Hey guys,
This piece is about the technical weaknesses of Vitor Belfort, so I haven't really touched on "heart" or other things folks criticize him for. As always I will be doing the other side of things and talking about Vitor's strengths some time in the next 7 days.
Hope you don't mind clicking the link and as always all critique is welcomed!
Cheers,
Jack
Due to the positive response I receive every time I write a "weaknesses" piece, I decided that this time I would start with the weaknesses of Vitor Belfort and write about the strengths of The Phenom afterwards. It perhaps reflects the ludicrous betting lines for this fight that even though I want to believe that anything can happen, it is far easier for me to demonstrate Belfort's weaknesses than it is for me to demonstrate his strengths.
Vitor Belfort debuted in the 1990s and acquired the nickname "The Phenom" for his hand speed and punching power, but throughout his career perhaps a better nickname would have been "The Enigma". For over 5 years of terrible performances fans continued to say "I hope OLD Vitor shows up". As soon as Belfort picked up a win over Matt Lindland it seemed like "Old Vitor" was back but in truth things just became more confusing as a man who was continually ranked by fans as number 2 in the middleweight division ended up fighting sub top 10 fighters such as Yoshihiro Akiyama and Anthony Johnson.
In today's Judo Chop we will examine Belfort's:
- Limited Boxing Arsenal
- Difficulty Dealing With Kicks
- Availability to Clinch
- The Difficulty in Ranking Vitor
Limited Boxing Arsenal
Vitor Belfort came into the sport at a time when Tank Abbott was considered one of the sport's best strikers, and proceeded to flatten men like Abbott, Scott Ferozo and even the young Wanderlei Silva. Having trained boxing all of his life, Belfort was thought to be an elite level boxer by MMA standards, but in truth Belfort never showed a great deal of boxing skill, simply power and speed. Take a look at any Vitor Belfort highlight and you will notice that aside from the occasional straight left (as a southpaw that is the correct technique for Vitor to lead with), Belfort's assault consists entirely of throwing one hand at his opponent's head while the other is loaded at his shoulder or down by his nipple. Vitor never changes target and rarely even changes the direction of the punch to an uppercut or even an overhand, he simply pumps straights over and over until his opponent falls over or clinches him.
In recent years Vitor's output has become a little more varied, he has added uppercuts, hooks and even knees to his arsenal, but he is still exclusively a head hunter. The truth is that Vitor still gets by almost exclusively on his speed in flurries, not on set ups or combinations. Combinations and set ups are sequences which are intended to land punches through forcing the opponent into a position or defence, a flurry is just throwing punches repeatedly at the same spot and that is what Vitor does.
One of the reasons that Chuck Liddell was able to drop Vitor Belfort was that Vitor continues to run straight in, swinging punches faster than his opponent in hopes of knocking them out. When Vitor ran in flurrying, Liddell pivoted to a different location, Belfort chased him, ended up almost chest to chest and got caught with Chuck's shots as the latter fired back. This is a brilliant example of Belfort's aggression working against him (more of those to come). (G)
Vitor's one dimensional pugilistic assault which lacks much science and instead relies on speed and brute strength is the cause of many of the other weaknesses we will touch on today.
Difficulty Dealing with Kicks
Vitor has never liked the act of kicking or become accustomed to defending kicks. Throughout his career Vitor has eaten kicks from the most unlikely kickers simply because they have worked out that Vitor is going to attempt to slug with them almost exclusively. Beginning with Kazushi Sakuraba, on to Chuck Liddell, and eventually to Anderson Silva whose kicking prowess allowed him to knock Vitor out where the other two men simply beat him up at range.
If you have never seen Kazushi Sakuraba versus Vitor Belfort I highly recommend watching it - it will make you realise why Sakuraba was pound for pound number 1 in the world for such a long time. Giving up 25 lbs to Belfort, Sakuraba weathered an early Vitor flurry and went on to beat up a disheartened Belfort on the feet with spinning back kicks, low kicks and the occasional surprisingly hard punch. After the first spinning back kick that Sakuraba landed Vitor immediately flopped to his back and chose to play guard, and this pattern was repeated every time Belfort stood up, failed to get into range to punch Sakuraba, and got kicked.
Notice here how Sakuraba messes with Vitor Belfort's reactions to land strikes. In the top two frames Sakuraba fakes one of his hard low kicks with his right leg, Vitor over-reacts by picking his leg up very high, and Sakuraba instead punches him with his right hand while they are both on one leg. In the bottom two stills you can see one of the several occasions that Sakuraba landed his spinning back kick. As Vitor circled to his own left, Sakuraba switched to southpaw and spun so that Vitor travelled into the kick's path. If they were boxing Vitor would be safe circling away at this range, but the allowance of kicks in MMA means that for a large portion of the match at range (especially when he is tired from a failed first round flurry), Vitor is a sitting duck for kicks.
Continues with Availability to Clinch and Difficulty in Ranking Vitor at:
