[quote]drewh wrote:
Mir equals veteran
Lesnar equals relatively new
Obviously Lesnar has more room for improvement and that’s the key[/quote]
That is definitely true. Lesnar has the most raw potential of anyone in the HW division IMO. But don’t forget that he’s also no spring chicken. He’s 33 and therefore time isn’t really on his side in terms of developing a really high level of skill in other disciplines. I could see him getting good at submissions, simply because he is so good at controlling people (so he’s often in position to submit someone), and his strength would make forcing submissions likely possible on most opponents, let alone if he learned how to strategically set them up. But I don’t know about striking. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
True but what Greg Nelson fighter ever becomes a submission machine, I think the reasoning is if he did try to go sub for sub with a Mir or Nog it would be to risky.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Indeed there are exceptions both ways. Hughes/Penn GSP/Penn and of course Lesnar/Mir. Now you think that the exception will go away if Mir gains more muscle. See, that makes no sense, sorry.
Yes, there are examples both ways.
My point was only to illustrate that either system could be victorious against the other. So far Mir and Lesnar are split 1-1, both have proven that they can beat the other. In both instances Lesnar had the decided physical advantage.[/quote]
Would you rather have a size advantage over your opponent, or a sizable experience advantage? Mir has the experience advantage and used it wisely to tap out Lesnar in their first fight. However, Lesnar went to school on how to control a BJJ man and used that knowledge advantage in their second fight to win. If the size advantage that you speak of was that important Lesnar would have used it during their first match. What he used was (for the 89th time) his SKILL advantage to win their second fight.
Yes, you’ve said that before, but I’m still not buying it and most who understand the sport are probably not buying it either. Again, Lesnar had the size advantage in their first fight, didn’t help him win did it? Unless you can take away Lesnar’s understanding of how to control a BJJ fighter and somehow nullify his tremendous wrestling ability it will most likely be a similar result as their second fight. However, anything can happen in mma, mistakes are made and opponents seize an opportunity. Other than any major mistakes Lesnar will do pretty much the same thing as he did in fight number two.
No it won’t. He controlled Mir with SKILL not SIZE. Do you want me to list the examples again of the many wrestlers who fight mma who have done the same thing with skill? Hughes, GSP, Couture, Hendo, Lindland the list is endless. But in Lesnar’s case it must be size because he’s big, right? Sure size helps no question, but it is his SKILL that controlled Mir. Again, that’s why he could not control him in their first fight even though he was the same size that he was in their second fight. He went to school on BJJ and became better. If Mir gets really, really good at stopping take downs from high level wrestlers well, that could change the outcome, but I think Mir got the wrong message from their fight. He trained to get larger, which is fine, it can’t hurt if his cardio is not adversely affected, but it won’t stop Lesnar from taking him down.
Could be.
It will most assuredly go to the ground as Mir is incapable of stopping a Division One Wrestling Champions take down, unless he’s gone to school on it which I don’t see any evidence of.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
drewh wrote:
Mir equals veteran
Lesnar equals relatively new
Obviously Lesnar has more room for improvement and that’s the key
That is definitely true. Lesnar has the most raw potential of anyone in the HW division IMO. But don’t forget that he’s also no spring chicken. He’s 33 and therefore time isn’t really on his side in terms of developing a really high level of skill in other disciplines.[/quote]
Nonsense, 33 is certainly not too old to learn how to stand and strike. Randy Couture began his career at the age of 33 in 1997 and has just gotten better in every aspect of the game since then.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
drewh wrote:
Mir equals veteran
Lesnar equals relatively new
Obviously Lesnar has more room for improvement and that’s the key
That is definitely true. Lesnar has the most raw potential of anyone in the HW division IMO. But don’t forget that he’s also no spring chicken. He’s 33 and therefore time isn’t really on his side in terms of developing a really high level of skill in other disciplines.[/quote]
Nonsense, 33 is certainly not too old to learn how to stand and strike. Randy Couture began his career at the age of 33 in 1997 and has just gotten better in every aspect of the game since then. [/quote]
I never said it was too old, I simply said that he got into the game fairly late, and so has less time to improve before his career will likely start to go downhill. Contrast him to someone like say John Jones, Vitor, or Wandy for example who had/have tons of potential and got into MMA at a fairly young age. Jones probably still has at least another 15 good years (supposing that he avoids any serious injuries, knock on wood) before his body starts to slow down to improve his skills.
Randy has continued to improve, that is true, but there are very few guys out there who can continued to be competitive at the upper echelon who are his age. Not everyone can be ageless like Randy.
Would you rather have a size advantage over your opponent, or a sizable experience advantage?
[/quote]
The degree of size/experience advantage would need to be known to answer that question. I’d rather have 50 lbs on someone than 2 years more experience. But I’d rather have 20 years of experience than 10 lbs of size on them.
Did you watch the first fight? Lesnar was throwing Mir around like a ragdoll, pounding on his head with hammer fists and got stood up. Yes, he lost that fight because he was inexperienced and didn’t recognize the very obvious leg lock that Mir was setting up on him. His size and strength advantage was just as obvious in their first fight, he just lost due to carelessness and not having knowledge of submission defense.
Lesnar deserves lots of credit for doing his homework and learning how to defend against submissions, which was obvious in their second fight. But to say that his size and strength didn’t play a big role (along with his skill) in his dominance is just denying reality.
Oh, you mean like Mir himself or Randy? Who I quoted above as both acknowledging that Lesnar’s size/strength advantage played a role in their loss to him? But yeah, they probably don’t understand the sport.
Again, I’m not arguing that the result might not be the same (TKO win by Lesnar), but I think he’s gonna have a much harder time doing so, and I think that Mir is going to be able to move around and control position (pull guard) much more effectively than he could in their second fight. Lesnar may still overwhelm Mir with his wrestling, tire him out (as Slimjim pointed out, Mir’s cardio has never really been his strong suit), and ultimately beat him. But I really don’t think he’ll manhandle him like he did in the last fight.
[quote]That doesn’t mean that I think he’s going to win necessarily, or that I think that Lesnar won’t still have the wrestling advantage, but it’s at least one less thing that Mir will have to worry about, and should IMO make the ground game at least more competitive.
No it won’t. He controlled Mir with SKILL not SIZE. Do you want me to list the examples again of the many wrestlers who fight mma who have done the same thing with skill? Hughes, GSP, Couture, Hendo, Lindland the list is endless.
[/quote]
No, it was BOTH!!! Maybe my computer is unbeknownst to me encoding my posts or translating them into foreign languages, but I think I’ve made it very clear that I am not denying that Lesnar is a better wrestler than Mir and used his wrestling skill in their last match.
And again, I quoted MIR himself who said the exact same thing. Are you going to sit here and proclaim that you know more about why Mir lost than Frank Mir himself?
It was both.
I won’t argue, Lesnar improved noticeably from the first match to the second.
The thing is, I really don’t know if Mir could ever get good enough to be able to stop Lesnar’s takedowns cold for an entire fight. So, while I agree that he should definitely be working his takedown defense, I think that gaining the extra size and strength was a smart idea because he pretty much probably knows that eventually Lesnar is going to be able to get it to the ground, and once he’s there he needs to be able to not get manhandled like he did in the last match. We’ve just seen the most press on the size/strength training because that’s the most noticeable difference. He’d have to be pretty stupid if he hasn’t also been working on his technical skills.
[quote]I don’t think that Mir will be able to keep the fight standing if Lesnar wants to take it to the ground, and I don’t think that Lesnar will be arrogant/stupid enough to try to stand and kickbox with Mir.
It will most assuredly go to the ground as Mir is incapable of stopping a Division One Wrestling Champions take down, unless he’s gone to school on it which I don’t see any evidence of.
[/quote]
The thing is that even if Mir did go to school on takedown defense, it’s pretty unrealistic to think that he could attain a level of takedown defense on par with Lesnar’s takedown offense in such a short period of time.
Personally if I were Mir I’d be doing exactly as you said though. I’d try to bring in HW Div 1 champs (or at least top 5 finishers) and olympic champs and work on takedown defense until the cows came home. I’d try to learn everything I could about what Lesnar knows. It might not mean that I could stop Lesnar forever, but maybe at least it would buy me enough time to hurt him standing, make him waste a lot of energy and tire/slow down, or make him expose himself for a submission.
But I’d have also still done the strength training and put on the extra muscle. Why not minimize all of his advantages if possible?
[quote]drewh wrote:
True but what Greg Nelson fighter ever becomes a submission machine, I think the reasoning is if he did try to go sub for sub with a Mir or Nog it would be to risky.[/quote]
True.
I was just pointing out that in the case of someone like Lesnar, who is very good at attaining and maintaining top position, he would be in situations where submissions would be available to him in many cases. So, he could potentially get good at them pretty quickly IMO. Also, with his strength he could probably force submissions on a lot of fighters, and subsequently also use that to set up others when they (desperately) tried to resist.
He actually had a very easy transition to several submissions from that tie up position he kept putting Mir in during their second fight if he had known/wanted to do so. Although, gripping that deep into the armpit makes it much harder to control the arm and get the submissions.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
drewh wrote:
Mir equals veteran
Lesnar equals relatively new
Obviously Lesnar has more room for improvement and that’s the key
That is definitely true. Lesnar has the most raw potential of anyone in the HW division IMO. But don’t forget that he’s also no spring chicken. He’s 33 and therefore time isn’t really on his side in terms of developing a really high level of skill in other disciplines.[/quote]
Nonsense, 33 is certainly not too old to learn how to stand and strike. Randy Couture began his career at the age of 33 in 1997 and has just gotten better in every aspect of the game since then. [/quote]
I never said it was too old, I simply said that he got into the game fairly late, and so has less time to improve before his career will likely start to go downhill. Contrast him to someone like say John Jones, Vitor, or Wandy for example who had/have tons of potential and got into MMA at a fairly young age. Jones probably still has at least another 15 good years (supposing that he avoids any serious injuries, knock on wood) before his body starts to slow down to improve his skills.
Randy has continued to improve, that is true, but there are very few guys out there who can continued to be competitive at the upper echelon who are his age. Not everyone can be ageless like Randy.[/quote]
You said: [quote]time isn’t really on his side in terms of developing a really high level of skill in other disciplines[/quote]
And I disagree with that, at 33 he has several years to develop his talent. I used Couture as an example but there are others who came to the party late and improved in other disciplines. Moreover, there are others who came to mma knowing one discipline and learned one or two others. GSP who had a Karate background trained with the Canadian Olympic Wrestling team and became so proficient that he was taking down others who had wrestling as their main discipline and he did it in pretty short order, only a couple of years.
Did you watch the first fight? Lesnar was throwing Mir around like a ragdoll, pounding on his head with hammer fists and got stood up. Yes, he lost that fight because he was inexperienced and didn’t recognize the very obvious leg lock that Mir was setting up on him. His size and strength advantage was just as obvious in their first fight, he just lost due to carelessness and not having knowledge of submission defense.[/quote]
Exactly, knowledge, or skill in this case is what caused Lesnar to win the second fight, we agree.
Siz and strenght alway play a role, but as you said it was Lesnar’s new found SKILL that caused him to win the second fight and lack of that skill that caused him to lose the first.
[quote]
Oh, you mean like Mir himself[/quote]
Mir was manhandled and quite honestly I’m not sure that anyone around him realizes that it was Lesnar’s wrestling ability that caused that to happen. What you’re saying is that every time someone loses they know exactly why they lost, that’s not even logical. Mir has proven he doesn’t know why he lost. Instead of going to school on wrestling (as GSP did after his devastating loss to Hughes) Mir began training to gain muscle, it won’t help much if and when they meet again, you’ll see.
Couture is exactly right. In his case it was a bigger, stronger, younger wrestler beating a smaller, weaker older wrestler, a no brainer. See what weight Couture is now fighting at? I think he always knew he couldn’t beat all the big boys.
[quote]
Again, I’m not arguing that the result might not be the same (TKO win by Lesnar), but I think he’s gonna have a much harder time doing so, and I think that Mir is going to be able to move around and control position (pull guard) much more effectively than he could in their second fight. Lesnar may still overwhelm Mir with his wrestling, tire him out (as Slimjim pointed out, Mir’s cardio has never really been his strong suit), and ultimately beat him. But I really don’t think he’ll manhandle him like he did in the last fight.[/quote]
That matters little doesn’t it? He’ll still probably lose. Mir gaining 20 pounds of muscle won’t hurt him and may help him, but what if he actually gained wrestling experience and got really good at defending the takedown? Wow, now that would be a different fight wouldn’t it? But Mir (like you) thinks he was over powered with muscle and not wrestling skill so he ignored the most likely reason he lost.
[quote]
No it won’t. He controlled Mir with SKILL not SIZE. Do you want me to list the examples again of the many wrestlers who fight mma who have done the same thing with skill? Hughes, GSP, Couture, Hendo, Lindland the list is endless.
No, it was BOTH!!![/quote]
Sure it was both, but as Royce Gracie showed us over 15 years ago, skill trumps size doesn’t it? While Lesnar has great size and power his wrestling skill was what caused Mir to have a very bad night. It’s that same wrestling skill which will cause Mir to most likely lose again if they should meet.
[quote]
I won’t argue, Lesnar improved noticeably from the first match to the second.[/quote]
Yet. he didn’t get any larger did he?
GSP did it and I think Frank Mir is an excellent athlete who could learn IF he wanted to.
Yes, and size will do that huh? Larger shoulders, chest and arms will help him to NOT get controlled by a superior wrestler who already proved he could control him. LOL, you’re not even close with that one my friend. Again, Gene Mill used to go up and down his own teams line-up and control each and every one of them regardless of size and strength. He did it with superior wrestling SKILL. Dan Gable (who rarely touched a weight) did the same thing with his team. But in Mir’s case he will be able to not get manhandled because he’s gained 20-25 pounds of muscle. No, sorry it won’t work that way it never has.
Now that’s a different story isn’t it? If he’s brought in some big college wrestlers to train with and a good wrestling coach to show him what to do from the bottom position, now Mir has a chance, short of that, I think we will see a similar result as fight two.
[quote]ZEB wrote:Again, Gene Mill used to go up and down his own teams line-up and control each and every one of them regardless of size and strength. He did it with superior wrestling SKILL. Dan Gable (who rarely touched a weight) did the same thing with his team. But in Mir’s case he will be able to not get manhandled because he’s gained 20-25 pounds of muscle. No, sorry it won’t work that way it never has.
[/quote]
Sorry Zeb, you can’t use Dan Gable as an example for comparison purposes. Not only was Gable possibly the best freestyle wrestler of the 20th century he is also naturally freakishly strong - he is blessed with double tendons in his hands giving him unbelievable grip strength which is a huge advantage in combat sports.
BTW you remember Mike Webster right (RIP)? He was still an NFL starter at 38 yrs old, even tho he was undersized. He also had double tendons in his hands which is probably why he was still playing against younger men much larger than him at a position that requires great strength and, generally, youth.