Brock Lesnar's Wrestling Coach Goes Full Time

by Luke Thomas on Sep 3, 2008 2:20 PM EDT in News

Minnesota assistant wrestling coach Marty Morgan is leaving the program, to focus full time on former Gophers star Brock Lesnar's fledgling fighting career.

Lesnar is on the rise in the Ultimate Fighting Championship ranks. He was once an NCAA champion heavyweight at the school.

Morgan spent 16 years coaching at Minnesota after wrestling for the school himself. He says he will take the next year to concentrate on helping Lesnar train in the field of mixed martial arts before evaluating his career then.

To what extent Morgan understands the specificities of the MMA game is an open question, but adding his knowledge and oversight to the existing squad at the Minnesota Martial Arts Academy can only be a good thing. And while Lesnar is a self motivated fighter, having someone on the coaching staff who knows Brock Lesnar is a major plus for the budding heavyweight.

This is also a demonstration that MMA is offering financial opportunities beyond the wrestling mat...even to wrestlers who don't fight. Lesnar is a bit of an aberrant case, but his participation in the sport could be the tide that helps lift all boats.

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i don’t know if anybody watches ESPN im sure ya do but Brock and Randy were both on ESPN First Take Talking about the fight coming up..One Day after the Fight announced the PR begins this fight is gonna be HUGE!

"If I wanted to spend a half hour between two hairy legs I'd go to your mother's house." -Don Frye

by Pitbull on Sep 3, 2008 2:48 PM EDT 0 recs

My BJJ coach was approached by Brock’s camp not long ago, asking if he’d come in and help work with him. Apparently they can’t find ANYONE willing to work with him, partially because his size/strength and speed are so overwhelming that everyone is worried that they’ll just get chewed up, even in practice.

For the record, my coach turned them down too.

by AJB on Sep 3, 2008 2:52 PM EDT 0 recs

Seems like ATT has the biggest best well versed bjj people and they won’t help him.

by Tommy7 on Sep 3, 2008 3:05 PM EDT up 0 recs

This is great news for the industry.

Greater involvement by qualified coaches will produce higher quality fighters, and a better overall talent level in the field. Better talent equals more entertaining fights, pretty much every time.

There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

by misterjonez on Sep 4, 2008 6:28 AM EDT 0 recs

My first thought was, “because clearly the holes in his game are in his wrestling.” :-)

But anything that gets more good people involved in MMA is good, I guess.

Don't believe a word I say, I don't train BJJ. -- TangleBones

by jemaleddin on Sep 4, 2008 11:45 AM EDT 0 recs

lol

That’s a perspective I hadn’t considered. Bravo.

But really, he did show some ‘issues’ with his wrestling against Herring. There were a few times that he should have been able to work Herring onto his back, from side-control and destroy him. But he wasn’t able to change Heath’s position effectively enough, since Heath was content to simply turtle for the whole fight. I’d imagine that Brock is trying to make sure that never happens again. If someone decides to turtle on him, I’m guessing he’ll be better prepared to finish him off.

For a guy of Brock’s strength and explosiveness, there’s absolutely no reason he couldn’t turn Herring onto his back in that match. A freakin’ wrist-roll would have given him all the leverage he needed to roll him right over. Obviously he didn’t want to make any mistakes in that fight, but he’s got to do better in the future.

There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

by misterjonez on Sep 4, 2008 2:28 PM EDT up 0 recs