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08/02/10 - Jon Fitch: "The closed guard is dead in MMA"
Nate Marquardt’s loss to Chael Sonnen’s to “fantastic, phenomenal wrestling” at UFC 109 on Saturday night has prompted UFC welterweight Jon Fitch to declare that the closed guard is “dead” in the modern MMA game. Fitch made the comment to FOX Sports as he sat ringside watching the weekend’s fights.
“Nate didn’t execute a game plan very well. I think the closed guard is dead in MMA right now, unless you are Demain Maia or Shinya Aoki forget about it. You are either getting up or getting on top, forget about pulling of submissions from your back nowadays. Strong wrestlers like Chael Sonnen will just pound you out all day long,” he said.
Fitch confessed he was “very surprised” at how Sonnen was able to dominate Marquardt throughout the three-round fight. “Nate looked kind of tired or passive in the middle round there, I don’t know. Chael was very impressive.”
Fitch also discussed the issue of he and his fellow American Kickboxing Academy welterweights (Josh Koscheck and Mike Swick) having to fight each other in the UFC at some point. All three have said they are not willing to face each other in the Octagon unless it is for a title.
“There’s so many guys out there to fight its not really an issue really. We fight each other every day anyway so there is zero incentive for us to fight each other in here (the Octagon),” he said.
“It is a no win situations because nobody is going to be up for it, the fans aren’t even going to be up for it because the fighters aren’t going to be into it because we fight each other every day. Its just something that nobody is interested in.”
Watch Jon Fitch’s full interview with Mike Strakka of Fox Sports here
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