Just The Facts
Blue Belt
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Please read whole post if you're going to chime in...thanks!
A fair amount of Sherdoggers like to criticize Weidman for his bad or 'questionable' cardio. I am going to make an argument against that, so bear with me my 'dogs...
The truth is that early in his career, he was actually known for having a GREAT gas tank who could push the pace and did so repeatedly (See below). It is likely that because of this, he was confident to take those last minute fights against Sakara and Maia. Clearly massive weight cutting and super short training camps negatively affect cardio. So when those fights were offered to he and his camp, the thought process must have been: "since fighting a last minute fight is going to seriously impact our cardio, is our baseline cardio elite enough to take a big hit and still get us through the fight?" It clearly was and that's why they said yes to the fight.
Early career: 1) fights to clear three round decision victory vs Valdir Aurajo and looks solid (2010). Cardio check A+.
2) If you watched the Andre Galvao ADCC match the announcer says: "One thing Andre has to watch out for, if the fight goes past five minutes and they start scoring points, Weidman has a pretty big gas tank and good takedowns so...what Weidman has to do is keep pushing the pace..." Which is exactly what happened. They wrestled for 15 minutes STRAIGHT, NO ROUNDS. And Weidman was the aggressor. Chris ended up losing via points to one of the top three submission grapplers in the world in his first year of training BJJ. Here's the link, the quote is at 3:49, my favorite part of course is that one announcer calls him Weedman, the other Wildman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uErAQSWCvWc#t=360
And as an aside, rewatching that match, by any mma type grappling rules, Weidman dominated it. Apparently Galvao passing guard for 3 seconds only to immediately lose it is worth 2 points, but the multiple deep submission attempts by Weidman are worth exactly zero points. Galvao would also sit down and pull guard whenever they were stood up as he got thrown repeatedly in the first five minutes (the timeperiod where no points are given). I invite you to watch it and you be the judge. In any case Weidman pushed a hard pace for 15 minutes straight and didn't gas at all.
So back to his UFC fights. Unfortunately he has finished every fighter he has had a full camp for inside of two rounds. Munoz spent about 30 seconds on his feet total in the first round, struggling to survive multiple subs. Second round the same, total ground domination until getting up and getting KOed. But certainly no sign of gassing on Weidman's part, he was working hard the whole time.
The Maia fight was telling, but for reasons different than most cite. In every other UFC fight except Sakara, which was similarly short notice, he put his opponent on their back within the first 45 seconds of the fight and aggressively wrestled from there. But when Chris got his first TD on Maia, it was 4 minutes in, and he didn't push hard to stay in top control and look for GnP because he knew he couldn't wrestle hard for 15 minutes on such short notice. He didn't even fake a TD until 3 minutes into round one as he had a different gameplan. So it was clear to him and his camp from the start that he was going to have cardio issues BECAUSE of weight cut and micro-camp, and they gameplanned accordingly. IF HE HAD BAD CARDIO HE NEVER WOULD HAVE ACCEPTED CIRCUMSTANCES THAT WOULD HAVE MADE A WEAKNESS EVEN WEAKER. Since he was strong in it, he could still take a big hit and potentially win.
Some have said that he seemed to be slowing down in the Silva fights. In the first fight, second round, he was on the forward attack when he KOed Silva, so he obviously wasn't too tired. His victory celebration seemed pretty pumped up as well, not like he was needing oxygen.
Second round second fight, they were feeling each other out on the feet, exchanging a couple of kicks and feints, and both looked fresh before the leg break.
So I'm not sure where the suspect cardio belief comes from, every indication is that it is just the opposite.
Sorry for the long post, hope some actually read it
A fair amount of Sherdoggers like to criticize Weidman for his bad or 'questionable' cardio. I am going to make an argument against that, so bear with me my 'dogs...
The truth is that early in his career, he was actually known for having a GREAT gas tank who could push the pace and did so repeatedly (See below). It is likely that because of this, he was confident to take those last minute fights against Sakara and Maia. Clearly massive weight cutting and super short training camps negatively affect cardio. So when those fights were offered to he and his camp, the thought process must have been: "since fighting a last minute fight is going to seriously impact our cardio, is our baseline cardio elite enough to take a big hit and still get us through the fight?" It clearly was and that's why they said yes to the fight.
Early career: 1) fights to clear three round decision victory vs Valdir Aurajo and looks solid (2010). Cardio check A+.
2) If you watched the Andre Galvao ADCC match the announcer says: "One thing Andre has to watch out for, if the fight goes past five minutes and they start scoring points, Weidman has a pretty big gas tank and good takedowns so...what Weidman has to do is keep pushing the pace..." Which is exactly what happened. They wrestled for 15 minutes STRAIGHT, NO ROUNDS. And Weidman was the aggressor. Chris ended up losing via points to one of the top three submission grapplers in the world in his first year of training BJJ. Here's the link, the quote is at 3:49, my favorite part of course is that one announcer calls him Weedman, the other Wildman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uErAQSWCvWc#t=360
And as an aside, rewatching that match, by any mma type grappling rules, Weidman dominated it. Apparently Galvao passing guard for 3 seconds only to immediately lose it is worth 2 points, but the multiple deep submission attempts by Weidman are worth exactly zero points. Galvao would also sit down and pull guard whenever they were stood up as he got thrown repeatedly in the first five minutes (the timeperiod where no points are given). I invite you to watch it and you be the judge. In any case Weidman pushed a hard pace for 15 minutes straight and didn't gas at all.
So back to his UFC fights. Unfortunately he has finished every fighter he has had a full camp for inside of two rounds. Munoz spent about 30 seconds on his feet total in the first round, struggling to survive multiple subs. Second round the same, total ground domination until getting up and getting KOed. But certainly no sign of gassing on Weidman's part, he was working hard the whole time.
The Maia fight was telling, but for reasons different than most cite. In every other UFC fight except Sakara, which was similarly short notice, he put his opponent on their back within the first 45 seconds of the fight and aggressively wrestled from there. But when Chris got his first TD on Maia, it was 4 minutes in, and he didn't push hard to stay in top control and look for GnP because he knew he couldn't wrestle hard for 15 minutes on such short notice. He didn't even fake a TD until 3 minutes into round one as he had a different gameplan. So it was clear to him and his camp from the start that he was going to have cardio issues BECAUSE of weight cut and micro-camp, and they gameplanned accordingly. IF HE HAD BAD CARDIO HE NEVER WOULD HAVE ACCEPTED CIRCUMSTANCES THAT WOULD HAVE MADE A WEAKNESS EVEN WEAKER. Since he was strong in it, he could still take a big hit and potentially win.
Some have said that he seemed to be slowing down in the Silva fights. In the first fight, second round, he was on the forward attack when he KOed Silva, so he obviously wasn't too tired. His victory celebration seemed pretty pumped up as well, not like he was needing oxygen.
Second round second fight, they were feeling each other out on the feet, exchanging a couple of kicks and feints, and both looked fresh before the leg break.
So I'm not sure where the suspect cardio belief comes from, every indication is that it is just the opposite.
Sorry for the long post, hope some actually read it
