Earlier, we shared our thoughts on the Lesnar v Carwin fight. For many unsophisticated viewers, and even sophisticated viewers with a very strict standard for ending a fight, Carwin should have been handed that fight with a referee stoppage. As it happened, the referee allowed the fight to continue and Brock, having played possum for the entire first round, knowing that Carwin had never gone past the first round, came back in the second round, still fresh and submitted Carwin.

Brock Lesnar is 6’3”, 265 pounds of pure unadulterated badassitude. Carwin is one of the very, very few fighters who match up reasonably with Lesnar physically and with regard to talent. The difference is in the natural conditioning capacity, fitness and endurance. Lesnar is a freak of nature who is incredibly big, incredibly strong, fast, tough, very well conditioned. And that is before we start talking about his fighting chops. He really is a badass. But we know badassitude. If you have more of it, and you are smarter, you will win.

So how do you beat Brock Lesnar? Here are a few ideas:
1. Like we pointed out, Lesnar is a freak. That means that in a fight with this guy, bring your lunch. You cannot go in thinking that you can end the fight quickly. Your conditioning must be exceptional. Be ready to work.
2. Your stand up defense must be impeccable. Lesnar is so strong that a clean or even semi clean shot at your chin or any area in that neighborhood is game over. You cannot allow him a clean shot at anything above your neck.
3. Give him something to think about. We have noticed that this guy does not think anyone else can hurt him. He comes at his opponents with little concern for their power. We think if an opponent gave him something to think about, he might come out with more caution. We like spinning moves. A well executed spinning back kick in the bread basket might tame his advances. Heck, well timed and higher, it might even end the fight.
4. Good, solid martial arts techniques win every time! Keep your eyes on every single possible move of your opponent. Keep an eye out for your opponents’ weaknesses, think about how to exploit those weakness and move very, very fast to exploit the weakness.
5. If you have Lesnar on the ground, and you have a dominant position, THINK SUBMISSION HOLD. Don’t waste your time trying to pound him into submission.
6. Be efficient. Go back into your martial arts arsenal. Think through all the years you have been taught near lethal techniques. Find a few that fit his style of attack and use them to put him to sleep. The only hits that will affect this guy are the surprise, clean martial arts hits that are effective for their effectiveness and efficiency, not brute force because he owns that arena.
7. When on the ground, whatever you do must be part of a bigger plan to submit him via a hold. You must not expect to pound him into submission. You must think submission hold.
We like our ideas. What do you thihk?

I turned to the WEC 48 show just after I was done watching the Kessler/Froch boxing contest. Some of you are familiar with my thoughts on boxing v MMA http://www.mybadassitude.com/?p=16 for a true fight lover. Kessler/Froch was a great fight. A solid 12 rounds of badassitude that ended in a Kessler win and the title changing hands.

In the main, the WEC 48 undercard was most mostly disappointing – until the Pickett/Johnson fight. That Pickett has some skills but Johnson had interesting speed that he has yet to learn how to use. If they open a 120 lb division, Johnson will be one of the favorites to own it. Both those boys are going to be something. Also, I think there should be a limit to the number of undercard fights. I don’t care that they can end in seconds. Bring on the main event damn it!!

I was so ready for Faber/Aldo fight well before the undercard fights were done. I like both fighters a lot. Urijah Faber fights with a commitment for the duration of the fight that you do not see with many other fighters. I remember when he broke his hand in a fight against Mike Brown I think it was. And he fought the rest of the fight with one hand, and he only lost it by a hair. Jose Aldo on the other hand is very interesting cat. The guy goes at hyper speed, strikes from the strangest of angles and he is fearless. But the coolest thing about Aldo is his victory dance. You should see it. It is really cool and funny shit if you ask me.

After all the crappy fights though, it was time for the main event. Faber v Aldo, for the bantam weight championship currently held by Aldo. Clearly, Faber had the home court advantage. He had the noise and the fans. Squaring off, before the fight started, one would be forgiven if one thought Faber was the badasser of the two. He had the “I am hunting prey look on his face”. Aldo was avoiding eye contact. For some guys, that works. But who knows? The guys had virtually identical stats except that Faber looked more cut. Not sure at that point that it amounted to anything but we had to wait and see. The fight ref was Josh Rosenthal.

Round one was mostly uneventful. Both fighters kept a very respectful distance in the first minute. Urijah showed a really nice front kick early. I liked it. But I was beginning to like Aldo’s strong leg kicks very quickly. On the whole it was a very cautious first round for both fighters but Aldo had a number of good leg kicks and the big knee. I did not see sustained activity from either side and I did not see either fighter beginning to meaningfully impose their will on the other fighter. Both fighters came into the fight very much aware of each other’s ability to end the fight quickly and early – a fate they both made a serious effort to avoid. There was a rule in the (now defunct?) WCL that you could not just retreat without making an affirmatively offensive move or you would lose a point. That would have been a useful rule in this first round. In fact, it should be a rule in MMA for standup sessions, period.

In the second round, it was getting clear that even though neither fighter could seem to find a persistently effective strategy, Aldo’s persistent leg kicks to Urijah’s left leg were beginning to look like they were taking a toll. They were very powerful kicks. Urijah Faber fights with a very long front left stance. And he sets hard – for his front kicks, power right and jab. It looked like Aldo had figured out that little detail. And every time Faber was set on that side, he went for the leg kick. What he also figured was that apparently when Faber is set on that left front stance, he is not as nimble switching out of it to defend a leg kick. By the end of round 2, Urijah was hurting really bad. He had no plan B. Someone in his corner should have been thinking up strategies to deal with the kicks. They didn’t. A simple one should have been this – close the distance, take away the kicks and change the terms of engagement.

Round 3 started to look very single sided. At this point, the fight was being dominated by Aldo. The fight was being dominated using a single, simple, well executed technique – the leg kick. I kept waiting for Urijah Faber to come up with some mitigation for the damaging strategy adopted by Jose Aldo. It was stunning that for such a good fighter as at least we thought Faber was, there was no other path. In fact, it looked like the entire camp, from Faber to all the trainers and partners, there was a complete failure in performing the appropriate due diligence and coming up with a plan. How could they not have known Aldo’s strength with leg kicks? How could they not have prepared to counter?

By round 4, Urijah was fighting just on the basis on heart. Jose Aldo’s badassitude was so apparent and so complete, a lesser fighter might have quit. But Urijah Faber was ready to take his ass whipping like a man. And boy, did he ever? The barrage of leg kicks continued. He tried to take Aldo down but it was Faber who ended up on his back. And he took a beating when he was on his back. I was actually surprised that Josh Rosenthal did not stop the fight. In hindsight, it was fair not to stop the fight. Faber was still fighting and there was no saying, for those of us who have watched him for while, whether he could not come up with a winner somehow.

But by round 5, it was over. Clearly over. Even to both fighters it looked like they understood it. Aldo stayed away from doing anything stupid, and Faber did not have enough to do anything remarkable. In the end it was a unanimous decision as it should have been. But if you ask me, Urijah needs a new corner, a new trainer who takes the competition seriously, studies what the competition does, and comes up with strategies for winning the fight including plan a, b and even c depending on what the opponent does.

So I was watching The Ultimate Fighter episode 3 last night. I don’t have much of an interest in what goes on away from the mat and the octagon. Everything for me builds up to the fight so I tend to filter out all the peripheral shit. I am intrigued with the little bit of the actual training that I see. If the producers were true fight guys, training would be the bulk of the show. Side note – Ortiz was training the boys into the night. In the dark, he had them working. I liked that. The message there was this (at least if I was the coach it would be); “It’s big boys time. If you can’t hang, put on your skirt and go home…”

The fight of the night was a middleweight contest between Brad Tavares and James Hammortree. I thought it was good match up. Tavares was badass, I thought. He seemed very athletic, Hammortree seemed tough. In the early part of the 1st round, Tavares looked like he had the kind of shit a good young fighter should have. I liked his high kicks but after throwing a couple, he did not go back there. With time, he will understand what his strengths are. At the same time, Hammortree showed some brilliance with his hands for what amounted to seconds and we did not see those skills again in the fight. They went to the ground and I think if Tavares had had the skills, he would have finished the fight with a rear naked choke. But he couldn’t get his hooks in and he would not do the punishing work to give him the advantage that would allow him to get the advantageous hooks in. He let his opponent off the hook.

Hammortree too was badass. He seemed to have more skill on the ground that Tavares. He defended easily against the attempted rear naked choke although against another fighter with a little more skill, it would have been goodnight and all she wrote. Hammortree went for the takedown early, and he got it. He used his elbows well (though not as much as he could have). He seemed to understand his advantage on the ground. But so often he was so invested in just maintaining his position, he could not see the big chances he could take advantage of to finish the fight. There was a time he had Tavares off the ground but with Tavares head so exposed that had he remembered to use the knee, the fight would have been over. All told though, I thought he won round 1. But apparently the judges thought differently. Who are these judges anyway?

In the 2nd round fatigue began to set in. For a good part of the round, Tavares began to look like very much less of a contender. Hammortree seemed to be winning the round by default, not because he was doing any brilliant fight work but because Tavares was not doing very much. It was a boring round. I was unimpressed across the board. Hammortree must have won that round. He did enough even though he did not impress. At the end of the 2nd round, I thought Hammortree had won the fight. I thought he had enough in the first round to win it, and the 2nd round was definitely his without dispute. I was surprised at the 1 – 1 verdict at that point.

The 3rd round was an entirely lopsided affair in favor of Tavares. He found the mark with a couple of quick jabs early. He seemed to have found his second wind. Conversely, Hammortree seemed to have run out of that little extra umph that he needed. Tavares got him into some kind of silly head lock/kimura that he failed to get out of. Hammortree’s inability to get out of the kimura allowed Tavares to get in enough work and score enough points to win the 3rd round and ultimately the fight, easily.

My View: There was a respectful amount of badassitude in that octagon from both guys. If they fought again, it would be an even money fight. I want to keep an eye on these guys, win or lose. They might amount to something. They were both badass at the end of the day.

I love the fights. Boxing, MMA, Karate. You name it, I love the fights. I love the idea of a mano a mano contest, where one guy (or gal) looks the other in the eye and the other guy (or gal) sees the badassitude in that guy’s (or gal’s) eyes and the full intent to kick ass. And the guy (or gal) has to show their own badassitude to the opponent and take the responsibility, single handedly, to stop the opponent.

It is always an interesting experience for me when I watch different fighting arts back to back or even at the same time, flipping back and forth. This evening, I was watching boxing side by side with MMA, flipping back and forth. Different experiences, same thrill. The thrill of watching the 2 opponents go at it, understanding what each is doing, and seeing what they are trying to do work (or not) is a fascinating thing. Often, the fight plan (or lack of) gets much clearer much sooner in boxing than in MMA.

In MMA, you are often first waiting to see what tool set the fighter is working with (I have expressed thoughts about this in this blog before) and then figure out what the strategy is. In boxing, because the fighters are only limited to stand up, you are working with a smaller universe of possible strategies. If you have a good eye for the game, you will see a lot of things very clearly very fast. You will begin to get the sense for a fighter’s badassitude pretty quickly and discern what they are trying to do and how. And you tend to see hpwt the opponent is also doing to counter.

I come back to the question often debated – which fighting art provides a more accurate test of the skills involved? Boxing without question does a better job. But as to which art provides more excitement? My answer would be – give me 2 very good fighters, and no matter the fighting art, I am going to have a good time watching.

Velasquez v Nogueira: Coming into this fight, I distinctly thought that Velasquez had the speed and overall fighting skill advantage. Granted, Nogueira has good submission skills and heavy enough hands (heck, any heavyweight should have heavy enough power to knock the other guy out). But I have never thought he combined his skills sufficiently to create a fearsome arsenal. I have made this point about MMA fighters in general in the past.

On the other hand, Velasquez seemed to me to have put together the combination of fighting skills much better even as he was faster. I thought he was badasser, with more badassitude. And it showed. He hit Nogueira with more stuff – kicks, punches – and with more variety and technique than Nogueira could muster. I am not surprised this fight ended in the first. It was a mismatch. Having said, despite his bluster, I do not think Velasquez has enough to take Lesnar. It is another conversation but to beat Lesnar, you have to have the ability to counter his explosiveness or the explosiveness to surprise him. He can be beat, Lesnar, but only by a fighter who truly understands martial arts and how to use all the arrows in one’s quiver.

Bisping v Silva: I will confess a little bias here. I like Bisping. He is a badass. There are not too many fighters with the kind of badassitude that he has and there are not too many fighters who try to put together the combination of skills such as he does. I was a little disappointed in this fight because I thought it should have been an easy fight for Michael. He should have moved a little better after the first round and anticipated those leg kicks better. And he fell victim to the oldest of cagy veteran tricks – he did not anticipate the end-of-round bursts that Wanderlei used to steal rounds.

Bisping, one could argue, won on volume while others would argue that Silva won on effectiveness. It was probably that flurry at the end of the fight that tipped the scales for Silva. Depending on your point of view, you could reasonably have concluded that Bisping was saved by the bell. A good case could be made either way and the judges saw it for Silva. I think that verdict was fair enough.

Stevenson v Sotiropoulos: This one was a surprise to me. At some point when the story of Stevenson is all told, it will be one of great but unfulfilled potential. Stevenson has always had the potential of being very highly explosive badass fighter. He has the potential ability to overwhelm opponents with very badass shock and awe. Yet for some reason, he just never seems to have enough badassitude to get him there.

I didn’t know very much about Sotiropoulos other than the fact that he had a pretty good record. He is a badass. Period. He imposed his badassitude on Stevenson all the way around. Standing up, he kicked Stevenson’s ass. On the ground, he dominated and this was the real big surprise to me because I thought Stevenson would own him on the ground. It was a unanimous decision and you will not find a single Stevenson fan willing to debate that decision.

Bader v Jardine – Jardine is a badass. I doubt that anyone would argue his badassitude. The result in this fight is testament to the truth that any big man will put another big man to sleep with a clean powerful shot. Bader caught Jardine with a clean shot and the fight ended. Enough said.

I will not dignify the Cro Cop fight with more than this: Perosh was a tomato can that was dispatched deservingly.

I am a fight fan. I love the fights. As a kid I boxed, then got into martial arts which I practice to this day, many, many years later. There are not many fights that counted in the past couple of decades that I did not watch boxing contests, mma fights, even tough man contests. Remember K1?. I have watched a them all.

I watch fights with the enthusiasm of a fan and the also very much the eye of a fighter. I try to study them, I try to understand their techniques and I try to understand what they do and why and how they do what they do. And I enjoy the fights. A lot. What I have found over the years is that boxers use more of the arrows in their quivers so to speak, while MMA fighters use far less of the arrows in their quiver.

A good boxer will throw 500 punches in a fight, each with a lot of skill, each studied, quick measured, looking for something specific, going for something specific. Watch Floyd Mayweather or the Pac man work. Watch film of Delahoya or Sugar Shane, Roy Jones, the great ones like Hagler, Ray. The greatest of them all, Ali, smoking Joe.  It is fascinating and I think it is this quality that allows the best fighters to make obscene amounts of money.  On the other hand, MMA for all their skill often disappoint. Most MMA fighters are accomplished martial arts black belts. A good black belt has so many arrows in the quiver, one would think that watching one fight should be spellbinding. What we see more often than not is a pair of fighter stuck in what looks like a mediocre grappling contest. Why did grappling become so dominant in MMA? Or a pair of fighters with the second rate boxing skills swinging wildly. True, there have been exceptions. Chuck was awfully entertaining with a limited set of skills. When Anderson Silva decides to fights, he has a lot of good stuff. And GPS is always good for an exciting night. But not very many more. For example, I have always believed that nothing can beat a well executed kick. If that kick is a spinning back kick, it can be lethal because we all know how much damage it can do. There are only probably 2 or 3 fighters that I have seen use it effectively. Why? And that is just one example.

Boxers are badass. MMA fighters are badass. Why don’t MMA fighters expose all their badassitude in every single fight, using what they have and know, flawlessly?