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Tom O’Connor on Devon Brock fight “Hunting for a finish”
Tom O’Connor
O’Connor’s thoughts on Brock’s stylistic attributes as a combatant
“My team has done a lot of study on him as always. I’ve watched a bit of footage as well and I’ve looked into him as well. He’s, again, an impressive athlete and strong in many aspects of MMA. Brings a lot to the table, threatens a lot to the table. Just first of all he’s super athletic and strong. I think his physicality sometimes breaks people down. So that will be a cool thing to test against. Then his hands, he has very good hands, good boxing. His movement as he’s punching is good. So he doesn’t stand in one spot. He’s not just easy to get a hold of.”
“So his movement as he’s punching is very strong. I think he has some heavy hands. So again it brings a lot of fun puzzles to solve which is what we’re trying to do, right? The big thing at the end of the day, man is I’m trying to level-up against great opponents and put on really exciting fights. He’s an opponent that’s a level-up for me. So that checks that box. I want to keep leveling up, fighting tougher guys… I can’t see it not being an exciting fight. I’m going to be hunting for a finish right off the bat.”
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“Try and put a big exclamation mark on the end of the year and see where it goes from there. So yeah, I think opponent-wise, he’s a really fun matchup for me. Of course, the Tim Smith fight would be a lot of fun as well for fans and stuff but this one even more so.”
O’Connor continued, “Even in his video interview, Devon Brock said Tom’s a grappler, he’s a gritty fight, he’s tough. All of these things are true and I’m going to be coming after the grappling. But as you know, it’s not all I do. I like to mix everything up. So I’m going to bring a tidal wave of martial arts techniques towards him. I’m going to be mixing everything; high, low, changing my tempo and rhythm. We’ll see when he breaks.”
