Know Your Fighter (And Shut Your Mouth): Keith Jardine

Welcome back! Yesterday, we took a look at the grappling of Luke Rockhold. Rockhold held his own in a tournament to determine the best grappler of 2010, losing to an up-and-coming talent in the grappling world in Rustam Chsiev by points in the opening round. Today, we are going to get a little mean.

Keith Jardine went 9-1-1 before he hit our television screens on the second season of The Ultimate Fighter as a heavyweight. In his lengthy tenure in the UFC, Jardine went 6-6. He took an impressive decision over Chuck Liddell and made Forrest Griffin cry after a TKO, while show major fortitude in wars with Matt Hamill and Quinton Jackson. After a brief stint in the indies, Jardine returned to go to a controversial draw with Gegard Mousasi. Jardine will be making his first jump to middleweight for this fight.

Clearly, we know Jardine for doing his "herky-jerky monkey style" standup. However, Jardine has some credentials to validate the fact that he MIGHT have some technique. He sports three wins and one draw in the boxing ring. He is a black belt in Greg Jackson's Gaidojutsu, a martial art that blends Judo, BJJ, wrestling, and kickboxing. Also, Jardine is a HUGE middleweight. Proof, you ask? Watch this:

This is honestly just comic relief for the most part. But seeing Jardine nearly pull off a sleek pro wrestling suplex o this poor kid really makes you realize how big and strong this relative of the Techno Viking is. Also, Jardine displays some pretty good takedown defense against this fellow...for whatever that is worth.

Going deeper into Jardine's grappling background, he has won by submission twice in his career, with armbar being his submission of choice. He defeated Arman Gambaryan at an M-1 event in 2004 by first-round armbar. But that wasn't his first time pulling off an armbar! Here is Jardine's first professional MMA fight at Gladiator Challenge 5 against Amir Rahnavardi in 2001:

After pulling off a single leg, Jardine shows some decent control from top position against Amir. He maintains position through Amir's scramble and leaps over onto Rahnavardi's right arm. After a bunch of sloppy rolling around and scrambling, Rahnavardi finally succumbs to Jardine's power armbar.

Granted, these fights don't really scream impressive technique to counter Rockhold's stellar grappling repertoire. The videos do confirm that Jardine does have some groundwork to be able to hang (or at least defend) against Rockhold. And really, isn't that what fans expect of Jardine? Capable technique mixed with a brawler's heart have been Jardine's calling card.

While many are justifiably counting Jardine out against the young gun in Luke Rockhold, Jardine's background certainly confirms that he is capable of winning fights he shouldn't. Ask Chuck Liddell and watch the war he got into with Rampage. Jardine is certainly the underdog against Rockhold, but anything can happen in MMA.