1) Bill Morosetti vs. Reggie Parks: Amateur welterweight fight. Parks I've seen twice before easily dominating guys. How will he do here?
FIGHT: Morosetti Submission Rnd 2 (0)
Morosetti: There's a lot of guys like this out there - the archetype is perhaps Travis Lutter. You get fighters that are pretty good on the mat but not really great wrestlers. They don't really show you anything on the feet in fights like this either, so who knows what they can do when a fight doesn't get to the mat in the way they want? Parks wasn't prepared to really stop submissions from a guy who can transition between things like Morosetti.
Parks: Didn't really do anything here aside from escape from a submission early and end up on top getting mostly neutralized.
2) John Hawk vs. Doug Sparks: I've seen Hawk before - can't say I was impressed. Sparks? Who?
FIGHT: Sparks Submission Rnd 3.
Sparks: In Doug Sparks' rather unknown record, he's 12-2 as an amateur, having lost to the two best fighters he's faced (Bellator vet Josh Martin and KOTC title challanger Anthony Lapsley). As a pro, he was a mere 1-0 entering this fight against the undefeated former heavyweight Hawk. The men Sparks has typically faced are welterweights and middleweights, and his physical appearance makes it clear that he too is naturally somewhere in the 180lb range as a competitor. Maybe smaller. So what can he do against a much larger man with such a glitzy record when he is so much shorter and so soft?
Well, 30 seconds in Sparks scores a double leg takedown and ends up taking the back of Hawk. This is a fight that is athleticism and size against skill and technique. In the case of this bout, technique triumphs. He takes Hawk's back in every round and while he loses the position twice looking for an armbar on both occasions, he does minimize strikes from Hawk and goes for a number of submission attempts as well as sweeps. Hawk tires in round 3 and Sparks gets a takedown that leads into the rear naked choke finish that comes with a mere 8 seconds remaining. In the post fight interview, Sparks thanks teammates who have cancer, training partners, and the Noid. In short, Sparks rules and is a hero to the sport.
Hawk: Hawk has more of that physically drawn, flabby but oddly solid and concave look that Tim Sylvia has. He is strong and proves capable of escaping a few submissions, but his ability to fight off his back is practically nonexistent and seems to be predicated on giving up his back and hopefully shrugging the man on it off before he taps him. His ground and pound is as slow and ponderous as it was in his heavyweight title fight, and his striking on the mat isn't very good either. He seems to daze Sparks with a punch in the clinch at the end of the second that drops him and is the most meaningful piece of standup in the contest, but it doesn't amount to much and he doesn't dare go after the man on the mat in fear of getting submitted. (1)
OVERALL FOR THE SHOW: 6 out of 10. I don't think you're gonna see anything outrageous here skill or fightwise. But what you do see is the rise of MMA's next great cult figure (imo of course).
No comments:
Post a Comment