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The past few years in the UFC have shown me that over-confidence and complacency are the biggest enemies of many top fighters.
On Saturday night, Fabricio Werdum embarrassed himself, and the sport of MMA. I say this out of no dislike for Werdum - I consider myself a Werdum fan, and will continue to be one. On his best night, I most definitely think he is still one of the top three fighters in the division, along with Stipe and Cain. However, I think Fabricio was the latest in a long line of fighters who have bought into their own hype, lost their humility, and paid dearly for it. Werdum took all manner of punches from Cain in their fight without wilting; in fact it was Cain who folded in a striking-heavy fight. This appeared to make Fabricio think he was bullet-proof, hurtling after Miocic like a drunk man chasing a balloon. For an MMA fan ever trying to convince non-MMA-fan friends of the greatness of this sport, that performance of striking was just abysmal, embarrassing. Especially since the fights with Browne and Cain had already shown that Werdum is one of the most fluid, varied and effective strikers in the heavyweight division. The way he ran at Miocic with no thought for defence whatsoever was ridiculous - Miocic had already demonstrated serious power in the fights with Arlovski, Hunt, and dos Santos, so he was clearly not a puncher to take lightly. Werdum was too busy doing the troll face, talking to the media about other fighters, and (from his physical appearance) not training to his maximum. I believe he fell victim to believing too much in his own abilities, and didn't approach this fight with a dangerous challenger as he should have. Would a fully focused, hungry, determined Werdum have beaten Miocic? I have absolutely no idea... but he certainly wouldn't have got faceplanted within a round for running at his opponent like a Japanese businessman fleeing Godzilla.
There have been other recent examples of this.
- Junior dos Santos copped a severe beating from Cain in their rematch, and it was patently obvious to everyone that the key to doing better in the rematch would be to work on his footwork and movement in order to avoid getting backed straight into the fence, to come in light and mobile, and try to keep Cain on the end of his jab and long/straight punches. Alarm bells were ringing for me when all we heard from Junior in the build-up to the fight was that the defeat had been down to overtraining. Lo and behold, he comes to the cage in the same physical condition and with the same gameplan (standing in front of Cain and trying to bomb him out with big shots as Cain comes forward to him), and the fight plays out exactly the same with Junior getting backed straight up repeatedly and eaten alive in the clinch.
- Conor McGregor. A 145lbs fighter fighting at 170lbs, weighed in at 168 not having had to cut much/any weight for the fight, and clearly didn't bother training cardio as hard as he should because he figured the power which waxed Mendes and Aldo at fw was going to be enough to get lw Nate Diaz out of there early at 170 (even though Diaz had only ever been TKO'd once by a headkick in a long history of fighting at 155 and 170). After a round of landing shots on Diaz, he realized this wasn't going to happen, gassed, got beat up, became a panic wrestler, got manhandled on the ground, and tapped out. Could Conor have beaten Nate anyway? No, I don't believe so. I don't think he has much of a chance in their rematch either, if it happens. But if he'd trained half as hard as he said he did, we'd have had way longer than a 1 1/2 round fight there. We see certain featherweights and lightweights and welterweights fight like crazy, throwing atom bombs for 25 minutes, and none of them ever use "I wasn't efficient" as a reason if they tired down the stretch. The man fell in love with his own power, neglected the rest of the game, and paid the price when he met a guy as tough as Nate Diaz.
- Jose Aldo. A supremely long run of success blinded him to the threat offered by the aforementioned McGregor. Jose had been eating the shots of his opponents for so long without any real trouble that he believed he would be able to do the same with McGregor, even though McGregor had already displayed serious power in fights with guys like Mendes and Poirier. Aldo seemed to feel that if he rushed in on McGregor, his own power and chin would mean it was Conor who would fall first, and therefore didn't realize he was handing McGregor his best way of winning the fight on a platter. The smart gameplan for Aldo was always going to be using his speed to kick Conor's legs, outspeed him in punching exchanges, and mix in the odd takedown. Hubris made him charge toward into a firefight, and he got burned.
I'm sure people can think of many other examples of this. Most of the time, both guys show up in the right mental and physical state, with good gameplans, they fight, and the better guy on the night wins. But sometimes, like in the cases above, guys believe their own hype, and do silly, silly things which result in potentially more damaging and comprehensive defeats than they would otherwise have incurred.
What I think makes guys like GSP and Jones special is that they never seem to do these wild, wreckless things, they seem to prepare properly for each opponent, come in, implement their game, and take only calculated risks. There is a humility there, especially with GSP, that if they don't unleash their own A-game, they could be dealt a bad loss. It doesn't always make for the most thrilling fights in every case, but I do respect the mentality. One of the main reasons why Floyd Mayweather has a better record than Manny Pacquiao (numerically) is because Floyd always had that GSP mentality, he never just tasted blood and flew at his opponent like Manny did for the Marquez KO, everything he did was measured. I think if more top fighters worked with the same humility in mind as GSP and Mayweather, there wouldn't be so many ridiculous endings as Werdum-Miocic and Aldo-McGregor (but hey, they do make for fun viewing I guess!).
On Saturday night, Fabricio Werdum embarrassed himself, and the sport of MMA. I say this out of no dislike for Werdum - I consider myself a Werdum fan, and will continue to be one. On his best night, I most definitely think he is still one of the top three fighters in the division, along with Stipe and Cain. However, I think Fabricio was the latest in a long line of fighters who have bought into their own hype, lost their humility, and paid dearly for it. Werdum took all manner of punches from Cain in their fight without wilting; in fact it was Cain who folded in a striking-heavy fight. This appeared to make Fabricio think he was bullet-proof, hurtling after Miocic like a drunk man chasing a balloon. For an MMA fan ever trying to convince non-MMA-fan friends of the greatness of this sport, that performance of striking was just abysmal, embarrassing. Especially since the fights with Browne and Cain had already shown that Werdum is one of the most fluid, varied and effective strikers in the heavyweight division. The way he ran at Miocic with no thought for defence whatsoever was ridiculous - Miocic had already demonstrated serious power in the fights with Arlovski, Hunt, and dos Santos, so he was clearly not a puncher to take lightly. Werdum was too busy doing the troll face, talking to the media about other fighters, and (from his physical appearance) not training to his maximum. I believe he fell victim to believing too much in his own abilities, and didn't approach this fight with a dangerous challenger as he should have. Would a fully focused, hungry, determined Werdum have beaten Miocic? I have absolutely no idea... but he certainly wouldn't have got faceplanted within a round for running at his opponent like a Japanese businessman fleeing Godzilla.
There have been other recent examples of this.
- Junior dos Santos copped a severe beating from Cain in their rematch, and it was patently obvious to everyone that the key to doing better in the rematch would be to work on his footwork and movement in order to avoid getting backed straight into the fence, to come in light and mobile, and try to keep Cain on the end of his jab and long/straight punches. Alarm bells were ringing for me when all we heard from Junior in the build-up to the fight was that the defeat had been down to overtraining. Lo and behold, he comes to the cage in the same physical condition and with the same gameplan (standing in front of Cain and trying to bomb him out with big shots as Cain comes forward to him), and the fight plays out exactly the same with Junior getting backed straight up repeatedly and eaten alive in the clinch.
- Conor McGregor. A 145lbs fighter fighting at 170lbs, weighed in at 168 not having had to cut much/any weight for the fight, and clearly didn't bother training cardio as hard as he should because he figured the power which waxed Mendes and Aldo at fw was going to be enough to get lw Nate Diaz out of there early at 170 (even though Diaz had only ever been TKO'd once by a headkick in a long history of fighting at 155 and 170). After a round of landing shots on Diaz, he realized this wasn't going to happen, gassed, got beat up, became a panic wrestler, got manhandled on the ground, and tapped out. Could Conor have beaten Nate anyway? No, I don't believe so. I don't think he has much of a chance in their rematch either, if it happens. But if he'd trained half as hard as he said he did, we'd have had way longer than a 1 1/2 round fight there. We see certain featherweights and lightweights and welterweights fight like crazy, throwing atom bombs for 25 minutes, and none of them ever use "I wasn't efficient" as a reason if they tired down the stretch. The man fell in love with his own power, neglected the rest of the game, and paid the price when he met a guy as tough as Nate Diaz.
- Jose Aldo. A supremely long run of success blinded him to the threat offered by the aforementioned McGregor. Jose had been eating the shots of his opponents for so long without any real trouble that he believed he would be able to do the same with McGregor, even though McGregor had already displayed serious power in fights with guys like Mendes and Poirier. Aldo seemed to feel that if he rushed in on McGregor, his own power and chin would mean it was Conor who would fall first, and therefore didn't realize he was handing McGregor his best way of winning the fight on a platter. The smart gameplan for Aldo was always going to be using his speed to kick Conor's legs, outspeed him in punching exchanges, and mix in the odd takedown. Hubris made him charge toward into a firefight, and he got burned.
I'm sure people can think of many other examples of this. Most of the time, both guys show up in the right mental and physical state, with good gameplans, they fight, and the better guy on the night wins. But sometimes, like in the cases above, guys believe their own hype, and do silly, silly things which result in potentially more damaging and comprehensive defeats than they would otherwise have incurred.
What I think makes guys like GSP and Jones special is that they never seem to do these wild, wreckless things, they seem to prepare properly for each opponent, come in, implement their game, and take only calculated risks. There is a humility there, especially with GSP, that if they don't unleash their own A-game, they could be dealt a bad loss. It doesn't always make for the most thrilling fights in every case, but I do respect the mentality. One of the main reasons why Floyd Mayweather has a better record than Manny Pacquiao (numerically) is because Floyd always had that GSP mentality, he never just tasted blood and flew at his opponent like Manny did for the Marquez KO, everything he did was measured. I think if more top fighters worked with the same humility in mind as GSP and Mayweather, there wouldn't be so many ridiculous endings as Werdum-Miocic and Aldo-McGregor (but hey, they do make for fun viewing I guess!).
