Archive for November, 2013

Everyone has seen a fight where there was a questionable decision made by the judges. Remember that judges are just people and they see the same build up to fights that we do and at the end of the day they are fight fans who have their favourites.

To put this in perspective, when you are watching the All Blacks you are watching what they are doing – their offence, their defence and set pieces. You are not watching the other team nearly as much, that is just human nature.

So what does that have to do with fighting? When there is a championship fight people are watching the champion. They want to see their strikes, takedowns and ground work. They notice when each take down is defended by the champ but not so much when the champ misses one. This goes for everything in the fight. The judges are doing the same thing, hence the why people say ‘you have to beat the champ convincingly to get the belt’. You must take any and all doubt out of the judge’s minds.

Take the GSP v Hendricks fight – GSP landed more strikes overall, more significant strikes and more takedowns but his face was all marked up and he did not dominate like he usually does so people watching thought he would lose. Watching the fight I thought that the rounds were really close and was a closer fight that what people thought. This was just another fight where the champion won a very close decision. Hendricks really needed to put an exclamation point on the fight, and be really dominating that last round – to me he still had some petrol in the tank and had more to give.

If you are up against a big name fighter you need to take the judges out of the equation by either getting a knockout or making is so obvious that you won there can possibly be no other outcome. If you leave it to the judges then you are likely going to lose via decision and you can complain to everyone and anyone about it but sadly that does not change the outcome. However there are also just bad decisions where people get ripped and sadly that is just the fight game. But remember judges are just fight fans with the best seat in the house and they watch their favourite fighter more than the other guy just like the rest of us.

Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
http://www.Lockdown.co.nz/

Recently Lockdown has been very lucky to have a couple of good fighters move over from another gym, which has brought a very interesting dynamic to Lockdown, and a great challenge for me.
Both of them are experienced fighters, and I went in thinking along these lines – “Who am I to change what they do?”. My goal was to take what they had and then add anything that I thought would help them. Since they have both fought they have got their style sorted so all you can do is give them your ideas and see where it can slot into their game.

Both of them have fought out of Lockdown now and it was very interesting for me as they have their usual fight prep but just having a new corner is going to change the dynamics of the fight. We talked about this prior to the fight and I discussed with them what they liked in terms of preparation and added in what I thought from my style would help. The other main thing I did is watch them in training and see how they are when they perform best- are they relaxed, happy, intense, angry – what emotion do they need to perform at their best?

Once I know the emotion they need we start getting them in that zone when we wrap the hands. For me technique is important, but more importantly is belief in themselves and in their corner. Most of all the fighter has to be themselves in the ring. If a fighter is naturally relaxed then that is how they should go in to the fight, to me that is just as simple as it gets. I had no idea what the prep was like at their last gym, what frame of mind they went in to the ring with, but that doesn’t matter – as a trainer you have to go with what you think is best for your fighter. Having worked with both of them now it has been a great transition and they really feel a big part of Lockdown which is great.

One thing I believe you must avoid is trying to undo what their previous trainer has done, as this is a waste of time. Each trainer has their skills and different perspectives and that is great for fighters to have different points of view. All I did was look at their natural abilities, balance, timing, speed, power… and work with it to make them the best they can be.

Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
http://www.Lockdown.co.nz/