoughts on this fight?? or agreements / disagreements with what I've said??