Mark Hunt’s KO of Stefan Struve at UFC on Fuel 8 on Saturday will go down as the most important victory in the Super Samoan’s career.
It’s catapulted him to a top-five contender, and his four straight wins have given him the longest running win streak in the heavyweight division.
Struve is no joke, and he was riding a four-fight win streak going into this match himself. But there were three parts to this fight which let the Dutch fighter down.
Firstly, his BJJ just wasn’t good enough. The submissions game is perhaps Hunt’s weakest point, and he’s often been left looking hopeless on the ground. Struve thought that this was his best chance of defeating Hunt. He wanted nothing to do with Hunt’s stand-up, despite the significant reach advantage, but the New Zealander had clearly mastered some BJJ techniques since his first UFC fight when he got arm-barred by Sean McCorkle.
Hunt evaded all submission attempts from Struve, and for much of the first round, the two fighters exhausted each other in a stalemate on the mat.
But when the fighters got to their feet, the tide clearly turned in Hunt’s favour. It’s remarkable that at only 5″10″ fighting as a heavyweight, Hunt can topple the biggest giants. He showed this in his first-round TKO of Cheick Kongo, a 6’4″ giant himself, last year. Against Struve, it was clear the Dutchman could find no way of using his considerable reach advantage against Hunt.
By the third round, after getting frustrated on the ground and on his feet, Struve had run out of answers. Hunt, meanwhile, who had shown himself as a very well-rounded fighter by this stage, took charge, laying into his opponent with vicious left hooks.
But he too was exhausted. Conditioning has always been a problem for Hunt, but it was surprising to see Struve barely being able to last three rounds. Clearly, as so happens to heavyweights, fighting on the ground had emptied his tank, and for much of the third round he could barely keep his hands up against his opponent.
Big mistake.
As the third round went deeper, Hunt smelled blood. Striking his opponent on the jaw repeatedly, he beat Struve to the punch every time and finally landed the left hook that KO’d his opponent.
Hunt walked away nonchalantly as he has so often done to his past victims in this very arena.
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