Quote:
Originally Posted by mineistaken
^ So we all should put money on Holm in case of rematch and become rich?  |
A fight is a fight... anything can happen. It's about probability and the skills/habits which influence a particular outcomes probability.
Holm in my view didn't show much against Pennington and I thought she was going to get crushed against Rousey. The last fight showed what she is capable of against raw aggression and someone that can put her down and submit her with extreme prejudice. She handled it very well... so then, how is Rhonda going to improve on 20 years of world class Judo/BJJ in 6 months? There just isn't much further to go for her. Even if there is, if she can't get Holm down, then its irrelevant. Her likely choice will be a bad choice (as commonly happens)... to work on new things which won't help her as it just takes a great deal of time to improve in a meaningful way and where the skill and expertise gap between the two of them in terms of striking is too large.
The probability of Rousey having an effective answer for Holm and her world class striking, movement, footwork, countering etc in say, a 6 month period is near zero. Holm's striking is great and will also improve and be sharpened in this time.
The probability of Holm improving her take down defense, scrambling/escaping and submission defense in the next 6 months or whatever time period there will be, is huge. It's something she's decent at, but its never been her primary skill. She has massive room for growth in something she's already quite decent at.
This fight again highlights a very flawed idea in MMA and that's said like a fucking mantra all the time and which drives me crazy... "controlling the center of the octagon". The idea being that you don't want to back backed into the cage and taken down. Just as Dillashaw did with Barrao (sp?) - you don't want ot be in the center if you have great footwork.If you have great footwork, you won't get backed into the cage anyway. If you are in the center without great footwork... you end up rotating in a circle as a target, always a 1/2 beat behind the person thats on the outside forcing you to keep turning as they attack and back out a 90 degree angle, then attack again as the person in the center keeps attempting to adjust to the persons position of the person on the outside.