The Lowdown 05.23.09: Brock Larson

Posted by Frank Fedele on 05.23.2009

Last week we looked at the gatekeeper for the middleweight division, Drew McFedries. With UFC 98 coming up this weekend, we will look at a veteran fighter from the WEC middleweight division, the other Brock, Brock Larson. We will also talk about the event as a whole and let you know what fights I am looking forward to. All this week in the Lowdown.

Last Week Roundup

Drew McFedries has been relegated to gatekeeper status in the Middleweight division. McFedries is the striker they line up against new guys coming in to see what they can do in the cage. McFedries will come straight at you with his strike heavy offense and you have to deal with it. One mistake and you can be looking up at the lights with your back against the canvas. The interesting thing about his latest fight with Xavier Foupa-Pokam, is this will be first time a Savate stylist has entered the Octagon in many a year. Savate is a French style, known for its whippy high kicks. It is the equivalent of French kick-boxing, but is very kick heavy in its application. The style does not use knees as a striking surface and can involve lots of spin kicks and rotary kicks. It will be an interesting style to see translated into MMA. I would suspect that Foupa-Pokam is also working some knees for tight fighting on his feet and would hope he is somewhat skilled on the ground. We may not see that this fight though, as McFedries will want to keep the action standing. It should be a fun fight.

Background

Larson hails from Minnesota. He began his training in 2002 in jiu-jitsu tournaments and then began training with Sean Sherk for MMA. Brock has his purple belt in jiu-jitsu training under Dave Camarillo. Larson has a 25-2 record in MMA, with 17 of his wins coming by submission. He does have the power to knock his opponent out, but most of his wins have come via submission. He began his fighting career in October of 2002 in smaller venues, racking up wins and getting noticed. The UFC came calling in 2005, pitting Brock against Jon Fitch. He lost via decision in that fight, but a year later got his first UFC win. He then moved to the Middleweight division in the WEC and became Carlos Condit's biggest threat for his belt.



Brock Larson

Larson did well in the WEC and moved to the UFC once they folded the WEC middleweight division. He won his first fight back in the UFC and in UFC 98 he fights newcomer Mike Pyle.

Previous Fights

Larson began his career in smaller venues in 2002. He began racking up wins, twelve in total when the UFC began to take notice. The majority of his wins were via submission, but he did score two TKOs along the way. Larson's favorite submission is the keylock and he used that twice to get wins.


Brock Larson in the Cage

Larson's first UFC bout was against Jon Fitch in Ultimate Fight Night 2. He lost via decision and moved back to the smaller venues to continue to improve his resume. He ran off another six wins, most by submission, before he was invited back to the UFC in Ultimate Fight Night 7 against Keita Nakamura. He won a decision this time around and moved to the WEC and their new middleweight division. He won his first two fights there versus Erik Apple and Kevin Knabjian before stepping in the cage with Carlos Condit in WEC 29. He lost to Condit via armbar, but came back with three wins before the WEC closed down its middleweight division. Larson moved up to the UFC for Fight Night 18, beating Jesse Sander by rear-naked choke in the 1st round. Larson now moves onto a bigger event in UFC 98, when he fights Mike Pyle on the prelim card.


Mike Pyle

Larson's WEC and UFC Record
Middleweight
UFC Fight Night 2: Loss to Jon Fitch by decision
UFC Fight Night 7: Win versus Keita Nakamura by decision
WEC 26: Win versus Erik Apple via submission in the 1st round
WEC 28: Win versus Kevin Knabjian via TKO in the 1st round
WEC 29: Loss to Carlos Condit via submission in the 1st round
WEC 33: DQ win versus John Alessio due to a knee on a downed fighter
WEC 35: Win versus Carlos Prater via TKO in the 1st round
UFC Fight Night 18: Win versus Jesse Sanders via submission in the 1st round

Larson has been finishing fights of late in the 1st round after two fights going to decision in his early career. He will look for submission versus Mike Pyle, but does posses enough power to knock him out. A win here may set him up for a rematch with rival Carlos Condit down the road.

Final Thoughts

Larson was supposed to fight Chris Wilson, but Wilson backed out due to injury. Larson was an injury replacement himself for Josh Koshcheck. Larson needs to put on a good show here, with an exciting win opening eyes in a wide open Middleweight division with dominant Anderson Silva at the top.

UFC 98 looks to be an interesting card with potential. If Evans and Machida engage, it will be an exciting fight. If Evans doesn't push Machida and prefers just to wait until Machida makes the first move, it could be a long fight. Hughes and Serra hate each other, that much is true. Whether they have much left now to make this an exciting fight is debatable. Some of the cards lower of the card show promise and may steal the show.

That is all for this week, please come back next week where we will get the lowdown on another MMA fighter that will be fighting in the UFC soon and give some opinions on the this weekends fight while looking forward to the June fight card which includes a war between Mike Brown and Uriah Faber in the WEC. Please take the time to bookmark 411mania.com. One quick step and all the news you need is but a click away.