For what it's worth, Rozenstruik weighed in at 241 pounds and Albini cut weight to 265½ so more than a 25 pound weight advantage at the early weigh-in, probably more by tomorrow.
Is this supposed to reflect positively on Albini? Because it's making me feel better about my modest bet on Rozen. Albini weighed in at 265.5 against Arlovski and 266 against Oleynik, so his continued inability to get into proper shape for his height and body type makes me think the ATT training might not have had much benefit.
Anywho, there is a more exciting fight to analyze.
Thiago Alves versus Max Griffin!
Alves made a great career back in the day by being a huge welterweight (those innocent days when a 195-200 pound guy cutting to 170 was considered such) and neutralizing wrestlers by defending against their takedowns and then knocking them out. His knockout of Matt Hughes remains his crowning achievement.
Unfortunately for Alves, 170 has evolved way beyond say, heavyweight. Welterweights are much taller, longer, heavier, and have much better stand-up. He is only a little slower and less active than he was in his prime, but coupled with the evolution, that's enough.
Which is where Max Griffin comes in. He is a pretty good striker, but lacks a necessary weapon to be a top welterweight. He can be beaten by a great wrestler (Covington) and he has close, competitive fights he ultimately loses against very good strikers who do have the aforementioned weapon. (Millender, dos Santos) Anything less than that, though, and Griffin looks pretty damn good, as Mike Perry found out.
Griffin's lateral movement and circling makes him a difficult target to hit, he has fairly long arms, a decent jab, and he jumps in and out with a good 1-2, with the right hand having considerable power.
What type of fighter has Alves always struggled with? A much longer striker. Not only does Griffin have a 6" reach advantage, but to make things even worse, he has a decent jab and is considerably faster. The fact that Griffin has decent leg kicks of his own, can defend well against them, AND has a resilient chin only make things worse for Alves.
Alves has had some success against slower strikers with the same reach as him. Even then, Patrick Cote had a surprising amount of success against Alves, but was betrayed by his non-existent chin and vastly slowed down reactions. And Kunchenko, despite having the perfect striking style for Alves to do well against, beat the absolute crap out of him in the 3rd round, stating in the postfight interview he is used to 5 round fights and thus didn't really get going until then.
None of this will be true against Griffin, who will beat Alves to the punch and repeatedly land against his porous defense.
I'm not too worried about the wrestling, either. Griffin and Alves are probably about equal in terms of their wrestling at this point in their careers, and considering that Alves was only able to take Millender down once, and barely, I doubt he has any success against Griffin, who has better takedown defense.
5 units on Griffin at -192