I personally was pretty impressed with Struve's performance I thought Stipe was going to murder him but surprisingly Stipe's punches didnt have nearly the effect on Struve that I expected. Stipe looked pretty good in the first round but clearly was beginning to gas in the second and thats what allowed Struve to take over and finish him. I think Struve's next fight should be against a named opponent someone like Kongo or perhaps the winner of Carwin vs Nelson or Browne vs Big Foot.
Struve isn't consistent, nor does he 'look better with each passing fight'. He's consistently on the verge of being KOed, even in those fights where he manages to pull out a win. He always says he's improving and will be better the next time out, and yet all of his performances are mirror images of one another. He either comes close to being knocked out yet miraculously comes through. Or he just gets plain old knocked out.
Guaranteed that if he were to fight JDS again, or even Big Country, he'd be KOed. I like Struve, and he is rather fun to watch. But take away his height and reach, and he's completely mediocre.
His striking is improving, and he does look much better now than he did a year ago.
Everyone wants him to learn how to fight tall, and that hasn't happened yet, but that doesn't mean his striking is the same. He showed a variety of strikes in this fight, and some very nice combinations. Very few HWs can throw leather like that.
As for almost getting KO'd? That didn't happen, sorry. But go ahead and dismiss him in his next fight, as everyone seems to be doing with consistency.
^His striking is improving, but his defence is not. He won't even need defence if he manages to use his reach advantage properly and he has shown better use of his jab in this fight. You've got that, coupled with the fact that he could sub the majority of the division quite easily, makes him a great prospect to me. If he works on his striking for the next 4 years, I think Struve would be championship material by the time he's JDS' age.
I wouldn't say you imagined it, but I think you came in with certain expectations, and those expectations coloured your perception of what you saw.
I just watched the fight again, and here are the only instances I found where Struve appeared to be in momentary trouble:
With about 1:30 left in the first:
Miocic catches Struve under the shoulder, and Struve, who was in the act of throwing something gets pushed off balance. John Anik thought he was hurt too, but that was nonsense.
You'll also note this happened after Struve landed cleanly. I actually think this was the turning point of the fight.
With about 2:10 left in the second:
This is a legit headshot, but Struve wasn't in any real trouble. Miocic moves his hand out of the way and throws a short arm punch which catches Struve by surprise. He rolls with it and tries to reset. You see that even as he's running away he's looking at Miocic. He cleanly avoids the next two punches, smiles, and gets back into his stance.
I made another gif for a beautiful flurry he landed about 30 seconds later (before the slip) but the file is a little over 6 megabytes and too large for this host.
Now, the big guy's striking defense is a work in progress, to put it generously, and a whole bunch of Stipe's strikes landed, or were at best partially blocked, but Struve was never in that much danger, and offensively he chains punches together very nicely. his punches quickly, and from a lot of angles. He's become very dangerous in the stand up, and almost no one is going to want to go to the ground with him.
Yeah he was wobbled a few times but he bounced back from them quite well. A lot better than he has in the past anyways and he was covering up slightly better (yet someone like JDS would break his body apart).
I'm sure he was playing possum on one of the wobbles. He backed away then did a pretty over the top wobble that looked fake to me, think he was trying make Moicic reckless and have him him charge in.
I love the fact that in this thread a lot of people are essentially saying Struve Should fight more like Hathaway, and in the other thread people are basically saying the opposite thing.
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