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Kenny Florian breaks down Gray Maynard’s boxing game and why it’s good

By Zach Arnold | August 27, 2010

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Pro MMA Radio with Larry Pepe and Steve Cofield of Yahoo Sports have teamed up to share audio from Larry’s radio show. Here’s a quick transcript of what Kenny Florian had to say about his upcoming fight with Gray Maynard, with a focus on the technical side of the game here.

LARRY PEPE: “So, getting ready for Gray. He asked to fight you. Does that provide some extra motivation for you?”

KENNY FLORIAN: “Oh, definitely. You know, I think that whether it’s Gray trying to get more attention for himself or whether he’s starting to believe his own hype, I definitely sense a certain cockiness and a certain um… you know, a different attitude than what he’s displayed in the past and I’ve been there, I’ve been there, we fall victim to it and I think that he’s overlooking me, I think he’s already looking toward the title. He already has a win over the current champion, Frankie Edgar, and that’s good confidence. Confidence is good but when you get cocky I don’t think that’s good and I think he’s definitely on the cocky side and I don’t think he’s faced someone like me, I tell you that right now, I don’t think he’s faced a fighter like me at this point in my career and he’s faced good guys but I know I’m going to surprise him. I don’t think he’s going to expect what he’s going to see on Saturday night.”

LARRY PEPE: “Well, to your point about maybe crossing over to the cocky side, you might be referring to comments like he’s not worried about your striking and there’s no part of your game that he doesn’t think he can beat. Does that mean he thinks he’s a better Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guy than you?”

KENNY FLORIAN: “Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t know, it’s confusing, you know. I, myself, I respect Gray as a fighter. I know, I know that he can beat me, I understand that just because of his style and man, anyone in the Lightweight division can beat anybody on any given day, I understand that, we all are going to have our bad days or good days and just the set of skills that Gray has in there, I know he’s capable of being one of the best in the world. He is. He’s proven that. And, uh, you got to respect someone’s skills. If he doesn’t respect my skills, he’s going to be in trouble. It’s going to be another one of those things where ‘uh, I don’t understand what happened, Kenny got lucky or I made a mistake and I’ll be back and better than before.’ It’s just… I don’t get that and I know it’s created a lot of motivation for me and, you know… if Gray’s thinking all these things, then I can’t wait to go out there and see how he responds. I can’t wait. I’m looking forward to the challenge. It’s going to be a great fight. It’s one of my toughest challenges for sure and man, I’m very excited.”

(snip)

LARRY PEPE: “Gray also talks about enjoying breaking someone’s will. have you ever felt that your will was broken in a fight?”

KENNY FLORIAN: “I’ve never been. Never been broken in a fight, even when I’ve been taking a beating and even with the Sean Sherk fight with my very limited skills and the situation that I was in physically, I was never broken. I always believed to the last second that I was going to win that fight and that was a five-rounder, you know. For me, Gray’s never, he’s never encountered that type of pressure, he’s never encountered when someone’s got him beaten down and he’s never experienced anything like that. He’s always been the aggressor, he’s always been the bully. It’s easy to have fights like that when you’re winning the fight the whole time, it’s easy. But how is he going to respond when he’s getting beaten down? How’s he going to respond when he’s hurt and he gets hurts again and he’s losing every minute of every round, what’s that going to feel like that for him? He’s never experienced that and I’m looking forward to bringing it to him. I don’t care what he’s going to do to me, he’s got to care about what I have to do to hm.”

(snip)

LARRY PEPE: “When you look at the rest of Gray’s game, how do you size that up? Because his striking looks powerful but not technical and we haven’t seen much from him in terms of [jiu-jitsu], so when you look at those aspects of the game, we know he’s a good wrestler. How do you size up the rest and how do you put a perspective that in 7 wins in the UFC, 6 have been by decision, 2 by split decision, so he’s kind of the opposite of Kenny Florian.”

KENNY FLORIAN: “Yeah, and that’s why it’s such an intriguing match-up I think. He has the ability to stifle anyone’s offense and that’s why it’s an intriguing match-up and why it’s a different match-up for me stylistically being completely honest. He’s got a polished style of wrestling, he likes to no pun intended, bully his opponent around and look for nice power doubles and high crotch to doubles and he’s very good there once he gets in on your legs so, um… the goal is to really stop him and then the other aspect of the game, you know what, I kind of disagree with you on the boxing. He definitely is powerful but I wouldn’t say he’s completely, you know, I wouldn’t say he’s technical I guess but he definitely is well-trained. He’s well-trained in the boxing, you could see that he gets it. He gets it as far as his foot work, he gets it as far as his ability to want to counter, boxing I don’t think he’s there yet and I don’t think he’s as there as much as he thinks he is with his boxing but he’s on the right track, you could see that, Gil Martinez who’s training him has done a very good job as far as changing that aspect of his game. He tries to throw a lot of lead hand rights against a southpaw, he’s faced a lot of southpaws at this point so he’s going to feel like he knows what he’s doing in there with me. He knows where to go as far as throwing the strikes, where his feet needs to be, he seemed very well-trained in that aspect so in boxing I still consider him pretty dangerous. On the ground, he’s never been submitted, not since The Ultimate Fighter any way and he’s very good at staying out of submission, very good at just controlling his opponent, his ground ‘n pound is very good but like you said he’s not the kind of guy who’s dangerous as far as he’s going to be looking for these crazy angles to knock you out and he’s got his knockout power through 15 minutes and he’s got these unbelievable submission holds, he’s not that kind of guy. He’s a guy who’s for most people I think they consider Gray Maynard a very boring fight.”

LARRY PEPE: “Do you consider him a boring fighter?”

KENNY FLORIAN: “Um, for me, I’m always interested in the technical aspect. I love it. I love seeing it, regardless of what they’re doing out there so I mean I don’t think he’ the most exciting fighter. I don’t jump up and down when there’s a Gray Maynard fight going on but I do respect his skills. I think what he does out there is very, very good. If he’s winning fights against the guys that he’s winning against, he’s got to be damn good and I’ll watch him fight but… yeah, I’m not jumping up and down to watch a Gray Maynard fight.”

LARRY PEPE: “Unless he’s fighting Kenny Florian, right?”

KENNY FLORIAN: “Right, right, exactly, then I’ll jump up and down.”

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 1 Comment » | Permalink | Trackback |

One Response to “Kenny Florian breaks down Gray Maynard’s boxing game and why it’s good”

  1. edub says:

    You guys see that Luna Vachon died. Hella shitty.

    RIP

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