Robert Whittaker believes Sean Brady exposed Leon Edwards’ kryptonite at UFC London
UFC London's Sean Brady took advantage of Leon Edwards' 'headshot dead' attitude for more open area grapples, per Robert Whittaker.
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Sean Brady capitalized on Leon Edwards' strike-heavy shot, for more open takedowns, per Robert Whittaker (Source: X/IMAGO)
In his downtime, former champ Robert Whittaker had pegged Sean Brady‘s style to win at UFC London. However, there were some tinges and doubts about which ‘Leon Edwards‘ would show up for the UFC Fight Night 255 event headliner. There’s the ‘headshot, dead’ fame Rocky that gave Kamaru Usman trouble in their first rematch. There’s also the one that later lost his title and had a few wrestling holes in his games.
Turns out, it was the latter kind of Leon Edwards who’d show up for UFC London, that struggled with hard clinches. Sean Brady submitted him with a fourth-round one-handed guillotine (1:39 mark) on Saturday’s main event at The O2 in London. To that end, Whittaker thinks Brady exposed the weakest links in the Team Renegade MMA southpaw fighter’s game.
Ah, well, not really [surprised]…as we said in our predictions we came into it thinking which Edwards are we going to see, and within about 30 seconds I was like ‘ah this one, yeah’. Right, yeah, um…I, I do want to look at though, that – that performance against Usman the second time. And [Brady] he did so well at establishing Open Mat takedowns. I think he saw that how, how well Leon defended the takedowns against Usman that second fight on the fence yeah and he established the takedowns in open mat.
Robert Whittaker on his ‘MMArcade’ Podcast (@MMArcadePodcast; Episode 61)
Edwards did minimal significant damage in R2. However, in round three, he found his success; he even punctuated a good uppercut. However, Whittaker thinks Brady did his homework well and was waiting on the Birmingham striker to shoot and close space. The Renzo Gracie Philly team wrestler initiated open mat takedowns after his lean-ins rather than risking invading Edwards’ striking pockets.
After some initial success in R3, Edwards also shot for a takedown, which naturally surprised many and gave Brady all the more room and level change than needing to push the action fenceside. To that end, Edwards’ history and grappling with UFC 304’s Belal Muhammad at the PPV main event at Co-op Live in Manchester last July laid down the blueprint. Sean Brady capitalized on it better to shut down the former champ.
UFC Fight Night 255 post-fight facts: Ex-170-pound champ Leon Edwards shut out for first time and tapped out
Sean Brady improved to 2-0 in UFC headlining spots after UFC London. In doing so, he put on an empathetic performance and probably the biggest win in his column. Before this, he had a lopsided win over fellow grappling phenom Gilbert Burns at UFC Vegas 97 (UFC Fight Night: Burns vs. Brady).
Brady also became the first fighter ever to submit and finish Edwards. The Philly scrambler credits all four of his UFC wins to submission. Consequently, this was no bear-hugging lazy render transition either. So, how good is he at it? Brady set the UFC single-round control time record with 4:57 of 5:00 in Round 2.
Edwards’ 4:59, Round 3 win at UFC Fight Night 127 tied for the second-most recent knockout in three UFC fights. While a late bloomer, not many expected him to be down for equally that long.
The UFC Promotional Guidelines Compliance payout totaled around $204,000 in London. Sean Brady got a compliance payment of $6,000 while Edwards entered for $16,000. He didn’t earn in the champion-challenger brackets ($32,000-42,000) but was a high earner. Jan Blachowicz and Kevin Holland led the charge with $21,000.
Edwards has now dropped down to consecutive losses for the first time in his pro run. Edwards landed zero strikes in two rounds in his loss. Coming into the fight, he hadn’t been shut out in 66 previous UFC rounds!
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