Matt Hughes - On Robbie Lawler’s Big K.O. of Melvin Mahoef
(Photo:Sherdog.com)
Those of you witnessed the recent Strikeforce Miami event this past Saturday had the privilege of watching one of the craziest come from behind K.O. victories in MMA since Scott Smith knocked out Pete Sell. Lawler who had been tagged a few times and absolutely battered by leg kicks, timed a nice looping right as Manhoef stepped in for the kill and dropped him to the canvass. Lawler then seized the opportunity, following up with a ”Ruthless” left hand to his downed opponent which left Manhoef unconscious for several minutes.
It’s hard to do the fight justice in a write up, but trust me that if you haven’t seen it, you need to find it somewhere and consider it 3 1/2 minutes of time well spent to sit down and watch it.
Lawler’s good friend and training partner Matt Hughes commented on their gameplan going into the fight and the end result during a recent post on his blog:
“A lot of people are asking questions on what Robbie’s game plan was and I will say that the game plan wasn’t to get kicked in the leg about 15 times and then knock him out. We wanted to take the fight to the ground, wear him out a little bit and then maybe the second or third round Robbie could stand with him if he wanted, but Melvin did a good job of keeping distance. When Melvin was within takedown range he was always throwing or kicking, the only time he wasn’t throwing or kicking he was just too far away to get ahold of. Every time Robbie flinched like he was going to come towards him, Melvin just backed off. So Robbie never felt comfortable putting a good attempt in to take Melvin down”
There were a few moments during the fight, where Lawler appeared wobbly after getting clipped by Manhoef and it was difficult to tell if he was trying to draw Manhoef in or not… Hughes had this to say about those weak knee moments and the eventual finish:
“Robbie was able to remember something that was a key to the victory: #1 Robbie needed to get Melvin in close so he could put his hands on him. He tried playing possum twice before to see if Melvin would come in for the finish. #2 after watching Melvin fight on YouTube, he realized that Melvin liked to drop his hands when he was going to finish somebody. So it was a good fight and a good victory for Robbie. Melvin also had a good game plan, throwing a lot of those fast powerful kicks, it’s just that Melvin got caught making the same mistake that he has in the past and Robbie was able to capitalize on it.”
I’m sure that Hughes, like everyone else watching the fight was doubtful that Robbie could pull out the win after all of the leg kicks he took and it must have been an amazing feeling to be in that corner watching a good friend pull off that big comeback K.O.
Note: Check out the rest of Matt’s blog entry here.
Here’s a few pictures of Lawler vs Manhoef (photos: Sherdog.com) - click thumbnails for larger pictures.
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