Tag: Preview/Prediction

UFC 200 is a huge event on many levels, but Mark Hunt and Brock Lesnar will make it gigantic in the most literal sense when they step into the cage Saturday night in the main event, after the UFC removed Jon Jones from the card for allegedly failing a drug test, per ESPN.com.

Both behemoths will likely have to cut weight to make the 265-pound limit for a true heavyweight slugfest. 

The return of Lesnar at UFC 200 is awesome for many reasons including bringing the last 100 pay-per-views around full circle. After all, he was a major reason for the success of UFC 100. 

Now he’ll come back after more than four-and-a-half years away from the Octagon against one of the most dangerous opponents in the division. 

Here’s a look at how the two stack up:

Let’s examine how they got to this point. 

 

Brock Lesnar: Seeking Redemption

Lesnar‘s first stint with the UFC was a spectacular comet. It reached dizzying heights quickly, only to burn out and fade with just as much intensity. 

What you remember about Lesnar‘s UFC career probably depends on your personal feelings about the fighter. There was the champion who captured the imagination of fans with a gutsy title defense against Shane Carwin. There was also the man whom Cain Velasquez put in a fetal position in the first round. 

Part of that quick descent was a turn for the worse health-wise. Lesnar battled diverticulitis and had 12 inches of his colon removed. The UFC’s video preview touched on Lesnar‘s struggles with the ailment:

Lesnar will be 39 just three days after UFC 200. Just how much he has left in the tank after a career filled with the rigors of MMA, professional wrestling and collegiate wrestling is an intriguing question. It’s his own curiosity that brought him back into the cage to begin with. 

“I [considered coming back] for a while, and really I was standing there one day on my property [in Canada] and just thought, ‘It’s time,’” he said, per Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times. “I’m a person who pulls the trigger. I don’t want any regrets. That’s how simple it really was. I didn’t want to be sitting around the rest of my days on this earth wondering why I didn’t step back in the cage again, so here we are.”

At his best, Lesnar possesses a freakish blend of size and athleticism that makes him one of the most unique spectacles in combat sports. At his worst, he’s the personification of “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

Either way, his return will be worth watching. 

 

Mark Hunt: Looking to Embrace the Spotlight

Mark Hunt’s physique is also one of the most unique in MMA, albeit for different reasons then Lesnar. 

In a sport dominated by long, rangy frames, Hunt is an outlier. He has somehow managed to become one of the most lethal heavyweights despite being 5’10” with a 72-inch reach. For some context, Lesnar is 6’3″ with a reach of 81 inches. 

Yet, if he does knock out Lesnar, he won’t even be the tallest fighter The Super Samoan has taken out. He holds wins over Stefan Struve (6’11”) and Antonio Silva (6’4″). 

The way Hunt closes the distance to land powerful shots is a sight to behold and has scored him big wins, even as he fights into his 40s. Hunt is now 42 but is coming off first-round knockout wins over Silva and Frank Mir. 

The late career surge has led to a No. 8 ranking in the division. But Hunt is adamant this fight isn’t about rankings. It’s about opportunity.

“I don’t think it’ll get me any further or closer to a title shot; it just makes my name even bigger,” he said regarding Lesnar, per MMAJunkie. “I think if I beat Brock—he’s not even in the Top 10, to be honest.”

It’s hard to figure out Lesnar‘s spot in the heavyweight hierarchy. He’s been too long to know for sure who he could handle in the division’s Top 10. However, a win over Lesnar would give Hunt the shine he needs to ensure he’s involved in more marquee fights to close out his career. 

That appears to be what Hunt is gunning for, and he has the perfect opponent to achieve that goal. 

 

Prediction

This fight is going to come down to who strikes first in each round. 

The rules of engagement in this one are fairly simple. Hunt is a hard-charging former kickboxer who is a better striker than Lesnar by a wide margin. Nine of his 12 career wins have come by knockout, and he has the previously mentioned knack for closing distance with powerful strikes to compensate for his stocky build. 

On the other hand, Lesnar holds a similar disparity in talent on the ground. The former champion’s wrestling might be overstated at times in term of his overall game, but few fighters have a better top game. 

Once Lesnar achieves top position, the end is usually near. 

Here’s the bad news for Lesnar: Scoring takedowns is going to require a setup. Although he has simply charged at opponents before, doing so against Hunt would be at his own peril. It’s a tactic that Hunt will expect as he launches murderous counters. 

“I don’t think he’s going to last five minutes,” Hunt said, per Damon Martin of Fox Sports. “If he starts shooting right away, he’s going to be out of there in the first round. I don’t think he’s going to be that stupid.”

If Lesnar wants to get this fight to the ground, he’ll have to set up his takedowns. That means at least hanging in for a few exchanges to change levels and get past Hunt’s solid takedown defense. 

Unfortunately for Lesnar, that exposes his poor striking defense. He’s hittable and has taken hard shots in losses to Velasquez and Alistair Overeem. 

Hunt might hit harder than both men. 

That sets up a scenario where the opening minutes will be crucial. 

It isn’t a stretch to see Lesnar becoming Hunt’s latest knockout victim. It’s also in the realm of possibility that we see a return of the aggressive Lesnar of old who is able to walk through some punishment and use his top game to smother another opponent a la his fight with Carwin. 

Given his desire to come back, there’s reason to believe the renewed Lesnar can still do that long enough to return to his winning ways. 

Prediction: Lesnar via second-round TKO

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After five years away from the Octagon, Brock Lesnar will return at UFC 200, where he will face Mark Hunt, who comes into the bout having won back-to-back fights for the first time since 2013.

Following Jon Jones’ potential doping violation and removal from the event, per FoxSports.com, his clash with Daniel Cormier will no longer be the headline event. Instead, Lesnar and Hunt will have that honour, per the UFC:

Their clash may not have quite the same appeal but nevertheless promises to be an intriguing and entertaining bout amid Lesnar‘s return from the WWE.

Here’s a look at how the two fighters compare, complete with odds courtesy of Odds Shark:

Tickets: ScoreBig.com

 

Pre-Weigh-In Hype

The contrast in styles between the two fighters will likely define this bout. Unsurprisingly, as a four-time WWE world heavyweight champion, Lesnar specialises in grappling, taking fights to the mat and ending them quickly.

Hunt is likely to place a huge emphasis on stand-up and is one of the most powerful punchers in the sport, with eight of his 12 wins coming via knockout. Although Lesnar can stand and bang—ending three of his five UFC victories with a KO, per ESPN.com—Cain Velasquez and Alistair Overeem both brutally finished him within the opening round. Hunt’s walk-off KO potential ranks higher than both.

Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Snowden believes the bout could go either way, though much will depend on whether Lesnar can recapture the form he displayed prior to suffering from diverticulitis earlier in his UFC career:

Indeed, if Lesnar can get Hunt off his feet and onto the mat, he should have a firm advantage and be capable of closing out the fight. Shooting for the takedown may prove to be a risk—Hunt will be seeking the smallest of openings to make his mark—but eliminating the New Zealander’s greatest weapon quickly is key to Lesnar‘s survival.

Per FoxSports.com’s Damon Martin, Hunt is evidently feeling confident in both his punching ability and takedown defence:

It only takes one [punch] in the heavyweight division. It doesn’t take two or three—it only takes one.

I think he’ll try to conserve his gas tank, but I don’t really care. Shoot ahead, homie—I got you. 

He’s got to get it to the ground first. I’m totally confident in my takedown defense. That’s the secret weapon on July 9 and we’ll see if he can take me down.

Despite Hunt adding that he only cares “about knocking his face off,” the pair seemed cordial enough during their faceoff on Wednesday, per UFC President Dana White:

Per FoxSports.com, Lesnar is simply delighted to be back in the Octagon after last fighting in 2011 (warning: NSFW language): “I feel f–king awesome. Obviously I’m here to win a fight. It’s fighting, anything can happen. I’m prepared for whatever. I don’t think it’s going to define me. This is exciting. I’m on the card of UFC 200.”

The fight could be somewhat cagey to begin with—in a bout that could be decided by a single punch, Lesnar won’t want to risk the kind of humiliation Jose Aldo suffered in his infamous 13-second knockout to Conor McGregor by getting caught out of the gate.

Equally, Hunt’s reach, which is nine inches shorter than Lesnar’s, will require him to get in close, making him more vulnerable to a takedown—and if he’s put on his back, Lesnar‘s enormous frame will make a recovery difficult.

According to ESPN.com, six of Hunt’s 10 MMA defeats have been via submission, and though the last of those came in 2010—which perhaps indicates his defence has improved—Lesnar would be wise to exploit an obvious route to victory.

Lesnar has a slightly more varied armoury to delve into, and that will allow him to bide his time. Should Hunt misfire, we can expect the WWE man to try to lock in an irreversible submission hold.

Prediction: Brock Lesnar wins via Submission

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Former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar (5-3; 4-3 UFC) takes a break from his once and current career as a professional wrestler to add some star power to UFC 200. Lesnar will face Mark Hunt (12-10-1; 7-4-1 UFC), the former K-1 kickboxing champion and UFC interim title challenger.

This promises to be a crackling matchup. For all his flaws as a fighter—more on that below—Lesnar has never ducked tough competition, while Hunt has fought a murderer’s row of elite opponents since his days fighting in the Japanese Pride Fighting Championships a decade ago.

It’s hard to know what to expect here. The former heavyweight champion hasn’t fought in more than four years, and his last fight was an underwhelming first-round-knockout loss to Alistair Overeem.

Fourteen months before that, Lesnar lost his belt to Cain Velasquez in a shockingly thorough beatdown. His last defense of his title was a come-from-behind submission win over Shane Carwin in July 2010, while before that he had spent a year on the shelf battling the stomach ailment diverticulitis. Lesnar has never looked the same since his bout with the illness.

For his part, Hunt has gone up and down in the last several years. Junior dos Santos cracked his iron chin in May 2013, and since then Hunt has been finished twice, though it should be noted that those losses came at the hands of future heavyweight champions Fabricio Werdum and Stipe Miocic.

Hunt has won two in a row since that loss to Miocic in May 2015. He knocked out Antonio Silva last November and then did the same to former heavyweight champion Frank Mir in March this year, separating both men from consciousness inside the four-minute mark of the first round.

Let’s break down each fighter in depth and then take a look at the particulars of the matchup, which is about as close as MMA in 2016 comes to a pure meeting of a wrestler and a striker.

 

Brock Lesnar

Record: 5-3; 2 KO, 2 SUB, 1 DEC

Height: 6’3″

Reach: 81″

Even at 38 years of age, Lesnar is a freakish and legitimately world-class athlete. Every piece of his game builds on his incredible size, speed, strength and power. His physical gifts and skills meld into an effective if limited whole.

Let’s start with the good. Lesnar was a national champion in Division 1 wrestling at the University of Minnesota, and that skill set remains the locomotive that drives his approach in the cage. The South Dakota native shoots an almost impossibly explosive double-leg takedown and mixes in strong single-leg shots and knee taps as well.

Nobody will confuse Lesnar with a master of the intricacies of technical wrestling or its MMA-specific variations, such as using strikes or the fence to his advantage, but the former champion’s strength makes him an authoritative finisher. When he puts his opponent on the mat, he feels the impact. Lesnar is also proficient at ducking under strikes to set up his takedowns and catching kicks.

While he’s a beastly and effective wrestler, Lesnar does his best work on top. He’s one of the most devastating ground strikers in the history of the sport, capable of generating incredible power in tight space, and he uses his size and strength with surprising technical acumen. 

Half guard is Lesnar’s wheelhouse. He likes to pin his opponent’s head down using something like a modified quarter- or half-nelson hold (in wrestling terminology) while keeping all his weight on his opponent. This leaves one hand free for Lesnar to land a series of efficient but crushing punches to his opponent’s face, all the while forcing his opponent to carry the former champion’s weight.

This same position opens up Lesnar’s favorite submission, the arm-triangle choke. Because he already has an arm wrapped around the head and the opponent is worried about the threat of his bucket-sized fists, Lesnar can quickly step over and tighten the choke. 

Even if his opponent manages to get out from underneath him—a tall order—Lesnar is comfortable scrambling and mat wrestling until he can snag another takedown.

That’s the positive of Lesnar’s game. The negative side is everything else.

Lesnar is strong in the clinch, if not terribly technical there. He doesn’t have great posture and doesn’t fight for position, instead relying on raw horsepower to drive home a few sharp knees and uppercuts before hunting again for the takedown.

At range, the former champion is somewhere between barely serviceable and an utter disaster. He has legitimate power in his hands, and as long as he’s bull-rushing his way forward, he can disguise his serious issues.

Footwork and confidence are Lesnar’s biggest problems. He’s either not moving at all or bouncing nervously on his feet, so the moment his opponent looks to push him backward, Lesnar doesn’t know what to do. He can plant his feet and throw counters, but his subpar mechanics mean those punches don’t land with as much force as they should.

The biggest issue is Lesnar’s confidence. Don’t listen to someone who tells you Lesnar can’t take a shot; he can and has on numerous occasions, even from crushing punchers like Overeem and Carwin. The issue is whether Lesnar can immediately reply with offense of his own. If he can, Lesnar will eat shots with the best of them. If he can’t, he crumbles, and he crumbles rapidly.

That doesn’t make Lesnar a uniquely troubled fighter. MMA is full of front-runners who need to feel like they’re winning. In his case, however, those lapses of confidence have happened on the biggest stages possible.

With all of this said, Lesnar has been out of action for more than four years. He’s 38 years old and will turn 39 three days after UFC 200. How much of his freakish athleticism is left? Can he get into the kind of shape necessary to fight more than one round? Will he crumble if he can’t immediately find success?

We won’t know until the opening bell.

 

Mark Hunt

Record: 12-10-1; 9 KO, 3 DEC

Height: 5’10”

Reach: 72″

Where Lesnar is the credentialed wrestler, Hunt is the striker. Don’t let his portly frame fool you: Like Lesnar, Hunt boasts freakish physical gifts in the form of monstrous power, shocking speed and one of the best chins in the history of combat sports.

At least, Hunt used to have those characteristics. As he has gotten older—the Super Samoan is now 42—some of his gifts have left him. His chin isn’t as iron as it used to be, and his once-blazing speed is now merely above average. His power is still there, though, and unlike Lesnar, Hunt has compensated for his physical decline by becoming an ever-craftier technician.

That technical evolution shows itself in several ways. First, Hunt uses a hard and consistent jab to measure and set distance. Despite standing only 5’10”, he fights long and doesn’t put himself in danger by wading into the pocket to exchange punches. The jab allows him to do that. It scores points, shows Hunt where his opponent is in relation to him and stops his opponent from rushing in for takedowns.

Second, Hunt picks and chooses his power strikes carefully. The jab gives him enough volume to win rounds, but Hunt commits to left hooks, straight rights and uppercuts only on his terms. Those punches come most regularly as counters, when his opponents try to cover the distance he’s enforced with his jab. Countering opponents who duck down to look for takedowns is a particular specialty.

When moving forward, Hunt mixes his shots between the body and head to confuse the opponent.

The Super Samoan’s hands are still shockingly fast and powerful, and he excels at placing them on the chin or temple for maximum effect.

Finally, Hunt has evolved into an outstanding defensive wrestler. His low center of gravity makes it difficult to get in on his hips for a takedown, and his use of the jab to set the distance while circling and cutting angles stops many shots before they even happen. Especially early in the fight, Hunt is difficult to hold down and excels at exploding back to his feet.

On the down side, Hunt’s cardio is perhaps not what it once was, and it grows harder for him to defend takedowns and get back to his feet as the fight wears on. He doesn’t throw as many strikes as he used to, and active opponents can outscore him.

 

Betting Odds

Hunt -160, Lesnar +140

 

Prediction

This is a fascinating matchup, though not a particularly complex one. The basic dynamic is this: Lesnar has to get this to the ground, while Hunt has to keep it standing.

Hunt’s not bad when he gets to top position, but wrestling with Lesnar is a recipe for wearing himself out and giving his opponent opportunities, so it’s unlikely he’ll try.

Those are the givens. Lesnar is a freakishly strong and fast wrestler; Hunt is a quick and technically sound striker with excellent takedown defense. Lesnar needs to feel like he’s winning early in the fight, while Hunt is at his best, particularly at defending takedowns, in the first round.

On that basis, the matchup favors Hunt, though not by much. It’s easy to see a scenario in which Lesnar bull-rushes Hunt out of the gate, gets on top and pounds him into bloody pulp inside two minutes. Hunt’s takedown defense isn’t impenetrable, and Lesnar is worlds beyond anyone Hunt has ever fought as a physical specimen.

It’s more likely, though, that Hunt uses his jab to keep the gun-shy Lesnar at distance and then picks him off with slick counters, especially the uppercut. Even if Lesnar gets him down, Hunt isn’t easy to hold on the mat. Moreover, it’s an open question as to whether Lesnar’s fragile confidence could deal with taking Hunt down only to see him pop right back up.

The pick is Hunt by knockout late in the first round.

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