He’s doing great physically and mentally. That’s something he wanted to do. It was his choice. The UFC didn’t go after him, he went after the UFC. He wants to prove to himself that he can do interesting things in MMA now that he’s healthy. Win fights, win titles. He has that inside of him. He couldn’t perform at his best for years due to his disease. He had surgery and didn’t wait enough to fight again. He’s training well now. I’m excited and confident.
If you look at his career, Brock always fought tough opponents. His first fight in the UFC was against Frank Mir, and then he fought ‘Crazy Horse’ [Heath Herring]. From all of his opponents, in my opinion, ‘Crazy Horse’ had the lowest level, but still had an excellent level. [Lesnar] never fought a can, never had a tune-up fight. He fought Overeem six months after cutting 12 inches of his colon. He only fought great opponents, champions, and had what it takes to beat every single one of them.
Is Mark Hunt a tough fight? Yes, he is. I don’t even need to say. If one hand lands… But it wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t a fight like this. It’s a wrestler against a striker, and that’s nice. It’s a fight that makes sense. That’s what he wants. He wants to test himself against a high level opponent. He doesn’t want to fight a nobody. He wants someone that adds something to his career, otherwise he wouldn’t train as hard and as motivated as he’s training. Mark Hunt is a dangerous fight, and we know that, but I’m 100 percent confident.
-Brock Lesnar’s jiu jitsu coach, Rodrigo “Comprido” Medeiros, talks to Guilherme Cruz at MMAFighting.com about Lesnar’s UFC return against Mark Hunt next month.
Penick’s Analysis: That there’s confidence in the Lesnar camp shouldn’t be surprising. They’ve been a confident team even when Lesnar was at much less than his best due to diverticulitis. It honestly won’t be a massive surprise if Lesnar manages to beat Hunt at UFC 200, because there’s a clear path to victory if he can avoid the big shot and get Hunt to the ground. What will be in question is just how much offense from Hunt he can take, how he reacts if he does get hit, and how he adjusts if he gets in trouble at all. If he’s still got the strength in his takedowns and still works well with the submissions he’d started to develop, he can beat Mark Hunt, and clearly Medeiros believes that to be the case.
[Brock Lesnar art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
Attention iPhone/iPad and Android users, if you’ve enjoyed our app in the past and followed us there, or if you’ve never checked it out, make sure to update to the latest version in the Apple store and/or Google Play store. We’ve launched a new look for the app, in line with our recent desktop overhaul. Make sure to check it out!
For current App users, swipe right to view next article, swipe left to view previous article.
Leave a Reply