We’re back with another five prospects to look in this second instalment of our Blind Reacting series. There are plenty of solid prospects floating around in the MMA world, and any one of them could be your next Anderson Silva, Georges St. Pierre, or Demetrious Johnson. We cover a slew of them each and every week in our Weekly MMA Prospect Report. Beyond that, here are five more prospects to consider — prospects we’ve never seen, nor covered, before.
Lightweight, Nick Fiore (3-0)
Pros
- Submission threat
- Utilizes trips well in the clinch
- Active ground and pound
- Scrambles well
- Good back take
Cons
- One-dimensional
Fiore is a member of the New England Cartel training with the likes of former UFC fighters Rob Font and Calvin Kattar. Alongside MMA Fiore often competes in various jiu-jitsu competitions. Jiu-jitsu competitions where Fiore finds a lot of success.
Looking back to his only loss, which was an amateur, the setback came from a slam knockout. Nothing where he was knocked out clean but just a freak thing that happened. As an amateur, Fiore won the Combat Zone featherweight title and today he competes at lightweight/catchweight. Two of his three pro wins come against journeyman Jay Ellis whose record today is 16-102. Not the best combined record of his opponents but is at least beating much more experienced fighters.
I’m not certain what my expectations are on Fiore. He’s a really good jiu-jitsu guy but his stand-up, in general, is questionable. Even his wrestling I’m not sure of. He’s really good at getting the fight down from the clinch but in space, it’s still a question mark. With all that said I’m not saying his striking is bad or even his defense. He usually takes his opponents down so quickly you never see his stand-up. Grappling on the other hand with what he’s shown so far is superb. Going from takedowns to dominant positions so quickly is impressive. He scrambles really well and will attack submission to submission. Fiore will actively throw ground and pound to get the eventual stoppage or soften up his opponent. It’s tough to determine even how good his grappling is beating the low-level opponents he’s beat. Overall I just have to see much more.
