Randy Couture Cage Grappling Analysis

Sonny Brown

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Hi Guys,

I just published a video analysis of Randy Couture's Cage & Clinch takedowns. I thought you may enjoy it!

Cheers,
Sonny


 
Pretty nice, and a very important and under-examined area of MMA.
 
Pretty nice. One thing I really like about Randy's cage wrestling is that with the exception of some of his earlier fights (and Toney, which doesn't really count) he basically never went all the way to his knees to change levels. It meant he was never getting sprawled on, his neck was never really in danger, and if he missed the TD he really hadn't given up much in the way of position or expended a ton of energy. With the stance in MMA you don't need to get as low as in folk or freestyle to get in on a guy's hips, and not doing so has many benefits.
 
Pretty nice. One thing I really like about Randy's cage wrestling is that with the exception of some of his earlier fights (and Toney, which doesn't really count) he basically never went all the way to his knees to change levels. It meant he was never getting sprawled on, his neck was never really in danger, and if he missed the TD he really hadn't given up much in the way of position or expended a ton of energy. With the stance in MMA you don't need to get as low as in folk or freestyle to get in on a guy's hips, and not doing so has many benefits.

I was lucky enough to be in the room for a couple days while Randy was training for the Tito fight, and then later for the second (edit: third!) Belfort fight. Randy would run through these insane wrestleboxing gauntlets where it would be round after round of him against a fresh Evan Tanner, Matt Lindland, Chris Leben, Nate Quarry, Dan Henderson, Benji Radach, etc. and Randy would take them all down. It would either be 1-2 to blast double, or he'd push them against the wall (no cage at Team Quest in those days) and grind them into the ground using the techniques in the video above.

Randy was very impressed by how Chuck Liddell had "just gotten up" in their recent fight where Randy pulled off the surprise victory, and gameplanned extensively to do the same against Tito, since he felt it a big failing of Tito's opponents to allow themselved to be pushed up against the cage and get mauled.
 
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its so hard to find legit upperbody takedown stuff off the cage i guess alot of guys wana keep that secret
 
Awesome. Randy had to be the most well rounded MMA wrestler. not many guys were equally effective with all multiple styles of wrestling.
 
Pretty nice. One thing I really like about Randy's cage wrestling is that with the exception of some of his earlier fights (and Toney, which doesn't really count) he basically never went all the way to his knees to change levels. It meant he was never getting sprawled on, his neck was never really in danger, and if he missed the TD he really hadn't given up much in the way of position or expended a ton of energy. With the stance in MMA you don't need to get as low as in folk or freestyle to get in on a guy's hips, and not doing so has many benefits.
I believe they call that a high dive in Greco. Randy is one of the few guys who did it regularly in MMA. I wonder if that is one of the few (only) advantages American Greco guys have over the rest of the world. Seeing as how pretty much all US Greco guys have extensive American folkstyle backgrounds, their level change might be better than guys who have only done Greco. Joe Warren is/was also really good at that.
 
I believe they call that a high dive in Greco. Randy is one of the few guys who did it regularly in MMA. I wonder if that is one of the few (only) advantages American Greco guys have over the rest of the world. Seeing as how pretty much all US Greco guys have extensive American folkstyle backgrounds, their level change might be better than guys who have only done Greco. Joe Warren is/was also really good at that.


A more recent guy is Makhmudov, who makes good use of high dives in international competition.


 
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OT, an interesting example of someone else who uses the high double unders in MMA is Claudia Gadhelia, who's twist-down or go behind against the cage is her primary takedown.

 
I was lucky enough to be in the room for a couple days while Randy was training for the Tito fight, and then later for the second (edit: third!) Belfort fight. Randy would run through these insane wrestleboxing gauntlets where it would be round after round of him against a fresh Evan Tanner, Matt Lindland, Chris Leben, Nate Quarry, Dan Henderson, Benji Radach, etc. and Randy would take them all down. It would either be 1-2 to blast double, or he'd push them against the wall (no cage at Team Quest in those days) and grind them into the ground using the techniques in the video above.

Randy was very impressed by how Chuck Liddell had "just gotten up" in their recent fight where Randy pulled off the surprise victory, and gameplanned extensively to do the same against Tito, since he felt it a big failing of Tito's opponents to allow themselved to be pushed up against the cage and get mauled.
That's cool as hell man. What about Chael, Robert Folis, and guys like Fabiano Scherner? Were they there at the time? Btw Benji Radach is an interesting subject. Hell of a fighter (Bas has called him one of the greats) but he was just too beat up by the time MMA got huge. He's part of the "what if" club.
 
I believe they call that a high dive in Greco. Randy is one of the few guys who did it regularly in MMA. I wonder if that is one of the few (only) advantages American Greco guys have over the rest of the world. Seeing as how pretty much all US Greco guys have extensive American folkstyle backgrounds, their level change might be better than guys who have only done Greco. Joe Warren is/was also really good at that.

Yeah, a high dive is basically just shooting for the waist rather than the hips, definitely a higher type shot but still with a level change. Chael was also pretty good at shooting higher without a knee touch and just blasting through. It does seem to be something Greco guys are extra good at.
 
That's cool as hell man. What about Chael, Robert Folis, and guys like Fabiano Scherner? Were they there at the time? Btw Benji Radach is an interesting subject. Hell of a fighter (Bas has called him one of the greats) but he was just too beat up by the time MMA got huge. He's part of the "what if" club.

Chael was definitely there; he was Matt Lindland's big prospect. The first time I met him, Lindland introduced us and then Chael goes into this spiel about how he's undefeated except for drawing against a guy in Japan who he beat, and that he's going to be a world champion first, and then Governor of Oregon later. Afterwards, Lindland comes up to us and is like "I don't know what he's talking about-- he's not undefeated and he lost to that guy in Japan even though it was a draw." Even then, they all thought of Chael as having world-class talent but with a strong mental weakness. I got to attend that famous tournament in Denver that had him, Shogun, Jeremy Horn, Babalu, and Forrest Griffin (I talked to Forest backstage and he said he was a "Special Education teachers aide"). Chael lost to Forrest via triangle, and for like a minute before you could hear Matt Lindland screaming at Chael to not allow Griffin to get head control.

Follis was the head coach, but I never really saw him get on the mat. There was no BJJ-specific classes that I could see, as everything was just called "grappling." Seemed like you had to cross-train elsewhere to really learn other martial arts, as Randy regularly went to Matt Hume's gym in Washington to learn new striking combinations from him and Maurice Smith.

I'll tell ya though, of all the tough guys they had in that place, there was none tougher than Chris Leben (aside from Randy). He was literally just an area kid who came in with his buddy one day to sign up for classes, but he picked things up fast and had that iron will. In those epic rounds I mentioned in my last post, Leben gave Randy as much trouble as anybody.
 
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Chael was definitely there; he was Matt Lindland's big prospect. The first time I met him, Lindland introduced us and then Chael goes into this spiel about how he's undefeated except for drawing against a guy in Japan who he beat, and that he's going to be a world champion first, and then Governor of Oregon later. Afterwards, Lindland comes up to us and is like "I don't know what he's talking about-- he's not undefeated and he lost to that guy in Japan even though it was a draw." Even then, they all thought of Chael as having world-class talent but with a strong mental weakness. I got to attend that famous tournament in Denver that had him, Shogun, Jeremy Horn, Babalu, and Forrest Griffin (I talked to Forest backstage and he said he was a "Special Education teachers aide"). Chael of course lost to Forrest via triangle, and for like a minute before you could hear Matt Lindland screaming at Chael to not allow Griffin to get head control.

Follis was the head coach, but Innever really saw him get on the mat. There was no BJJ-specific classes that I could see, as everything was just called "grappling." Seemed like you had to cross-train elsewhere to really learn other martial arts, as Randy regularly went to Matt Hume's gym in Washington to learn new striking combinations from him and Maurice Smith.

I'll tell ya though, of all the tough guys they had in that place, there was none tougher than Chris Leben (aside from Randy). He was literally just an area kid who came in with his buddy one day to sign up for classes, but he just picked things up so fast and had that iron will. In those epic rounds I mentioned in my last post, Leben gave Randy as much trouble as anybody. The guy just naturally understands what it means to fight.
That's awesome. I remember reading an interview with either Leben or Ed Herman in Ultimate Grappling Magazine back in like 2006-2007 and they said their 1st experience with Team Quest was watching randy and Lindland "beat the shit out of eachother" at Lindland's car dealership which as you know, eventually became the Team Quest Gym.
 
That's awesome. I remember reading an interview with either Leben or Ed Herman in Ultimate Grappling Magazine back in like 2006-2007 and they said their 1st experience with Team Quest was watching randy and Lindland "beat the shit out of eachother" at Lindland's car dealership which as you know, eventually became the Team Quest Gym.

Lindland was a weird case. Whereas Randy was the consummate sportsman who trained like a champion, you'd watch Lindland train and come away very underwhelmed. He would roll in and have these lackluster sparring sessions, but on fight night he'd always seem to win. Supposedly, thats how he was when he wrestled as well.
 
Lindland was a weird case. Whereas Randy was the consummate sportsman who trained like a champion, you'd watch Lindland train and come away very underwhelmed. He would roll in and have these lackluster sparring sessions, but on fight night he'd always seem to win. Supposedly, thats how he was when he wrestled as well.
That seems to jive with what ive gathered over the years. I remember leading up to the Fedor fight Lindland did an interview and talked about how he never eats breakfast and has little regard for diet. Then he comes in to the fight, still giving up 25-35 pounds, cracks fedor's face open and would've dumped him on his head had Fedor not grabbed the ropes.
 
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