Finally got to watch the Malcolm Wellmaker-Ethyn Ewing fight.
Have never bought the hype on Wellmaker. Not to say I thought he was bad or that he couldn't be a future top ten fighter or that I picked Ewing. But there really wasn't much to go on. His big claim to fame in the UFC thus far has been KOing Kris Moutinho and Cameron Saaiman, best known for being hit a bunch. Always good to get stoppage wins (especially at 135lbs) but that's not exactly taking out good comp. I guess his appearance on the Contender Series got people really excited about him. And having an easily identifiable "move" like his right hook makes it easy for people to get caught up in that hype. But at the lowest levels of MMA, a good lead hook is basically like being a great heel hooker - you can get carried pretty far up the totem pole with it. People just do not see it coming. A
And to Wellmaker's credit, he landed it clean a couple times here against Ewing and you can see why he has folks excited. Great trigger on that thing out the gate. Caught Ewing leaping through space with his own lead hand with a right hook and had him hurt 90 seconds in the fight. Problem for him is Ewing looks to be actually good, with a complete game and a bag of well-sharpened tools. Seemed to really key in on the fact Wellmaker just does not turn super well and has very bare footwork, so he was able to continually move around Wellmaker while staying in range for his own offense. Great pivots paired with a great sense of timing and feints to pull responses out of Wellmaker that opened up opportunities to attack. Awesome jab. He was double and tripling up on it to break Wellmaker's head movement and guard. He was using it to hide his turns too. Really love the work from the front headlock. Every round, especially at the end of the first 2, he'd get that front headlock position standing and just went to town with knees to the head of Wellmaker. Was hiding from Wellmaker's lead hook by stepping in deep or faraway and turning up the shoulder. I do like how committed to the body shots Wellmaker became when he realized he had hurt Ewing in the 2nd. Was attacking with knees up close and the push kicks from range plus the big lefts to the gut. But was too predictable and one off to really build off the small wins he was picking up. And just too much loading up looking for that big right hook. By the end of the fight, Ewing was so locked in to Wellmaker's offense he was stepping into Wellmaker's back on his spinning back kick attempts and basically boxing him up while standing in front of him.
Excited to see more of Ewing. Guy has potential to be REALLY good with time. Or he could have just been the right guy at the right time to deal with someone with the limited technical tools Wellmaker brought to the fight. You never know! Hopefully there are lessons here Wellmaker and his camp can take to flesh out more of his game. When you have that much power and speed, you don't really need too much to become a top end fighter. Especially as a southpaw.
