Grapplers that think they can Strike

[skombolis]

he's KOed fitch and kampmann - fitch has no striking and kampmann's was adequate at best.

TS has a point, thompson is an elite striker and no grappling based fighter should be tangling with him on the feet for any length of time.

hendricks could train the rest of his life in striking and never be close to thompson's level. some of it is natural skill and / or physical gifts - that and thompson just has too much of a head start.

fighters like hendricks, maia, GSP even is to get the striking to a level where they can hold their own striking and avoid getting KOed, and use it to set up the ground game.

these guys get into trouble when they start convincing themselves that they are elite strikers themselves. K1 hughes is never a good idea long term.

I agree someone like Hendrix needs to try to grapple Wonderboy. But to stand toe-to-toe with Robbie like he did and the power he has definitely gives him the ability to strike with some good strikers. And I do think he wanted to grapple with Wonderboy but just wasn't able to.

My point was basically there is nothing wrong with grapplers wanting to strike in a lot of cases. They need to round out their game. But when going against an elite and versatile striker like Wonderboy then Hendrix needs to know his limits and i think he did. It just is hard to get in on Thompson. I don't think he was trying to stand and trade because he was too cocky about his striking, I just think Thompson just forced him out of his game.