Kampmann ready to bounce back on Saturday night.
After a slew of bad luck, injuries and mishaps, there is virtually no fight on UFC 108 that has gone unchanged; including Martin Kampmann’s fight. Initially he was scheduled to fight Rory Markham; however, after Markham was injured training, Kampmann was matched with Jacob Volkmann. Having an opponent switch midway through camp can throw off a lot of fighters, but Kampmann feels he can still come out on top.
“I was originally preparing for Rory Markham,” explained Kampmann. “Of course, stylewise that’s a big change; Volkmann is a wrestler. So I changed it up a little bit and I expect him to try and take the fight to the ground. I’ve been working my takedown defense the last couple of weeks, ever since I’ve known he’s the guy I’m supposed to fight. I’m going to try and keep it standing and beat him up.”
To prepare for the challenge of facing a wrestler, versus the standup fighter in Markham he was originally preparing for, Kampmann has been utilizing his many training partners at Xtreme Couture. Some of the best wrestlers in the game train there, the gym’s namesake, Randy Couture, included.
“I work a lot with Jay Hieron, Mike Pyle, Evan Dunham, Tyson [Griffin], and Gray [Maynard],” said Kampmann.
The Dane continued to list a marquee full of names that all have wrestling accolades. Having recently dropped to the welterweight division, the extra strength he now holds on fight night helps him on the ground. He is now able to keep up with opponents; whereas when he was at middleweight there was little weight to cut and little weight to gain back going into each fight. Before Kampmann dropped to welterweight he would walk at roughly 185 pounds, most middleweights walk somewhere close to 200. After everyone else cut weight, they would be able to gain back roughly 10-15 pounds; since Kampmann had no weight to cut, there was no weight to gain.
“The guys I’m fighting aren’t so big anymore, they are more my size,” said Kampmann. “I was so used to fighting guys that were much bigger than me… I had thought about cutting to 170 for a long time and a lot of people had been telling me to cut to 170 when I was fighting at 185 because I was fighting at the weight I was walking around at. I took a loss to [Nate] Marquardt and thought ‘Okay, I’ll drop to 170 now.’”
After dropping a weight class, Kampmann has been upping his ground game. Though he’s not as versed as some on the ground Kampmann is not counting himself out for lack of skills. The Danish Muay Thai artist would prefer to keep it standing, but when it comes fight time anything can happen.
“I’m not necessarily of his ground game,” said Kampmann. “I think I can hold my own on the ground. But he’s a wrestler and a good grappler too…his top game is probably the best. I don’t mind if it goes to the ground, but I prefer to be the guy on top. Other than that, I’d like to keep the fight standing.”
Five of Kampmann’s fifteen wins are via submission which proves that while he prefers to keep it standing, he is no slouch on the ground. For Volkmann, any where this fight goes is dangerous territory.
kampmann i was a fan of until he got destroyed by semtex.semtex is good but not a world beater,i though he was better than what he was until daley crushed him easy.well 2009 was a awesome year for mma fights and with tito and chuck coaching tuff and rampage coming back to fight evans and a few new heavyweights added to the ufc roster and finally see what overeem can do against fedor(probrably run like he did from fighting werdum for the second time) it looks like a good 2010 and i will be happy if tom kong watson makes it on tuff 11 which i think he already has because he hasnt been put on any future fight cards so kong whup some ass in the house.