Preview by: AJ Hoffman
Back when Strikeforce came to Houston last year, we introduced our in depth breakdown format. With UFC 136 approaching, we thought it would be a good idea to roll it out one again and give you an in depth breakdown of all the main card fights to give you an idea what to look for at the Toyota Center on Saturday night.
Melvin Guillard comes back to Houston on a hot streak, and possibly just a fight or two away from a title shot with a win here. Lauzon may be coming into his own and taking the next step, but he will have to avoid the power of “The Young Assassin” if he is going to climb the ranks.
Pictures courtesy of Sherdog.com and UFC.com
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Melvin Guillard | Name | Joe Lauzon |  |
| The Young Assassin | Nickname | J-Lau | ||
| 5’9″ | Height | 5’10″ | ||
| 155 | Weight | 155 | ||
| 29-8-2-1 | Record | 20-6 | ||
| Albuquerque, NM | Out Of | Bridgewater, MA | ||
| Vs | ||||
| Shane Roller (W- KO) Evan Dunham (W- TKO)Jeremy Stephens (W – S. Dec) | Last Three Fights | Curt Warburton (W-Sub)George Sotiropoulous (L- Sub)
Gabe Reudiger (W-Sub) |
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POWER:
Not even close. Guillard has the best knockout power in the lightweight division. He is an aggressive striker and over half his wins have come via KO or TKO. |
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SPEED:
Lauzon isn’t slow, but Guillard’s speed is on another level. Very fast hands and very fast movement in the cage. |
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WRESTLING: Lauzon doesn’t have a wrestling background, and Guillard often uses a quick shot to floor his opponents for ground and pound. |
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CLINCH: This one is actually a lot closer than you would expect, as Lauzon has shown effective in the clinch. That said, if you are in range for Guillard to put his hands on you, you are too close. |
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| GROUND:
Lauzon’s biggest advantage in this fight. He possesses very slick submissions, which have been Guillard’s Achille’s Heel throughout his career. |
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| CARDIO:
To be fair, Guillard rarely has to go longer than a round or two. His all-out style usually leaves him gasping if it goes to the late rounds. |
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WINNER: Joe Lauzon via Submission |
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SUMMARY: This is an extremely tough fight to call. The safe pick would be Guillard, but against a good submission guy I can easily see him making a mistake that gets him tapped out. Guillard has a history of getting close to title contention and losing a fight he shouldn’t. I vote it is this one. |
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melvin has been on a tear as of late. i cant see him allowing the fight to go to the ground to get caught… since at jackson”s he does a good job of sliiping in and out of the reach of his opponent. the few times hes been grounded he gets to the cage and wall walks fast as hell…. no question guillard runs through joe louzan
I see guillard being a nightmare matchup for Joe. Melvin can win a variety of ways but Joe has only one. I look at numbers of ways to win and likelihood for those methods to help determine the winner. We all know in mma anything can happen but let’s talk practically. Joe can only win by submission. If he doesn’t get that sub he prob going to lose. The caveat is that to get the fight where he can win he needs Melvins help he’s gotnone way to win and it’s not a method he can impose but rather one he has to hope for. Melvin can win dec, GNP, ko or tko. Melvin also can make any of these happen and doesn’t need joes help.
Being a physically inferior submission fighter against a monster who u most likely can’t take down is a terrible place to be. Terrible. This would be an obvious sweep for Melvin if wasn’t for his history of choking or actually making the decision (or lack there of) that DOES help his opponent get that one situation he needs. However right now with Melvins revitalized mindset and his new game planning and recent history of not making those mistakes, combined with a clearly improved skillet….Joe has a problem. He needs to pray for a mental slip at just the right moment on Melvins part ornthis will be an ugly fightbfor him where he is fighting to stay awake and defending getting koed while hoping for a td. That’s not a fun place to be.
On a side note this looks very much what undefeated Clifford faces in Machine Gun Young in their main event in a couple weeks on shark fights. Here’s to hoping our Houston transplants get some ugly KOs!
The man beat Roller, Dunham, and Stephens in his last 3 and you’r e expecting J-Lau to take him down and submit him? That’s absolutely ridiculous.
The original MMA IQ speaks ^^^^ I obviously concur.
I love how Greg Jackson suddenly makes everyone unbeatable. Because he trains there now he didn’t get guillotined in 20 seconds by Joe Stevenson and get triangled by a dude named “The Dentist”…. Not “The Geometry Teacher”….. The Dentist!!!
It wouldn’t shock me at all if Guillard ran through him.. But to act like Melvin can’t be beat is a little ridiculous.
By the way, I have no idea what I am talking about….
But you’re witty…but seriously I dontnthink that Jackson makes guys unbeatable but rather Melvin decided tonget serious about training and moved there. It’s as much about Melvins mindset as anything else. And he did get totally twisted by by those guys but u have to admit he has appeared different since changing his training location. See when Melvin was here he didn’t train for fights. It wasn’t that Saul couldn’t teach him how to defend subs itsnthat Melvin didn’t show up. He hung out withbhis friends more etc. As he continued to mature he got more committed mentally and made changes as a result and the fact he’s training and preparing for fights now goes a long way. That’s why he’s doing well. Of course he could get subbed….and if he was gonna lose that’s how to do it but its just less likely now than ever. That’s my point.
Like I said on the podcast, 7 of Guillard’s 8 losses are via submission. 16 of Lauzon’s 20 wins are via submission.
Not to mention 3 of his last 5 fights in the UFC he’s won submission of the night.
It’s not a stretch to think it could happen. Not in the slightest.
^ Definitely good points. I do think it’s a far stretch though. Melvin’s a different fighter than he was earlier in his career. Plenty of people credit Jackson for that but I think Melvin finally maturing a little bit has to accounted for as well.
lol Melvin all the way ! joe louzon is getting ko’ed in an explosion of violence ! speed + power + athletic ability and killer instinct = sweet dreams for joe ! WAR ASSASIN !
I think Melvin wins, tests positive for cocaine and gets busted for greasing, and has it overturned. He will then go home and do more cocaine.
Hi there…so Melvin does cocaine? I am calling Inside MMA…
who did these statistics? lmfao
slap yourself!
Mike calimbas hacked my account! I would have NEVER said that.
“Clears Throat”…….
Eats bitter tasting crow.