Matt Hughes’ past experience training with Brock Lesnar
Matt Hughes, in his new book “Made in America“, mentions the brief training experience Brock Lesnar had at the Miletich gym in late 2005. Here is an excerpt.
We rolled around and right away I could see why he thought about getting into fighting. The wrestling background let him get into pretty good position and keep it. But he still left openings experienced fighters wouldn’t. Within five minutes I had his arms wrapped around his neck in a rear naked choke.
Brock stood up and it was just like when I choked out Frank Trigg for the first time. Then he fell backwards with all his strength to try to dislodge me, and the force of a man one hundred pounds heavier than I was slammed me into the mat. It didn’t really hurt, but it must have looked like horse kicking off a rider at a rodeo. I kept up the choke and Brock tapped.
“Hey, we don’t do that here!” Pat yelled out to him. “You could have broken Matt’s rib or something.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” Brock said quickly. “You okay?”
“I’m fine”, I told him, taking his hand and getting up. “Hey it’s good when someone makes you tap. The more you tap in here, the less you’ll get caught when you’re in the octagon you know?” But for whatever reason, Brock stopped coming to Bettendorf and rolling with us.”
Hughes tells the entire experience with Lesnar in his book. The autobiography has some interesting information and reads well. It’s most compelling when Hughes speaks about what was going on in his head during the events surrounding the biggest fights of his career.
It will be interesting to see how far along Lesnar’s BJJ skills have developed in the 2 plus years since this incident. His submission defense capabilities will certainly be tested this Saturday night when he takes on Frank Mir at UFC 81.
Leave a Reply