Royce: I'm here to prove Gracie JJ still works

Soup and Beer -
UltimateKeyboardWarrior - Any chance Ken does a work? Phone Post 3.0

 

I thought about this a lot.  There are several ways to look at it.

Ken got a lot of unwanted attention from his shady Kimbo fight.  He knows people will be watching his next fight very closely for any more fuckery.  That would encourage him to avoid any worked fights.  For awhile at least.  He might very well be fighting to win against Royce.

Now from Royce's point of view, he could have taken this fight based on seeing how much Ken had declined in his Kimbo fight.  If Royce thought Ken was really trying to win againt Kimbo, he saw an aging fighter that not only couldn't hurt his opponent with punches, but couldn't finish a fully sunk in RNC against someone who had no ground experience and wasn't defending the choke at all. 

So he could end up being surprised by facing a completely different Ken than the one he saw a few months ago.

However, I still think we are going to see a highly questionable fight.  Ken could easily win against Royce by keeping it standing.   But if you are tuning in to see a nostalgic match with Royce wearing a gi, you are not going to want to see Ken jabbing his way to a 3 round decision.  You are going to want to see Royce on his back trying to work a submission. 


I think you will see either Ken taking Royce down and laying in his guard every round, or he will "allow" himself to be pulled into Royce's guard.  There will be several times where Ken almost taps to a "submission" then barely gets out.  Ariel will interview Ken and ask him why in the world did he keep taking Royce down and he will say he wanted to try and prove that he could beat Royce at his own game.  My best guess is it will be a semi-work.

Good analysis.

I actually want to see this fight ONLY IF Ken doesn't do a work. Phone Post 3.0

He's wrong. I've read on the UG that ultimately size and strength will always dominate over any level of skill.

UFC 5 was the first one I saw live on PPV.  I was so fucking pumped! I still have a bad taste in my mouth from that night.

This fight is dumb. This is MMA dumbness.