I can imagine that strategy session with Tak and Frye's reaction. :wtf: Of all the ways to do a work, that fight setup would be the very last way to scheme a desired outcome. :lol:
Jas, Did'nt you mean to put a :nutkick: in between the Jab N' Pray hope style for Sylvia?
Sylvia uses jabs to maintain distance on smaller opponents for his reach, that's a ineffectual strategy when facing a top K-1 striker. Jabs are not often used in Kickboxing, because it exposes the other side to a arcing counter kick when the jabber has to expose his centerline and Sylvia has not an inside power game, I have yet to see him cross anyone really well upclose, single or, god forbid, a power cross/hook combo when someone slips his ranging jab and engages in tight.
Jerome Le Banner has fought a number of very tall distance strikers in his career - two options avaliable, negate the longer punch range with kicks to knees or thighs or kidneys, his leg reach versus their arm reach to cripple and/or duck and close distance with a sidestep to pound the torso from solar plexus to groin with following shots to the jaw or work the opposite, head to tail.
Le Banner is devastating, in a worldclass WBA style sense, when he can get in close and tight. No one wants to get in a slugging match with this guy. Other K-1 Elite fighters have the mobility to prevent JLB from closing distance,they counter circle on the balls of their feet, Sylvia does not, he's a straightback flatfooted oaf, comparatively.
The way to beat JLB is mobility striking to his left side, he's a natural righty who fights southpaw, which means he's vunerable to his non dominant side as he leads with his right, do not let him straight stalk you to cut off the ring and trap you in tight.
Under MMA rules, Sylvia has the knowledge and experience advantage, but I doubt the athletic one, Le Banner is both quick, for a very large man, and really strong. He has the shoulders and traps of a Mark Coleman.
Sylvia counts on being able to disavantage poor (by K-1 standards) strikers with his reach who can't work kicks for duration and/or close distance for the kill inside. 267 pound brawler JLB would gut him in close or chop him down with his shins at range.
JLB is three years off his prime,having lost two of his best years to an arm fracture, Sylvia would not be a test, big tall leggy last year's K-1 champion Schilt definetly is.
Alexander - I think I know the fight you're referring to, the old small guy in the Gi? If that's the one, that wasn't a work, that was a pitiful mismatch. The Gi guy went for a single leg something, and caught a knee, JLB was toying with him at halfspeed.
The fight you saw, Jas, was the K-1 2002 Grandprix Semifinal of Hunt_JLB. Hunt quit, cause he was getting the living **** beat out of him.
