Great offense, poor defense

Fedor was one of the least hit fighters in the sport, watch his fight with arlovski, his defense is water tight.
 
manji said:
Seriously though, Fedor's career lasted as long as it did BECAUSE of his ability to take such little damage during his fights. Don't let a couple fights at the end of his career when his reflexes slowed make you think he "sucks." Watch the fights in his prime and stop drinking Dana's Kool Aid. MMA existed long before many of you started watching it.
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Fedor had great deceptions and head movement, but a big part of his low hit stat per min was him beating the fuck out of most of his opponents without much resistance.

Like his early fights and then his fights with Nog, Herring, Goodridge, Ogawa and Randleman, and the Coleman rematch, the Lindland & Choi fights, even the short Sylvia fight.

That's a lot of combined minutes almost solely on the offense.
 
Cowb said:
Good point about Overeem - he actually has quite good striking defense, right up until he gasses or loses focus, and then drops his defense almost entirely. But his technique isn't his problem.
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like early against Bigfoot, where he moved his head and countered him, then landed low kicks.

Or against Browne - dodged an overhand and got a front headlock, then ducked under with a body shot to get Travis against the cage, blocked most of the front kicks even when gassed, then got hit on the button.

Or in his last fight against Mir, who landed 4 strikes on him in 15 minutes, because he conserved his energy.
 
MCS said:
Fedor had great deceptions and head movement, but a big part of his low hit stat per min was him beating the fuck out of most of his opponents without much resistance.

Like his early fights and then his fights with Nog, Herring, Goodridge, Ogawa and Randleman, and the Coleman rematch, the Lindland & Choi fights, even the short Sylvia fight.

That's a lot of combined minutes almost solely on the offense.
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He was also great about punching into the clinch where he would trip or throw people, and he parried and blocked punches well and had great head movement, I remember when people would say Fedor was sloppy but there was a method to his punches that people just didn't understand yet and now people are saying similar things about Khabib's stand up even though he also rarely gets hit. For some reason people just don't get Sambo and casting punches.
 
NoBiasJustMMA said:
He was also great about punching into the clinch where he would trip or throw people, and he parried and blocked punches well and had great head movement, I remember when people would say Fedor was sloppy but there was a method to his punches that people just didn't understand yet and now people are saying similar things about Khabib's stand up even though he also rarely gets hit. For some reason people just don't get Sambo and casting punches.
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yep, that right hand lead to a clinch throw he did repeatedly to Nog was a thing of beauty. Blocked Cro Cop's body & head kicks, checked some of his low kicks.

To be fair, Fedor was, at times, wild & sloppy. I think Barnett said it best, that that could be a weakness, but at the same time that aggression was working. Like in the Goodridge fight he was sloppy, then in the Nog fight he was more calculative. And before going into brawl mode in SF, he was improving in his stand-up when in Affliction.

Khabib throws wild strikes, imo. Like, crazy wild hooks from the outside with all his might. I think the difference between them can be seen with how they hit mits. Fedor hits those in a rhythm, he's not static & stiff at all.
 
Fedor had excellent in the Pride days, or dare I say it, his prime.
 
Overeem and Manhoef are two great examples. Cain Velasquez is basically all offense but it shuts down his opponent's offense most of the time and works as his defense. Chael Sonnen is basically all offense but isn't great at stopping what he likes to do (takedowns, ground and pound). Defense doesn't really score in MMA so I'm always impressed when I see great defense because of all the potential attacks there are in the sport; TJ Dillashaw really put on a clinic in that respect.
 
JDS
Cain
Manhoef
Maldonado
Chuck
 
Anyone who says JDS has good defense clearly doesn't understand what they're watching. He doesn't use head movement and his "footwork" is almost solely limited to going forwards or backwards in a straight line until he runs his own back to the fence.
PirateTetra said:
Carlos Condit.
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Yup! Also, the Diaz bros.
 
There needs to be something on shedding that for forbids Fedor from being mentioned in threads, his hardcore fans attack everybody even if fedor isn't being bashed. Some people pointed on some of his flaws in this thread and they are being unfairly attacked for it. As for poor striking defense Cro Cop, he had poor footwork an little head movement while slowly stalking his opponents. He payed for this dearly against Randleman, Gonzaga, Schaub and many K-1 fights.
 
Came in to add Brendan Schaub, and of course he and Arlovski are fighting one another. Joe Silva deserves a raise for booking that one. The two most notorious examples of extremely effective offensive fighters with chandelier chins.
 
ShreddinMMA said:
Lol.

How about you look beyond and Fedor's 4 SF bouts for a better understanding of how defensively brilliant he was on the feet.

And at NO POINT did Rogers almost stop Fedor. That is a bold faced lie.
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Well Rogers had him in trouble with GnP at one point I think...? But let's be serious, Fedor neglected his grappling for years and NEVER would have wound up underneath Brett or Silva in his prime.

But yes, Fedor's defense was extremely underrated. Not spectacular, but very effective. Just good head movement and footwork. It's pretty much the reason why people actually thought Arlovski had successful offense against Fedor, when slow-mo replays will reveal that Arlovski barely got anything off before trying that ill-advised flying knee.

The fact that Fedor went toe-to-toe with Mirko and only left with a broken nose for his troubles says a lot: that he was one of the better mma strikers in the short history of this Sport.
 
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