Posted by richieb19
Heath Herring had a torn MCL (not ACL), and had difficulties with stopping O'Brien's takedowns, and this was also apparent as his guard was almost non-existant, but with all the excuses aside it's O'Brien that I'm truly ashamed of. I don't understand the UFC's idea behing bringing people in with backgrounds almost purely in freestyle wrestling, it makes for very boring fights. In this case, Herring tried keep the fight entertaining, and more importantly, actually tried to damage and finish his opponent, both on the feet and on the ground by dropping O'Brien with punches and attempting submissions, O'Brien on the other hand, did nothing. He was clearly the better wrestler, this was shown time after time in his double leg takedowns, but he could not stand and trade with Herring, and whats worse is that he barely ever tried to punch him while he was on top, or even worse yet he never attempted submissions that were right in front of him like when Herring kept giving his back (most likely wouldnt have got it against Heath anyways. I would much rather see Herring fight again than O'Brien, and the UFC needs to either stop brining in boring wrestlers, or impliment rules to punish passsivity or to attack against wreslters always attempting takedowns (knees to the head from the quarter position).
Very well put... O'brien showed no standup and no chin...
Heath dropped him with a left jab, or lazy left hook I can't remember, in the first, and then again at the end of the fight...
And his absolute lack of any sort of offense besides the TD was boring me to death...
I am trying to atribute it to O'Brien's lack of experience and youth, especially against a fighter of HH's caliber... Maybe he did what he could or felt comfortable doing, but it is a great example of why the UFC should institute some variation of the 'yellow card' system.
Boring wrestlers should be made to expand their game to fight in MMA.