I was watching a replay of the MMA fight between Fedor Emelianenko and Brett Rogers on CBS last Saturday and noticed Fedor’s seemingly odd strategy in the boxing portion of their fight. Fedor is certainly not the best boxer in MMA, his punching is quite sloppy, but he’s got some decent defense and even though he throws haymakers, they make hay. But upon watching the slo mo replays he consistently anticipated Brett Rogers stepping forward to punch and immediately threw an overhand right.
Fedor’s first overhand right counter didn’t work so well, he ran right into a jab that broke his nose. The 3rd time though he caught Brett Rogers about to throw a left hook and Fedor’s overhand right KO’d Rogers. This kind of reminded me of the Mike Tyson clip, where one of his sparring partners knocks him down with a right hook upon timing Mike’s left hand.
I don’t see this as a common counter, you pretty much need a guy who telegraphs his left hook so you can start your hook first, but I might spend a small period of time working on this.
