milian lopez defected, mma future?

[gutfirst]

anyone have any info on this? there is a link on themat to a post on sherdog about lopez defecting to the us and training for mma? i'm not sure i'm buying it. however, i can't possibly image anyone being able to compete with him. unless he has a glass jaw, even then i'm not sure.

[p-jersey]

His manager announced that he is in florida now and will be training for mma. Apparently he has been training for the previous two years with the Cuban boxing team. There are some good places to train in south florida, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out over the next few years. He is only 27 so he has plenty of time to develop.

[arm-spin]

That sucks. Lopez was 'the next Karelin' in greco. I hope he continues to wrestle.

[gutfirst]

i can't imagine anyone in mma having as much up side potential as this guy. next karelin? i'm not saying he's better now than karelin was in his prime but he is nearly as dominate. i don't see any reason why lopez couldn't pick up a win against karelin in his prime.

[arm-spin]

Lopez vs Kareline would be awesome to see.

Aside from a couple of losses to Baroev (and not recently) I don't think Lopez has had so much as a close match in years.

[quinn14]

I admit my complete ignorance of international greco roman wrestling. I looked on youtube and couldn't find any of Lopez's matches. Does anyone have a link where I could see him in action?

[arm-spin]

I admit my complete ignorance of international greco roman wrestling. I looked on youtube and couldn't find any of Lopez's matches. Does anyone have a link where I could see him in action?

To get you started:
Lopez vs former world champ Dremiel Byers


Lopez vs Russ Davie


I think this is the world finals vs Deak-Bardos but I'm not sure



I suggest you try the site www.fila-webtv.org and look for world championship matches over the last few years at 120 kg if you want to see more. Also, the "good matches" thread on the international forum has a lot of Lopez matches on it.

[gutfirst]

i got so excited when byers earned the point for the push out. i'm thinking "wow if he wins this period he'll have a chance to .... no, no, no, bail out, bail out, shit."

[quinn14]

Thanks for the links Arm-spin.