It will be interesting to see if rosas paces himself this time since he blew his wad in his last fight; and if he does pace himself, will he even be the dangerous fighter that he was? most of his wins came from his just overwhelming his opponents with pace and wrestling in round one, but if he takes that high pace away, what will he have? I'm interested in watching because I think he already is a very solid grappler and has years to build on that skillset.
I don't know much about Terrence mitchell, but isn't he a collegiate wrestler? He is a big 135lber, too, but like rosas he seems to have questionable cardio.
Yeah, I'm not totally prepared to label Mitchell as some pushover opponent for Rosas. That said, Raul should
probably be a decent favorite, with the qualifier that Terrence is hard to get a read on. We've had a... decidedly mixed bag of results from the Alaskan regional scene over the years, with a handful of diamonds in the rough. Mitchell's level of competition looks to be fairly "meh" at a glance, but again that's to be expected from the Alaskan scene where the general depth of talent is notoriously quite low. For what it's worth, he's beating these guys the way they should be beaten: by early stoppage. He has a 100% finish rate.
He's a big, lanky dude for the weight class sorta like Montel Jackson: 5'10" with a long-ass reach (74" versus 67" for Rosas). I've found some videos of his highlights and gone over them, both before fighting Saimann and again now. Normally I don't particularly like using highlight vids for serious analysis of a fighter because they are by their very nature biased, but it's what I was able to get. My initial impression based on the footage, his fight with Cameron, and his record is that he's a bit wild at range. He throws naked head kicks and flurries of looping power punches while crashing forward, but he's not much of a technical striker overall. Unfortunately I haven't seen much in the way of front kicks, low kicks, jabs, or straight punches in general: all things that would probably serve him well considering his long frame. He seems physically strong and dangerous in the clinch, however. He's very willing to strike (sloppily) into said clinch before manhandling his opponent and beating them up with short punches, elbows, and especially knees. Overall, however, I'd say he leans heavily on his physicality, power, aggression, and the threat of the takedown to carry him in striking exchanges.
Speaking of which, where Mitchell really seems to shine is in the grappling. I couldn't find any mention of a wrestling pedigree, but he is definitely a primary grappler in MMA and seems to actively seek the takedown in most bouts. He has a lot of wins via sub and GnP on his record and I've seen him play a
bit of guard off his back as well. I wouldn't say he's the most refined or technical takedown specialist I've ever seen -- more of an explosive "power-wrestler" with a brutal top game. Well, brutal against a bunch of Alaska FC cans.
What worries me enough to push me away from Terrence as an underdog pick here are the intangibles. Rosas is a young guy who's unpolished and unproven, sure. But he's hungry and I can generally believe he might improve or at least be motivated to do so. With Mitchell... there are some red flags. Even aside from his poor level of competition, Terrence was always very inactive. Looking back at his youth on the Alaskan regional scene, he fought
at most twice in one year -- oftentimes only once. And that was when he was at his most active, mind you. He caught a break and made it to Season 24 of TUF only for Kai Kara-France to sleep him in like 30 seconds. That was in 2016. Between then and the short-notice Saimann call-up, Mitchell returned to Alaska and fought only
three times in seven years -- all of those against nobodies on the Alaskan regional scene. Then he gets signed to be the sacrificial lamb to Saimann and of course he agrees, because why not? It's the opportunity he always wanted.
I dunno, he's nearly in his mid-30s now and seems like he was largely content with being the "biggest fish in a small pond". I don't know if he ever focused all that hard on MMA as a career to begin with. I suspect he just took a few fights here and there as a side gig when it suited him, when he needed extra cash, and/or when he got bored. I think it's sort of telling that he never accepted any offers from orgs like Bellator, LFA, PFL/WSOF, etc. over the years. I'm almost certain one or all of these promotions would have signed him given the fact that he's a TUF veteran, dominant regional champion, and always finishes fights. Or I dunno, maybe he's just super injury-prone, which is just as big of a red flag in its own way. So far the steps up in competition have not worked out in his favor and it wouldn't surprise me if this whole UFC stint is just a paycheck collection/bucket list experience for him. He just feels less like a contender and more like a can-crushing regional standout to me.
Now that I'm done with my little armchair psychology narrative... even on a pure stylistic basis I'm not convinced Terrence has enough of the tools to punish Rosas for his own numerous deficiencies. Mitchell is probably the better and more dangerous striker, but not by some tremendous margin. Being very frank, I dunno if he can even keep it standing and in open space for any real length of time considering Saimann went 2 for 2 on TDs against him. If Terrence tries to outwrestle Rosas, that's a tall order considering Raul is a talented grappler (who readily scores reversals while fresh) and a big, physically strong dude even by Bantamweight standards. Meanwhile, Terrence is a former Flyweight who got easily reversed and outwrestled before being finished in the first round by Saimann: a dude who has shown holes in his defensive grappling and is historically a bit of a slow starter.
Technically Rosas has 0% TDD, with Rodriguez and Gutierrez both having taken him down and controlled him one time each... but those happened in the third rounds of their respective fights after Raul slowed down a bit. Which brings me to the next question: can the vet in Mitchell outpace Raul and grind out a cardio-based win? In theory, sure... but Terrence is a dude who has always won via early stoppage across his career. No idea what he looks like outside of the second round; in fact he lost the one fight in his career that went the distance.
