UFC 108: Rashad Evans vs Thiago Silva; two Lauzon's! Jan. 2, 2010

**Nwp** · Posted On: 1/04/2010 9:09pm

Originally Posted by datdamnmachine

All fights start standing...yadda, yadda, yadda. I'm sure Daley was expecting the takedown and Hazelett was probably hoping he could keep Daley at bay and force him to get aggressive and come in so as to make the single/double easier to come by. This is one of the reasons I feel that too many people in MMA are relying too much on lower-body takedowns. I would think that guys like Couture, Parisyan, etc., have shown us that there are more ways to get the takedown then just shooting in for the legs.

Good point, more standing takedowns could occur in scrambles and situations where an opponent is caught off balance or resting. However, these are few and far between in the upper levels of competition, and difficult against good wrestlers or anyone with good upper body strength.

We saw one Sat. nite when Munoz manhandled Jensen in the clinch. Jensen bravely attempted a takedown, wrapped up, and Munoz calmly secured his defense and then quickly tripped and overpowered him down. Sweet awareness.

Hazelett had to keep seperation and try to off balance Daley with kicks to soften him up for a chance. Fat chance. It was in Daley's interest to keep Hazelett back too, he knew he would eventually get a chance to engage before Hazelett would get a chance to shoot.

**Nwp** · Posted On: 1/04/2010 9:17pm

Oh yeah, in this instance, I dont think I would recommend a standing takedown against Daley. Upper body strength was a little on the Daley side I think, and lower body strength probably aint lacking either.

**datdamnmachine** · Posted On: 1/05/2010 12:37am

Originally Posted by Nwp

Good point, more standing takedowns could occur in scrambles and situations where an opponent is caught off balance or resting. However, these are few and far between in the upper levels of competition, and difficult against good wrestlers or anyone with good upper body strength.

We saw one Sat. nite when Munoz manhandled Jensen in the clinch. Jensen bravely attempted a takedown, wrapped up, and Munoz calmly secured his defense and then quickly tripped and overpowered him down. Sweet awareness.

Hazelett had to keep seperation and try to off balance Daley with kicks to soften him up for a chance. Fat chance. It was in Daley's interest to keep Hazelett back too, he knew he would eventually get a chance to engage before Hazelett would get a chance to shoot.

Originally Posted by Nwp

Oh yeah, in this instance, I dont think I would recommend a standing takedown against Daley. Upper body strength was a little on the Daley side I think, and lower body strength probably aint lacking either.

True to all points. At the same time, however, that's were skill, timing, and technique come into play. I'm not saying he should try crazy Jon Jones-style Greco takedowns but, as mentioned, Munoz performed an awesome inside leg trip when he was off-balance with his takedowns. It's not going to be easy, but you have to be unpredictable with your takedowns just like your strikes and ground game. If your opponent has been spending all his time defending takedowns against freestyle wrestlers, when you come in with your upperbody lock and leg trips, sweeps, reaps, etc, you can catch him off guard. Even from that, once he switches gears by defending those, you can switch to a lower body takedown.

Hell, keep in mind, when you go for a single or double, the person has to spawl, use the sprawl to setup a Guard pull into a sweeping Guard. This is something Maia does ALL THE TIME (except his last fight, unfortunately). You see a lot of guys pulling full Guard. Only a lot more recently are you seeing guys pulling Half Guard. I think pulling your opponent into a sweeping Guard is a great way to take them down especially if you have excellent sweeps. It is still very unexpected in MMA. One thing about Half Guard sweeps is that you typically have to whizzer to defend a lot of those sweeps which set up a lot of other sweeps to the whizzer side as well as flying attacks such as flying triangles and flying armbars.

For great examples of switching up multiple different types of takedowns; from upper body, to lower body, to sweeping Guard pulls, see Maia's fights with Sonnen and Quarry.

**Valiss** · Posted On: 1/05/2010 4:16pm

WTH was that roll thing that Hazelett did? What he trying for some double-leg takedown, ninja style? I kept waiting for his to setup and shoot in and he never did. Anyway, good for Paul.

**Frenzal** · Posted On: 1/06/2010 7:28pm

Rolling heel kick thingee maybe?

**ronaldk** · Posted On: 1/07/2010 5:55am

Perhaps.... The most similar thing I've ever seen was a rolling heel kick thing in a K-1 match... by none other than Genki Sudo. But... he's Genki Sudo.

**Cuchulain** · Posted On: 1/07/2010 9:39am

Paul does it in Tekken. Check 1.56 YouTube- TEKKEN 3 Paul - secret moves, rare custom combos

p.s also some nice armbars and g'n'p too.

**Hesperus** · Posted On: 1/07/2010 10:50am

I managed to bridge, roll and g'n'p from guard after being taken down in Tekken Tag one time, but I'm still not quite sure how.

On topic, this is the general idea methinks. I've found a variation referred to as Yoko Kaiten Do Mawashi Kaiten Geri, and I know that Yoko means side.