Has Tatiana Suarez lost a step?

fortheo said:
Askren's top game was more proven than Suarez's to be honest. Suarez has faced many good stylistic match ups for her -- mostly strikers or other wrestlers. Nobody with a botton game or submission game worth a damn.
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Just to circle back to this post, Dern hasn't really submitted anybody worth a dam either in her UFC career, certainly not anyone of Tatianas pedigree.
 
Furious77 said:
Yeah my initial point was Tatiana doesn't wrestle anything like Askren.
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I mean yes and no, they use a couple of the same techniques and come from similar bases but it's hard to make direct comparisons across MMA versus WMMA to begin with, especially Welterweight versus Strawweight. I mean Dern and Maia don't fight the same way, either...

I don't think @fortheo meant for it to be that deep, either, so much as he was suggesting that archetypically & narratively the fights were superficially similar because you had "High-Level Folkstyle & Freestyle Olympic Hopeful Wrestler Who Picked up BJJ and then MMA vs. Legendary BJJ World Champion who Transitioned to MMA".

Furious77 said:
Just to circle back to this post, Dern hasn't really submitted anybody worth a dam either in her UFC career, certainly not anyone of Tatianas pedigree.
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It's very true that Dern's submission game hasn't proven to be the "one-shot, one-kill" or "the floor is lava" against recent levels of competition that it was back in the day. However, even when she's not able to close the show she is able to put girls into near fight-ending sequences -- sometimes on multiple occasions across 15-25 minutes. The issue used to be that she basically sells out attempting to get to these positions so if she didn't score the sub the fight was basically lost in an all-or-nothing affair. However, against Hill (fairly low bar to clear, granted) we saw a different mentality where she placed a much higher emphasis on GnP and positional grappling as well as some really aggressive pressure-boxing. The fact that she's able to consistently and even casually reverse girls from bottom is also quite telling, IMO. The sub isn't everything.

Maybe Tatiana's physicality and wrestling base (and I mean heavy, physical base -- not just her pedigree) would allow her to control those positions from top and shut down Mackenzie's active guard in a way other girls haven't been able to do, but it's a dicey prospect.
 
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fortheo said:
Dern's bottom game is also better than her top game in my opinion, but we rarely get to see her on bottom in MMA. That's part of why I want to see that fight. It gives me Askren vs. Maia vibes.
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I think it ends up being a lot more like the GSP vs. Penn rematch than Askren vs. Maia.
 
aerius said:
I think it ends up being a lot more like the GSP vs. Penn rematch than Askren vs. Maia.
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I don't think suarez would be able to lay in Dern's guard for 15 minutes without being caught. I would like to see her attempt it, though.
 
i think she can beat Weili. Weili didn't really impress me when she beat Carla. if Carla can get into grappling tussles with Weili i think Tatiana can too and win those tussles.
 
Tatiana Suarez is awesome. We also both have the same last name... but I am definitely not biased.
 
Her stand up definitely hasn't improved.
 
fortheo said:
I don't think suarez would be able to lay in Dern's guard for 15 minutes without being caught. I would like to see her attempt it, though.
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Only one way to find out. Generally speaking, heavy top pressure wrestlers with good positional control like Suarez have given sub grapplers fits.
 
aerius said:
Only one way to find out. Generally speaking, heavy top pressure wrestlers with good positional control like Suarez have given sub grapplers fits.
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Usually by avoiding following them to the mat and using their wrestling defensively to keep the fight standing, or by timing takedowns with a minute left and do enough to stay safe till the round ends. There really aren't many high level wrestler vs high level BJJ fights that we can compare this one too. Even as good as Penn was, relative to their peers, dern's BJJ resume smokes penn's by miles. Also, Penn was undersized.
 
Furious77 said:
Just to circle back to this post, Dern hasn't really submitted anybody worth a dam either in her UFC career, certainly not anyone of Tatianas pedigree.
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Most girls aren't trying to grapple with her at all and her wrestling sucks, yet dern still uses her submission threats to get dominant positions and near fight ending subs in just about every fight. I assume at some point suarez would do Dern the favor of initiating the grappling, unless she tries to just keep it standing and strike instead. Dern did run through nina nunes, though, when suarez struggled with nina a bit.

Also, I wasn't critiquing Suarez's ability to submit girls. I was critiquing the fact that she hasn't faced tough stylistic match ups, which for her are girls who are big submission threats.
 
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fortheo said:
Most girls aren't trying to grapple with her at all and her wrestling sucks. I assume at some point suarez would do Dern the favor of initiating the grappling, unless she tries to just keep it standing and strike instead.
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I favor Dern on the feet, too. Her aggressiveness is really effective and standing with girls like Yan and Marina really improved her stand up, too. Tatiana is very slow on the feet. I think Dern can break her in a 5 round fight.
 
Safton said:
I mean yes and no, they use some of the same techniques and come from similar bases but it's hard to make direct comparisons across MMA versus WMMA to begin with, especially Welterweight versus Strawweight. I mean Dern and Maia don't fight the same way, either...

I don't think @fortheo meant for it to be that deep, either, so much as he was suggesting that archetypically & narratively the fights were superficially similar because you had "High-Level Folkstyle & Freestyle Olympic Hopeful Wrestler Who Picked up BJJ and then MMA vs. Legendary BJJ World Champion who Transitioned to MMA".



It's very true that Dern's submission game hasn't proven to be the "one-shot, one-kill" or "the floor is lava" against recent levels of competition that it was back in the day. However, even when she's not able to close the show she is able to put girls into near fight-ending sequences -- sometimes on multiple occasions across 15-25 minutes. The issue used to be that she basically sells out attempting to get to these positions so if she didn't score the sub the fight was basically lost in an all-or-nothing affair. However, against Hill (fairly low bar to clear, granted) we saw a different mentality where she placed a much higher emphasis on GnP and positional grappling as well as some really aggressive boxing. The fact that she's able to consistently and even casually reverse girls from bottom is also quite telling, IMO. The sub isn't everything.

Maybe Tatiana's physicality and wrestling base (and I mean heavy, physical base -- not just her pedigree) would allow her to control those positions from top and shut down Mackenzie's active guard in a way other girls haven't been able to do, but it's a dicey prospect.
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Exactly. Even when Dern doesn't get the sub, she is threatening it in a big way amd using it to get dominant position at least.
 
fortheo said:
Most girls aren't trying to grapple with her at all and her wrestling suck, yet derm still uses her submission threats to get dominant positions and near fight ending subs in just about every fight. I assume at some point suarez would do Dern the favor of initiating the grappling, unless she tries to just keep it standing and strike instead. Dern did run through nina nunes, though, when suarez struggled with nina a bit.

Also, I wasn't critiquing Suarez's ability to submit girls. I was critiquing the fact that she hasn't faced tough stylistic match ups, which gor her are girls who are big submission threats.
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Lol you good, I get your points after reading a couple more of your posts. I've honestly been trying to think of other high level wrestling vs Bjj. Maia and Shields comes to mind. Tatiana is the more accomplished wrestler, Shields had his bjj black belt for 5 years already by the time he fought Maia so I don't know if that's a great comparison.
 
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Furious77 said:
Lol you good, I get your points after reading a couple more of your posts. I've honestly been trying to think of other high level wrestling vs Bjj. Maia and Shields comes to mind. Tatiana is the more accomplished wrestler, Shields had his bjj black belt for 5 years already by the time he fought Maia so I don't know if that's a great comparison.
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Shields is a high level Gracie black belt and spent a lot of time on the competitive BJJ scene, and that fight was controversial. But maia has faced many other wrestlers, but most just refused to mat grapple with him with exception to askren. Typically wrestlers beat the high level BJJ guy by using their wrestling defensively to stay standing and just out striking the BJJ fighter. But like Askren vs. Maia, I'm not sure if tatiana has the striking to out strike Dern, and thus she might have to grapple with dern.

Either girl could win. I just want to see it.
 
ThaiSexPills said:
She just dominated a former champion. I think a lot of it has to do with how much time she’s missed. I bet she gets that belt
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Andrade has had a rough last few fights, though. I know they've all happened this year, so it's not like she's been on some big decline, but she certainly seems to have lost a step since her best days.
 
her striking isnt very good and her defense isnt the best. She's a beast on the ground but I think Zhang pieces her up.
 
I think tats will take the straw weight and fly weight title
Also I sort of fancy her, I wouldn’t tell people but actually I really fancy her

wood
 
fortheo said:
Shields is a high level Gracie black belt and spent a lot of time on the competitive BJJ scene, and that fight was controversial. But maia has faced many other wrestlers, but most just refused to mat grapple with him with exception to askren. Typically wrestlers beat the high level BJJ guy by using their wrestling defensively to stay standing and just out striking the BJJ fighter. But like Askren vs. Maia, I'm not sure if tatiana has the striking to out strike Dern, and thus she might have to grapple with dern.

Either girl could win. I just want to see it.
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I'm definetly not suggesting that Tatiana is anywhere near Shields in bjj, but I do think for the last decade shes trained and implemented it into her skillset way more than Colby,Woodly, and Usman. I feel like her game is more similar to Shields. I'm not saying she's some bjj prodigy but she pretty much dove head first into bjj to fill the void of not being able to wrestle. So I guess my question is how good is Tatianas bjj? Is her black belt legit compared to the guys previously mentioned? Do you see her getting into the same bad positions as Hill who can't wrestle and has limited bjj but still was able to survive and not get tapped.
 
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