MMA Sun 2015 Prospect Spotlight – The Featherweights – #4 – Michael Tobin

January 8, 2015 by Jason 15 Comments

Mike Tobin comes in at number four on our 2015 Featherweight Prospect Spotlight. The Australian fighter has a 9-0 career mark with right of those wins coming by way of submission finish. He is a 5 time Australian National Judo Champion and a 2 time Australian BJJ Champion. Tobin’s background is mostly rooted in judo, where he is a blackbelt. Training out PUMMA gym on the Gold Coast, he certainly has tons of potential and is one to keep an eye on. Tobin is still very young and has lots of time to learn and improve, but he is one of Australia’s brightest prospects.

His striking game is average. He is not a striker. However, he uses his strikes well to initiate takedowns or the clinch. In all of his fights, I have not seen him standing for very long. He needs to continually be working on improving his striking technique and his striking defense.

Tobin has a very good ground game as his record might indicate. He is a submission hunter. He has finished fights with a wide variety of submissions including armbars, toe hold, triangle and rear naked choke. I like Tobin’s guard. He attacks off of his back very aggressively. One of the benefits to that is that if he went against an elite wrestler who could take him down, they may not want to take the risk on the mat. He does not waste time initiating the grappling exchanges. His transitions are pretty solid, especially his transition to back mount. He has rarely been threatened in any of his fights, but I would expect that to change against higher level competition. His takedowns are adequate. I enjoy watching his hyper-aggressive submission attacks, but I fear that he could find himself in precarious spots against good grapplers. Sometimes in his attacks, he does not secure solid positioning and gets swept or loses his dominant position. He seems more keen on attacking with submissions from top position than he does landing ground and pound. I believe that is one thing he needs to improve.

He is competing in a featherweight tournament where he had been slated to face Miquel Torres next, but there is no official date for that fight. I would not be shocked if UFC picked him up for their next trip to Australia.