- CAN PAT BARRY DEFEAT HIS OLD TRAINING BUDDY?
by Steven Marrocco - MMAWeekly.com
UFC heavyweight Pat Barry learned the hard way that there's no substitute for experience.
"It was very apparent that (grappling) wasn't second nature to me," the UFC heavyweight tells MMAWeekly.com. "In a (stand-up) fight, if I got stunned, I would naturally throw jabs on punches until I came back. I'm not a wrestler or jiu-jitsu guy so when I get stung... doing anything on the ground is not something that's natural to me."
Barry, a 30-year-old New Orleans native, head kicked opponent Tim Hague to the brink of unconsciousness in the opening minutes of their fight at UFC 98 in May. But Hague had been stunned before, and as a ground and pound artist, knew to take the path of least resistance. Ducking under Barry's punches, he pitched forward and brought the action to the mat.
"Once we got to the ground, I knew what to do, but it took like 10 minutes for it to happen, and he didn't wait for me," said Barry, who succumbed to a guillotine choke after a fruitless struggle on the mat.
A veteran of K-1 and the World Combat League, Barry has worked day after day to bring his ground game up to speed, but admits there's little to prepare him for the circumstances of a live fight.
On paper, his next fight at UFC 104 looks like the perfect opportunity to showcase his stock and trade. Opponent Antoni Hardonk has shown best on his feet, dealing out devastating punches and leg kicks. Against fighters with a strong grappling background, he's withered.
It has all the makings of a stand-up war, if Barry weren't absolutely convinced Hardonk is going take him down. Years of training with a guy will do that.
Beginning in 2006, Barry and Hardonk worked with kickboxing legend Ernesto Hoost's team in Amsterdam. They were regular sparring partners and close friends.
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"We had a lot in common," said Barry. "(Antoni) understood my humor. We had a lot of the same views on life topics, on life issues, and the same views on training and how we should do it."
When it came time to spar, though, Barry says he had the upper hand. In a battle of leg kicks, he says he won hands down. That's why he's so confident in his prediction.
"We both know that no matter how good of a kickboxer he is, he's not gonna stand there with me for long," said Barry. "His best chance of winning this fight is taking it to the ground. Everybody I get in the ring with, their best chance is to take it to the ground. To stand up and kickbox with me, is not a healthy or smart idea.
Barry says he isn't digging on his old buddy – it's just the reality of the circumstances they trained in.
"When we were in the gym, we were only kickboxing," he said. "My focus was on what I do all the time, whereas in practice, he was training in kickboxing, and dividing two thirds of his time between wrestling and jiu-jitsu. You shouldn't really judge our time together because he was always an MMA guy and I was always a kickboxing guy."
Barry sounds a little less sure of what will happen when the action hits the ground. Despite a year and a half of drills on the finer points of the ground game, he doesn't have the live experience to make his reactions second nature. He's at a deficit to Hardonk.
"Is my composure getting better in practice?" he said. "Absolutely. Now, what's going to happen once I get in the cage? I don't know. We'll see.
"It's like practicing scenarios for war and then getting thrown into the war."
