Coach Mike Winklejohn has lead some of the best MMA fighters to gold over the years, including former UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Holly Holm.
When asked on Submission Radio about the difference between such athletes as Brock Lesnar and Cyborg, the famed MMA coach gave his opinion.
“Well, you know what you got in front of you,” Winkeljohn said. “Like I said, so you got this guy (Lesnar) who’s just gigantic and stuff and coming at Jon, so it is what it is. No, it’s not really a concern with him. I think guys that have done PEDs in the past is different than girls that have done them in the past, because they do get bigger, but you kind of expect that with the guy. The girls (like Cyborg) that do it, you know, I’m always worried about, okay, they’re clean, but what about their past? Did it change bone structure? Did it change density on different things? That’s where things change a little bit. So I think it has more of an effect for girls than it does for guys, not that it’s not cheating for guys as well.”
Winklejohn may have two pupils fighting the aforementioned Lesnar and Cyborg down the line, with those pupils being UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones and the aforementioned Holly Holm.
If Lesnar were to fight Jones, the longtime coach believes stuffing the takedown would be key to a Jones victory.
“He could (take Jones down),” he said, “but people will be surprised. You haven’t seen Jon on his back, what Jon can do. He’s got some great sweeps in there, but also, getting Jon on his back is very hard. His hips are first all the time, he’s very good in the scramble and Jon’s hard to take down. It’s like I said, Brock’s gonna shoot on him, but it doesn’t mean Jon’s gonna be right in front of him. So expect Jon, like I said, to get out the tracks, and I see Brock coming so hard that he’s gonna be one of those things, I’d like to see Jon get out of the way and Brock basically run into the cage, you know, in essence, that kind of theory, get out of the way. So stuffing the shot is different than not letting the shot happen and doing things to your strikes that makes him not wanna shoot. You know, scare him kind of like Alistair Overeem did. So there’s a lot of different ways for the fight to play out.”
The fight between Cyborg and Holm may take place quicker than Jones versus Lesnar because Lesnar is still serving a suspension from USADA, and Jones is facing his own well documented issues.
