question about soko vs arona

gracie_barra · 09-11-2007, 07:13 PM

just rewatched the fight and if there are any wrestlers here:

when arona had the single against soko, why didnt he clear his leg and drove forward for the double? it seems that it would have been the logical choice from that position since he obviously couldnt land the single perfectly. for those who arent familiar with the leg clear to double, watch koscheck's fights - its his bread and butter tkdown. he tried it against gsp but failed when gsp managed to extract his leg.

Bullitt68 · 09-11-2007, 07:20 PM

Being a wrestler has nothing to do with being able to answer this question. If you want an answer, Arona would be the only one that could provide one since he was the one that chose to stick with the single. I also think Hughes could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he would've abandoned the single leg on BJ and just scooped him up like he's done with countless other fighters, but why he didn't is something only he could answer, and I wouldn't be surprised if the answer in both cases was as simple as both men being confident that they could eventually get their respective opponents down with the initial single.

gracie_barra · 09-11-2007, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bullitt68

Being a wrestler has nothing to do with being able to answer this question. If you want an answer, Arona would be the only one that could provide one since he was the one that chose to stick with the single. I also think Hughes could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he would've abandoned the single leg on BJ and just scooped him up like he's done with countless other fighters, but why he didn't is something only he could answer, and I wouldn't be surprised if the answer in both cases was as simple as both men being confident that they could eventually get their respective opponents down with the initial single.

sry i should have clarified, anyone can answer. i was just wondering if there were any wrestlers here who had any inputs. i agree about the hughes statement.

Fantasy Man · 09-11-2007, 10:08 PM

Strange, random question. But I'll bite.....

I wrestled D1, and although I can see your point, Arona's decision to abandon the takedown never stood out to me one way or the other. Being close to the ropes at the time, maybe Arona felt like he didn't have the space to drive in from where he was. Or maybe he didn't feel comfortable with the takedown at the time, foregoing the possibility of getting knee'd in the head resulting from a failed shoot.

In the UFC there are few repercussions concerning failed shoots, without worrying about leaving oneself exposed to debilitating knees to the head from the 5-point position (see Sakuraba-Arona, recall back in the day Saku single/double-leg takedowns were unmatched). Lack of knees to a downed opponents head, I believe is a big reason why pure grapplers like Randy, Hughes, Tito, Kos, etc. have games taylored to the UFC cage and rules. Thus would be a reason why a fighter like Kos can commit and follow through w/ his takedowns, as opposed to Arona.

Arona is a tremendous grappler. But his background is BJJ, unlike American fighters like Kos who has been training as a wrestler his entire life. So it is not bewildering that Arona is going to lack the foresight and technical ability as Kos in regards to his shoots.

Besides that there could also be an infinite amount of reasons why Arona did what he did. Like what was said before, only Arona can answer such a question.

gracie_barra · 09-11-2007, 10:56 PM

u were a d1 wrestler? which school did u wrestle for? not doubting u, asking out of curiosity.