UFC 116 Preview: Bloody Elbow Judo Chop: The Techniques of Brock Lesnar

With Brock Lesnar making one of his rare Octagon appearances this weekend, I thought I'd recap the two Judo Chops I've done featuring his work:

• The Punching Power of Brock Lesnar
• Brock Lesnar's One-Armed Full Nelson

I also wanted to highlight a most excellent FanPost by BloodyElbow reader BlackLesnar Break It Down: Brock Lesnar. This is one of the best and most in-depth dissection's of a fighter's strengths and weaknesses I've ever read.

While both Carwin and Lesnar come into MMA from a wrestling background, there are different styles of applying the wrestling base to MMA. Jonathan Snowden broke down some of the history of how those differing approaches to MMA evolved yesterday.

As Lesnar himself recognizes, he's a Ground and Pound fighter. This is a wrestler who relies on getting the take down and once on the ground, using strikes to finish his opponent. Mark Coleman was the first to really emply that style, although Dan Severn had hinted at it when he adopted knees and elbows on the ground at UFC 5.

Shane Carwin is more of a Randy Couture style Dirty Boxer. This is a wrestler who likes to get his opponent in the clinch standing and batter them while controlling the head with a collar tie. It will be interesting to see how their styles collide on Saturday. BlackLesnar has also analyzed Shane Carwin in the FanPosts, I couldn't recommend it more highly

There are some excerpts and a couple of gifs in the full entry. 

 

From The Punching Power of Brock Lesnar

Here's BloodyElbow's own Brent Brookhouse analyzing the orbital bone shattering right hand that Brock Lesnar landed on Heath Herring:

The first thing that jumps out to me is the simple technique. When you're Lesnar's size you don't need to throw big winging punches, you just need to throw with technique and land and damage will be done.  He generates the bulk of his power from his legs, in MMA you can get away with lunging a little bit more than straight boxing.  Brock pushes off his right leg and shoots the right straight from the shoulder to Heath's chin with no wasted arm motion. 

Defensively he also keeps his shoulder high on the punching side which blocks any sort of counter left hook.  His left hand goes a little low but his size and the angle of his body makes a return right from Herring a low percentage response. 

Also he circles away from Herring's "power side" by circling away after he throws.  And if you watch his feet during the entire gif he is up on the balls of his feet the entire time, he's much less of a "flat footed" striker than some try to portray him as.  Honestly it's scary to see how far along his striking is coming because technique plus raw power is a crazy combination. 

It's different from other wrestlers like Koscheck who strike but don't have the pop or abandon simple technique.  With Brock it's turning into a "I don't want to stand with him, I'm probably not going to be able to take him down, and I sure as hell don't want to be under him....what the hell do I do now?"

From Brock Lesnar's One-Armed Full Nelson:

Instead of trying either of those options, Lesnar releases Mir's wrist and snakes his left arm behind Mir's head and in front of Mir's left shoulder: Voila, what we see on the left is the One-armed Full Nelson. His prodigious reach allows Lesnar to wind his left arm all the way around to grasp Mir's left bicep. At this point Mir can attempt to block punches with his left hand, but only his forearm is free. As we can see, that's not enough to stop Lesnar's powerful right hand.

Note the time on the clock, 2:51 left in the first round. Lesnar would maintain the hold and continue the batter for the better part of the next two minutes. That is an eternity to be semi-helpless and absorbing punishment from an opponent as powerful as Lesnar.