The State of MMA — Heavyweight Manimals Face Off With Unexpected Results » 30ninjas

The State of MMA — Heavyweight Manimals Face Off With Unexpected Results

Share on Facebook posted 07-06-10 by Max Tedaldi

The past ten days have seen two marquee MMA matchups in both Strikeforce and UFC. Strikeforce featured Fedor Emelianenko vs Fabricio Werdum while UFC featured Brock Lesnar vs Shane Carwin. Both of these bouts boasted undefeated fighters who subsequently lost their perfect records after surprising defeats at the hands of their less than perfect opponents. It’s safe to say that MMA is currently in a state of turmoil!

Fedor Emelianenko vs Fabricio Werdum

Very few, if any, fans could have predicted the massive upset of “The Last Emperor.” Just over a minute into the first round, Werdum submitted Fedor with an armbar/triangle.

The crowd in San Jose lost their shit right from the beginning, as Fedor and Werdum tapped gloves. No doubt that the anticipation of seeing Sherdog’s #1 ranked heavyweight and #3 P4P fighter take the octagonal stage had induced a blood-hungry frenzy. Yet, one minute and nine seconds later the crowd had been stunned into silence by the triumphant Fabricio Werdum.

Fedor began the fight with his typical brash fearlessness. He established the middle of the ring and began his attack as soon as “Big” John McCarthy signaled the start of the fight. He pressured Werdum until half a minute in when he landed a big punch combo and took the lanky Brazilian to the ground. This is where the fight got away from Fedor. Thinking that his fury of punches had done significant damage to Werdum, Fedor went in for the kill. The second he realized that Werdum hadn’t taken too much damage he should have backed off, but instead Fedor found himself in a developing armbar. Werdum shifted the armbar to a triangle and crunched Fedor’s head between the his long limbs and the fight was over. Stunned silence from the crowd. Had this been later in the fight, or even the round, Fedor could have probably used the sweat on his body to slither away, but at less than a minute into the fight both fighters were relatively dry.

Looks like MMA fanboys will need to find someone else to worship, at least until the Russian enters the octagon again.

Brock Lesnar vs Shane Carwin

The previews of UFC 116 were dominated by Brock Lesnar getting his WWE on and talking shit. Apparently, Lesnar spat so much smack that it has inspired the return of his only loss, Frank Mir, to the octagon. We’ll see if that actually happens but until then we have to content ourselves with the beat down that Lesnar enforced upon undefeated Shane Carwin.

Beat down may be a little strong when used in conjunction with the Lesnar/Carwin fight as both fighters were able to inflict substantial damage upon the other. Round 1 saw Carwin dominate Lesnar, in particular an uppercut to the champion’s face filleted his brow like a can-opener. However, after surviving the initial onslaught, Lesnar took-down, full mounted, and submitted Carwin with a triangle choke. All in a day’s work for Lesnar who’s strategy played out with deadly efficiency.

All that you really need to know about this fight you could have figured out in the pre-fight drama.

Carwin is like a tornado in the first round. Until the Lesnar fight, none of his opponents had managed to take the American fighter into the second round. Lesnar, who was finally back in the ring after suffering from a debilitating case of mononucleosis, had been training with Randy “The Natural” Couture in preparation of the Carwin fight to improve his submissions and ground-and-pound. Lesnar’s strategy going into the fight could have been nothing other than trying to survive the first round and then submitting the exhausted Carwin in the second. That’s exactly how things played out!

Some of Lesnar’s detractors have said that during the Carwin’s GnP of the first round that he wasn’t defending himself. But look again! The guy had his fists up the entire time and eventually wore Carwin out. Once Lesnar survived the initial rampage of Carwin in the first round it didn’t take long for “The Engineer” to break down physically. No matter how inexperienced Lesnar is, you can’t deny his athletic skill, ring awareness and insane improvement.

What was perhaps the most surprising aspect of the fight was Lesnar’s burgeoning jiu jitsu. If Brock keeps improving the way he is, he may very well be unstoppable.