Chris Leben VS Jake Rosholt

[SPX]

You guys got any thoughts on this one?

Here's a copy and paste of something I posted on another board:

Okay, I've now seen pretty much all the video of Rosholt that's out there and also watched several of Leben's most recent fights.

In short, I dropped .75u on Leben and here's why. . .

If you go back and watch Rosholt's early pre-UFC fights, he pretty much handles his opponents both on the feet and on the ground. He outstrikes them, takes them down, and GnP's until the ref stops the fight. Then he moves up to the WEC and his striking seems to be instantly sub-par in his fight with Osterneck. Despite the fact that Osterneck is primarily a submission fighter, he still is able to outstrike Rosholt on the feet. There are several occasions in which Osterneck rocks Rosholt big time and probably could've put him away . . . if not for the fact that both fighters were totally gassed by the end of the first round. By the second, they are still exhausted, Osterneck still rocks Rosholt again on the feet, but thankfully for Rosholt he is able to get an exhausted Osterneck to the ground and engage in some really sloppy GnP until the ref stops it. Then we fast forward to the Dan Miller fight. Miller again is outstriking Rosholt on the feet. Rosholt then pulls off a relatively impressive take down, controls the fight briefly, and gets choked out.

I think Leben's a pretty middle-of-the-road guy, but one thing he's good at is beating on guys who are new to the UFC. He doesn't seem to have a solid enough skillset to beat the upper echelon of fighters in his division, but he's a solid test for anyone. He has a relatively sloppy, brawling style (though he showed some technical improvement in the Bisping fight), but what he lacks on refinement he seems to make up for in power. He also has pretty decent cardio, good takedown defense and, while not known as a ground fighter, his defensive BJJ off his back is not bad. Furthermore, he also has a ton of experience, far more than the 5-1 Rosholt, and that can count for a lot.

One thing I did notice is that once someone has Leben on his back, he's pretty good at minimizing damage and throwing a lot of little punches and body kicks to wear down his opponent, but he's not that good at getting out of the position and back to his feet. I think that if Rosholt can get Leben down and get on top of him, then he may be able to control Leben and secure a decision victory. But I think that Leben will probably be able to keep this on the feet enough to land the right punch that puts Rosholt down.

I'm going with Leben via 2nd round TKO.

[Mr. IWS]

I agree with everything you said here. Rosholt is a typical GnP'r ( I think he trains with team takedown). His Standup is average at best.

I think Leben has good enought TD defense to keep this standing and get an early KO.