BEHIND THE SCENES MMA ARTICLES & INTERVIEWS!

12/01/08

Brock Lesnar’s Team Breaks Down His Victory Over Randy Couture For The UFC Heavyweight Title
By Dave Carpinello

On November 15th, 2008 Brock Lesnar became one of only 4 Heavyweights in UFC history to win the Heavyweight Title with less than 5 professional fights. The coaches who helped him orchestrate his victory over the Legendary Captain America Randy Couture talked with PDG about Brock’s training, the fight and his future opponents. Below is what legendary trainers Marty Morgan, Greg Nelson and Erik Paulson had to say about the new UFC Heavyweight Champion.

PDG: What was your involvement with the training camp?
Paulson: Brock flew me in for a week of training to coordinate drills and training strategies.  He has been growing every day as a fighter and throughout his camp I continued to offer my input on what he should be training.  He is almost like a kid in a candy store; very excited to be constantly learning new things.

PDG: How much as a fighter has he improved over the last year?
Paulson: Vastly, his striking and boxing is very improved and on the ground, submission wise.  Nobody has been able to catch him in anything during his recent training.  About the only way to get him to make a mistake is when he is very tired at the end of a practice but his cardio is so advanced that rarely happens.

PDG: What were your thoughts on the first round of the fight?
Paulson: I actually think that Randy may have won that first round.  Both fighters were very active but I would have to give Randy the slight edge.  Brock went into the fight with the intention of testing out Randy's clinch.  He had heard so much about it but he wanted to see how strong and technical Randy was in the clinch.

PDG: As far as the dirty boxing and takedown attempts go?
Paulson: Yes and he wanted to see if Randy had the ability to throw him.

PDG: In between rounds you guys were telling Brock to open up and be more aggressive.
Paulson: I told him that he was letting Randy get too close and to start using his striking and reach advantage.

PDG: Ok.  Then what did you think of the second round?
Paulson: Brock definitely followed the game plan that I reviewed with Marty Morgan in the locker room before the fight.  Everything about his strategy seemed to be right on before the fight so it was up to Brock to execute that strategy once he was in a cage.  Other then not letting his hands go as much, Brock did exactly what he was supposed to do.  He has an 82 inch reach and before his next fight we are going to work extensively on getting him more comfortable using it.

PDG: Out of his two possible opponents (Frank Mir & Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira); which one do you think makes a better matchup for Brock?
Paulson: I think that he would like to redeem his loss against Mir.  I think that loss has bothered Brock because he knows that he should have won that fight.  He was winning that fight until he made the mistake of stepping through Mir’s guard.  I think that the audience would prefer to see that rematch and if it goes the other way and he fights Nogueira.  It will be interesting to see how the strategy for that fight goes.

PDG: How did the training go leading up to the fight and what were your responsibilities in regards to his training?
Nelson: My job was to take all of the tools he learned in training and encompass those into a complete mixed martial arts package.  We worked a lot of striking, boxing, knees and put a big emphasis on elbows.  A big part of this camp was to make Brock a better overall striker on his feet.  There was also a lot of work done on his ground game, in addition to his wrestling.  We wanted to nullify the submission danger and make sure that if it happened, Brock would be comfortable fighting from his back.  He trained from a lot of inferior positions to make sure that we covered all the “what ifs?”  We were not worried about Brock having all kinds of fancy submissions.  So we concentrated on a base submission training regiment that was tailored to his skills and strengths.  Brock usually trained five days a week and I would attend three of those sessions per week.

PDG: Brock sustained that cut above his eye about two weeks before the fight; how much of a cause for concern was that for you going in to the fight with Couture?
Nelson: Any time a fighter gets cut before a fight you can get a little anxious about it.  I just tried to put it in the back of my head and hope that it would hold during the fight.  Obviously it didn't as the cut was reopened and I'm not even really sure what hit him to open it.

PDG: How did you think the first round went?
Nelson: The first round went about how we expected and how we wanted it to go.  We wanted Brock to go out there and play the game and make sure he made Randy feel his weight.  We told Brock not to look to take him out but if the opportunity arises to definitely jump on it.  We were able to see a lot of different facets of Brock's game and so overall I thought it was a good round.

PDG: What did you tell Brock in between rounds?
Nelson: Basically I was telling him to snap his jab and don't worry about power or speed.  He has a thunderous right hand and I wanted him to step in with that following the jab.  In training we really worked a lot on tracking because we knew that Randy was going to use a lot of head movement.  In training, Marty really took the brunt of the punishment because he was mimicking Randy in sparring sessions against Brock.

PDG: It looked like Brock did what he was told in the second round; did you see any mistakes that he made?
Nelson: You're always looking for mistakes to work on and Brock hit Randy with that elbow and put him on Queer Street but he rushed in to quickly and ended up getting tied up against the cage.  That gave Randy time to recover and that is just something that is going to take time for Brock to learn.  Although I liked how Brock was aggressive he just needs to be a little more patient and find his range so that he can keep landing shots next time.  Other than that I thought he did a really good job in the fight except for a couple times where I saw him kind of relax.  After the fight Brock told us that he was only going about 70% during the fight.  He was conserving his energy for the later rounds if the fight got that far.

PDG: So would his conditioning have enabled him to go the full five rounds?
Nelson: For sure, he was training really hard and went five rounds or more 13+ times during training camp with guys that were bigger, faster, stronger and had more jui-jitsu than Randy.  So I really didn't have any concern if the fight went five rounds.

PDG: How long do you guys wait until you're back in the gym working again?
Nelson: Brock is going to take a few weeks off and vacation with his wife.  When he gets back, all of us will get together and set up a game plan for what were going to do between then and the start of his next training camp.

PDG: Do you have any preference on whether he fights Nogueira or Mir?
Nelson: I definitely do!  I want Brock to fight Frank Mir again.  Personally as a coach I think that is an easier fight.  I think that Nogueira has very crisp hands and the dude can get hit by a bus and still submit you.  I think overall he would be a much bigger challenge for Brock.  Unfortunately I don't think that will be the situation as I believe Nogueira will beat Mir.

PDG: What can you tell me about your role and the overall training leading up to the fight?
Morgan: I was in charge of overseeing the whole package of Brock's training.  I was in charge of making sure that all of the workouts were scheduled and taking care of his conditioning.  You know basically lining up the different training partners and keeping track of his diet and weight.  I have been training combat sports for quite some time and so I was able to pick up on what the other trainers were teaching and be able to continue to work on those techniques with Brock after they had left.

We changed training locations for this fight and moved the camp about two hours from the Twin Cities.  We remodeled a warehouse and turned it into his own private gym.  It worked out really well because the only people that were training there were committed to training Brock.  Then we set the schedule with eight weeks of work and one week of downtime.  We had all of the people that were helping training Brock watch countless videos of Randy so that they could mimic his fighting style to help Brock prepare for his fight.  We also did some training for the future as we brought in a couple of jui-jitsu guys (Rodrigo Comprido & Rodrigo Mondruca) from Edmonton.  The whole training camp went well and for me it's good because it is my full time job now so I don't have to concentrate on anything else.

PDG: What was a normal training day schedule like?
Morgan: Generally we did two workouts a day; the first workout was either grappling or striking depending on what day it was.  Then at night we did cardio work and it could range from an outside run, running stairs or cardio training involving machines and striking.  There was five days a week of intense training and a sixth day that was more along the lines of swimming or using the sauna.  I would say there was about three to four hours of good training each day.

PDG: How did you feel about Brock's progression in mixed martial arts leading up to the fight?
Morgan: Everything in camp went really well except for that cut that he got.  There was nothing that impeded the training and so Brock was able to go through the whole training cycle without having to step back at all.  He got the stitches for the cut on a Friday so he didn't even have to miss any training time because he was back in the gym on Monday.  His progress is going to continue to build each fight as we are able to watch the previous fight on tape and pick up what we need to work on.  Like I said earlier we spent a lot of time studying how Randy fights and tried to mimic that in Brock's training.

PDG: Can you break down the fight for me and give me your overall assessment?
Morgan: The first round went the way we wanted it to.  The thing is that Brock he has the ability to come out and stop any opponent in the first minute but we don't necessarily want that to happen because if something goes wrong and he doesn't stop the opponent; he could run out of gas or get himself out of position.  We want him to gradually work his way into that position much like he did against Health Herring and now Randy Couture.  To get in there and grind on his opponent so that he can use his conditioning to win the fight in the fourth and fifth rounds.  He did a great job of that in this fight and even though Randy did get in a couple of good shots from the clinch, I think it was good for Brock to take those punches. We knew that Randy was going to be able to work his way up from the ground and he did that a lot better than Herring was able to do.  When he came to the corner in between rounds Brock was very relaxed and that enabled us to put into effect more of the game plan. He opened the fight up more in the second round and it turned out well.  Brock was able to stay in control this fight and not get overexcited like he did against Frank Mir.

PDG: At one point in the fight, Joe Rogan said that Brock looked gassed. Did you see anything like that?
Morgan: When I watched the tape of the fight I was actually surprised and disappointed that he said that.  I don't know what fight he was watching but I think a lot of people were looking forward to that happening in the fight and so they just couldn't stop talking about it.  Everyone kept saying how Randy was going to take him to the fourth and fifth round and wear Brock down but what our training team and Brock’s mentality was to reverse that and plan on definitely being the fighter with more steam in the later rounds.  Some of the workouts that we did in training....and I don't know about the people that were watching....but he never looked out of breath to me in that fight.

PDG: What was Brock's weight going into the fight?
Morgan: 276.

PDG: As Brock's head trainer, who would you prefer his next fight is against?
Morgan: I think that both fighters (Mir and Nogueira) have many similarities.  I think Brock would prefer to fight Frank Mir again so that he could avenge that loss.  The thing about Brock though, he wants to fight the best guys in the sport to test himself.  Other than that I don't think that there is really a preference as to who he fights next and we'll just have to wait to see who wins their fight on December 27th.  We are just going to watch the fight and let the two of them decide who is next for Brock.