Fedor's sparring partners may b right idea

[WarKO]

I've often criticized Fedors camps because I see very few big guys. Most of them are MW and even
LW's except for his eternal partner Kirill. I always thought this was a bad idea cuz it conditions Fedor
to fight with weight and when he's up against bigger opponents like Bigfoot, he forgets he can't toss them around so easy.

Then reading up on how Cain is cutting back on sparring because he keeps getting injuries, I now think its maybe a good idea. Boxing with LWs, you get the same technique in but less damage. As long as they're the height and reach of HWs this may be a good idea instead of sparring with giants that tear you up. And they're faster, so you have to try harder and use better technique.

As long as you still grapple with your weight I think they may be onto something here. Although, the problem is still that Fedors camp is all amateurs.

 

[JayElectra]

I don't think I've ever seen someone try and spin weak sparring partners as a good thing.

 

[WarKO]

I don't think I've ever seen someone try and spin weak sparring partners as a good thing.

I just edited it. You're right amateurs are a bad idea and Fedor's camp is full of them. But high-level and larger LW and MW may be good to preserve a HW.

 

[JayElectra]

I just edited it. You're right amateurs are a bad idea and Fedor's camp is full of them. But high-level and larger LW and MW may be good to preserve a HW.

Getting some work in with a good MW if they have roughly similar skillsets to certain HWs (especially Fedor were to be facing a faster HW) would obviously be worthwhile (both Cormier and Cain would have gotten good work from Rockhold, for example). In boxing, if a HW boxer is facing a good mover, it's not rare for them to bring in LHWs or even MWs so they can work on cutting off the ring. However, they will also always have some quality HW sparring. Not having it is really doing yourself a disservice.

 

[SRN]

Fedor lost to Bigfoot because he had no freaking idea what to do with a big and skilled fighter. Finishing Choi was easy, Bigfoot showed him what hell feels like.

Pro fighters should train with guys their size (weight-class), guys with talent and skills. It's the intensity and how hard the training is that causes injuries. You know, training like it's a real fight all the time is stupid.

 

[Gabicho]

Fedor's training partners are not amateurs.
Most of them are combat sambo/judo/wrestling/boxing champions in Russia, and professional dutch kickboxers in the Netherlands.

While Sambo/Judo/Wrestling are "amateur" sports, to be a champion, and particularly in Russia, you have to be very high level and train like a professional, on par with most olympic athletes.

His stable is full of fighters that could easily cut into the UFC.
Fedor's combat sambo club is the number one ranked club in the number one ranked oblast' (state) of all Russia, above and beyond Dagestan (where Khabib's club is).
And just look at all the russian fighters now in the UFC that come from Khabib's club.

To adress the "size" issue; he has been training with guys like Sidelnikov, Minakov, Nemkov, Mokhnatkin, Aleksander (in the past), etc, etc. They are not Bigfoot, of course (because where are you going to get a guy with acromegaly?), but they are quite large. And most dutch kickboxers who help him train, make him look tiny for the most part.

 

[WarKO]

Fedor's training partners are not amateurs.
Most of them are combat sambo/judo/wrestling/boxing champions in Russia, and professional dutch kickboxers in the Netherlands.

While Sambo/Judo/Wrestling are "amateur" sports, to be a champion, and particularly in Russia, you have to be very high level and train like a professional, on par with most olympic athletes.

His stable is full of fighters that could easily cut into the UFC.
Fedor's combat sambo club is the number one ranked club in the number one ranked oblast' (state) of all Russia, above and beyond Dagestan (where Khabib's club is).
And just look at all the russian fighters now in the UFC that come from Khabib's club.

To adress the "size" issue; he has been training with guys like Sidelnikov, Minakov, Nemkov, Mokhnatkin, Aleksander (in the past), etc, etc. They are not Bigfoot, of course (because where are you going to get a guy with acromegaly?), but they are quite large. And most dutch kickboxers who help him train, make him look tiny for the most part.

He only goes to the Neatherlands occasionally and trains w Hoost for few weeks.

I've seen Sambo live a lot and its good but quite a lot different from MMA and 90% of the guys would not cut it in the UFC ..or uh...they'd be in the UFC. There is a lot more money. That is why Fedor quit Sambo after all, for the money in MMA. Many of these Sambo guys don't even do it full time and have jobs.

This kind of thinking....that its a great camp cuz there's Sambo champs is what caused Fedor problems in the first place. It's nothing compared to a place like Kings or ATT which is full of Pro MMA fighters, BJJ champs and top strength and conditioning coaches.

Fedor won inspite his camps not because of. Maybe when Hammerhouse was around it looked good but its not a top gym anymore. It is growing and guys are getting better, maybe in future but def not now.

 

[SRN]

Hey Gabicho, sorry to pick your post apart like that, I don't like it because looks aggressive but I mean well. Cheers.

Fedor's training partners are not amateurs.
Most of them are combat sambo/judo/wrestling/boxing champions in Russia, and professional dutch kickboxers in the Netherlands.

Sure, not all of them but we have pictures and videos showing Fedor training with guys that don't even look like they know how to punch. For his last fight he was training bjj in Holland (ffs) with white belts. Why?! It looked like the after work class. Sure, it was Jaideep but c'mon.

His stable is full of fighters that could easily cut into the UFC.
Fedor's combat sambo club is the number one ranked club in the number one ranked oblast' (state) of all Russia, above and beyond Dagestan (where Khabib's club is).
And just look at all the russian fighters now in the UFC that come from Khabib's club.

Why don't they do that then? Fedor is the only big name from his team.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying but I think Sambo-70 is number one, not Fedor's team.

To adress the "size" issue; he has been training with guys like Sidelnikov, Minakov, Nemkov, Mokhnatkin, Aleksander (in the past), etc, etc. They are not Bigfoot, of course (because where are you going to get a guy with acromegaly?), but they are quite large. And most dutch kickboxers who help him train, make him look tiny for the most part.

Ok people need to stop saying he trained with Minakov. Vitaly spent a weekend with Fedor, that's it. It was a special thing, mostly for publicity, not part of his training camp. Fedor himself was pissed that the Russian commentator kept saying that during his last fight. He even called him unprofessional. So that never happened.

And Sidelnikov is just fat, not big. I believe he's shorter than Fedor. But none of the guys he trained helped him with Bigfoot or Werdum because when Fedor trains bjj he goes to Holland.

 

[Steve-French]

I think the best move for Fedor would be to train it the States with somebody like Greg Jackson. Fedor's ability is still there and if he made some tweaks and took a more modern approach to training he could be a force. This will never happen, but that would probably be his best bet.

 

[Mixfight]

Fedor started to lose and his skills started to deteriorate because as he started getting older and slower he went from training with guys like Aleks, Sergei, Zentzov, Illukhin and Igor to training with Kirill Sidelnikov and Maxim Grishin.

Im aware Fedor does occasional sparring with Lebedev and Povetkin however I believe its far and in between his training with sambo teenagers and up and comers.


Just take a look at this video and it will tell you all you need to know about why Fedor started too rapidly decline. He got old and started training with cans.

[video]

 

[Gabicho]

Hey Gabicho, sorry to pick your post apart like that, I don't like it because looks aggressive but I mean well. Cheers.

Sure, not all of them but we have pictures and videos showing Fedor training with guys that don't even look like they know how to punch. For his last fight he was training bjj in Holland (ffs) with white belts. Why?! It looked like the after work class. Sure, it was Jaideep but c'mon.

Why don't they do that then? Fedor is the only big name from his team.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying but I think Sambo-70 is number one, not Fedor's team.

Ok people need to stop saying he trained with Minakov. Vitaly spent a weekend with Fedor, that's it. It was a special thing, mostly for publicity, not part of his training camp. Fedor himself was pissed that the Russian commentator kept saying that during his last fight. He even called him unprofessional. So that never happened.

And Sidelnikov is just fat, not big. I believe he's shorter than Fedor. But none of the guys he trained helped him with Bigfoot or Werdum because when Fedor trains bjj he goes to Holland.

Worry not, i do not find it agressive at all.

If you believe you will find videos of Fedor's actual training, you will not. Recordings of his training (like most of all professional fighters) generally does not exist or are not available to the general public.

Do you think their team would show videos of him grappling BJJ blackbelts/brownbelts in the Netherlands? Never. Same applies to pretty much all other pro fighters. They show whatever filler they can without compromising his strengths and weaknesses.

If by "Big name" you ACTUALLY mean "Big name in the USA or UFC", you are right, there are none in his stable. But the UFC is not the end-all be all. For an active Sambo World Champion (or national, or state champion, even), going to the UFC is a very risky deal. 10k-40k every three, four months? Minus taxes, that's peanuts. You CAN make it big, but, if you lose once, you can be fired, just like that. They'd rather keep being national/state squad members, getting a salary, housing, training, all the while studying, making a carreer in sports and maybe become coaches themselves in the future. That is why most combat sambo fighters worth their salt, move on to MMA when they are about to retire from active sambo competition.

As for SAMBO-70: it is a great team, but Stary Oskol is right now the #1 ranked state in Russia and has been so for many years. After Stary, it's Moskva.

Sidelnikov IS fat, but he is also big and strong. I've seen him in person in multiple occassions. He's as thick and strong as an ox. There's a reason as to why he usually manhandles competition in all sambo competitions. Of course, i think that if he actually cut weight, he would be a much better LHW, or even, a beast of a MW.

 

[WarKO]

Hey Gabicho, sorry to pick your post apart like that, I don't like it because looks aggressive but I mean well. Cheers.



Sure, not all of them but we have pictures and videos showing Fedor training with guys that don't even look like they know how to punch. For his last fight he was training bjj in Holland (ffs) with white belts. Why?! It looked like the after work class. Sure, it was Jaideep but c'mon.



Why don't they do that then? Fedor is the only big name from his team.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying but I think Sambo-70 is number one, not Fedor's team.



Ok people need to stop saying he trained with Minakov. Vitaly spent a weekend with Fedor, that's it. It was a special thing, mostly for publicity, not part of his training camp. Fedor himself was pissed that the Russian commentator kept saying that during his last fight. He even called him unprofessional. So that never happened.

And Sidelnikov is just fat, not big. I believe he's shorter than Fedor. But none of the guys he trained helped him with Bigfoot or Werdum because when Fedor trains bjj he goes to Holland.

Brootal post. But the kid needed it.

 

[WarKO]

Worry not, i do not find it agressive at all.

If you believe you will find videos of Fedor's actual training, you will not. Recordings of his training (like most of all professional fighters) generally does not exist or are not available to the general public.

Do you think their team would show videos of him grappling BJJ blackbelts/brownbelts in the Netherlands? Never. Same applies to pretty much all other pro fighters. They show whatever filler they can without compromising his strengths and weaknesses.

If by "Big name" you ACTUALLY mean "Big name in the USA or UFC", you are right, there are none in his stable. But the UFC is not the end-all be all. For an active Sambo World Champion (or national, or state champion, even), going to the UFC is a very risky deal. 10k-40k every three, four months? Minus taxes, that's peanuts. You CAN make it big, but, if you lose once, you can be fired, just like that. They'd rather keep being national/state squad members, getting a salary, housing, training, all the while studying, making a carreer in sports and maybe become coaches themselves in the future. That is why most combat sambo fighters worth their salt, move on to MMA when they are about to retire from active sambo competition.

As for SAMBO-70: it is a great team, but Stary Oskol is right now the #1 ranked state in Russia and has been so for many years. After Stary, it's Moskva.

Sidelnikov IS fat, but he is also big and strong. I've seen him in person in multiple occassions. He's as thick and strong as an ox. There's a reason as to why he usually manhandles competition in all sambo competitions. Of course, i think that if he actually cut weight, he would be a much better LHW, or even, a beast of a MW.

So how do you know Fedor is training w Brown belts and all these great guys? Even if he is, he's in Holland for all of 2 weeks.

Any great Sambo fighter would be foolish not to try a UFC or Bellator contract. And most have. The ones that didn't simply weren't on the level and that's who Fedor trains with.

They don't cut them after one fight from UFC it's a 3 fight deal. If they put on good shows or the fans like them, they don't get cut even if they lose.

Sambo is not on the level of competition or $$$ of MMA in America and globally. Just look at the empty arenas at Championship matches...even when Fedor fights the bleechers are empty. There's guys working full-time jobs that are Sambo champs, lots of non-athletes, and there's not so many opportunities like you speak.

With UFC, it's not just the pay, it's sponsorship, coaching jobs, and merchandise the likes of which doesn't exist in Sambo unless you're in the 1%.

During Affliction I though Kirill would go somewhere. He didn't and is a Tier III MMA fighter taking on cans and is meanwhile a Combat Sambo World Champion, that should highlight the difference in level of competition to you.

Fedor training with Sambo guys instead of Pro MMA fighters, does him no good except maybe he's building MMA in Russia.

 

[Mixfight]

Sambo has great practitioners across the board that can definitely compete at the highest MMA level however those guys are rare and they're not all in Fedor camp if any of them are. Having guys like Kirill Sidelnikov and Maxim Grishin is OK as punching bags but they wont simulate the technical level which Fedor will be facing if he fights top 10 HWs. I dont think there is anyone on the Sambo circuit who will prepare Fedor the guard of Werdum, the BJJ and heavy mount and size of Bigfoot and the dirty boxing, and wrestling of Hendo. Those are all western fighting cultures that Fedor isnt being faced with in sparring which is why there were times in all of those fights where he had no clue of what to do. He was simply unprepared. Werdum easily triangled him. Bigfoot easily mounted him and passed his guard. Fedor back in the days could explode from under guys but at this age he needed more of small guy BJJ approach. Shrimping out, recovering guard etc. Instead he got smashed and couldnt recover. Fedor was also very sloppy against Hendo letting Dan escape from under side mount like that through the backdoor. Hendo escaping that way was the direct result of Fedors ground game deteriorating and training with bums who have shit scrambles. Prime Fedor would have held that position and stabilized it.

Fedor spends 3 week camps in Holland with Hoost and trains with a few Rickson brown belts over there too which is good and occasionally spars with Povetkin and Lebedev. That is good but is it enough?If Fedor wants to fight top 10 HWs he will need better sparring and more technical sparring partners who will test him hard in training and simulate some of the western MMA styles. I mean look at this footage here, its truly frustrating and you can see in Fedor's face hes tired of training with bums. Its amazing that Fedor KOd Arlovski and Rogers with such shitty training partners and amazing how far he went with such a shitty camp.

I dont think Fedor needs to go to the US to train at Jacksons but he has to invest in his training partners. Fly in a big 230-240lb legit BJJ brown belt, another good, athletic 200lb wrestler from Dagestan and some good athletic strikers and everyone else from his camp. Then he will be much better prepared for the western HWs of the top 10.

[video]

 

[SRN]

Worry not, i do not find it agressive at all.

If you believe you will find videos of Fedor's actual training, you will not. Recordings of his training (like most of all professional fighters) generally does not exist or are not available to the general public.

Do you think their team would show videos of him grappling BJJ blackbelts/brownbelts in the Netherlands? Never. Same applies to pretty much all other pro fighters. They show whatever filler they can without compromising his strengths and weaknesses.

If by "Big name" you ACTUALLY mean "Big name in the USA or UFC", you are right, there are none in his stable. But the UFC is not the end-all be all. For an active Sambo World Champion (or national, or state champion, even), going to the UFC is a very risky deal. 10k-40k every three, four months? Minus taxes, that's peanuts. You CAN make it big, but, if you lose once, you can be fired, just like that. They'd rather keep being national/state squad members, getting a salary, housing, training, all the while studying, making a carreer in sports and maybe become coaches themselves in the future. That is why most combat sambo fighters worth their salt, move on to MMA when they are about to retire from active sambo competition.

As for SAMBO-70: it is a great team, but Stary Oskol is right now the #1 ranked state in Russia and has been so for many years. After Stary, it's Moskva.

Sidelnikov IS fat, but he is also big and strong. I've seen him in person in multiple occassions. He's as thick and strong as an ox. There's a reason as to why he usually manhandles competition in all sambo competitions. Of course, i think that if he actually cut weight, he would be a much better LHW, or even, a beast of a MW.

Sorry, I don't believe Fedor's training is like a state secret and we only see videos showing the exact opposite of what he's actually doing.

It's undeniable his technique went downhill, it's undeniable he became a headhunter, it's undeniable he was lost in some fights. I mean, how depressing was him against Bigfoot? People forget this but he looked bad against Arlovski too. He was only 32, not old at all.

I meant big name in MMA not UFC. The biggest name is Viktor Nemkov. It's very naive to think that these guys are saying no to the UFC because they don't want to risk getting fired. They would love to have an opportunity like that.

And I believe Kirill Sidelnikov success has A LOT to do with the fact that the Combat Sambo talent pool is somewhat shallow, specially the heavyweight division.

Anyway, I remember Fedor saying that after training with his brother for so long he was able to predict his movements during training. He said that like it was something good. lol I'm pretty sure Fedor and Kirill can spar with their eyes closed. Can you imagine if after Arlovski Fedor decided it was time to train with different trainers and partners capable of challenging him?

ps: I was only able to find weight-classes rankings so I'll take your word on that.

 

[mjfan23]

I have always felt if fedor was under the wing of Hume ( he was huge in Japan during pridefc era), BTT (were pretty much the best along with chuteboxe then) or golden glory (best striker team in the world then) he would have been even more devastating in his prime.

 

[WarKO]

Sorry, I don't believe Fedor's training is like a state secret and we only see videos showing the exact opposite of what he's actually doing.

It's undeniable his technique went downhill, it's undeniable he became a headhunter, it's undeniable he was lost in some fights. I mean, how depressing was him against Bigfoot? People forget this but he looked bad against Arlovski too. He was only 32, not old at all.

I meant big name in MMA not UFC. The biggest name is Viktor Nemkov. It's very naive to think that these guys are saying no to the UFC because they don't want to risk getting fired. They would love to have an opportunity like that.

And I believe Kirill Sidelnikov success has A LOT to do with the fact that the Combat Sambo talent pool is somewhat shallow, specially the heavyweight division.

Anyway, I remember Fedor saying that after training with his brother for so long he was able to predict his movements during training. He said that like it was something good. lol I'm pretty sure Fedor and Kirill can spar with their eyes closed. Can you imagine if after Arlovski Fedor decided it was time to train with different trainers and partners capable of challenging him?

ps: I was only able to find weight-classes rankings so I'll take your word on that.

Kirill is at the bottom of MMA but he is at the top of Sambo, several Championships. Same thing with Blagovi who couldn't cut it in Bellator and ran away to WSOF. He was elite in Sambo, multiple time Champion.

These should highlight the differences in competition. There's no one in the stands even during #1 bouts, no sponsors and no $ in Sambo.

 

[NHB7]

The best regiment of sparring is to have smaller guys, bigger guys and same size guys. You also want guys that are worse than you and guys that are better than you.

 

[NHB7]

Kirill is at the bottom of MMA but he is at the top of Sambo, several Championships. Same thing with Blagovi who couldn't cut it in Bellator and ran away to WSOF. He was elite in Sambo, multiple time Champion.

These should highlight the differences in competition. There's no one in the stands even during #1 bouts, no sponsors and no $ in Sambo.

Blagoi couldn't cut it in Bellator? He was 6 -1 in Bellator and a tournament finalist. I'd say he was handling himself just fine.

 

[WarKO]

Blagoi couldn't cut it in Bellator? He was 6 -1 in Bellator and a tournament finalist. I'd say he was handling himself just fine.

Please he had no big names and lost to Volkov and a NC w Latifi. Then he ran away for WSOF when he could have continued in Bellator.

The Blagoy hype train is ridiculous.