Maia Prayer Vigil

Not really, look at when Yair had Edgar in a pseudo 50/50 position going for the knee bar, and Yair doesn't have high level BJJ. Edgar was stuck. Once you have the leg, you rotate back to neutral, and you're no longer on bottom. Woodley would be clueless in 50/50 or especially inside senkaku. From their it's reverse heel hook time.
I pm'd Maia. He sent me this:

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Maia's gameplan for Woodley should be leg locks. Pull half guard or guard or whatever, invert grab the leg, and pull it into ashi garami/inside senkaku/50/50, then heel hook from hell.

hes not a leg locker and will never be.

I have a feeling that maia has an easier time with Tyron than with jorge.

Masvidal has more weapons, Twood is got a hell of a right hand, but he likes to fight against the fance, jorge did not accept this and was taking the center of the octagon, plus, dude is fast as fuck. If demian grabs a hold of tyrons leg, hes going down.

I believe maia has a very good shot, Tyron should still be the heavy favorite, but I sincerly believe maia can pull this off...
 
hes not a leg locker and will never be.

I have a feeling that maia has an easier time with Tyron than with jorge.

Masvidal has more weapons, Twood is got a hell of a right hand, but he likes to fight against the fance, jorge did not accept this and was taking the center of the octagon, plus, dude is fast as fuck. If demian grabs a hold of tyrons leg, hes going down.

I believe maia has a very good shot, Tyron should still be the heavy favorite, but I sincerly believe maia can pull this off...

Agreed 100%, especially about Woodley accepting fighting off the fence.
 
Masvidal did a great job defending. Bit still I couldn't believe the judge that gave him the nod. That was a clear UD in my view.

Does anyone remember the video JT Torres did here on sherdog of how he likes to finish the RNC? When you're on the back of a standing opponent it's good to keep the body triangle but I think maia could do more on the ground, using his legs to catch an arm, like BJ Penn did to Florian.
Could you please find that JT Torres video? You got me curious.
 
hes not a leg locker and will never be.

I have a feeling that maia has an easier time with Tyron than with jorge.

Masvidal has more weapons, Twood is got a hell of a right hand, but he likes to fight against the fance, jorge did not accept this and was taking the center of the octagon, plus, dude is fast as fuck. If demian grabs a hold of tyrons leg, hes going down.

I believe maia has a very good shot, Tyron should still be the heavy favorite, but I sincerly believe maia can pull this off...

That's my read of the fight as well. Woodley could certainly end it with one punch at any time, but he's not got the distance management skills of Masvidal and that's what made that fight terribly hard for Maia. TW will back up to the fence looking to counter, but Maia won't strike against the fence, he'll just get in on his hips and drag him to the ground. I like the Tyron fight a lot more for Demain that I did the Masvidal one, IMO Jorge was one of the most dangerous guys in the division for Maia (and it showed, it's not like he dominated that fight).
 
That's my read of the fight as well. Woodley could certainly end it with one punch at any time, but he's not got the distance management skills of Masvidal and that's what made that fight terribly hard for Maia. TW will back up to the fence looking to counter, but Maia won't strike against the fence, he'll just get in on his hips and drag him to the ground. I like the Tyron fight a lot more for Demain that I did the Masvidal one, IMO Jorge was one of the most dangerous guys in the division for Maia (and it showed, it's not like he dominated that fight).

Also masvidal has a weird build, his legs are short and very hard to grab on...
 
That's my read of the fight as well. Woodley could certainly end it with one punch at any time, but he's not got the distance management skills of Masvidal and that's what made that fight terribly hard for Maia. TW will back up to the fence looking to counter, but Maia won't strike against the fence, he'll just get in on his hips and drag him to the ground. I like the Tyron fight a lot more for Demain that I did the Masvidal one, IMO Jorge was one of the most dangerous guys in the division for Maia (and it showed, it's not like he dominated that fight).

I doubt Woodley is going to back up to the fence. That was a one time deal against Wonderboy.

I think we are going to have Woodley take center stage and throw bombs. He's not stupid. He does enough private and public analysis to know that people who back up to the cage with Maia get chain wrestled down. He also knows that if he engages in his strength (wrestle bullying) Maia will drown him.

I see Woodley trying to mimic Masvidal...and failing more quickly.
 
I doubt Woodley is going to back up to the fence. That was a one time deal against Wonderboy.

I think we are going to have Woodley take center stage and throw bombs. He's not stupid. He does enough private and public analysis to know that people who back up to the cage with Maia get chain wrestled down. He also knows that if he engages in his strength (wrestle bullying) Maia will drown him.

I see Woodley trying to mimic Masvidal...and failing more quickly.

Woodley almost always backs up to the fence. It's not a new thing. He may not do it against Maia, but it wouldn't surprise me if he did.

The other subtext of this fight is the tendency of both guys to gas, or at least have to conserve energy so they don't gas. It could very well end up being a pretty slow affair for that reason.
 
Woodley almost always backs up to the fence. It's not a new thing. He may not do it against Maia, but it wouldn't surprise me if he did.

The other subtext of this fight is the tendency of both guys to gas, or at least have to conserve energy so they don't gas. It could very well end up being a pretty slow affair for that reason.

I tend to think this will hurt Woodley worse. Maia will probably get a sweep fairly early and Woodley's energy will just burn like crazy defending and trying to explode.

Maia's got this. His unique mixing of takedowns with guard pulling directly into sweeps will be a nightmare to deal with. The way he's constantly moving in half guard and transitioning from sweep threat to single leg to deep half etc is glorious to watch. I think my half guard has actually improved just from watching him.
 
I tend to think this will hurt Woodley worse. Maia will probably get a sweep fairly early and Woodley's energy will just burn like crazy defending and trying to explode.

Maia's got this. His unique mixing of takedowns with guard pulling directly into sweeps will be a nightmare to deal with. The way he's constantly moving in half guard and transitioning from sweep threat to single leg to deep half etc is glorious to watch. I think my half guard has actually improved just from watching him.

I was super impressed by his ability to go back and forth between half and a single. Masvidal had no answer for it. It's pretty hard to defend a takedown when you stuff a guy clean and he doesn't really care as long as he can pull guard off of it and take you down anyway. Once Maia realized he wasn't going to get a clean shot off and went to the (more or less) extended guard pull he had great success.
 
hes not a leg locker and will never be.

I have a feeling that maia has an easier time with Tyron than with jorge.

Masvidal has more weapons, Twood is got a hell of a right hand, but he likes to fight against the fance, jorge did not accept this and was taking the center of the octagon, plus, dude is fast as fuck. If demian grabs a hold of tyrons leg, hes going down.

I believe maia has a very good shot, Tyron should still be the heavy favorite, but I sincerly believe maia can pull this off...
With what we finally agree!

I don't think Woodley has the depth of skill to stop Maia from the first or second TD.

Once he's down he's done, maybe slow but he's done.

Oh and Masvidal with those high head kicks was what I was saying to be tactically suicidal. I know that didn't lead to TD's, but just thinking about that before he's lunging to protect himselff for faints down low from previous damage was stupid. Legs and ribs but keep the center of balance low and stable for the inevitable shoot...
 
The other subtext of this fight is the tendency of both guys to gas, or at least have to conserve energy so they don't gas. It could very well end up being a pretty slow affair for that reason.
Woodley very likely has a worse tank than Maia's. We shall see how active Demian will be over a 25 min fight, but even if it's a total of 10 min that's legit 8 min more than TWood's average.
And if Tyron ends up on the bottom or backpacked he's gonna gas massively, imo.
 
Not really, look at when Yair had Edgar in a pseudo 50/50 position going for the knee bar, and Yair doesn't have high level BJJ. Edgar was stuck. Once you have the leg, you rotate back to neutral, and you're no longer on bottom. Woodley would be clueless in 50/50 or especially inside senkaku. From their it's reverse heel hook time.


Leg entanglements are certainly effective but at this point in his career Maia should focus on his strongest weapons and the tools that got him to the big time.

His biggest advantage is the fact that his primary takedown and primary sweep is pretty much the same technique, which affords a comparative 'multiplication' of the amount of potential training time you can invest into it.

If i had to throw any stones about the fight, its that he should invest more in keeping his opponents broken down face down flat on the mat while attacking their back; Jorge exposed a hole in his game by just standing up and holding him up against the cage, avoiding taking pretty much any punishment until he eventually escaped, which lead to him being fresher in round two, which went a lot worse for Maia.

On the subject of the Woodley fight, as i've mentioned elsewhere (shitposting in the heavies) i think it is actually a better matchup stylistically for Maia than Masvidal. His striking repertoire is more limited than Masvidal's, and his tendency to let (want) his opponents come to him and 'go first', while effective in taking counterstrikers like Thompson out of their familiar wheelhouse, would just give Maia openings to close the distance fully for grappling exchanges.
 
I agree but he used if effectively against LaFlare to sweep to top position.

dont remember that one though Ive wacthed that fight many times just to see him pass mout pass mount pass mount, will have to watch it once more...
 
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