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- Apr 26, 2006
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Doesn't Casey's inability to cut off the cage against someone who uses such a crazy amount of lateral movement concern you? I agree, Hill has about 10 minutes or so worth of really being able to do it as effectively as she wants. But for those 2 rounds, nothing I've seen from Casey has shown me that her striking has anywhere near the footwork to cut Hill off. I'd have to check the stats, but it seems to me like Moroz really landed most of her strikes once Hill slowed down (and was already clearly ahead on the cards). I watched that fight a few weeks ago when these lines were released, so it's not totally fresh but it's at least somewhat recently.
The reach factor does matter too though, you could be on to something. But Casey has looked incredibly predictable and slow with her striking overall. Maybe being at the MMA Lab will fix some of her issues. But at least for 10 minutes, she's going to be at a serious speed and footwork disadvantage, which is a bad combination. On the plus side for Casey, it's not like Hill (like a most WMMA fighters) really tries incredibly hard to avoid the clinch. So if Casey can force a clinch battle for extended amounts of time, her chances obviously increase dramatically. I guess I trust (to a relative degree anyway) Hill's fight IQ to disengage and get back to her distance striking and movement if she's getting the worst of the clinch. But you absolutely make a solid case for Courtney's chances.
Despite what the commentators said about Casey's inability to cut off the cage and her following Waterson around, the fact of the matter remains that Waterson was only able to employ an outside kicking game for about a minute or two before Casey's forward pressure let her get close enough to land some heavy punches. Waterson had to expend a lot of energy moving backwards to try to outfight whereas Casey just steadily walked forward. After getting tagged by Casey in the first Waterson abandoned the outside kicking game for the rest of the fight.
Hill may have success for longer but I don't think she can do it for 10 minutes, especially if Casey can force a few clinch exchanges. Hill's preferred range is just slightly outside the punching reach of her opponent. She's actually not that great in the pocket and either moves backwards after throwing or goes forward into the clinch. It makes sense because her opponents always have a power advantage over her so the pocket is the danger zone. If she's clinching she's tiring out faster. But if she has to back off considerably every time she throws, that's also very tiring. She was lucky that she could stand just out of range of Moroz and save a bit of energy. But Moroz doesn't throw hard and her punches fall short. Casey's punches won't and Hill will have to work more.
It's not impossible for Hill to win with range distance striking, but she will have to fight a perfect fight and make very few mistakes. I just don't think it happens over 60% of the time.