UFC: Jacare vs. Hermansson Toe-to-Toe Preview – A complete breakdown

Phil and David breakdown everything you need to know about Jacare vs. Hermansson for UFC Fort Lauderdale, and everything you don’t about Giant draft busts. Jacare vs. Hermansson headlines UFC Fort Lauderdale this April 27, 2019 at the BB&…

Phil and David breakdown everything you need to know about Jacare vs. Hermansson for UFC Fort Lauderdale, and everything you don’t about Giant draft busts.

Jacare vs. Hermansson headlines UFC Fort Lauderdale this April 27, 2019 at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Florida.

One sentence summary

David: Not an Endgame.

Phil: Joker vs Killer Croc in America’s own Arkham state

Stats

Record: Ronaldo Souza 26-6-1 NC Jack Hermansson 19-4

Odds: Ronaldo Souza -210 Jack Hermansson +175

History / Introduction to the fighters

David: Jacare is in the unique spot of half-tour, half-grinder. He’s an aging legend who might just have one great fight left in him. But he’s also a contender in a thin division, meaning Dana White could throw him into the frying pan at a moment’s notice. He’s always been a creature of potential: the jiu jitsu unicorn who Just Needs Striking in order to be a champion. Of course, in real life it doesn’t quite work like that. In real life, two training camps and months of preparation are wasted on Chris Camozzi. In real life, you only brutally knockout Chris Wiedman until AFTER he lost his belt to the former Strikeforce champion. So here we are, in real life — waiting for Jack…Hermansson.

Phil: Due to incessant injury replacements, Jacare’s level of competition in the UFC has bounced back and forth between elite title contenders and… man I love Chris Camozzi and wouldn’t want to describe him as this.., but “jobbers.” It’s made for a strange path through the ranks, which basically stalled at a perpetual top 5. Former BE alum Jack Slack described the Jacare experiment as coming to its close, and it’s a good way of looking at it: he’s the primary case of what would happen if an extraordinarily athletic BJJ player went into MMA in his prime, with a clear focus on strength training and explosiveness. The results have been mixed: he’s never made it to that title shot, but there’s also an argument to be made that his only loss in the last ten years was to Whittaker. The fluidity and snap of his his early career is gone, and he’s settled into a far more weighty, plodding style, but he remains an incredibly tough out, retaining his freakish physical power, his grappling skill, and his unbreakable heart.

David: Hermansson’s presence reminds me of what it feels like when your favorite sports team drafts an exciting prospect. Sorry, Giants fans. No, not a great number one draft pick. Just an exciting prospect: a prospect who is not perfect, but has skills you hope the team’s system can exploit and take advantage of. That’s who Hermansson is: a dude with a special set of…talents — who is simply fun to watch, not perfect, but like with prospects — and ignoring the fact that he’s well beyond the aging curve of a traditional prospect — it’s just as exciting watching them as it is to see them develop the necessary skills to be better.

Phil: Jack Hermansson has been a genuine pleasure to watch in his time in the UFC Octagon. He’s a very middleweight fighter, but in a good way: instead of slotting into one of the two or three defined journeyman brackets which the division is largely built of, he’s instead been a unique and weird brand of big gangle-puncher with sneaky deadly ground and pound. I think the analogue is probably Neil Magny: against focused, technical aggression his defense falls to bits and he gets taken apart, but against guys who try to drift through the fight, taking it as it comes, he’s got a lot of surprising dynamism and crafty offense.

What’s at stake?

David: Jacare has hovered around gold for most of his career. This fight hovers around gold in name only. It’s your classic Be Impressive/”50 G’s” kind of fight where the stakes are performative more than literal.

Phil: Apparently Jacare said that Dana White promised him a title shot(!) off a win over this non-top 10 opponent, and while he didn’t get it in writing, he trusts Dana’s honour. I don’t know how to feel about that, apart from… a bit sad? You’re a good dude Jacare. You see the best in people, even when you probably shouldn’t.

Where do they want it

David: Jacare has truly settled into the version of himself that’s needed to be successful at his age: a constant grappling threat, but also a capacity to preserve the stout power nestled in his fists. His striking has morphed into Old Man Aldo: he’s able to stay in the pocket, move his head a bit, counter with power, and do it all with enough technique to switch from offensive to defensive. His grappling was always built upon farm strength wrestling. Yes, he has phenomenal technique, but he still struggles with takedowns — especially as his movement has faded in recent years. I think opponents still see a fancy pants grappler who can be skittish on the feet with enough technique and pressure. That hasn’t been the case.

Phil: Jacare is not a complicated fighter on the feet, or in many of the interstitial areas between the feet and the point where he’s choking someone unconscious. He’s mostly a big left hook and a big right overhand, which are mixed up to varying degrees to the head and body, and a round kick to the legs and a snap kick to the body. He covers the various targets, and has surprisingly good head movement. He’ll happily dive on low singles or low percentage takedowns in order to pull someone into his grappling game, where he’ll doggedly clamber up the phases until he’s got a body lock and is pulling his opponent to the floor. The extent to which Jacare has slowed down can’t really be overstated: watch him wheel-kicking with Rockhold, and then see how comparatively plodding he has been for his last few fights. However, those later fights have also brought with them a more functional game, and one he’s been able to successfully leverage against all but the most elite opponents.

David: Hermansson looks like a simple fighter on the surface. He’s not versatile, doesn’t throw with a ton of power (yes he’s got TKO’s on his resume, but that’s come more from his speed and overall game than Power of GraySkull type strength), and has a pretty linear gameplan: dart in with strikes, and use movement to create clinch and grappling scrambles. Except upon inspection, it’s a lot more complicated. For one, Hermansson adheres strongly to the middle: taking the straightest path with a long jab, an overhand right, etc until he bounces back out to follow a similar path for his next zone entry. As much as I hate to use vagaries, what I appreciate about Hermansson’s game is that he does it all with confidence. “Anyone who gets in there is confident!” Well yea. But not everyone tactically hesitates. Obviously there are downsides to being stubborn, but there’s strength in that as well i.e ‘take to the dance what brought you’ and all that. What all of this does is open up the many facets to the rest of his game: clinchwork, ground and pound, and more recently — guillotines. Rather than fight with a single foundation (big power, tricky submissions, etc), Hermansson’s game is built on a curve: shifting gradually from one tactical to the next. He’s a fighter with a high floor. At middleweight, that’s kind of where you’d like to be. Just not literally. Especially against Jacare.

Phil: Hermansson is fun and tricky: while I’d hesitate to classify him as a good striker, he’s an active and reasonably dangerous one. Given the closed stance matchup he’s got a nice, consistent jab and leg-kick changeup. Like his brother from another mother Magny, he does some of his best work from the clinch, attacking with knees and elbows, and with a very effective body lock takedown game. He’s showcased some of the nastiest ground and pound in the entire division when he’s taken top position (and given that 185 includes or included both Luke Rockhold and Jacare himself, that’s high praise), with a clever ability to slip his long arms under his opponents armpits while delivering power strikes from the back mount. It’s not a style that I instinctively feel matches up well with Jacare, but if it gets a chance to snowball it’s dangerous enough that it can trouble almost anyone.

Insight from past fights

David: Hermansson’s issues are defensive. Not because his defense is poor, but because his striking is one-note. We think of offense and defense in binary terms, but it’s clearly a continuum. For example, with better movement, and more strike selection, certain strikes wouldn’t be available for opponents. Because he lacks more weapons, he’s very hittable down the middle.

Phil: I used to think that Hermansson’s problem was pretty much just southpaws: lacking his ability to establish his jab, he’s one of those fighters who tends to look a bit lost. However, his fight against Thiago “LHW title challenger” Santos was largely in orthodox, and was, to put it lightly, not one of his best performances. Instead I think it’s perhaps a bit more simple: like many tall fighters, he’s simply not great defensively. If he’s not scaring people off with his shots, then he’s got issues. Jacare is… let’s just say he’s hard to scare.

X-Factors

David: Just the usual: father time, testosterone, and vulgar displays of power.

Phil: Jacare is a hair shy of 40, and he took some absolutely hellacious punishment in his last fight. He’s still a tremendously dangerous fighter, but like Teixeira further down the card, a steep decline is probably in his near future.

Prognostication

David: I can see the case for Hermansson. He’s got enough speed, and sizzle to put Old Yeller down. But I just don’t think he’s ready for this fight. His previous fights haven’t prepared him for the kind of attack Jacare is gonna execute, and to the extent that he’s ready: the basic style clash favors Souza. Jacare Souza by TKO, round 2.

Phil: This is a very scary fight for Hermansson. While Souza is plodding, he’s relentless at tracking down his opponents. His newfound fondness for body punching also spells bad things for a lanky man, so I think an outside striking game won’t work too well for the Swerwegian. Can Hermansson go toe-to-toe(!) with the gator and simply out-offense him? I guess it’s possible, but Hermansson’s dynamism has mainly been confined to ground strikes and subs. It’s not impossible that he hits a crafty takedown, and that Jacare simply doesn’t have the speed to maneuver back to his feet any more… but a way more likely outcome is that Jacare drives him into the fence and either mashes his guts, clubs him over the head, or drags him underwater. Jacare Souza by TKO, round 1.