Posted by Hendo67
Meathead by TKO in the first, Kimbo's power is terribly overrated in my mind.
Yea, I would agree.
Unfortunately I expect this fight to be terrible.
Kimbo and Mitrione have bad gas tanks, if this fight goes past the 1st, it will be awful.
Mitrione has the power and the reach advantage, and even shown in his fight against Scott Junk, that even though he was completely gassed.. he literally won the second round and the fight solely on the basis of sticking out the jab near Junk's face. 90% of those jabs didnt even land, but by literally sticking it out (moreso flinging an extended arm while his hands dangled by his sides) he happened to be more offensive by using the jab defensively (if he would have thrown anything else he probably would have fell over).
In the 3rd round of the Kimbo/Houston fight Houston threw up a couple of sloppy jabs while his hands were dangling on the ground near the body of Kimbo that made Kimbo unable to counter/too tired to counter.
I think Mitrione takes the 1st round - then we enter 10 minutes of spaghetti arm flailing, where Mitrione sloppily backs up Kimbo with a jab in the 3rd winning a U.Decision.
I hate to be so negative about the fight. Mitrione definitely has the edge though IMO, Mitrione I think has shown more improvement than Kimbo has during each of their fights on the Finale card. Mitrione I think could probably be good enough to stick around for a while. He was able to stay composed on his back against Marcus Jones even when Marcus had him in side mount, knew how to wall-walk, and had the ability to work for an underhook when pressed up against the cage defending a takedown.
Kimbo was ultimately able to survive because he was able to out-muscle Houston do to a strength advantage... and he's not going to have that advantage against Mitrione. Kimbo also IMO didn't show as much technical improvement in comparison to Matt Mitrione.
I'd be more inclined to think that Kimbo might try to push him Mitrione against the fence and try to overpower Mitrione, but Mitrione has the reach, strength, and power advantage, and I feel he has shown greater improvement than Kimbo.
I hope for at least a decent fight, but I clearly favor Mitrione.