By T.J. Dillashaw thinks Merab Dvalishvili was too predictable in his approach at UFC 333.
Dvalishvili (21-5 MMA, 14-3 UFC) lost his trilogy bout to UFC bantamweight champion Petr Yan (20-5 MMA, 12-4 UFC) at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. After winning the first two rounds, Dvalishvili slowed down, which allowed Yan to take over.
Dvalishvili attempted a record-breaking 58 takedown attempts, but only landed five of them. Dillashaw explains how "The Machine" should have taken an opposite approach to find success against Yan.
"The only thing is that Merab doesn't have another way to beat Yan," Dillashaw said on the JAXXON PODCAST. "The way he can slow him down from throwing punches is by shooting a shot. The way that he can score points is by getting a takedown. He's not going to outstrike Yan unless – which, I don't understand why he has not done this – he does a great job using his hands to get takedowns. He gets you to believe in your hands and he shoots a shot. He's the best in the world at getting on the legs. He's a f*cking nightmare to fight. But imagine if he is now using his takedowns to set up his strikes.
"Why is that not part of his f*cking game? He would be even more of a nightmare if he's like faking a shot. You saw how much Yan would have to f*cking sprawl. Get him to sprawl and then fire off. Bring the knee up the middle, bring in kicks, setting up your combos off your shots. But he would throw his hands, get on a shot, hopefully get it, if he doesn't, he backs out. He bounces around. He's all sporadic like (Michael) Bisping was saying, then gets in on another shot. It's like, the way you're doing it top to bottom, now, let's go bottom to top. If he was able to do that, he could have won this fight."
Yan landed a body kick on Dvalishvili in Round 3, which appeared to be the turning point.
"It's definitely the third round, and I don't know if it's from the body kick necessarily," Dillashaw said. "It's more so that Yan was like, 'All right, I've got to win every round now. I let him wear down his gas tank.' Look, we have a gas tank. He let Merab get to, you know, a third of his gas tank left and he's like, 'Now I'm going to turn it on, now I'm going to pick my shots.' Yes, the body shot added to it, but also the fact that going for those shots and him standing up, breaking it right away. It's like, all that weighs on you."
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Ex-UFC champ breaks down what Merab Dvalishvili should've done to beat Petr Yan
https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/ex-ufc-champ-breaks-down-022016281.html
