Sports Realm

On October 16th 2010 a new UFC event is going to happen. This time, the main fight of the evening is between Michael “The Count” Bisping and Yoshihiro Akiyama.

Although Bisping has become a great UFC fighter, he’s still got some road to go to become one of the best in his division. That’s why I consider Akiyama to be a better all-round fighter, but the thing with UFC is that there is never a point of certainty where you can say someone is going to win for sure.

Bispings advantages are that he is more powerful and certainly bigger than Akiyama. This also however makes him slower which is a huge problem. Akiyama is certainly going to use his speed as an advantage, and will move in and out to land some punches and frustrate Bisping.

The other thing with Yoshihiro is that he’s already shown us how much punishment he can handle – he managed to handle every punch Chris Leben threw at him at UFC 116. Also, on UFC 110 he took some great kicks form Alan Belcher. Having said that, we have to keep in mind that Bisping is not as skilled as Belcher, nor is he as powerful as Chris Leben. This brings me to the conclusion that Akiyama has got many advantages in this fight.

This is how the fight is probably going to happen: Bisping will be very confident with his stand up game, but because of his slowness, he won’t be able to land a good punch on Akiyama’s face. This will in turn frustrate him and force him to use his slow kicks. Akiyama will probably make a good use of this and take him down. However, if Bisping does manage to land a good combo, or a devastating (albeit slow) kick, I think Akiyama won’t be able to recover.

Akiyama’s great advantage is his much better ground game. He is an excellent grappler and submission artist. Out of his 13 wins, 7 of them were by a submission. This should concern Bisping because of his slow and sloppy ground game. If Akiyama brings the fight to the ground, he will have several options from there on. He’ll be able to win by decision if the fight goes on to the end, or he will be able to pull a submission against Bisping’s mistake.

So, that’s my conclusion on this fight. Bisping is a great striker, but I just don’t see him landing punches against Akiyama’s speed. This will frustrate him and he will be forced to use kicks against him, which will in turn expose him to take-downs. Akiyama’s better ground game and speed will enable him to control the ground position and eventually collect him points if the fights lasts long enough for a decision.

This will be an excellent fight. Be sure to watch Bisping vs Akiyama fight video for free.