Randy Couture lost the heavyweight belt to BrockLesnar in UFC 91 which was a huge upset because he was coming off two dominant victories over also much bigger heavyweights in Tim Sylvia and GabrielGonzaga.
Couture said after the fight it was due to the six inches reach advantage Lesnar had over him but i think there’s more to it than that.Tim Sylvia had an eleven inches reach advantage in his fight with Couture still that did not pose any problems to Couture in a fight that he outboxed and nullified Sylvia's stand-up with beautiful head movement, great combinations and takedowns.
The mistake Couture made in the Lesnar fight is coming in with the same game plan he brought to the Sylvia fight not bearing in mind that the main reason he dominated Sylvia standing up was in Sylvia’s words in a post fight interview with Joe Rogan “When i thought he was gonna stand with me he shot, when i thought he was gonna shoot he threw the hands -you know, He kept me off balance all night,” which was not true in Lesnar's case.
Because of Lesnar’s wrestling ability he was not worried about Couture shooting on him so he pushed the action and caught Couture with a right “lunch box” to the temple. That in my opinion was the real reason Lesnar won the fight not because of his size and strength advantage.
Lesnar had a hard time taking Couture down and in the brief time he held him down he couldn’t inflict any significant damage on Couture who in turn took Lesnar down once, almost took his back and would have taken him down again if it was not for the fence after Couture literally picked him up off the floor with a single leg (see the picture above) .
Lesnar is a great fighter and he improves each time we see him in the octagon so it will be interesting to see what game plan Couture will come up with when if he faces Lesnar again.
Bottom line is i was surprised when Couture beat Liddell, Ortiz, Sylvia and Gonzaga. This timewhen if he beats Lesnar i would not be surprised.
0 comments:
Post a Comment