Photo via Esther Lin / MMA Fighting
Due to the positive response I receive every time I write a "weaknesses" piece, I decided that this time I would start with the weaknesses of Vitor Belfort and write about the strengths of The Phenom afterwards. It perhaps reflects the ludicrous betting lines for this fight that even though I want to believe that anything can happen, it is far easier for me to demonstrate Belfort's weaknesses than it is for me to demonstrate his strengths.
Vitor Belfort debuted in the 1990s and acquired the nickname "The Phenom" for his hand speed and punching power, but throughout his career perhaps a better nickname would have been "The Enigma". For over 5 years of terrible performances fans continued to say "I hope OLD Vitor shows up". As soon as Belfort picked up a win overMatt Lindland it seemed like "Old Vitor" was back but in truth things just became more confusing as a man who was continually ranked by fans as number 2 in the middleweight division ended up fighting sub top 10 fighters such as Yoshihiro Akiyama and Anthony Johnson.
In today's Judo Chop we will examine Belfort's:
- Limited Boxing Arsenal
- Difficulty Dealing With Kicks
- Availability to Clinch
- The Difficulty in Ranking Vitor
Limited Boxing Arsenal
Vitor Belfort came into the sport at a time when Tank Abbott was considered one of the sport's best strikers, and proceeded to flatten men like Abbott, Scott Ferozo and even the young Wanderlei Silva. Having trained boxing all of his life, Belfort was thought to be an elite level boxer by MMA standards, but in truth Belfort never showed a great deal of boxing skill, simply power and speed. Take a look at any Vitor Belfort highlight and you will notice that aside from the occasional straight left (as a southpaw that is the correct technique for Vitor to lead with), Belfort's assault consists entirely of throwing one hand at his opponent's head while the other is loaded at his shoulder or down by his nipple. Vitor never changes target and rarely even changes the direction of the punch to an uppercut or even an overhand, he simply pumps straights over and over until his opponent falls over or clinches him.
In recent years Vitor's output has become a little more varied, he has added uppercuts, hooks and even knees to his arsenal, but he is still exclusively a head hunter. The truth is that Vitor still gets by almost exclusively on his speed in flurries, not on set ups or combinations. Combinations and set ups are sequences which are intended to land punches through forcing the opponent into a position or defence, a flurry is just throwing punches repeatedly at the same spot and that is what Vitor does.
One of the reasons that Chuck Liddell was able to drop Vitor Belfort was that Vitor continues to run straight in, swinging punches faster than his opponent in hopes of knocking them out. When Vitor ran in flurrying, Liddell pivoted to a different location, Belfort chased him, ended up almost chest to chest and got caught with Chuck's shots as the latter fired back. This is a brilliant example of Belfort's aggression working against him (more of those to come). (G)
Vitor's one dimensional pugilistic assault which lacks much science and instead relies on speed and brute strength is the cause of many of the other weaknesses we will touch on today.
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