If reach doesn't matter, explain Tim Sylvia

Combat Wombatt

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If Jones didn't have a 84" inch wingspan and DC didn't have a 71" inch reach it would be a very different fight. Even though DC has a great chance at beating Jones and I think he could beat Cain and rule the HW division, I don't see him winning tomorrow. I think because of his reach disadvantage, you will see DC lose this fight to Jones via decision. If they had the same reach, I think DC would be taking this fight. That's how important reach is.

Since Jones has a 13" reach advantage and is a versatile, smooth, and creative striker he will be able to keep DC at bay when he wants to and will be able to bring him in close to clinch or TD when he wants to also. Reach will be the key to this fight.


I think so many people under-estimate how important reach is. I believe reach is the greatest physical asset you can have because it never deteriorates with age like all of the other skills and it can be improved upon with skill.



Speed, great chin, strength, reflexes, power, and all of the other natural born assets that fighters can have diminish with age. Your chin doesn't get better with age and especially as you take hits, your strength reaches a plateau and at a certain age you just will never be as strong as you once were, reflexes and power eventually go down, but reach doesn't diminish with age. Look at the greats like Anderson and Fedor, eventually father time caught up with them and they suffered.


If you have a great jab you can really do quite a lot with it. Keep strikers at bay, keep wrestlers too far away for TD's, it can make your elbows vertical or horizontal far more deadly, and many other things.

Take Jessamyn Duke for example, a perfect example of how not to utilize your reach advantage. Instead of pumping a good jab and then using her combos and powershots she gets in close and beat up.

Then look at Tim Sylvia. Not a great athlete, not super powerful, or fast, or extremely skilled, but he had a great jab that he would keep opponents at bay with and eventually his hits would add up and he could add a more powerful strike, hurting his opponents. You could say his opponents at the time were weak, but he still did great while not being a great athlete himself. All because of his reach.


So, if you think reach isn't one of the greatest assets a fighter can have, you are wrong. It really is one of the greatest assets you can have, especially since you can build off of it to make it deadly and it doesn't deteriorate with age like all other physical attributes.
 
Don't discount Sylvia, the man was a PHENOMENON. Greatest HW champ in UFC history and it wasn't just because of his reach, dude basically shit on the opposition
 
Reach does matter if the guy with the advantage knows how to use it better than his opponent knows how to neutralize it.

Tim Sylvia was a good fighter at the time.
 
Silvia used straight punches and countered well.
Not everyone with reach does that, Jones primarily being one of them. He's normally not a counter a puncher, sans the machida fight, and his footwork is horrible.

He wins because he's fucking good at fighting. End of story.
 
If reach does matter explain Mike Tyson.


...this game is stupid
 
Ah the good old days when the UFC heavyweight champ was an unbeatable force ranked 8th in the world.
 
Tim was better than Sherdog made him out to be. He had good counter punching and huge power, and used his reach well
 
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If reach does matter explain Mike Tyson.


...this game is stupid

Reach does matter; it's not the ONLY thing that matters. So bringing up Tyson like it disproves the importance of reach is stupid.
 
If reach does matter explain Mike Tyson.


...this game is stupid




How many Mike Tysons were there?




He was able to get inside his opponents reach and use his power. They shouldn't hace allowed that. Boxing is also different than MMA.
 
Reach does matter; it's not the ONLY thing that matters. So bringing up Tyson like it disproves the importance of reach is stupid.

There is more than reach but bringing Tyson up is an example of why there are more attributes. Definitely not stupid.
 
Of course reach matters. But sometimes guy's are so talented they can overcome that reach disadvantage, like Tyson, or Cormier.

Cormier beat bigfoot and barnett even though he had a reach disadvantage. We can only hope that he can do the same vs Jones. But it's a big "if" because Jones is better at using his reach than those guys are.
 
Of course reach matters. But sometimes guy's are so talented they can overcome that reach disadvantage, like Tyson, or Cormier.

Cormier beat bigfoot and barnett even though he had a reach disadvantage. We can only hope that he can do the same vs Jones. But it's a big "if" because Jones is better at using his reach than those guys are.




And I still think Jones could utilize his reach better.
 
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