Frank Mir vs. Shane Carwin

Warning there are UFC spoilers below the video.

So this past Wednesday I got a call on my cell phone from one of my clients at the Montville Sports Center telling me Frank Mir was going to be in my gym for some last minute preparation before his fight against Shane Carwin. For me this was huge. Frank was rated I think 3rd in the world for the most brutal sport that exists…mixed martial arts. Him coming to my gym was a rare opportunity to see how one of the best actually trains.

I was hesitant to blog about it until now because with this blog you never really know who is watching and I didn’t want to give away any of his tactics. I was asked to keep everything hush hush and wasn’t allowed to film anything until he had actually finished training. That’s because youtube allows anybody to see anyone that gets seen with a flip cam (or Kodak Zi6 which is what I use). Totally understandable.

Now I really wanted Frank Mir to win. Frank Mir in person is about as cool as it gets and yeah I have met a few fighters since in my profession you over hear a lot of things and news comes my way pretty often. Him training in the mma gym where I run kettlebell classes almost makes it feel like he is a teammate as well.

Having observed him one of the things I noticed was how fast his hands moved when throwing punches and kicks and how loud the pads were. Frank wasn’t practicing fancy footwork or what the creator of Krav Maga Imi Lichtenfeld called “cavaliers” (because he thought that sounded fancy). Frank Mir practiced the basics. His groundwork was practicing the basics of escaping the mount and defending from the bottom because he knew that Shane Carwin is an aggressive and opponent.

Now here is where the spoiler comes in.

It didn’t do him much good. Shane Carwin was too much for him to handle that night. As dialed in as Frank was when I was watching him and as dialed in as he was that night Shane Carwin was also dialed in. Shane Carwin didn’t defeat Frank Mir with anything fancy. Just basic punches to the chin that came in through the tiny opening that Frank Mir had.

Now try and think about that for a second. Frank Mir practiced the basics. Shane Carwin practiced the basics. Shane Carwin’s won with basic punches. That night his basics happened to be the better of the two. If you watch mixed martial arts like I do you might notice that they use the same moves over and over again. That is because they have to master the basics. like Bruce Lee once said “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” Whoever has Bruce Lee’s fear got it through mastery of the basics.

When it comes to being the best one quote comes to mind.

“The best are better at the basics then everybody else.”

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