Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza is one of the top jiujitsu fighters of all time -- 5 time world BJJ champion! His potential in MMA is still unrealized.
If you have Showtime, you can watch Jacare fight tonight on the Strikeforce Houston card. The light heavyweight fight featuring Mo Lawal should also be interesting. Lawal is a top freestyle wrestler, also making the transition to MMA.
Here's a highlight video. Jacare is Portuguese for alligator :-) His judo skills are apparent, although getting a takedown on a BJJ guy isn't exactly hard. By the way, that little tapping motion by the opponent means the fight is over :-)
Watch Jacare dominate Olympic silver medalist (Greco) Matt Lindland in an earlier fight:
Steve may throw off his Chinese identity. Yet he can't.
ReplyDeleteHe maintains interest in one of the Far East's most ridiculous creations, martial arts.
This is like an Englishman who still thinks there is value in Druidism.
Pankration is a Greek word. "The best boxer among the wrestlers or the best wrestler among the boxers."
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pankration
BJJ and submission wrestling are like kinetic chess.
The history of MMA is one of the greatest cautionary tales against pure theory and for experiment. What actually works in a real fight was a total surprise to most "experts".
http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2007/05/mama-said-knock-you-out.html
"Steve may throw off his Chinese identity. Yet he can't.'
ReplyDelete"He maintains interest in one of the Far East's most ridiculous creations, martial arts."
What an idiotic statement. Mixed martial arts employs and mixes the fighting techniques of various cultures, including the boxing and wrestling from the West. Trained hand-to-hand combat is not some inscrutable Oriental cultural relic, but something which many men all over the world enjoy.
Jacare won the fight last night, but he had to do so on his feet, and it was probably a closer result than he hoped for. Two judges scored the contest four rounds to one, and one judge scored it three rounds to two. But Jacare dominated none of the rounds, and so he couldn't enter the final round and cruise to victory because the scoring in MMA is very unpredictable.
ReplyDeleteTim Kennedy was a game opponent. Jacare couldn't take Kennedy down and so he had to use his stand-up to win the fight, which he did. Kennedy looked surprisingly stiff on his feet, with very little movement and not terribly effective counters. He's a tough guy, though, and he maintained his fighting spirit right up to the final seconds when he threw Jacare to the mat with a beautiful slam.
I'm still not convinced Jacare will be a top middleweight. A lot of potential, but ...
ReplyDeleteThe bigger story is of course Mo getting knocked out after talking bigger than Chael Sonnen :-)
At 185 pounds, I think Jacare is already a top middleweight. He certainly has a strong case he belongs among the top ten in the world. Can he beat Anderson Silva? No, I don't think so. But then no other 185-pounder has been able to beat Silva yet, either. I certainly think Jacare has at least an even chance to beat Chael Sonnen or Nate Marquardt or Yushin Okami, all of whom are considered among the top fighters in the world at that weight. Jacare's incredible BJJ would certainly give Sonnen fits.
ReplyDeleteThose are all fights I would like to see. But if Jacare can't get/keep Kennedy down to work his BJJ, he might have the same problems with the guys you mentioned. Sonnen would, of course, be vulnerable to Jacare since he seems to have problems defending submissions. But unless Jacare improves his takedowns and/or his striking, I don't see how he'll get to the top.
ReplyDelete"But if Jacare can't get/keep Kennedy down to work his BJJ, he might have the same problems with the guys you mentioned."
ReplyDeleteAs I'm sure you know, MMA is all about match-ups. Sonnen, for example, doesn't want to stand with Jacare. His preferred style is ground-and-pound. Unfortunately for Sonnen, throughout his career, he has shown himself prone to being submitted when he has top position, even courtesy of many mixed martial artists whose BJJ is not at nearly the same level as Jacare's.
I also think Kennedy's wrestling is very underrated. Kennedy took down the South African Trevor Prangley, an Olympic-caliber wrestler who Kennedy claimed had never been taken down before in MMA. (I don't know if that claim is true or not.) So I think the fact Jacare couldn't take down Kennedy is not a huge mark against his takedown ability. He was winning the standup throughout the fight and only tried a takedown twice. Kennedy might be one of those mixed martial artists like GSP, a fighter who has cross-trained his wrestling ability to such a high level in MMA that it is higher than many wrestlers who have gone into the sport.
Thanks for the info on Kennedy. I have to admit I don't know much about his background.
ReplyDeleteYou're right. I am an idiot, but I prefer Crouching Sniper Hidden Land Mine.
ReplyDelete