a blog by La Kifo I promised I would give some words on this fight, so here it is. Crazy. Going into this fight, I gave Alvarez a very minimal chance of escaping two rounds with Dos Anjos. Dos Anjos was on a 5 fight win streak, a little more impressive than his streak was the fighters he had defeated. Jason High was the worst of the five and he was still 19-5 in his professional career. After High, Dos Anjos went through Benson Henderson, Nate Diaz, Anthony Pettis, and Donald Cerrone in that order. Those are some of the best Lightweights in the division, and not only did Dos Anjos beat them, he destroyed them.
Dos Anjos certainly looked the part. His striking speed, and the tempo he fights at are both incredible. Which is what we saw at the start of the opening round Thursday. Dos Anjos began cornering Alvarez, giving him little space to maneuver up against the cage. What Dos Anjos and the rest of us failed to see was all around talent of Eddie Alvarez. A Philly guy born and raised, he brought the heat underneath his gloves. Alvarez was the #2 contender in the lightweight division, he wasn't some average joe getting a undeserved title fight. But honestly, after watching his fight against Pettis, I would have never imagined him as the new undisputed lightweight champion of the world. Alvarez was backed into a corner half way through the first round, when he landed a clean, hard overhand right that found its way behind the blocking arms and temple of Dos Anjos. The shot clearly rocked Dos Anjos, and Alvarez advanced seeing blood in the water. Dos Anjos kept backing up as Alvarez pressured him hard. Alvarez unleashed a flurry of uppercuts and punches for what seemed like an entire minute. Dos Anjos had the arm guards up, back against the cage as Alvarez nailed a nasty uppercut and followed with a numerous blows to the head right before the referee ended the brawl. The first half of the fight looked like a normal Rafael Dos Anjos bout. He was applying pressure, playing good defense, and landing punches. It was all going according to plan until that overhand right that took his spryness away from him. It goes to show you what a crazy sport MMA is and how quickly things can change. UFC 200 is on in less than 5 hours, get pumped, drink your creatine and eat up them meats. Comments are closed.
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