January 28, 2010, at 12:50 pm
We haven’t been around the last few days. Two reasons. One: There is nothing going on right now. Outside of some hype for Strikeforce: Miami and a couple of fights being made, it’s just been a boring freaking month for MMA. Think about it: When is the last time you had to wait three or four weeks between cards? It’s painful.
Second, I’ve been playing Mass Effect 2. Sue Me. It’s awesome. Go buy it.
So, for my return, I naturally have to find a topic to piss Jason off. To do that, I’ll go back to old argument that I’ve been making since the dawn of this site: Everyone who came over from PRIDE is overrated.
You may be asking yourself what in god’s name this has to do with Marius Zaromskis and this weekend’s Strikeforce card. Well, Let’s quickly take a look at his game and you tell me who he is closely emulating.
If you said anyone except Mirko Cro Cop, I don’t really know what you were watching.
Here is the interesting thing: Cro Cop built a career on one combo: Jab, Head Kick. Sure, he’s got great takedown defense, which helps him eventually throw Jab, head kick. In PRIDE, he never needed to anything but that to win, so no one realized what a flawed plan it was.
Then, Mirko came to the UFC and found himself in the ring with people who are better, more well-rounded strikers than he is. He lost to Gabe Gonzaga, Cheick Kongo, and Junior Dos Santos. All three of them beat him soundly.
So, here comes this new guy calling himself “The Whitemare”, which sounds like he should be wearing some Hoezler-Reich gear. He head kicks his way to a DREAM welterweight title. People start talking, and the next thing you know, he’s fighting Nick Diaz for Strikeforce’s welterweight title.
Here is the thing: I don’t think the Whitemare measures up. Sure, could he catch lightning in a bottle and beat Nick Diaz? Of course, Diaz is hardly GSP. He’s not going to dominate night in and night out.
I just think that his gameplan is flawed. He live in a different world than we did five years ago. Jab, head kick is simply not enough to beat top competition. Cro Cop found that out. If they stay on the feet, Diaz could use his jab to keep distance between him and Zaromskis, or perhaps a better idea is to clinch and not let him create enough space to head kick. If Diaz gets him down, we have no idea what the Whitemare has, but it probably isn’t as good as Diaz.
So, Nick Diaz will be the welterweight champ of Strikeforce on Sunday morning. All the media will be talking about Zaromskis’ striking, and how it wasn’t good enough. Just remember that you saw it here first.
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