Stevie Ray versus Ross Pearson
Ray is a damn solid athlete and a growing contender in the 155 pound division. Now training — intermittently – at Tri-Star where he gets excellent sparring and training thus his game has improved markedly. He is an excellent counter striker who has a lot of raw power in his mittens and does an excellent job of catching his opponent overextending and/or being too aggressive. Ray is not the most technical pugilist per se, but his fundamentals have rapidly improved since going to a high-level camp and at just 26 years of age he is only beginning to hit the prime of his career. What's more, Ray likes to march his opponent down with excellent volume striking and he is deceptively quick with his hands and when he lands he causes damage. When he has his man hurt, Ray is also an excellent finisher. Early in his career he had lost a lot of fights due to submissions; in fact, four of Ray’s five career losses came via submissions as he was too aggressive in the past and placed himself in bad positions.
However, he started in mixed martial arts when he was 19 years old and was taking a lot of fights on short notice at welterweight just to pay the bills. Recently his BJJ game has made significant strides and is now a major role in his versatile skills set. Specifically, Ray has submitted eight of his opponents and doing so with six different forms of submission.
While I believe Pearson is a very good fighter, I do believe that he is on the downslope of his career. Ray is on the way up. I give a technical striking advantage to Pearson, but the speed and power will go to the Scot. Additionally, Ray will have a 6 six year age advantage and more importantly, far less miles on his odometer. Indeed, Pearson has been in a ton of wars and I think that they might be catching up to him. The only areas that Pearson may have a clear edge over Ray in this fight would be in the wrestling department, but I do believe the Scot has good enough TDD to keep things vertical for the duration. I believe this fight goes the distance but if it were to end early I do believe that it is Ray who will be the beneficiary.
Ross Pearson has lost 4 of his last 6 fights and TBH he could potentially be on a 6 fight losing streak. That is to say that over the course of his last six outings all of them went to a decision and the only two only two victories were SD' s. What's more, he hasn't had a finish since he knocked out what was left of Sam Stout 7 fights ago. and while he was robbed against Diego Sanchez, that fight was way too close a contest for someone who is as washed up as Sanchez is.
Like Francisco Trinaldo I believe Ray is going to be able to I'll strike Pearson and consistently beat him to the punch.
Thoughts?
