Inside Rizzo vs. Yvel

Yvel (pictured) and Rizzo will come ready for war

Nobody is talking about it, but there’s a fight that I think any MMA fan (hardcore or casual) will enjoy. That’s the matchup between former UFC top contender Pedro Rizzo and infamous badass Gilbert Yvel.

Gilbert Yvel is always exciting, even when he’s getting his ass kicked (given his poor ground game, that happens a fair amount of the time). He’s also a great personality and once, when asked what he would do as a career if he were not a fighter claimed, “I think I’d be a porn star, because I’m really good at that too.”

Yvel is one of the most entertaining and most poorly marketed fighters in the world. His role as a heel should be exploited by any organization that decides to take the legal liability of putting him on their roster. He’s punched out a ref and been DQ’d for biting and eye gouging (on separate occasions). Rizzo, on the other hand, is a legendary Brazilian muay thai fighter and one of the first mixed martial artists to establish himself as a Vale Tudo fighter on the big stage.

Both are immensly exciting in the ring. The historical relevance of Rizzo in the UFC and Yvel in Pride aside, this is a striker-on-striker matchup that has a great deal of potential, as both fighters love to bang it out, and both go toe-to-toe from bell-to-bell.

The striker-vs.-striker matchup doesn’t always turn out great, as we learned from the Hardonk vs. Kongo fight (which I, personally, found immensly disappointing when Kongo decided to go to the mat), but when two fighters are willing to stand and trade, that always turns out well, and I have no reason to think either of these fighters has a desire to take it to the mat (though, if either does, it will be Rizzo, who has a credible jiu-jitsu game).

Rizzo is a very technical muay thai fighter out of the Brazilian lineage and school of thought. He’s not as visceral as the figureheads of the Brazilian muay that scene (Anderson Silva and a younger Wanderlei Silva), but given that twelve of his sixteen wins have come by way of strikes (three are submissions, including a win over Dan Severn) there’s no dispute that he hits hard. While Rizzo does not have an iron chin, his emmergence as a four time national Brazilian champion in muay thai speaks a great deal for his technical ability and his ability to go to war. Even at his age and after his hiatus from MMA, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Rizzo is a substantial technical striker with an ability to do damage that demands respect.

Gilbert Yvel is a BAMF. He just is. He comes out of the Dutch kickboxing tradition that many consider a top striking culture, perhaps only superseded by the Thai themselves. Yvel has 35 career wins in mixed martial arts, and none of them are by decision, a rare feat for someone with so much experience. His three disqualification losses aside, Yvel’s style is best described as visceral. He looks to deliver punishment and, when he has the opportunity, he does.

While he lost his fight with Josh Barnett, and seemed thoroughly dominated, he insisted on punching Barnett even while mounted and though Barnett claims to bruise easily, the bruises on his face were a nice reflection of the aggression shown by Yvel.

Both fighters are coming off of losses to Barnett and looking to get back on track, and both are going to look to display impressive skills in their upcoming fight on the “Ultimate Chaos” card, where they will co-main event with Bobby Lashley and Bob Sapp. It’s a fight that I hope there’s video of circulating afterwards, as it looks to be a bout with two warriors who love to deliver punishment and have no qualms about taking it, and when the warriors engage their favorite skills, those fights are never dull.