2/3rds of the way through the first round and his kicks looked like they had lead bags attached to them. Honestly, IMO he didn't come into his most important fight in the condition he should have been in. Too much time with the GF in Montreal than when in Vegas training. Obviously. That was disappointing to me to be honest. He came somewhat close to a couple of submissions at the end, but, honestly, Colton looked like he had been training in an elite combat, disciplined atmosphere . . . Ricci not so much. Hope he does drop to LW and then makes sure he comes in well-conditioned.
Well, the clip they showed prior was largely him and his GF. Didnt know about the twitter-feed. It might have been as little as the disruption of cornering Rory's bout. Something. But his conditioning was nowhere near where it should have been.
Hard to say about his conditioning. I did notice he looked ragdolling by the second. Just loose and defeated. Clearly he's well trained, but I don't know as he was n the best shape. If it was his girlfriend pulling him away, he'd better learn to balance shit out, or he can expect more of the same.
Want some cheese with your whine? Smith is just a much better wrestler who dominated a fighter who looks to have no wrestling. Ricci will lose to any WW/LW wrestler, now get over it. I want to see Rory Macdonald against a good wrestler, same thing will happen to him
He just had no answer for the wrestling and top grind pressure. If you cant get out from beneath, you're in for a long long night.
He definitely wasn't training like he was in the UF house. In his house fights, he looked great... Crisp striking, good technical kicks, etc... In his bout last night, he looked bored. It looked to me like he wasn't even trying. He got dominated. He didn't really get beat up, just out grappled and overpowered. I was disappointed.
He did not look good at all in the Dom Waters fight. Colton Smith was the perfect opponent to break him. I really think Colton was underestimated quite a bit. He's trickier than most with his clinch takedowns. If Ricci couldn't keep him away, I knew Colton was going to break him.
He did look bad. But in all fairness,imo anyways;during TUF his conditioning kept coming into question for me. During all his fights,less the one in the semi's,i didnt think he looked that well in the cardio department. Granted carrying someone for 2 and a half rounds takes its toll as mentioned TS,you could almost notice it in the first round. Was disappointed in his showing,but Smith did look like a beast,and one who had been training like one. Regardless it'll be interesting to see how these two develop. Ricci seems to have all the tools,perhaps needing to work on his sprawl and wrestling defense a good bit,and Colton will need to work on his hands as he advances into tougher competition.
People think that if a physically weak guy with zero explosiveness like Florian or Ricci trains at Tri Star that Rory and GSP just rub magic wrestling juice on them and they can become GSP Jr. It ain't happening.
To be fair, Ricci is a LW and is most certainly going to return to LW for his next fight. That's just the way things work in the house, guys will fight a weight class either side of their own to get the show. I mean Francisco Trinaldo is a LW who competed as a MW on the show, pretty much all of the shows contestants drop down after the show. Colton looks like a legit 170 pound fighter to me though, he was clearly much larger than Ricci.
But but but Florian says he's the most gifted athlete at TriStar. I guess they need better athletes there then
