Shields vs Lovato
Lovato won't be able to take down Jake Shields. Lovato will eventually sit. Jake will hammer at Lovato's long frame with his body lock style passing. Lovato doesn't have the same guard style as Craig Jones and thus Shields will be relatively safe from submission threat while forcing his guard passing game potentially through to half-guard against Lovato but Lovato's been in the game grappling forever and I don't see anything meaningful submission wise happening in the match.
Shields by decision unless the judges decide to start cracking down on fairly straightforward passing from safer positions and Lovato is able to force some omoplata style attacks from Shields head low passing position. Be interesting to see if Lovato affects any Williams guard and the like. Having been mauled by Jake Shields in training, I can see it is as close to mma training while only grappling as I've experience since I stopped fighting. Was in the locker room one day and Garry Tonon remarked that there's a lot of tough, strong guys out there but there's a few that the second they put their hands on you that first time, it's a very particular feeling, and that Jake is one of those guys. I can concur from much more limited but some experience getting to roll with a number of famous names in the blue basement when they visit from time to time. Rolling with Jake everytime is a demoralizing and debilitating experience that really takes you to the limit. At any rate, Shields by decision after advancing to half-guard and some other near passing completion attempts.
Ffion Davies vs Gezary Matuda
Ffion is the new(er) generation of women competitors and is coming off of a promising beginning to her black belt era. Matuda is focusing on MMA from what I've seen and read and it will be interesting to see how she fares against Ffion who's still solely focused on sport grappling.
Ffion by decision.
Rocha vs Nicholls - Nicholls will sit to guard and save us from Vagner's patented slap your chest, shove, and rough collar tie game of baiting you into shooting so he can try to reverse using a kimura. It's amazing how obvious it is watching his ADCC matches but seeing experienced competitors forget that's his only real counter to takedowns and Vagner virtually NEVER shoots offensively, and I can't recall it working even when he once in a blue moon does shoot. At any rate, Rocha will attempt to wear Nicholls down with heavy top pressure, but I doubt he'll pass if Nicholls is at all conservative. Unless I'm wrong, the last time Rocha got leg locked was by Garry Tonon at the EBI after Vagner came off of a nearly 30 min match with Nathan Orchard. I doubt Nicholls is able to get to a meaingful leg entanglement against Rocha more than once or twice here, and Rocha will likely attack a few toe holds and rolling kimura attempts to balance out the submission attempt metric.
Rocha by decision.
Crelinsten vs Halpin
Crelinsten by back triangle armbar if not RNC. He'll do his wacky inflatable dancing man movement on top and end up on the back and Halpin won't have answers for what Crelinsten does there. I've been back triangle armbarred by Ethan more times than I care to admit. Halpin won't survive long with Ethan on his back.
O'Conaill vs Perez
Perez is a handful and while I'm not a huge fan of his tendency to stall out matches from top while passing in points matches, the guy will definitely try to hit some submissions if they present themselves (leg locks, wrist locks yay! et cetera). I've rolled with O'Conaill when he was visiting the US a year or so ago, super nice guy. Perez is a lot to handle and will also fight egregiously boring matches if need be (see some of his Kasai matches). I'm hoping that O'Conaill doesn't get locked into a positional battle with Perez weaving the legs and low on both knees in that non-mobile no one actually passes guard from there position we're seeing a lot of these days, but O'Conaill isn't known as a leg locker so hopefully Perez opens up a bit on top and when passing. Perez will be difficult to takedown and I expect O'Conaill to sit almost immediately.
I'm gonna say Perez by leg lock.
Langaker vs Brosche - I admittedly don't follow the EU scene specifically, but have watched a fair number of Langaker's matches as he's a guy actually throwing out submission attempts along the way to other things, rather than only slapping on a submission in the last 30 seconds for a hail mary advantage or if he gets to the back/is entirely dominating an opponent positionally. There used to be a cool breakdown by Lex Friedman of Brosche's passing and some ideas of his at brown belt, but it's been yanked from the internet.
Langaker by submission.
Sawada in action after a disappointing run at King of the Mats. Hope to see him put on a performance here as that was a tough run to watch this past weekend.
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