Josh Thompson on Brock vs Cain

Quote :

"Cain is wrestling every day with this years NCAA Div 1 national champ from MO. who is about 280lbs and let me tell you that Cain coming off a knee surgery 4wks ago is getting takedowns just fine as well as not losing any. Cain is a better wrestler/striker/MMA fighter than Brock but like you said, Brock is bigger with a huge punch. That is the only chance I give Brock though is a punchers chance cuz I don’t see him holding Cain down "IF" he can get the takedown."

"Bobby Lashley couldn’t and cant take Cain down and he's leaps and bounds a better wrestler than Brock as well as just as big so don’t count Cain out in the wrestling just yet."

Throw out the second paragraph where Bobby Lashley is supposedly a better wrestler, and cast the usual doubt on team-mate talk, and we still have some pretty extraordinary information here. Cain is not giving takedowns to this years NCAA winner while taking him down? Not that I am an expert, but those who know wrestling always say Cain is overall the better of the two and came from a much better era in college wrestling than Lesnar and understand Cain was only eliminated by the eventual champion Konrad, but this is even more damning evidence.

Cain Velasquez is likely the better wrestler of the two skillwise. Not only that, Cain didn't put his wrestling on the shelf for 8 years while he fake wrestled and played in the NFL.

This year's NCAA winner wasn't from Missouri. Unless he's talking about Max Askren, and he's not 280 lbs. He's more like 180 lbs.

I donno, but I guess Lashley's post college Olympic team creds crush Lesnar's after reading some comments about this article on other websites.

Mark Ellis won the HW nation title last year.

David Zabriskie (Iowa State) Dec Jared Rosholt (Oklahoma State) this year at HW.

Ellis finished 6th this year.

Doesn't really take anything away from Thompson assessment though. Guy was best in show as a 270 lbs junior.

I'm assuming that is who they are talking about.

Anyways, not the point. The point is, Velasquez was wrestling against Konrad and Steve Mocco, probably the best collegiate heavyweights ever. I believe Velasquez even beat Mocco at least once. He was definitely facing a tougher group of wrestlers, and was always very successful at avoiding takedowns. Lesnar didn't come in at such a tough time for his division. Of course, Lesnar had to wrestle Stephen Neal who was definitely no pushover, but after Neal graduated, there wasn't much left. We definitely shouldn't just automatically give the wrestling edge to Lesnar because he won a national championship.

GDPofDRC wrote:

Mark Ellis won the HW nation title last year.

David Zabriskie (Iowa State) Dec Jared Rosholt (Oklahoma State) this year at HW.

Ellis finished 6th this year.

Doesn't really take anything away from Thompson assessment though. Guy was best in show as a 270 lbs junior.

I'm assuming that is who they are talking about.

Yeah, you're probably right. Good show.

Yet wrestling in the Pac-10 isn't the same as the Big 10 either so it starts getting murky there along with the difference in time by a couple years.

He also beat Konrad once in college too. He never made it to the finals but only because he had to face Konrad in the semis who then beat him.

He also isn't ten years removed from his pedigree. Cain will probably get Brock down easier than the reverse. I say this with the full understanding a bunch of people will post inflated size differentials as evidence otherwise. No need, read about it before gents.

Cain by "shocking upset" that makes me a lot of money and wins me like 12 sig bets on this website.

Cain was recruited by numerous Big 10 schools I read. Iowa among others went after him. He went to a Pac-10 school to be close to home is my understanding.

Pretty sure Brock trains with Konrad........

Thats great and all that he turned down Big 10 schools for the Pac-10 but the fact remains that steel sharpens steel. Throw a highly talented kid into a lower bracket for four years and put him up with someone not quite as talented but who spent four years at the very top of the food chain and it shouldn't be quite a surprise to see which one wins in the end.

On the ends, Brock is bigger lets just say

WTF?!

He does. The thing is Konrad wasn't a takedown wrestler at all and almost never shot in college. His wrestling style is horrible for MMA. His takedowns were blocked by a 240 pound average D3 wrestler in Bellator. I think there is a reason Konrad was passed up by the UFC. They are adept at finding MMA ready wrestlers and talent and they weren't interested in Cole Konrad. While Cole Konrad ended up being the better college wrestler, he absolutely is not the better MMA wrestler.

Someone with a better understanding of college wrestling could explain this better than I. Styles play a huge part in it though, similarly to styles of boxing being more suited for MMA.

Toney for instance has about the worst style to convert to MMA with the emphasis on bobbing, ducking and weaving in the pocket, where as someone like Floyd or the Klit bros with a defense outside style would find transitioning to MMA striking or even K1 style fighting a lot easier.

Overall Lesnar's training partners suck ass. Konrad, Tuscherer, Madsen. Pretty pedestrian bunch in MMA terms.

I agree that steel sharpens steel, and that is why Lesnar needs to ditch that wilderness redneck gym of his that produces nothing but lay and pray blobs and get to a real camp. Deathclutch was a local circut gym until Lesnar went there.

I'll give you that, Wolf. Lesnars training partners are mostly a bunch of flabby slobs and thier performances don't lend much else to the imagination. Tuchscherer especially.

I might +1 you for spelling that guys name right. I think it's how its spelled anyway. What a redundant ass last name.

Wolf Im with u on that also. Brock needs to switch camps if not now soon. I bet he will have to lose before he ever switches though.

Lesnar would be better off training with Mike Whitehead than most of those guys there, at least he has technique enough in striking to set up shooting in. Maybe even with Coleman at this point to learn some good techniques for avoiding getting punched in the head before going for a takedown.

A move to team hammerhouse? Coleman's porch?

Ummm, didn't Randy Couture just go to his camp and state he had put together a top notch camp? Didn't that same camp just go 2-1 against Greg Jackson's camp? Let me ponder the direction of this thread...

Didn't Chris Tuchscherer just get his shit pushed in by an untested Brendan Shaub on Saturday? Didn't Kole Konrad not make it into the UFC? Did you not even see the part about steel sharpening steel, Andrew?

Also, since when have you known Randy to pass judgement on anyone? He said it himself he wasn't brought in to revamp thier shit, just to come train a little. He's about as passive as you can get in that situation. He wouldn't trash them even if they did suck after that. It's just not his style.

Yo what is Randy supposed to say?

"Ya they paid me to come help them but they're all clueless losers really"

Randy also says Fabricio Werdum is one of the worlds elite HW's. You ready to buy into that too?

2-1, which fights are you talking about? And citing the Lesnar victory over Carwin as camp superiority is complete intellectual dishonesty and manipulative of the facts and you know it. Carwin with gas was completely superior to Lesnar who looked no different than the bums Carwin had been destroying in the local circut. Unless his camp blessed him with "inhuman chin magic" then the totality of the fight still favors the skill being trained at Jackson.

Andrew the Raider King wrote:

Ummm, didn't Randy Couture just go to his camp and state he had put together a top notch camp? Didn't that same camp just go 2-1 against Greg Jackson's camp? Let me ponder the direction of this thread...

I can only think of 2 fights where they went against each other. Schaub and Lesnar won. What was the other? Anyways, Chris Tuchscherer looked like the worst fighter in the UFC during that event.