For someone who supposedly has an elusive style...Thompson gets knocked down a lot

KoreanZawmbie

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Is the karate style not that elusive? Not as effective?
A lot of the offensive and timing moves are great, i.e. Machida KO over Vitor. However, Thompson whos known to evade his opponents strikes, has been knocked down at least once in his last three fights.

Come on bro, is it time to cross train in some boxing? From what I understand he has a kickboxing foundation as well, but its more orientated towards karate than it is boxing.
 
I have no idea why but I was thinking about the KD against Woodley towards the end, then Till got the KD.
 
His boxing instincts aren't great, if you can close the distance you can land on him. But he has very good counters so you gotta be willing to eat one to land one.


P.S: There's absolutely no shame in getting dropped by Woodley
 
No style is perfect, at least Thompson isn't trying to cut to lightweight to fight smaller opponents.
 
His boxing is pretty weak, he's just has really high level footwork
 
Lol @ a lot

Like 3 times ever in his UFC career.
 
His boxing instincts aren't great, if you can close the distance you can land on him. But he has very good counters so you gotta be willing to eat one to land one.


P.S: There's absolutely no shame in getting dropped by Woodley

His right hand counter is pretty slick but when the other guy doesn't move forward and commit he is not great at leading.
 
His right hand counter is pretty slick but when the other guy doesn't move forward and commit he is not great at leading.
His only ability to really lead is when he blitzes, and when he did he got the better of Till more often than not. He either knocked his head back a bit, or got a bit more octagon control to keep off the cage. Till adjusted well mid fight by using his guard to negate the forward pressure of WB.
 
Ellenberger also dropped him. Can't remember if Brown did but I'm pretty sure he rocked him.
 
Woodley and Till are both high level strikers and have a lot of power behind their punches. So no big deal.
 
It wouldn't hurt to practice boxing for sure. He gets awkward when his back is against the cage.
He could use the stabbing front-kick that Conor & Lawler throw too. He doesn't have much to throw straight except that right.
His jab either sucks or is under-utilized too.
 
Well the bigger issue is that he doesn't have the chin to take a big shot, but he recovers well.

His karate stance has defensive weakness as well. A wider stance is less mobile than a narrow boxing stance, and if he cannot get out of range he lacks the ability to weave against punches like hooks, which is what Woodley caught him with in knocking him down in both of their fights together.

Till also uses the wide stance, but he supplements his close range striking with the clinch and elbows and such.
 
Most TMAs are notorious for being offense oriented and poor at defense.
 
When his back is against the cage and the opponent cuts off his lateral movement, he tends to freeze up a bit.

Also, this is just a theory of mine and not a fact by any means, I think his footwork of bouncing in and out as well as side to side means he never really has a solid foundation when he does get hit which tends to lead to more flash knockdowns. I think it has more to do with him being off balance when he gets hit rather than really hurt, again just a theory of mine tho I would have to watch his knockdowns closely to confirm this which I haven't done.
 
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