In the NHB era HWs like Shamrock, Funaki, Morais, and Taktarov used a lot of subs to finish. In the Pride era, HWs like Fedor, Barnett, Mir, Werdum, Big Nog, Monson finished a lot of fights with subs.
DC has used his wrestling/BJJ to find lots of RNCs down at LHW but not often at HW. With Werdum gone, Oleynik is the last of the old school PRIDE era sub guys at HW.
Power, speed, boxing, and lots of clinch work and wrestling is the name of the game at HW these days.
Werdum showed vs Walt Harris, the techniques still work. The thing is at HW right now, you see a lot more fighters with Harris’s style in the game than those with Werdum’s.
HW might not have a Ronda, Hall, Palhares, or Tonon arrive but still, its more interesting with fighters like Big Nog, Werdum, Barnett, Fedor, Oleynik etc… in the game, just to remind the world there is more to HW than a Derrick Lewis fight might show.
The sport was trending that way before Nog entered Pride. Way way back. It's going to take another Nog or a Werdum to flip the division on it's head again. Problem is there's no one even in the pipeline right now. Even in BJJ the HW division is dead.
The sport was trending that way before Nog entered Pride. Way way back. It's going to take another Nog or a Werdum to flip the division on it's head again. Problem is there's no one even in the pipeline right now. Even in BJJ the HW division is dead.
I always thought wrestling could produce the foundation for another guy to get transformed into another Barnett with enough time devoted to BJJ and catch but instead its Stipe, DC, Blaydes we are seeing not to mention the Rosholt’s and Tim Johnson’s of the division.
Minakov is a talented sub guy but he wins via KO/TKO more often. Still 22-0 IMO. Fights Ayala on Saturday.
I thought Buchecha was gonna do MMA at some point. He's been training with the aka guys for a while I think, but haven't heard anything recently about it.
I've noticed this too, and I do think that once another good sub guy comes in he's going to change up the typical business model.
Lack of sub attempts, damage incurred/position loss if sub attempt is missed, gassing out, and the general desire of HW's to keep it standing seems to lend to this.