Ed "The Truth "Ruth remains undefeated in MMA
- Thread starter erie lion
- Start date
I don't follow MMA at all except to watch when Phil and now Ed fight. Was this guy any good? I ask because I watched and Ed beat the crap out of this guy with very little resistance from his opponent. Having seen Ed do this MANY times in college I'm just looking for some comparison.
Did you start counting when Ed put him to his back? I know I did. IMO Ed had many chances to rain down some early elbows and chose not to. When Ed s up against it and gets mean it will tell us a lot about his MMA career. If he continues to end these matches just a little winded he will have a long career. His manager is bring him along slowly. A good thing.
I don't watch enough MMA to really know what I'm talking about but the guys they've lined up for Ed never had a shot. As much as I enjoy watching Ed do something that kind of looks like wrestling, the only interesting moment was seeing Ed go slack early in the fight in a clinch, like he'd often do from top waiting for guys to make a mistake.
MMA is just like boxing. When the talented young guys go pro, their first several fight are just meant to build up the record. He won't see anyone with real skills for a few more fights.
If I recall correctly, Ruth got tagged right square in the nose in his first fight and it planted him on his butt...MMA is a different game and there's a lot of adjustments that wrestlers need to make to be successful. His competition will improve and he'll get more acclimated to the fight game, but even guys who don't look the part can sneak in a fight ending punch if you're not careful.
Good stuff here.
No, that guy was not any good. He was also a great matchup for Ruth in every way.
People ITT are correct about bringing him along slowly. He has name recognition for Bellator and they don't want to ruin that. They also want to be able to hitch him to Phil Davis as that is one of the bigger names in Bellator. There's also no reason to rush him as he's a young guy. Finally, he's not been exciting thus far so the fans aren't begging for it either.
He looked like he has a long way to go. He's definitely not as stiff as Davis in the standup but, based on what I just watched, he would get KOd against a legit stand up guy with how he holds his hands and carries his head. He's also not going to have the luxury of that reach advantage where he can possibly get away with it.
I agree with the other poster who suggested he may be trying to get some work in...at least that is what I'm hoping. He had several chances to do some pretty basic BJJ stuff and didn't. Most noticeably, he had the back all day but didn't throw his hooks in when given the opportunity constantly. That suggests he either wanted the work and felt dominant or he's not comfortable with his submission game yet. I also thought he could have worked a choke or crank when he went high during side control or 1/2 but I admittedly only watched it once. Finally, he could have unloaded some serious knees to the body against the cage that would have ended the fight. Probably better he didn't or he may have really hurt that guy as he was wide open.
Wrestling ride was strong and similar to what we witnessed during his time at Penn State - effortless and totally in control. That being said, he needs to use that to throw off his opponent in order to work on his positioning in order to finish the fight either by G&P or submission. Was very surprised he didn't thrown in the hooks, flatten him and rain down. As I said, maybe he wanted the work.
