{"id":207145,"date":"2021-03-20T20:00:54","date_gmt":"2021-03-20T17:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/derek-brunson-finding-renewed-ufc-success-thanks-to-patience\/"},"modified":"2021-03-20T20:00:54","modified_gmt":"2021-03-20T17:00:54","slug":"derek-brunson-finding-renewed-ufc-success-thanks-to-patience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/derek-brunson-finding-renewed-ufc-success-thanks-to-patience\/","title":{"rendered":"#Derek Brunson finding renewed UFC success thanks to patience"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Derek Brunson finding renewed UFC success thanks to patience<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

Patience is a virtue Derek Brunson finally has embraced, and it\u2019s led to his best run of success in the UFC in five years.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old middleweight, who will face Kevin Holland in Saturday\u2019s main event of an ESPN-aired UFC Fight Night from UFC Apex in Las Vegas, had fought past the first round just four times in 14 bouts during his first six years with the promotion. In his current three-fight win streak, each fight has reached round three.<\/p>\n

The lesson of taking a more measured app<\/a>roach from Brunson\u2019s (21-7, 15 finishes) experience fighting a who\u2019s who of MMA greats between 2016 and 2018: former middleweight champions Robert Whittaker and Anderson Silva, current champ Israel Adesanya, ex-light heavyweight king Lyoto Machida and longtime 185-pound elite contender Ronaldo \u201cJacare\u201d Souza.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brunson went 2-4 in that run (knocking out Machida and former Olympic judoka Daniel Kelly), with many arguing he deserved a decision over the legendary Silva at Barclays Center four years ago that went the other way. The other three defeats came as first-round TKOs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about just being patient,\u201d Brunson told The Post over the phone on Wednesday. \u201cIn those fights, a lot of those fights, I just didn\u2019t take my time. Going forward, that\u2019s just been my focus is to show I\u2019m a martial artist but being patient and not rushing the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new state of mind was on display in his lone 2020 appearance, a headlining victory on Aug. 1 against rising prospect Edmen Shahbazyan. In a close first round, then-22-year-old Shaybazyan landed some big strikes. But Brunson held steady, relying on a lifetime of wrestling to secure a takedown and land enough effective striking offense to win the round on two of three judges\u2019 scorecards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Derek
Derek Brunson (left) and Kevin Holland<\/figcaption>
Zuffa LLC via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From there, it was mostly Brunson doling out punishment to the upstart 185-pounder. The fight appeared near a finish as the bell rang to end the second, and the veteran finished the job by securing a TKO stoppage 26 seconds into the final frame of the unusual three-round main event. The loss was the first of Shahbazyan\u2019s career and came nearly a year after Brunson halted the momentum of Ian Heinisch, who entered with just one loss and a head of steam.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more about just imposing my will and not rushing,\u201d Brunson said of his approach in the Shahbazyan victory. \u201cI can get guys to where they can\u2019t take my pace, they\u2019re not able to compete, if I just take my time as opposed to just trying to go out there and rush and knock them out really quick.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just been a training point and a part that I added to my game<\/a> and just really trying to dissect the guy rather than just trying to run straight through them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That strategy could serve him well against Holland (21-5, 17 finishes), who\u2019s a talented and aggressive striker plus unafraid to attack submissions. The 28-year-old did, however, admit earlier this week to preferring three-round fights as opposed to his first UFC five-rounder.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like the idea of fighting for 25 minutes,\u201d Holland told reporters at Wednesday\u2019s pre-fight news<\/a> conference. \u201c\u2026 You can make me the co-main [event] champ.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holland has been to a decision four times in 10 UFC outings. He\u2019s lost the third round on a majority of judges\u2019 scorecards three times, including a unanimous 10-8 against former light heavyweight title challenger Thiago Santos in Holland\u2019s short-notice octagon debut.<\/p>\n

It all points to a fighter Brunson would be wise to drag into deeper waters the way he has done during his recent streak. And, if he can get the job done, he\u2019s banking on moving past the recent string of up-and-comers he\u2019s turned away and onto those in in the title mix at middleweight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look at it as a guy with momentum [in Holland] that all the fans are high on,\u201d Brunson said, \u201cand an opportunity to take that little bit of shine of his and add it onto what I\u2019ve been doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brunson believes there\u2019s potential to earn his first title shot against Adesanya, who knocked him out with nine seconds to go in the first round of what had for the first four minutes been a competitive Nov. 3, 2018, clash at Madison Square Garden. Although his name isn\u2019t the first that comes to mind for most, there is no clear-cut middleweight challenger waiting in the wings, and several contenders also were beaten by the champ.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Brunson says he would hold firm in his desire to take on an opponent of greater prestige if he leaves Las Vegas with a four-fight win streak.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want a contender fight,\u201d Brunson added. \u201cI\u2019m not going to settle for anything less than a contender fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Brunson manages to secure a second chance at the champ, he believes his newfound patience will be a key to reversing the result.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just more patient, just more subtle and strategic in my approach,\u201d Brunson said. \u201cIf you go look at that fight \u2026 A lot of people [say], \u2018Oh, you got destroyed.\u2019 No, no, that wasn\u2019t the case. He caught me with a knee [late in the first round] \u2026 I was just a little impatient, very predictable [and] shot in [for takedowns] right off the breaks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just mixing it up [now]. Instead of going for the shot, I\u2019ll mix it up and put hands on him next time instead of shooting at that time. That\u2019s been a part of my continuous growth. It\u2019s just continuing to mix things up better and not get so predictable.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Derek Brunson finding renewed UFC success thanks to patience” Patience is a virtue Derek Brunson finally has embraced, and it\u2019s led to his best run of success in the UFC in five years. The 37-year-old middleweight, who will face Kevin Holland in Saturday\u2019s main event of an ESPN-aired UFC Fight Night from UFC Apex in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/03\/202103020hollandbrunson.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[98651,98700,71314,71715],"class_list":["post-207145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-3-20-21","tag-derek-brunson","tag-mma","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}