I'd say Luke's jj is much better than Branch's.
I'm rooting for Branch, Rockhold hasn't had a good showing in 2 1/2 years. Frankly, he's lucky Weidman fought like shit in their respective fight too.
Between the arrogance, attitude and character, he's a hard sell.
He was someone to watch rising up through Strikeforce and beyond. At this point however, he's about impossible to get behind, certainly not deserving of Mousasi.
It'd be nice to see a good showing by both, just better by Branch I hope, unless I hear an attitude change on Luke's behalf.
Fully agree with every bit of that -- and impressed that you see how good LR's JJ is. I don't remember it being shown yet, to date. I know people who know him going back a long way (not doing a name drop, just citing how my own op based on limited fight footage came to be formed). The one hand guillo finish is par for the course, from what I've been told (never trained with and have never seen him roll in trainen).
Branch's JJ, especially top control & flow has been much more exposed over his career.
I've spend plenty of time in Central CA -- Santa Cruz is one of the more intransigent douchebag centers of Norcal -- so I am very familiar with how Luke's personality fits in there, & how emblematic it is. To skip unnecessary courtesies, he pretty much comes off like a garden variety CC surf-city hillbilly douchebag, thus is easy to dislike (by way of validating attitude read-o-meter readings). There are a shit-ton of dickheads in the Santa Cruz area who come off just like he does, except they one & all are pussies and he isn't one (there are non-pusses there, but the trained and the non-douchey don't act like that -- for whatever uncorrected reason, intentional or unintentional, Luke does).
Luke, O Luke, why can't you be exceptional and reject your dipshit heritage???
That said, he would be some shiet to contend with if he had a JJ level chin.
Fully agree: Musasi would be a very bad match-up for him.
Will give him credit for the Weidman win, though. It came down to one scramble, and he won it, against a more seasoned wrestler. Can't take that away from him. It was momentary -- of that moment -- but hard to argue it was accidental or lucky. He was quicker, beat Weidman to the flag, got the win because of it.
