Dominick Cruz and Carl Gebhardt breakdown and preview what to expect in Leon Edwards vs. Colby Covington’s fight in …
I’m Dominick Cruz this is Carl gber he is going to be acting out Kobe cumington I am going to be Leon Edwards now both of these guys like to come in Southpaw positions but Lon is a true Southpaw so what makes a true Southpaw are a couple key characteristics one very good at keeping distance with this lead hand now the key fundamental Southpaw are this back hand this this back leg and being able to just keep this space perfect they always know where they’re at because this is their stance all the time whereas Colby switches so now that he’s Southpaw it changes my distance now it’s a lead hand fight and we’re going to see the back hand out of Leon Edwards and we’re going to see him eat up this inside leg kick right here and we’re going to see him go to the body and we’re going to see him go up high and that’s because we’re seeing the South pulver’s conventional stance so this back hand is going to land this is one of his combos he goes back hand and then he uses that to set up this kick when the guy’s pressuring Leon Edwards he uses the fence to keep his range and when you go to pressure he knows where he’s at he moves he can counter he can left straight down the middle but what makes Leon so dangerous is his Effectiveness with the range he knows even with the back here he knows he can defend perfectly when he needs to so he’s safe and he can set up his shots he can go to the body he can set up his kicks he knows right where his range at here in this lead hand fight now if we see the stance switch out of kobby this is what we saw where Usman was really able to get ahead on him with the left hook oh big left Kobe always stays very fundamental with his strikes in the beginning Jabs one twos then he starts mixing them then he makes Miss spinning back then he starts mixing high lows and what makes Kobe so threatening is he uses his cardio as a weapon he’s not just staying fundamental taking his time keeping his space you see Leon Edwards does that he doesn’t need to rush he doesn’t need to just create a cardio Havoc of a storm because he’s so good with his one move at a time he sets everything up this inside kick sets up this high kick this left hand sets up this body kick shot that’s Edwards but we’re talking about kobby it’s nonstop Havoc wrestling get see your movement switch it’s just it’s a tornado of cardio that he uses against you to get you panicked to not be able to read to get your head low to get your head high I mean this is a pocket fight ladies and gentlemen it’s literally just standing boxing range in the pocket see how well you can defend there’s a couple key tricks that you see from Colby Covington in the Striking but what makes Colby Covington the best Striker is is wrestling he’s always threatening this shot all the time whether it’s down here whether it’s here whether his head’s here whether he’s grabbing here and then grabing here there’s always a grab he’s looking for so in that mess of high and low it really opens up Kobe striking some of the techniques you’ll see out of him is he’s really good at timing this backand over and over from South Paul St so he’ll get you to back up on this hand and then you think you’re out and then he leads with a big looping right hook couple shots from comington and now right hand us rolls with it pretty well another key fundamental that you got to watch for Leon Edwards is he’s so good at when you get here into the fence and you’re pressuring him he knows right when you’re going to Blitz he knows how to come in get a hold of you and get to this clinch and he’s so threatening boom Landing these knees and when you go to try to get to his legs or try to pum with him he knows how to get the angle break away and get back to the space that he wants and that’s what’s so tough about Edwards is it’s not just the Striking the Precision striking in the space once you get past his comfort zone of space he knows how to get a hold of you grab you so that he can stop you from hitting him and it makes him so difficult to time so difficult to find his range cuz the range is where he wants and in the second it’s not there you you don’t have anything on him and his takedown defense has gotten so much better so keep a lookout to watch Edwards don’t sleep on him throwing these knees in the clinch and then also looking for the elbows the left elbow’s going to be very clutch so first of all here’s some of the shots that you can see out of a a high level College wrestler like kobby Covington one he’ll wait and he likes to get his head on the outside it’s called a high crotch so that’s get your head here get your head up so it starts down and you get your head up at the end of the shot look at that excellent job by Colby he’ll get this top leg right here and then he’ll keep his hands locked and he’ll just stay here on you and beat you and beat you we saw this with Jorge Midol this is big for comington you be able to control him on the ground the first round when he’s fresh take him down hold him down beat him up another shot you’ll see out of him so do a head on the outs side right here he’ll wait for the left hand and he’ll get his head right in there and he’ll walk his hands and then he’ll turn the corner right here finish the take down and every single time he’ll stand on top of you the guy’s going to crawl to the fence he gets behind him makees some work all the way back up while he beats him up he gets his top leg rinse and repeat but Kobe’s just wearing on him just grinding now he’s carrying his weight again so what makes Colby tough with his wrestling is it’s never just one shot his head’s going to come here when he shoots his head’s going to come here when he shoots he’s going to come here he’s going to grab a leg transition come back to the upper body look for trips clinch knee go back to a double and that’s what’s tough is Kobe Covington’s wrestling is like cheating in between he’s elbowing you he’s changing he’s punching while he’s wrestling so it makes his striking so much better he’s very dangerous in the mix of his grappling attempts and his strikes Fifth and Final Round let’s see what Edwards has left but he’s got to do something big I’ll built like this I’ll go to the B’s done the me I couldn’t do it the I couldn’t do it look at me now we know that whenever you’re going to see Kobe and Southpaw we showed some of those techniques now whenever we see kobby in conventional we got the iconic kick that we saw Edwards land on Usman and that’s always there and the reason is because of this hand fight guys this hand fight sets the leg up right where he wants now look my back leg is lined up perfectly with his head if I have this lead leg position it also sets up my back hand and it also sets up my right hook just by moving my foot outside that’s what you’re going to see and that’s what he’s able to do with this back leg cuz he’s blasting the inside he’s blasting the body he’s blasting the tee all those are setups and then as we saw fifth round last minute of the fight he lands that kick because of all that time spent blasting these weapons and then it comes we were riding his obituary H’s a little shorter and we’ve got Edwards who’s really good at keeping the space he stays in his stance and he’s so good at keeping the range at kicking range where you can’t get to him and so we know that so how do you make a taller guy shorter one you move him back on his heels and this is what Kobe does so well by switching stance it’s like hard to read and it gets you moving back while you’re thinking of what he’s going to do that’s one thing another thing is kobby threatens the shot see how you have to step back or drop your head so if you decide to not respect the shot threat of Colby and you just stand your ground you at least got to change your levels there we at least got a level change now that you changed the levels I can set up my shot oh big uppercut from Covington and that allows for another level change in a d and so what’s tough about Kobe is to make guys shorter to make them come down he threatens the shot when you come down he uppercuts you when you when you see the uppercut he overhand you when you see the overhand in the uppercut land you bring your head up and he gets the double so he mixes it perfectly with timing to get your head down when you when you want when he wants it front headlock or punches and he get your head up when he wants to hit you with overh hands or kicks he knows how to get your head to move and make a tall man shorter because of the threat of wrestling beautiful nice hands from comington well he’s doing a great job mixing it up I mean that’s what’s offsetting LA right now he boxes for a second drops to the ankles drops to the ankles comes boxes again now some of the things that you saw out of uh Leon Edwards that made him so effective was the takedown defense against Usman always in that fight because obviously it was smooth the champ so what what Edwards did is he used the fence if we’re out in the open and you get in on the hips it’s hard to defend but here the fence behind me when you even get deep on a double we’re here as long as I get my feet parallel to the fence right here I can defend for the most part cuz it’s hard to get your fing fingers behind the knees and it’s hard to get this hand over here behind my butt where he can lock his hands that’s what I that’s ideally what he wants so what I do is I stay here what you see Edwards do so well is he stays here with his feet apart so that you can’t clinch your hands together and he’s just punching punching that’s one thing another thing he’s good at is keeping this hand real deep on this shoulder pulling it up so if this shoulder can drop he can get to my knees but if I keep this and I pull it up right here I can wizard this guy this way you see so it’s called a wizard cuz this overhook right here let me show you this overhook right here pulls him forward and so that’s I ideally when he’s in on the double I’m using that to pull this guy forward and then once I get a little bit of space this is what Edward’s so good he keeps this wrist and then he just moves very slick very quick because all your weight’s pushed up against and then all he does is just boom boom it’s very athletic very fast and it’s very like elusive because you’re just out of there like a ghost very quickly Kobe knows this move okay we’re going to be honest Kobe’s seen this a million times so the fundamentals that will work that will work the most hand control one this hand right here that’s on my leg I need to be pulling it up and I need to get an underhook on this side or this side I need to be under the armpit if I’m over the top Kobe can take me down so what you’ll see is this gets jacked up this gets pulled up you see it all the time and then when they try to switch sides you you’re out because you got an underhook the other one is this side we keep this hand we push and We Walk This Way that works as well these are two of the keys that we see at Edwards and one of the main ones also this he gets his he gets this lock and he just jacks you up and then when you’re trying to go for the shot he’s got these knees that he can land and he does it by just keeping this space with this shoulder locked right here and that the knee gets pushed exactly like that it nullifies but it also gets me off the fence so these are great tools that you see out Edwards that he was able to stop a lot of takedowns in his career