- Joined
- Jul 30, 2019
- Messages
- 15,498
- Reaction score
- 27,343
All three fighters - while only having a combined 12 fights in the UFC - are still undefeated (albeit Dominick Reyes losing against Oezdemir in the eyes of many) and looked really promising for the majority of their fights, having finished at least 50% of their wins (Rakic 2/4, Reyes 3/5, Walker 3/3).
They're all either 27 or 29 years old and are primarily strikers, yet they are quite different in their approach.
Dominick Reyes (11-0 pro-MMA, 5-0 in the UFC)
The oldest (29 years) and shortest (193cm/6'4") of all three, Dominick Reyes fights out of a southpaw-stance and has a great kicking game, he primarily goes for the legs, but regularly finds success going to the head and body as well, especially when he's fighting opponents with an orthodox stance, where his opponents right side is open for kicks with his rear-leg.
He's not just a good kicker though, his hands are actually very good as well, being both accurate and fast and despite not having typical one-punch-KO-power, he's got solid power behind his punches.
Overall, his striking is not Barboza-flashy, but rather really fundamental, fluent and technically very sound.
Another strength of Reyes is his movement - be it head-movement or footwork; he's agile and great at evading strikes; he often slips from the centre-line to the side under punches from incoming opponents and immediately punishes them from a sidewards-angle.
His fighting-style is best described as calm and measured, he doesn't expose himself defensively and doesn't rush forward often, but rather waits for his opportunity and picks his shots.
Being a great striker, it should be noted that Dominick Reyes does well at the other parts of MMA also, inside the UFC he has a submission-win over Jeremy Kimball, but what's way more impressive is his takedown-defense of 85.7% - the third-highest at light heavyweight inside the UFC.
Aleksandar Rakic (12-1 pro-MMA, 4-0 in the UFC)
Being the youngest (27 years) out of the three, Aleksandar Rakic is a tall light heavyweight, who stands at 196cm/6'5". Like all three fighters, Rakic is primarily a striker (having started kickboxing at the age of 11) and he's mainly fighting from an orthodox stance, but depending on the situation of the fight, he likes to switch stances up, especially with the intention of landing low kicks.
Having good, powerful hands, his best weapon are his vicious kicks that are both fast and astonishingly powerful. Having already mentioned his height, it should be noted that Rakic is a pretty big light heavyweight in terms of size in general; he's muscular with a low body fat-percentage and very strong.
On the ground he's done very well so far; he was able to withstand Devin Clarks attempts to hold him down after being knocked down in the first seconds of their fight and he used good wrestling/positional control to defend submission-attempts from Justin Ledet while stopping him from getting up and landing huge amounts of strikes, ground-n-pounding the latter. Rakic likes to keep his lead-hand somewhat outstretched and does feint a lot, often using these feints to set up his devastating kicks and/or to explode forward, throwing punches.
Another quality of Aleksandar Rakic is his chin and recovery. He's been hit with some strikes landing flush, got repeatedly kneed in the face by Devin Clark (illegal knees, btw.) and yet didn't really seem to be phased by it at all. For the most time, albeit putting in my opinion a bit more pressure on then Reyes, Rakic is a rather measured fighter as well, but if he sees an opportunity he explodes and does a great job at landing powerful strikes out of these bursts then.
Johnny Walker (17-3 pro-MMA, 3-0 in the UFC)
Being about two months older then Aleksandar Rakic, 27-year old Johnny Walker already put himself on the map in the UFC, winning all three bouts by either KO or TKO, with his latest finish coming against Misha Cirkunov by a spectacular flying knee.
With a height of 198cm/6'6" Johnny Walker towers over almost every opponent he faces and with a reach of 208cm/82" of reach, he's among the rangiest fighters of the UFC.
Using a variety of attacks, Johnny Walker likes to use high-kicks from range and follow-up with other strikes. Johnny Walker is extremely diverse in his striking, this can't be emphasized enough; he pretty much uses every kind of strike on a regular basis, be it an axe-kick, a spinning-backfist, an elbow from the clinch, a flying knee or a basic jab-cross and he does that fluently, accurate and with great effect so far, especially since he's so good at creatively mixing up all those different kinds of strikes.
His takedown-defense has not been proven in the UFC yet, but it looked decent against Henrique Da Silva in their fight on DWCS, despite being taken down one time. Walker uses his grappling mostly to defend himself, he'll however go for a submission if the opportunity is there.
Other than that, Walker likes to clinch with his opponents and throws sharp elbows from there (for example to finish Khalil Rountree Jr.) and/or mixes knees in from there as well.
Having talked mostly about the technical abilities of Johnny Walker (aside from reach and height), he is a very big and athletic fighter who's very strong physically, but perhaps his most outstanding athletic trait is his explosiveness; flying knees, fast and hard punches and crushing kicks are something to expect when facing or watching him compete in the Octagon.
How do you rate each of those fighters and who would you give the best chance to beat Jon Jones and why?
They're all either 27 or 29 years old and are primarily strikers, yet they are quite different in their approach.
Dominick Reyes (11-0 pro-MMA, 5-0 in the UFC)
The oldest (29 years) and shortest (193cm/6'4") of all three, Dominick Reyes fights out of a southpaw-stance and has a great kicking game, he primarily goes for the legs, but regularly finds success going to the head and body as well, especially when he's fighting opponents with an orthodox stance, where his opponents right side is open for kicks with his rear-leg.
He's not just a good kicker though, his hands are actually very good as well, being both accurate and fast and despite not having typical one-punch-KO-power, he's got solid power behind his punches.
Overall, his striking is not Barboza-flashy, but rather really fundamental, fluent and technically very sound.
Another strength of Reyes is his movement - be it head-movement or footwork; he's agile and great at evading strikes; he often slips from the centre-line to the side under punches from incoming opponents and immediately punishes them from a sidewards-angle.
His fighting-style is best described as calm and measured, he doesn't expose himself defensively and doesn't rush forward often, but rather waits for his opportunity and picks his shots.
Being a great striker, it should be noted that Dominick Reyes does well at the other parts of MMA also, inside the UFC he has a submission-win over Jeremy Kimball, but what's way more impressive is his takedown-defense of 85.7% - the third-highest at light heavyweight inside the UFC.
Aleksandar Rakic (12-1 pro-MMA, 4-0 in the UFC)
Being the youngest (27 years) out of the three, Aleksandar Rakic is a tall light heavyweight, who stands at 196cm/6'5". Like all three fighters, Rakic is primarily a striker (having started kickboxing at the age of 11) and he's mainly fighting from an orthodox stance, but depending on the situation of the fight, he likes to switch stances up, especially with the intention of landing low kicks.
Having good, powerful hands, his best weapon are his vicious kicks that are both fast and astonishingly powerful. Having already mentioned his height, it should be noted that Rakic is a pretty big light heavyweight in terms of size in general; he's muscular with a low body fat-percentage and very strong.
On the ground he's done very well so far; he was able to withstand Devin Clarks attempts to hold him down after being knocked down in the first seconds of their fight and he used good wrestling/positional control to defend submission-attempts from Justin Ledet while stopping him from getting up and landing huge amounts of strikes, ground-n-pounding the latter. Rakic likes to keep his lead-hand somewhat outstretched and does feint a lot, often using these feints to set up his devastating kicks and/or to explode forward, throwing punches.
Another quality of Aleksandar Rakic is his chin and recovery. He's been hit with some strikes landing flush, got repeatedly kneed in the face by Devin Clark (illegal knees, btw.) and yet didn't really seem to be phased by it at all. For the most time, albeit putting in my opinion a bit more pressure on then Reyes, Rakic is a rather measured fighter as well, but if he sees an opportunity he explodes and does a great job at landing powerful strikes out of these bursts then.
Johnny Walker (17-3 pro-MMA, 3-0 in the UFC)
Being about two months older then Aleksandar Rakic, 27-year old Johnny Walker already put himself on the map in the UFC, winning all three bouts by either KO or TKO, with his latest finish coming against Misha Cirkunov by a spectacular flying knee.
With a height of 198cm/6'6" Johnny Walker towers over almost every opponent he faces and with a reach of 208cm/82" of reach, he's among the rangiest fighters of the UFC.
Using a variety of attacks, Johnny Walker likes to use high-kicks from range and follow-up with other strikes. Johnny Walker is extremely diverse in his striking, this can't be emphasized enough; he pretty much uses every kind of strike on a regular basis, be it an axe-kick, a spinning-backfist, an elbow from the clinch, a flying knee or a basic jab-cross and he does that fluently, accurate and with great effect so far, especially since he's so good at creatively mixing up all those different kinds of strikes.
His takedown-defense has not been proven in the UFC yet, but it looked decent against Henrique Da Silva in their fight on DWCS, despite being taken down one time. Walker uses his grappling mostly to defend himself, he'll however go for a submission if the opportunity is there.
Other than that, Walker likes to clinch with his opponents and throws sharp elbows from there (for example to finish Khalil Rountree Jr.) and/or mixes knees in from there as well.
Having talked mostly about the technical abilities of Johnny Walker (aside from reach and height), he is a very big and athletic fighter who's very strong physically, but perhaps his most outstanding athletic trait is his explosiveness; flying knees, fast and hard punches and crushing kicks are something to expect when facing or watching him compete in the Octagon.
How do you rate each of those fighters and who would you give the best chance to beat Jon Jones and why?
