Weight, sweat, and UFC 105

Last night's training was a 'practice cut.' This is something I think more people who compete in weight class sports should do. Take a set amount of time, and see how much weight they can sweat out without actually effecting how they feel the next day. I spent 30 minutes in sweats in a fairly cool gym, and cut just under 5 lbs. Gives me a ball park of around 10-15 lbs of water that I can suck out in a few hours. This is how people get into trouble, they 'figure' (guess) that they can cut x amount of weight and guess wrong. If you measure something you know, if you don't you set yourself up for failure. This means with some actually diet manipulations I can pretty comfortably compete at 204 with a day before weigh in. Which is what I figured.

Speaking of weight class sports, UFC 105 was this weekend.. my thoughts:

None of the british fighters have any wrestling. If you're the best wrestler in your gym, and wrestling is your weakness.. find a new gym (at least for a little while).

Matt Brown is a fighter. He has some holes in his game, but he is entertaining to watch.

Mike Bisping showed good technical jiu-jitsu that kept him alive in the Kang fight. I was impressed. He's still a striker with no pop. Unless he reinvents himself he's just about at his ceiling.

Kang showed what a lot of people suspected of him: he's a great front-runner, but handles adversity by pulling up the stakes and looking for a way out.

Dan Hardy is a talented young fighter, and stands almost no chance against GSP (for now). Mike Swick was finding a home for a counter right hand, GSP is a better counter striker. Marcus Davis (not exactly Dan Gable) threatened Hardy with the take down, GSP was able to take Thiago Alves down at will (something Matt Hughes was unable to do). Hardy has a puncher's chance (GSP did get KO'd by Matt Serra after all) but not much more.

Brandon Vera's ego cost him the fight against Randy Couture. Vera had great success in the wide open spaces using his Muai Thai, but he kept saying in the pre-fight 'folks better not sleep on my wrestling' when ever he was asked about Randy taking him down. He spent too much time trying to prove his wrestling was as good and lost the fight. If he would have used his wrestling to get away from Randy and punished him in space he would have won the fight. Brandon is another very talented young man, but he needs to get into a better camp so that he can learn to be more effective in scoring points. He's 8 and 1 when his night ends early and 3 and 3 when he goes the distance. Compare that with Couture who is 9 and 9 on early nights but an astounding 8 and 1 when he goes the distance.

Mahalo.