Watch the video. Early in the video it shows some random guy clocking Lyoto a few times and he just takes them. Anyone know?
Man, that fight kind of sucked, by the 2nd round Penn seemed to run completley out of stamina and just plodded around the ring. Machida showed no willingness to fight and just backtracked most of the time throwing slow punches and weak leg kicks.
What was mind blowing is Penn mostly trying to make the fight. Which madness considered he is clearly the smaller man. The only reason Machida was avoiding some take downs, kds etc is because he was bigger and stronger. I can see why Machida isn't that famous despite his record.
If he couldn't knock out/down a blown up 155'er (despite one as talented as Penn) I don't see him knocking out Shogun, with Machida constant backtracking and defensive fighting I can see Shogun just swallowing him up and tearing through him.
When I first looked at his record I thought this guy was the nuts. He had to be. But like you say, you got to look a little closer. I am still only judging him off of this fight though. Looked like a close call against a man who was visibly smaller and hadn't even trained up to the weight - he just didn't train by the looks of it. Man, if Penn actually concentrated 100% on his game, you know he might be undefeated. Was watching him v Gomi and Pulver 2 yesterday. Penn needs to be called the octupus, chimpanzee or some **** like that. When he holds you, he is all over you and his body has such dexterity that guys like Hughes, Pulver, Gomi have trouble getting out. BOOM he is on your back and you are in a hold.
If Penn actually ever trained on conditioning for fights, his proper weight would be about 155, since he wants to fight at higher weight classes he piles on the pounds. He could lift weights but perhaps he thinks that will slow him down even more than gaining fat? Who knows.
A greener Franklin? Umm, No. Machida was even greener. It was Machidas 3rd ever fight and in his first year of fighting. It was Fraklins 14th fight and in his 3rd year od fighting. That is a very good win. But apart from that all his other wins have been average. He hasn't looked really impressive in them against any opponent bar Franklin.
Generally I think for a fighters ground game the fighter needs to know a bit of everything. The four main types of wrestling (freestyle, greco, sambo and judo) and the two main types of JJ (BJJ and JJJ). In saying that though, BJP with his BJJ looks to trump all this. To my knowledge he mainly trains in BJJ and we've seen him beat a black belt guy in Judo and out do Hughes who is a bigger wrestler. I think BJP mind set works better with BJJ. He doesn't want to outstrength someone. He wants to out skill them and use their body as their own worse enemy. A joy to watch when he is on form. To be honest he often makes me feel sorry for the guys he is fighting. When you watch UFC you are continously thinking the guy in trouble should do this or that. When you see someone fighting Penn, he'll often make you think 'he's ****ed, I don't know what the hell the guy can do now'. This is partially what I was thinking when watching him v Gomi and Pulver. Top guys, just looking helpless.
