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While some may consider Fedor’s style lately to be sloppy and uncalculated (Brendan Schaub for one just said it on his podcast), I don’t necessarily disagree with it looking sloppy aesthetically although the more I analyze this last fight the more I see hints of forethought and real time calculation on Fedor’s behalf. At least more than people give him credit for.
First off I’m no Jack Slack but I’d like to state that Fedor’s boxing should not be judged and compared to orthodox styles because it just isn’t. It’s unorthodox, and just because it is unorthodox doesnt automatically make it ineffective. For the sake of landing he is capable of forgetting boxing basics like planting your feet, as we have seen him lunge into flying hooks very often to cover distance and start flurries.
In the beginning of his career Fedor kept his hands up and was more traditional in the defensive sense. I feel now a days he keeps his hands down in order to lure his opponents into attacking, over extending, and missing in order to provoke counters. He used to be the one to lunge in with strike to clinch and throw combinations back in pride but I think that he has realized that with age and loss of speed he has had to compensate and make adjustments. His main game plan seems to still be to overwhelm his opponent with a high output, looking to totally dominate whether it turns into a brawl or not.
Instead of jabbing, he starts off by measuring distance with his right straight sort of as a feeler (of course thrown with bad intentions looking for a KO if it’s there as well). Once he gets a feel for it, if he feels no threat he will start with combinations.
In this particular fight, Frank came out looking pretty sharp immediately connecting a low kick , straight, right hook combo. The low kick had bad intentions as it was directed towards Fedors bad knee. The combo wasn’t sloppy at all. After fedor hip tossed Mir, frank himself admitted he was embarrassed and got lured into brawling by Fedor. He got on his mayweather shit but that type of boxing that looks to land hooks to the body and such has never been Mirs strength. He needed to fight a calculated fight where he used his length and weight as advantages over his opponent but didn’t.
In conclusion Fedor showed good fight IQ this time which was shown as well when he decided to get right back up to his feet after the judo hip toss. His punch selection was smart as well although obviously some of it was instincts but those instincts have been honed through years and years of fight experience which is one thing that still makes the difference in his fights til this day and will probably make the difference in the upcoming Chael Sonnen fight. His style is the exact opposite of cro cop’s which is a clinical “one strike, in and out then let’s see” approach. Fedors blitzes people and tries to overwhelm opponents in order to short circuit them. He tries to apply volume while trying to be the one the adapts quicker to the ever changing circumstances of a fight.
Both styles are effective and admirable when executed well but fedor doesn’t get enough credit for being technical because it doesn’t look like he is (but in all reality he is usually a step or two ahead mentally).
He even slips punches the unconventional way, by throwing his own punches like the right hook that connected to the back of mir’s head. Responding with his own side-strafing punch took his head out of the line while stuffing mirs punch and off balanced him for the set up left uppercut that came unexpected. He has probably done that same exact sequence before during sambo fights and training I feel. It looked like it came from muscle memory.
The short left uppercut with which he finished Mir with wasn’t a spur of the moment lucky punch, if you notice he was looking to throw it a second earlier, so there goes Brendan Schaub’s critique of it not being “calculated”. He was actively looking to land it because of the pattern he read either at the moment or by having previously studied Mir’s Weaknesses.
To suggest that he has bad boxing is absurd...just because it ain’t pretty doesn’t mean it isn’t effective boxing. After all the definition of boxing is throwing and connecting punches with the intent of harming your opponent, nothing more nothing less (and fedor excels at this). There is a sweet science to his madness.
First off I’m no Jack Slack but I’d like to state that Fedor’s boxing should not be judged and compared to orthodox styles because it just isn’t. It’s unorthodox, and just because it is unorthodox doesnt automatically make it ineffective. For the sake of landing he is capable of forgetting boxing basics like planting your feet, as we have seen him lunge into flying hooks very often to cover distance and start flurries.
In the beginning of his career Fedor kept his hands up and was more traditional in the defensive sense. I feel now a days he keeps his hands down in order to lure his opponents into attacking, over extending, and missing in order to provoke counters. He used to be the one to lunge in with strike to clinch and throw combinations back in pride but I think that he has realized that with age and loss of speed he has had to compensate and make adjustments. His main game plan seems to still be to overwhelm his opponent with a high output, looking to totally dominate whether it turns into a brawl or not.
Instead of jabbing, he starts off by measuring distance with his right straight sort of as a feeler (of course thrown with bad intentions looking for a KO if it’s there as well). Once he gets a feel for it, if he feels no threat he will start with combinations.
In this particular fight, Frank came out looking pretty sharp immediately connecting a low kick , straight, right hook combo. The low kick had bad intentions as it was directed towards Fedors bad knee. The combo wasn’t sloppy at all. After fedor hip tossed Mir, frank himself admitted he was embarrassed and got lured into brawling by Fedor. He got on his mayweather shit but that type of boxing that looks to land hooks to the body and such has never been Mirs strength. He needed to fight a calculated fight where he used his length and weight as advantages over his opponent but didn’t.
In conclusion Fedor showed good fight IQ this time which was shown as well when he decided to get right back up to his feet after the judo hip toss. His punch selection was smart as well although obviously some of it was instincts but those instincts have been honed through years and years of fight experience which is one thing that still makes the difference in his fights til this day and will probably make the difference in the upcoming Chael Sonnen fight. His style is the exact opposite of cro cop’s which is a clinical “one strike, in and out then let’s see” approach. Fedors blitzes people and tries to overwhelm opponents in order to short circuit them. He tries to apply volume while trying to be the one the adapts quicker to the ever changing circumstances of a fight.
Both styles are effective and admirable when executed well but fedor doesn’t get enough credit for being technical because it doesn’t look like he is (but in all reality he is usually a step or two ahead mentally).
He even slips punches the unconventional way, by throwing his own punches like the right hook that connected to the back of mir’s head. Responding with his own side-strafing punch took his head out of the line while stuffing mirs punch and off balanced him for the set up left uppercut that came unexpected. He has probably done that same exact sequence before during sambo fights and training I feel. It looked like it came from muscle memory.
The short left uppercut with which he finished Mir with wasn’t a spur of the moment lucky punch, if you notice he was looking to throw it a second earlier, so there goes Brendan Schaub’s critique of it not being “calculated”. He was actively looking to land it because of the pattern he read either at the moment or by having previously studied Mir’s Weaknesses.
To suggest that he has bad boxing is absurd...just because it ain’t pretty doesn’t mean it isn’t effective boxing. After all the definition of boxing is throwing and connecting punches with the intent of harming your opponent, nothing more nothing less (and fedor excels at this). There is a sweet science to his madness.
