Bisping-Maia expected for UFC on Fox 2

It's official.

Atleast it's not another wrestler vs wrestler. Also this helps alot, we don't have any style matchup that screams must see but there is no denying the talent on this card. If 4 fights are going to be shown on FOX, we have 3 solid fights right here. Still I think they could have done better, but I don't hate it is much as I did before.

i think Maia has a chance to beat Bisping... his stand up has looked heaps improved and he won't have to worry about getting KOed by The Count. if it gets to the ground Bisping will be in troubles

killerofchicken wrote:

i think Maia has a chance to beat Bisping... his stand up has looked heaps improved and he won't have to worry about getting KOed by The Count. if it gets to the ground Bisping will be in troubles

Maia should be the favorite and I expect him to win this fight.

Well I guess Bisping is on track for 2 W's to a title fight. Win this, and then a higher profile fight, vs a preferably Vitor, but more likely a Stann on a win streak type of guy

And I have Bisping here, much like the Mayhem fight A) Bisping is a better striker, B)is not easy to get and hold down, C) Maia is not a great takedown guy.

Card has talent, but still needs a straght burner. Where is Cerrone?

Cerrone is fighting Diaz son

captain organic wrote:

Well I guess Bisping is on track for 2 W's to a title fight. Win this, and then a higher profile fight, vs a preferably Vitor, but more likely a Stann on a win streak type of guy

And I have Bisping here, much like the Mayhem fight A) Bisping is a better striker, B)is not easy to get and hold down, C) Maia is not a great takedown guy.

Card has talent, but still needs a straght burner. Where is Cerrone?

The major difference here is Maia is a legit top 5 MW and his ground game is far superior to Miller's. Not only that but Maia has faced extremely stiff competition over the last couple of years, something you can't say about Miller.
Maia was able to get Chael Sonnen down and dominate him there, Bisping has overrated TDD. This would be a far more impressive win for Bisping then the one over Miller. This is taking it up a level.

OU wrote:

killerofchicken wrote:

i think Maia has a chance to beat Bisping... his stand up has looked heaps improved and he won't have to worry about getting KOed by The Count. if it gets to the ground Bisping will be in troubles

Maia should be the favorite and I expect him to win this fight.

this looks a bit like one of the handpicked opponents people like you complain about all the time

bisping probably keeps this standing and as such, probably wins easily, maias stand up hasn't improved enough to give a good boxer trouble. if maia can get it to the ground all bets are off but that won't be easy for him to do.

at least it's a quick turnaround, we'll only have seven weeks of people banging on about how maia will destroy him only for them to turn round and say bisping deserves no credit for beating a handpicked opponent after the fight hahaha, i've seen clocks that are less predictable.

bad matchup for maia

If Bisping "easily" beats Maia then he would have earned his title shot. I think you guys are underestimating Maia who has been far more impressive then Bisping over the last couple of years against top level competition. Putting the Nate quick KO aside, no one outside of Spider has "easily" defeated Maia.
Maia is the higher ranked fighter for a reason and this will be a step up for Bisping from his last few fights, same can't be said for Maia.

It's a better win, but I don't see Maia as true big time fighter. He's below the true title contendors in the weakest division in the sport. He's beating the Santiago's, the Grove's, the Miller's, and yeah he has a win over Chael, but given Chael's ineptness in terms of submission defense that was the perfect matchup for Maia.

And Chael was so scared of Maia's sub's that it took him totally out of his game. Cheal's greatest skills by far are his ability to takedown and keep down an opponent, yet he wanted none of the ground game with Maia. Thus Chael had nothing.

Bisping is fluent in keeping fights standing, that is his game. And part of that is he likes to fight at distance, use his skill's, not engaging, and thus not opening himself up for takedowns.

And Maia has not submitted a guy since Chael, so while he is dangerous, it's not like he's going Ronda on the mw division.

Well it's undeniable that Maia recent competition trumps Bisping's recent competition. Maia is more and more comfortable on the feet and is turning into a more complete mixed martial artist. Don't forget that Maia took Chael down and mounted him. Like I said before Bisping's TDD has become extremely overrated. It's solid at best but Maia should be able to get the fight to the ground at some point. Also standing he is much more confident then he use to be. Again this would be a very impressive win for Bisping but I don't see how he can be looked at as anything but the underdog here.
Bisping's ground game is no where near Santiago's or Munoz's. The gap on the ground will be much larger then the gap standing.

Also with your Ronda comparison, Maia started off in the UFC with 5 straight submission victories. But unlike Ronda, Maia has started to turn the corner as a complete fighter. He has evolved past being a BJJ guy that does MMA. Maia was rolling up much higher level competition then Ronda.

i'm not saying maia isn't a good fighter, i just don't like his strengths and weaknesses in this fight.

he isn't going to beat bisping in a boxing or muay thai match, but that's what it could easily come down to. maias best chance to win might be if he gets knocked down and bisping follows him to the mat to try and pound him out.

if bisping wins this i wouldn't be suprised if he fought the belfort/johnson winner, that's when we'll find out what level he's on imo.

Ronda line was tongue in cheek.

Maia vs chael was 2 takedowns, one was more pulling of gaurd that Chael easily got away from, the other was a throw. Again, Chael who is ALWAYS going fwd lookig for a takedown is going backwards in this fight, trying to avoid the ground game. Chael totally out of his element.

If Bisping is on his horse throwing jabs to keep Maia at bay, then Bisping is totally comfortable.

Recent W's for each:

Bisping: Mayhem, Jorge, Akiyama, D. Miller

Maia: Santiago, Grove, Miranda, D. Miller

So Im not seeing a trumping here.

Yeah Maia has lost to Munoz and Silva, so maybe the comp is better, but he wasn't really impressive in defeat in either go.

cheekynffc wrote:

i'm not saying maia isn't a good fighter, i just don't like his strengths and weaknesses in this fight.

he isn't going to beat bisping in a boxing or muay thai match, but that's what it could easily come down to. maias best chance to win might be if he gets knocked down and bisping follows him to the mat to try and pound him out.

if bisping wins this i wouldn't be suprised if he fought the belfort/johnson winner, that's when we'll find out what level he's on imo.

You are either grossly underestimating Maia's grappling ability or seriosly overrating Bisping's take down defense. If you can get Chael to the ground, putting Bisping on his back should be a reasonable expectation.

captain organic wrote:

Ronda line was tongue in cheek.

Maia vs chael was 2 takedowns, one was more pulling of gaurd that Chael easily got away from, the other was a throw. Again, Chael who is ALWAYS going fwd lookig for a takedown is going backwards in this fight, trying to avoid the ground game. Chael totally out of his element.

If Bisping is on his horse throwing jabs to keep Maia at bay, then Bisping is totally comfortable.

Bisping doesn't posses the power to keep Maia off of him. Eventually Maia will get close enough and get the take down. Maia will push him against the cage or find some way to get inside. It's not like Bisping possess the striking power to keep Maia from pushing forward.

captain organic wrote:

Recent W's for each:

Bisping: Mayhem, Jorge, Akiyama, D. Miller

Maia: Santiago, Grove, Miranda, D. Miller

So Im not seeing a trumping here.

Yeah Maia has lost to Munoz and Silva, so maybe the comp is better, but he wasn't really impressive in defeat in either go.

Santiago>Mayhem, Jorge and Sexy. Also Munoz is better then Santiago. So Maia's last two opponents were both a level above Bisping's last 2 opponents. Which would explain my statement about competition, win or lose.

captain organic wrote:

Recent W's for each:

Bisping: Mayhem, Jorge, Akiyama, D. Miller

Maia: Santiago, Grove, Miranda, D. Miller

So Im not seeing a trumping here.

Yeah Maia has lost to Munoz and Silva, so maybe the comp is better, but he wasn't really impressive in defeat in either go.

Also I thought Maia looked fine in the Munoz loss and showed improved standup yet again.

Maias takedowns and wrasslin' is improving fight by fight, just like his striking is.

OU wrote:

cheekynffc wrote:

i'm not saying maia isn't a good fighter, i just don't like his strengths and weaknesses in this fight.

he isn't going to beat bisping in a boxing or muay thai match, but that's what it could easily come down to. maias best chance to win might be if he gets knocked down and bisping follows him to the mat to try and pound him out.

if bisping wins this i wouldn't be suprised if he fought the belfort/johnson winner, that's when we'll find out what level he's on imo.

You are either grossly underestimating Maia's grappling ability or seriosly overrating Bisping's take down defense. If you can get Chael to the ground, putting Bisping on his back should be a reasonable expectation.

of course, it's possible i might be doing either or both. that's half the fun though, there'd be no point in putting the fights on if everyone always knew for sure what would happen

by the same token i reckon people underestimate bispings power, he's finished 18 fights punching like a girl. it's often a misconception that volume punchers don't have power, nick diaz has messed a lot of guys faces up with 'pitter-pat' punching.

killerofchicken wrote:

Maias takedowns and wrasslin' is improving fight by fight, just like his striking is.

It's his overall confidence in the cage, he is really putting things together. He is just more comfortable in the cage and more comfortable on his feet. That allows him to get inside better.

OU wrote:

killerofchicken wrote:

Maias takedowns and wrasslin' is improving fight by fight, just like his striking is.

It's his overall confidence in the cage, he is really putting things together. He is just more comfort in the cage and more comfortable on his feet. That allows him to get inside better.

i think the reason he lost the Munoz fight was because he tasted Munoz power and it shook his confidence...

just to add, i really enjoyed the maia/munoz fight. that was one of the more interesting ones this year.

maia did show suprisingly good hands in that fight but munoz is a wrestler who likes to bang as opposed to a skilled boxer. i suspect he'll need to be a lot sharper to get his jab going in this one.