UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs Arlovski - May 8th

[lambyUK]

The doctors cleared him to fight. They don't clear someone who's only at 50% health.

 

Of course they cleared him to fight, doesn't mean that the hell Lesnar went through didn't take it's toll. He maybe medically cleared, but the guy came back pretty quickly after what he went through. He quite clearly wasn't the same Lesnar before his disease. 

[Carbomb]

 

I get the impression that Lesnar is a guy who, having been blessed with prodigious physical gifts from birth, has gotten used to things coming to him relatively easily, without having needed to put in the amount of work and effort that most athletes have to in order to reach an elite level. It's probably why he was able to give up pro-wrestling so easily, decide just like that to go into American football, and then to go into MMA and decide to create his own training "fiefdom", as d-d-daz put it.

 

Obviously, he's had to put effort into his careers, but when you're that size, practically have to just breathe to put on muscle and gain strength, have people falling over themselves to hand you money because of this, and have very few "natural predators" to force you to evolve, it's not altogether unsurprising that he effectively couldn't be bothered to put the work in necessary to become terrifyingly unstoppable.

 

Can you imagine a Lesnar with a Rousey/McGregor/Velasquez/Cormier/GSP work ethic?

 

Come on Carbomb, are you seriously stating that Lesnar, a kid who grew up on a farm of all places, got used to things coming to him easily? I'm not sure if you've seen pictures of him when he was younger, but he certainly had to work hard beyond belief to get in the shape that he became. 

 

On top of that, the guy was a freak in amateur wrestling. I'm copying this list from wiki:-

 

Lesnar won the 2000 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I heavyweight wrestling championship his senior year after being the runner-up the year prior. Lesnar finished his amateur career as a two-time NJCAA All-American, the 1998 NJCAA Heavyweight Champion, two-time NCAA All-American, two-time Big Ten Conference Champion, and the 2000 NCAA Heavyweight Champion, with a record of 106–5 overall in four years of college.

 

A record of 106-5?? That's unreal. To achieve that someone can't simply rely on the physical gifts they've got. Serious work has to go into a craft in order to achieve what he did. 

 

 

I did say relatively easily, and that's important: as I said in the original post, he obviously had to put effort into his careers, whatever they were, but this effort clearly was not to the same degree that other elites in those fields have had to commit in order to get where they were. MMA is the case in point.

 

His growing up on a farm, or how he looked as a kid doesn't have much to do with it. You can't possibly tell me he hasn't got natural physical gifts - there's no way he could have got to that size with a 5'5" slender ectomorphic frame, no matter how much he worked out. And even if he was tall but built like Peter Crouch, he still wouldn't have reached that size. The guy's a mesomorph. I exaggerated his ability to put on muscle, but there are plenty of people his size who can't put on that kind of muscle, nor have the kind of frame needed to sustain it.

 

As to his amateur career - again, I'm not saying he put in no effort at all; he also clearly has a natural talent for wrestling that was nurtured and developed. However, even his coach was quoted as saying that he tended to win matches before he'd even had them, as his opponents were just too intimidated by his size. Imagine someone with the natural ability of Jon Jones, blessed with Lesnar's body. You're probably going to get bored winning most of the time, to the point where you probably won't feel the need to really push yourself to improve.

 

Put it this way: you've said yourself you've never seen a heavyweight move like him, which would imply something unique, beyond the levels training can take you to. He's also got elite wrestling talent, something that should have served him well in MMA. So why didn't he do better? It's not a mystery - he refused to train properly. Why would an athlete refuse to train properly when competing in an organisation that hundreds, maybe thousands of other guys are literally fighting to get into?

 

Then look back: he quit the WWF after one year there, because he didn't want to put up with the travel schedule, something hundreds of guys have had to work their arses for years just to get to. He then thought he could walk into the NFL, and quit when he was told he should go to NFL Europe to develop. He went to New Japan, pretty much got handed the belt, then got into some massive legal wrangle with them over contracts and holding the actual physical belt. 

 

Maybe I'm wrong. But all the above strongly suggests that Lesnar is used to getting his way and will just withdraw when he doesn't; it also suggests that the fact he was born with physical gifts that only a small percentage of people on this planet can boast is a key factor in why he has that attitude.

[lambyUK]

There are some points I agree with, but I just think achieving what he did in amateur wrestling isn't something that comes natural to someone. He may have physical gifts, but you have to have an unreal work ethic to succeed in a sport like wrestling. It's supposed to be one of the most difficult sports to truly achieve something in the entire world.

 

I agree with you that you could arguably take that stance regarding his approach to MMA, he probably thought as that his wrestling roots on top of his athleticism was enough to get him by. But it's just your claim that he's had things easy. I don't think amateur wrestling is something that just comes easy to someone. It's requires endless hours of grinding on the mat. 
 

[Carbomb]

I take your points, but I really do mean "relatively". I would never at any point claim it's an easy thing (if it was, I'd be doing it), and you certainly don't get to be a multiple-time NCAA champion with no effort. I'm just saying his physical gifts probably meant he didn't have to be as driven as someone like Kurt Angle, or make the same level of effort, to get where he got to. 

 

To use a mechanism: let's say to reach the top echelons of the sports Lesnar has competed in, i.e. MMA, amateur wrestling and pro-wrestling, the average elite (for want of a better phrase) has to make 100% effort. If they made 80%, they'd reach the upper levels, just under champion-level. But Lesnar's natural physical gifts, coupled with what people were prepared to give him because they were so impressed by them, meant that he only had to put 80%, or maybe 90%, in to get to the championship level. And Kurt Angle would've put in 120-150% to get to his beyond-elite level.

 

Not the best analogy, I know.

 

EDIT: Actually, fuck all the explanations. I should've just used the phrase "less hard" rather than "easy".

[Keith Houchen]

Hang on, did Heyman make those comments in a WWE capacity? If so, why on earth would anyone take them as gospel?

[Bus Surfer]

I believe it was on an episode of the MMA Hour with Ariel a few years back.

[Keith Houchen]

Thanks, Silk.

[David]

I think I'll stick with what Dana and the doctors said. 

 

I used to think like that until all that shit with Aldo and his ribs. The UFC doctors and Dana spoke a power of shite that time.

[lambyUK]

 

I think I'll stick with what Dana and the doctors said. 

 

I used to think like that until all that shit with Aldo and his ribs. The UFC doctors and Dana spoke a power of shite that time.

 

 

Edit..double post.

[lambyUK]

 

 

 

I think I'll stick with what Dana and the doctors said. 

 

I used to think like that until all that shit with Aldo and his ribs. The UFC doctors and Dana spoke a power of shite that time.

 

 

 

Touche.

 

Although difference this time is it was from the fighter's perspective and Brock's doctors.

[Egg Shen]

 

 

The doctors cleared him to fight. They don't clear someone who's only at 50% health.

Of course they cleared him to fight, doesn't mean that the hell Lesnar went through didn't take it's toll. He maybe medically cleared, but the guy came back pretty quickly after what he went through. He quite clearly wasn't the same Lesnar before his disease.

Maybe he wasn't, but my point was that i believed (and still believe) that Heyman spun it into a little PR piece where he used the illness as a convenient excuse for his defeats. It may be legit. but saying something like 'imagine what he could have done at 100%' leaves that question mark about his career and makes everyone think 'what if...'. Can't not fail to mention that the comments were made when Lesnar was returning to the WWE where he was pushed as an unstoppable monster. Maybe i'm just a sceptic.

 

As for Lesnar's amateur career, im sure it was Kurt Angle who said that Lesnar's freakish physical gifts were his biggest asset. Lesnar was never the most technically gifted, he was just a bit of a monster who overpowered people. No doubting he put his work in on the practice mat though.

[the_mole]

Ben Rothwell comes across well in Beyond The Octagon, covers his whole career but does feature a lot of GAD.

 

Brock at UFC 100 showed a tremendous ground game, if he got on top of anyone back then besides Werdum probably, he would be near impossible to submit or get up from under and he showed a lot of power in his short strikes that seemed to bust up Mir well.

[wandshogun09]

This is tomorrow then...

 

 

FOX SPORTS 1 MAIN CARD

Junior Dos Santos vs Ben Rothwell

Gabriel Gonzaga vs Derrick Lewis

Francis Ngannou vs Curtis Blaydes

Timothy Johnson vs Marcin Tybura

Igor Pokrajac vs Jan Blachowicz

Maryna Moroz vs Cristina Stanciu

 

FOX SPORTS 1 PRELIMS

Zak Cummings vs Nicolas Dalby

Ian Entwistle vs Alejandro Perez

Mairbek Taisumov vs Damir Hadzovic

Filip Pejic vs Damian Stasiak

 

FIGHT PASS PRELIMS

Robert Whiteford vs Lucas Martins

Jared Cannonier vs Cyril Asker

Bojan Velickovic vs Alessio Di Chirico

I hate these Sunday cards. I wish they'd just stick with Saturdays, or if they must switch it up, maybe the odd Friday Fight Night. Sunday is probably the shittest day they could put shows on to me.

 

Whatever. It's not a killer card but there's some alright stuff to be had there. Really not in love with that main event though. As a huge JDS fan his fights are always kind of a lose-lose now. If he loses it's sad to see, but if he wins he becomes convinced he's got another run at the title in him and that's just going to lead to more brain scrambling. He's only 32, which isn't old at all, especially for heavyweight which isn't so much a young man's division anyway. But in 'fighter years', which is like 'dog years' but with cauliflower ears, he's about 92. He's battered.

 

You never know, he might win this. Going off both their most recent fights, I can see why most are picking Rothwell. I'm leaning towards a Big Ben win myself. But I won't be surprised if JDS wins. He's always dangerous and even in his current form, he's always just one flurry or loopy haymaker away from removing you from consciousness. People forget, he's only one fight removed from beating Miocic in a war. But, like I said, lose-lose. If he beats Rothwell tomorrow night that's going to put him in a fight with one of the very top heavyweights again and I just can't see it ending well for him.

 

Watching JDS is like watching Shogun or Hendo now for me. Every now and then they'll roll back the years and score a big KO and I get that warm feeling. But you quickly realise, it's not going anywhere. It's leading to nothing and it's just one bright spot on a sharp fall into retirement and slurry speech. BJ Penn's another one. Diego Sanchez is another. Guys like that need to be saved from themselves and pushed into retirement if possible, like Chuck Liddell and Big Nog were eventually.

[seanz25]

7:30 - 10:30PM our time on BT. I originally thought this was a shite Sunday card. But a nice time seeing as there's fuck all else on at that time.

[jimufctna24]

Just caught the Main Event. I tuned in as Buffer was finishing his introductions. 

 

JDS looked much better tonight. It's like a different person from the Overeem fight. I gave him every round, and he had Rothwell in serious trouble at the end of 2nd. JDS pretty much landed at will with his jabs to the head and the body, and during the few times that Rothwell landed meaningfully, JDS took the shots very well. A lot of questions were asked, and he looked far from the shot fighter that most thought he was (including myself)

 

I hope this wasn't a one off. JDS being back on form is good for the division. I would welcome rematches with Werdum and Stipe at some point. Plus, it's nice to have a Heavyweight with a bit of skill and finesse.