by Natasa Shepherd

Created on: September 16, 2010

As arguably the biggest prospect on the British mixed martial arts circuit today, Jimi “The Poster Boy” Manuwa has a lot of pressure on his shoulders to perform. Stylistically, Jimi is one of the ugliest strikers you’ll see today. You could say he almost fights like some sort of robot or droid. He isn’t relaxed at all when he’s in the cage, he’s stiff and moves like zombie. The best way to describe how Manuwa moves is to compare him to that of a body builder turned to mixed martial arts. Manuwa looks like Phil Baroni or Marisuz Pudzianowski in the way that he moves and throws punches that are technically not proficient simply because he is so stiff and rarely turns his body, especially his legs, into any of his punches.

But despite having technical flaws in his punching, Jimi has the very rare, very elusive one punch knockout power. If he lands any strike on his opponents chin, it’s almost always good night. You could say that Jimi is the Shane Carwin of the 205 light heavyweight division.

Aside from his striking, Jimi is well versed at passing guard but rarely likes to. With a body builders physique Jimi is understandably strong in the clinch but you’ll rarely see him use it for anything other than to nullify his opponents strikes while giving him an opportunity to push his opponent away create some distance for his punches. As a British fighter, Jimi falls into the stereotype of being a good striker with possibly no ground game. So far in his nine fight career, Jimi has yet to face a high level wrestler in the UK so his skills on the ground are yet to be seen but you can only assume he’d be less than adequate off of his back.

What separates “The Poster Boy” from most other British mixed martial artists is his power. From heavyweight to lightweight, there is only one man that can keep up with the power ratio of Jimi and that’s 170 pound welterweight slugger Paul Daley. With that being said, Jimi has only fought questionable opposition since turning professional in 2008. With rumors that he may be the next big English prospect signed up to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Jimi was certainly need to work on his wrestling and take down defense if he wants his career to be anything better than that of stylistically similar fighter, Phil Baroni.

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