Chael Sonnen's grappling

[brianX]

Two points:

(1) He's arguably the best MMA wrestler in the game. He works angles off his shot like nobody else, and while he doesn't have the power of a GSP or a Kos, he makes his opponents look like they're falling down.

(2) His top game is great for GNP, but Filho will armbar him again. On a much lower level, I play the same armbar-bait game that he plays, and it's usually effective. Unless it isn't. Every time he baits the armbar or triangle to take a shot, there's a 10% he'll get caught: that he'll miss that last half inch when he tries to pull out. (For this reason, I think he'd do well to train with a gi.) Against a Brian Baker, it's a 1% chance, but that's the problem with that game: when you hit a truly vicious armbar attempt, you have a false sense of security, game over.

I love to watch the guy roll, though.

 

[FLMikeATT]

He looked awesome tonight. He took down the other guy at will even though the other guy is a good wrestler himself. His transitions and guard passing looked pretty slick. Nice GnP, sub avoidance, guard passing, control, etc. The only thing he didn't do was lock up a sub. That will come with time, but he completely schooled the guy on the ground for 3 rounds.

I can't wait for the rematch with Filho.

 

[TallguyBJJ]

is was a dominating performance ref scores were silly 30-26 and 30-25 times 2 just a beat down by Chael. He avoided the sub attempts like they were nothing and just beat him down and dominated position for the whole 15min.

 

[Chonbody]

Just my thoughts: It's a shame he has the personality of an eggplant, but his TDs are amazing, I believe it's world class and wouldn't be surprised if he takes down his stablemate Dan Hendo all the time from the shoot.