by LR
8/14/2007 5:54:00 AM
Our last installment of the UFC 74 predictions and analysis will focus on two matchups, Frank Mir vs. Antoni Hardonk and Thales Leites vs. Ryan Jensen. Both of these fights are well down the fight card, and will most likely be left off the Pay-Per-View event unless there is a huge upset, KO, or we have a few main events go one round. It's a shame because at least one of these fights is somewhat interesting to long-time UFC fans.
Frank Mir vs. Antoni Hardonk
Frank Mir, sound familiar? Fight fans will recognize him as the man who sunk in a brutal armbar against Tim Sylvia at UFC 65 and propelled Mir into the UFC Heavyweight Champion role. Two months later, Mir was in a horrible motorcycle accident which he broke his leg in two spots and required major surgery to repair. Andrei Arlovski was promoted to interim heavyweight champion and the date was set for the bout between Mir and Arlovski. Mir was unable to make the date, and was stripped of his belt after 14 months of being out of the UFC due to his injury. Since this unfortunate incident, Mir has dropped two UFC fights, one to a very good fighter in Brandon Vera and another to a relative newcomer in Marcio Cruz. Cruz was his first fight back after his injury, and Mir was visibly not the same fighter. He was cut fairly quickly in the bout and succumbed to strikes at 4:09 in the matchup. Even in Mir's win over Dan Christison, in which he squeaked out a decision, he was visibly out of shape and gassed for half of the match. Many consider Frank Mir to be done in MMA, but he is now coming out at UFC 74 to prove everyone wrong.
Mir's background is Brazilian ju-jitsu and Muay Thai. He holds a black belt in BJJ, and uses it regularly in the Octagon. He also has a vast amount of skills that most big men don't have in the UFC. He has some excellent wrestling skills for body control along with his ju-jitsu, and he also has some striking ability. Most of these skills only supplement his ju-jitsu. A submission artist by trade, Mir has over half of his wins ended by submission. His submission skills are very good, and when he is on his game, he can submit most opponents within the first round. He's definitely a guy that looks for a striker to make mistakes. The only problem recently that Mir has had is that his weight has been looming. He has shown up to fights looking very out of shape, and it showed against Christison. He also has improved his standup, but it isn't up to the caliber as some of the Heavyweight division's best. Vera showed him that at UFC 65. Will we see Frank Mir at his BEST? I think we will see a different fighter and hopefully a slimmed down Frank Mir. He has been training at Randy Couture's camp in Las Vegas, so we shall hopefully see Couture rub off on him.
Antoni Hardonk is no slouch. A native from Holland, he's been training with legendary kickboxing K-1 Champion Ernesto Hoost on his leg strikes. If you want an idea of Hoost's power, he would literally break opponent's forearms when they blocked his kicks, that's how powerful his technique was. Hardonk has shown some glimmers of that type of power with his kicks as well in the ring. Hardonk is coming into this fight with a 5-3 record coming on a decision loss to Justin McCully at UFC Fight Night 9. Hardonk has some very good striking ability, but his main strike is the leg kick. He has shown in numerous fights leading up to the UFC that it can devastate opponents. He has good hands, and a small submission game he has been working into his matchups. Hardonk's best chance is to work the leg kicks on Mir and hope it can cut him down and soften him up for the hands to begin striking. If he can get Mir to start paying attention to the leg kicks, he may have a better chance at catching Mir with a huge punch.
This fight is really a toss up in my mind. A lot of people in the MMA community want to pick Hardonk and say that Mir is done, but which Mir will show up. If Mir shows up lean, and in shape for this fight, his ju-jitsu alone will carry him. Hardonk has zero ground game other than the occassional mount into ground and pound. I think that Mir will utilize Hardonk's kicks by grabbing hold of his legs and taking him down for a submission fight. This fight has great potential for an upset though. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict a late Frank Mir victory in this fight.
Final Prediction: Frank Mir by submission, 3rd round.
Thales Leites vs. Ryan Jensen
Thales Leites is a Brazilian ju-jitsu fighter out of Brazil. He scored a dominated victory over Floyd Sword at TUF Finale 5 in his most recent fight. His current record is 11-1 with the only loss coming at the TUF 4 Finale against Martin Kampmann in an unanimous decision. Some of Thales's highlights can be seen here. Thales's main perogative in a fight is to take you down. He will definitely not stand and strike with an opponent. He has been known to throw the occassional knee or flying knee into the mix to surprise his opponent, but for the most part, Leites wants you on the ground so he can submit you. Leites's ju-jitsu will be hard to deal with in this matchup. He also has excellent body control and can ground and pound with the best of them to set up his submission game.
Leites will be facing newcomer Ryan Jensen, who is also 11-1. He suffered his only loss to former WEC Middleweight Champion Brock Larson. I don't really know a lot about this guy. From the looks of his record and fight history, he has fought in some lower organizations with some relative success. He does have a ridiculous 1st round win percentage. He has beaten all of his opponents in the 1st round except for Larson, impressive by any means. Jensen has also held the Victory Fighting Championships Middleweight Champion belt for about 2 years. This looks like a chance fight for Jensen. Although Jensen has an impressive record, I think Leites is going to be a tough test for him. Larson was able to dominate Jensen in 1:39 by ground strikes. Most likely, he was able to get body control and pound him out. I think that this is what Leites goal will be for this bout. Jensen may be keen enough to stay away from Leites's submission, but I will go out on a limb and predict a submission win by Leites.
Final Prediction: Thales Leites, 1st round submission victory.
Alberto Crane Update
Also, a small reference for the faithful. In doing some research on Alberto Crane, I found that this guy actually submitted a guy in :28 seconds by omoplata. I had a flashback of Nick Diaz vs. Takanori Gomi for a second when I read that. Pretty damn impressive. I really can't believe I looked over that, it doesn't mean a whole lot, but it shows he's willing to go for those awkward submissions. That says a lot for his ju-jitsu.