Author: Jack Slack

Better Strikers Than Ronda Rousey, Part 1: Hisae Watanabe

If you spend any amount of time on an MMA website in your day (and the fact that you’re here suggests that you do), you will likely be unable to avoid seeing “Ronda Rousey: [passing remark made into something bigger]” two or three times a day.
Most rec…

If you spend any amount of time on an MMA website in your day (and the fact that you’re here suggests that you do), you will likely be unable to avoid seeing “Ronda Rousey: [passing remark made into something bigger]” two or three times a day.

Most recently Rousey and her boxing coach have been playing up her striking skills. Every MMA site on the internet put out headlines like “Ronda Rousey: My Striking is the Best in Women’s MMA” and reaped in the rage clicks.

Now in fairness to Rousey, her actual words were that her “MMA striking” is the best in the game. I will let you decide what Rousey meant, she certainly gets to the clinch often enough, but I have been asked how I rate her striking. To that I’ll say that what we’ve seen of it is good. Why shouldn’t it be? She has more money than any other woman in the sport to spend on her training, you would hope she’s improving.

But the standard of striking in women’s MMA is pretty poor across the board because of where it is compared to men’s MMA in terms of pay and prestige. That being said, there have been some dynamite strikers in women’s MMA, and I haven’t done an article about a single one of them, so today I’m starting a new series.

 

Hisae Watanabe

Hisae Watanabe hit the MMA scene around the time that Japan was really starting to aid the development of women’s MMA. Smackgirl (now JEWELS) was a promotion which, much like Invicta in the U.S. today, focused entirely on showcasing female martial arts talent. It had some strange rules which changed throughout it’s life, such as no head strikes on the ground (“No face!”), and a strict limit on grappling time, but it was certainly ahead of the curve in many ways.

What helped Smackgirl enormously was the number of unarguably attractive female fighters in Japan. Which brings us to our glamorous, kickboxing, leopard-print wearing protagonist. Having competed successfully as a kickboxer, Hisae Watanabe debuted in mixed martial arts on a Smackgirl card in 2002. 

Watanabe had something that even most of the ladies whom I will write about in this series don’t have. She could flat out starch people. Even Cris Cyborg tends to win by an overwhelming flurry of powerful blows. “One and done” is pretty darn rare in women’s MMA. 

After a year and a bit of rounding out her skills, plus giving away a couple of submission wins, Watanabe won the Golden Muscle: Strongest Queen tournament in May 2004 by beating three opponents in one night. Two of these opponents she finished in the first round. This cemented her as one of the top female mixed martial artists in the world.

In the meantime Satoko Shinashi, who had beaten Watanabe by heel hook in 2002, won the Smackgirl lightweight title. A rematch was set between the two to decide the DEEP women’s lightweight title and it was set to be the biggest fight in WMMA.

 

Here is how the fight went down:

 

Watanabe laid out her undefeated nemesis, face down, and added a sole loss to Shinashi‘s incredible 21-0-2 record.

After just four more fights, Watanabe retired from mixed martial arts and gave hope to many male fans by marrying a comic book artist rather than another stunningly attractive athlete, as you would expect.

What stands out more than anything about Watanabe is her power and her ability to punch off of the kick. So, so many of her most effective strikes were right straights or hooks as she recovered her foot from a powerful kick to the body, leg or head.

The ability to punch off of a hard kick is a brilliant skill for a fighter to have. Solid kicks force a check or a bracing of stance, which often leaves an opponent as a sitting duck for a punch which otherwise wouldn’t come close. If you have an opponent who has decent defence, or great head movement, the kicks can stand them straight upright and take away much of their defensive savvy. Edson Barboza is a master at this, and it allowed him to catch the elusive Ross Pearson with some hard punches. Without Barboza‘s kicks, Pearson could have slipped punches all night.

Good form is something that many of the ladies I will look at in this series have, but safe technical form is just one approach to the fight game. If you are hitting hard and not getting hit back, you are doing it right, no matter how ugly it looks. One thing which Watanabe does so much better than most women in MMA is to punch from her legs and hips. It makes her technique look wide and open, but it also means that there is incredible weight and force in motion behind each punch.

I hope that I have at least made you a little excited about the many gifted and hard-working strikers out there in women’s MMA who either missed the rise of WMMA or haven’t quite made it yet. Keep an eye on my profile, more of these are coming.

 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Gegard Mousasi Versus Lyoto Machida: The Full Breakdown

As with any Monday morning after a card, fans are looking to outdo each other with declarations of how bored they were by UFC Fight Night 36. Which is fair, because the majority of the card stank.
I think that if a fight journalist can’t say that a car…

As with any Monday morning after a card, fans are looking to outdo each other with declarations of how bored they were by UFC Fight Night 36. Which is fair, because the majority of the card stank.

I think that if a fight journalist can’t say that a card was bad, when it very clearly was, they’re not doing their job. I do not, however, wish to agree with the many fans by saying that this spate of decisions is a direct result of the removal of the UFC’s traditional knockout and submission of the night bonuses.

Frankly, you could have a $15,000 dollar bonus for every finish (in fact, I think the UFC should) and there would still be boring cards. That’s just the way the fight game works: sometimes you’re going to have a dull night.

It was the main event which made the card worth staying up for, though, as Lyoto Machida put on a clinic against Gegard Mousasi. It would be unfair to say that Mousasi was dominated though, he showed glimpses of the ability to beat Machida throughout the bout, he just failed to capitalize on them.

So without further delay, let’s take a look at how the fight played out, what Machida did, and what Mousasi could have done better.

 

Mo’ Fights, Mo’ Ringcraft

The main event, and indeed many on the card, gave us some wonderful insight into the importance of ringcraft (or cage control if you’d like). For instance, Maximo Blanco cut the cage off early against his opponent and landed some wonderful body punches that winded Felipe Arantas. Blanco promptly forgot how he set up the blows and ended up losing the fight, but that instance was a wonderful example of two things we don’t see often enough in the cage.

When Erick Silva met his obvious gimme opponent Takenori Sato (replacement for another gimme opponent, Nate Laughron), ringcraft was again the key.

Sato made the awful error of stalling between the fence and a strong kicker. Against strong kickers a fighter must always be out of range, or moving forward and pressuring. For an example of the first, check out Wanderlei Silva’s uncharacteristic backpedaling to limit the effectiveness of Cung Le’s kicks. The perfect example of the second is, of course, Fedor Emelianenko versus Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic.

Sato did neither. He put the fence behind him and waited for Silva to make the first move. Sato had no ability to move backward and didn’t even attempt to circle off of the fence. It doesn’t matter how good a wrestler you are, or how tough you are, a good kicker in MMA today is going to kick you and start fighting off the takedown while you’re still wincing and grabbing onto the leg in hopes of recovering. 

Here’s the gif courtesy of my friend, Zombie Prophet.

Silva declared in the post fight interview that he had intended to kick Sato with his toes. It’s a little unclear if his kick connected with the ball of the foot or the toe tips, partly because it disappears into Sato‘s abdomen, but were it the toe tips I would be very impressed.

A couple of days ago I wrote a piece about Lyoto Machida and traditional karate, and someone asked me what traditional karate technique I could really see working in the octagon. I replied that I would love to see someone with a well-practiced toe tip kick, though typically these take a long time to develop and condition, not great for professional fighters. Genki Sudo, a fighter who has been in with guys like Duane Ludwig, Albert Kraus and Kid Yamamoto, went to Okinawa after his retirement and trained with some Uechi Ryu stylists there. Apparently upon feeling a toe kick to the abdomen he related that it was unlike anything he had experienced in his fighting career.

Returning to the fight, Sato never had a chance to get going. Winded by the kick, and hanging onto Silva’s leg for dear life, he was pounded to a stoppage on his knees. Silva even threw in some obviously illegal hopping kicks to Sato‘s head while the latter was on his knees. It just goes to show that if you do something with enough confidence you can often get away with it.

 

Machida versus Mousasi

The main event really saved the card for me. Both fighters are known as great striking technicians, but Machida was too much for Mousasi. That is not to say that Mousasi showed no promise, however. 

I discussed last week the method of backing Lyoto Machida up and kicking the trailing leg, and used Mousasi‘s bout with Kyotaro to show that Mousasi had taken advantage of backpedaling with this method before.

Of course Machida and Kyotaro are different fighters, but the principle is identical. No matter how you backpedal, there will always be one leg trailing, leaving striking distance last, and that will be easy to kick. The few occasions on which Mousasi did get Machida retreating and kicked the trailing leg clearly troubled Machida.

Mousasi also showed the ability to cut off the cage well. Much of round two was fought with Machida almost up against the fence. This is exactly the sort of cage cutting which so many of Machida‘s opponents have utterly failed to do.

What this fight really demonstrated, however, was that cutting off the cage often opens a fighter up to more strikes. You cannot cut off the cage / ring from a purely defensive stance, because cutting off the ring is all about using your presence and the threat of strikes to move the opponent. It is often necessary to square up and present more of a target.

Despite having Machida along the fence for much of the fight, Mousasi ate a good few blows on the way in and landed little in return. 

One of the most remarkable things about Machida is that he is a backpedaling fighter, one who draws opponents in, but he is also a kicker. Kicking and backpedaling do not tend to go together, because kicking is such a slow motion (compared to punching) and any forward motion from the opponent during a kick can off-balance a fighter. Much easier to have the opponent sandwiched between you and the fence, as Silva did against Sato.

 

Machida‘s game seemed to be almost the retreating version of Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic‘s. He built a double threat off of his left straight and his left high kick. If Mousasi‘s right hand was ready to parry the left straight, or he was ready to slip past it, he was exposing himself to the high kick. If his hand was high and outside, ready to block the high kick, he was exposed to the left straight.

 

I said at the start that I wasn’t going to pretend that Machida looked invincible. He certainly didn’t. Mousasi was cutting him off and getting him backed up to the fence fairly routinely, albeit while getting beaten up. Sometimes Machida would check the lead hand, attack with his left straight and pivot out behind Mousasi‘s lead leg, which was superb.

But other times Machida would narrowly miss eating a left hook as he circled out unprotected. Circling out naked is exactly what keeps getting Uriah Hall into trouble against opponents who notice his habit to circle around with his back to the fence and his hands down. 

Possible future opponent Chris Weidman is well aware of this kind of flaw: He was the one who exposed it in Hall after all.

The idea of pressure being the key to beating Machida has always been a questionable one in my view. It seems as though a much more favourable method is simply kicking the trailing leg until he is forced to come forward, then fighting on the counter against Machida. The more pressure a fighter applies, the more they eat counter attacks.

Compare Machida‘s performance against Dan Henderson, a fighter who really couldn’t cut off the cage at all, to his bout with Mousasi. Henderson is not a better technician on the feet than Mousasi, but he got hit less. The more you show Machida, the more he’ll hit.

One thing is for certain following this fight, however. Gegard Mousasi can take a shot like few others. Folks are focusing on this shin he caught to the head and shrugged off.

What really highlighted the strength of Mousasi‘s dome to me, however was this kick. (Notice Machida’s left hand dragging Mousasi’s right too).

That is a kick with the ball of the foot, koshi in Japanese, to the chin. It’s the end of Machida‘s leg, it’s a hard striking surface, and it’s connecting with the point of Mousasi‘s chin. By all rights that should have knocked Mousasi out. Maybe there is something to Mousasi‘s terrible posture?

Coming out of this fight, I think it’s fair to say that Machida‘s change in weightclass is working out well for him. Reach and length were never an issue for him, he fights at a distance which exceeds even the 84″ reach of Jon Jones. It was his wrestling that troubled him, and simply being worked out by Jones and Rua. At a weight class where he has a bit more strength to fight off the wrestlers, Machida seems to be doing some of his best work.

For Mousasi‘s part, he showed some of his highly touted potential. He’s had a year off, not to mention an enormous jump up in competition. He is a fighter who benefits enormously from the kind of activity he showed through 2008 and 2009, fighting frequently. If he can hold off the injuries and get some more fights under his belt, there’s no reason to write him off as a force in the middleweight division just yet

Pick up Jack’s eBooks Advanced Striking and Elementary Striking from his blog, Fights Gone By. Jack can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Lyoto Machida: Old-School Karate

I’ve written plenty about Lyoto Machida’s karate over the past two years, but I thought we would try something different.
I usually speak at length about Machida’s striking style, which is very much influenced by tournament karate and indeed Japanese k…

I’ve written plenty about Lyoto Machida‘s karate over the past two years, but I thought we would try something different.

I usually speak at length about Machida‘s striking style, which is very much influenced by tournament karate and indeed Japanese karate. Shotokan is, after all, considered a Japanese style of karate rather than an Okinawan one. 

The differences are many, but among the most obvious are that Japanese styles (Wado-Ryu, Shotokan, Kyokushin and its variants) tend to focus more on repping out basic techniques and practising kata (forms) into infinity.

They use longer stances and tend to be more about pure striking than self-defence. This is for the simple reason that when Gichin Funakoshi (the founder of Shotokan) went to mainland Japan from Okinawa, he found himself teaching high-ranking judoka at the request of Jigoro Kano (the founder of judo).

Not wanting to teach simple throws and grapples to guys who had spent years turning that into an art form and having to teach in the regimented environment that the Japanese love, Funakoshi‘s karate became less Okinawan and more like it is today. Looking at Shotokan next to more traditional Okinawan styles such as Goju-ryu and Uechi-Ryu, they are starkly contrasted.

The truth of it is that real karate, as in the original applications (or bunkai) of the forms, is not going to win you many tournaments. Karate developed from the citizens of a disarmed Japanese colony’s need to defend themselves from attackers in self-defence scenarios, not the need to fight off samurai or other trained martial artists.

Old-school karate, the kind found in decent applications of kata, is pretty much all about grabbing at the crotch, headbutting and breaking free of grabs or defending basic street-attacker-style swings.

That said, Machida himself has shown some slick little techniques that hark right back to the old days of rough and tumble karate.

I am a firm believer that many (though not all) old, traditional techniques that look ridiculous can be reconfigured and given an appropriate setup to make them effective. Hell, Anthony Pettis‘ Showtime kick should have made us all a little more open-minded—that was straight out of a kung fu movie.

Today we’ll look at one ugly, simple, wooden old-school karate technique that Machida has demonstrated successfully in the Octagon.

 

The Wedge Throw 

This technique is sometimes referred to as sukui-nage, which means scooping throw, but there are already two throws in judo which are known as sukui-nage…so let’s not confuse things further. For now I’m just going to call it the wedge throw.

Before we go on, I know some of you are curious so here are the two sukui nage from judo.

The first is the traditional version.

The second is the one that proved more practical.

Now onto the throw that I’m talking about. It’s different from those two, but more akin to the first.

The idea of stepping behind the opponent’s lead leg so that the inner thigh is high on his outside thigh, then dumping him over that leg, is an incredibly old-school move. Pretty much any time you see a downward block (gedan-barai/gedan uke) in a karate kata, it can be applied as scooping the opponent over that lead leg. Indeed this is much of what Gichin Funakoshi taught himself.

Here it is demonstrated in the eccentric Shigeru Egami‘s book, The Heart of Karate Do, as an application of a basic downward block. Egami was one of Funakoshi‘s original students, but became gradually more eccentric after Funakoshi‘s passing.

Now of course, in a fist fight in the pub or a dark alley, the opportunities to dump someone over your lead leg are going to be more forthcoming than against a professional fighter in his well-practised stance. Heck, plenty of altercations at a bar see one or both men trip over themselves while throwing punches anyway. 

So here is how the Japan Karate Association thought this technique could be best applied against an opponent in a stance during a kumite match.

Yep, that is the legendary Keinosuke Enoeda, and no there isn’t much tact to it. You dive in deep, and they fall over or they don’t. Most of the time they didn’t. Watching back any old kumite match, it’s the usual skittish trading of reverse punches and running. Not much of this being applied at all.

Here’s Seiji Nishimura, a living karate manual and coach of the Japanese team, demonstrating a much more sensible application of the same technique, in counter to an opponent’s attack. And not some BS stepping punch either—the kind of jab you might see in competition or in any combat sport. Even then, however, you would be hard-pressed to find examples of it in high-level karate competition. 

Even Mas Oyama, known for founding a style of karate that was all about striking and not so much about old-school self-defence techniques, became enamoured with techniques like this in his later life. In Advanced Karate (an incredibly hard book to find in English and one which I am very luck to own), Oyama demonstrates dozens of variations of this simple step behind and bail them over-type throw.

Here’s one over the arm, as in traditional applications.

And here’s one under the arm, as has proven to be more applicable against decent strikers. Notice Oyama takes the leg as well in this variation. Advanced Karate contains hundreds of pages of this sort of stuff, the stuff which Oyama really isn’t associated with.

Now here’s Lyoto Machida, showing a beautiful application of it. His opponent kicks, Machida parries it across the body (always the smartest option in any martial art) and steps in behind it, already in position to dump his opponent over the lead leg. I’m getting excited just watching it.

Still, that’s a karateka at a local competition. They don’t have great throws. What about against Kazuhiro Nakamura? That guy was a student of Olympic gold-medal-winning judoka, Hidehiko Yoshida.

So what made the difference? How did this old-school technique designed to unbalance attackers in self-defence situations become an effective takedown in MMA? The clue is in the name I gave it at the start of the article: the wedge.

The problem with old martial arts techniques is the same as any technique: How are you going to get into position to do it?

Nobody is going to attack you with a stepping punch and allow you to use an upper rising block to smack it upward, then let you start your technique as Oyama did above. But change that stepping punch to the more popular jab or right straight, and the block to a driving arm or elbow used to parry the blow and enter in behind, and you’re on to something.

Throughout the fight Nakamura kept throwing his powerful right hand and looking to step into the clinch. By both committing to a swing and bringing his feet close together in order to enter a clinch, Nakamura gave Machida the perfect opportunity to drive in behind his elbow and hit the wedge throw. 

Now this trip is, in traditional karate, considered an application of downward blocks, but also just about any time a chest level “hammer-fist” is thrown out in a karate kata, it’s safe to assume that there is more going on there.

Gojushiho/Useishi/Hotaku is a kata that appears in many styles of karate and features a similar throw as well as headbutts and all sorts of other slick nastiness. If you’re a karateka and all you’re doing is repping out the moves in the air, go have a think about some of the cooler stuff you can do with the motions you’re practising instead of just assaulting your own personal space.

Now is the lesson here that traditional karateka are awesome fighters and can easily throw judoka? God, no.

Karate, like all traditional martial arts, has a lot of catching up to do. The lesson is simply that it is always worth looking into the techniques of various traditional martial arts. Funakoshi himself said, “Look to the old to understand the new.” 

For a long time simple high kicks were thought too risky to attempt in MMA. Wrist locks were scoffed at in Brazilian jiu-jitsu as aikido nonsense for a while, then as cheesy one-off tactics for a while.

Now Claudio Calasans is snapping the wrist joints of people who fail to respect the threat. Marcelo Garcia even sets up the previously unappreciated north-south choke off of the threat of a wrist lock. And how many of us would have thought that the big problem against Jon Jones, an excellent wrestler, would be getting past the Bruce Lee side kick to the knee?

Old techniques will keep coming back in new formats, because there’s nothing new under the sun. The trick is getting them to work against what is the combat sports norm.

 

Pick up Jack’s eBooks Advanced Striking and Elementary Striking from his blog, Fights Gone By. Jack can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Gegard Mousasi in 5 Moments

Gegard Mousasi just isn’t as well known as he should be.
Despite being considered one of the better fighters in whichever division he chooses to compete in, he just hasn’t made a big name for himself among UFC fans yet. From Pride to DREAM to Stri…

Gegard Mousasi just isn’t as well known as he should be.

Despite being considered one of the better fighters in whichever division he chooses to compete in, he just hasn’t made a big name for himself among UFC fans yet. From Pride to DREAM to Strikeforce, Mousasi has fought and finished some of the best fighters out there, but to fans who only follow the Ultimate Fighting Championship, he is still something of an unknown.

Recently, I took an in-depth look at Mousasi’s technical habits; here, I’m going to give a quick introduction to his bouts and some of his accomplishments.

 

Hector Lombard: Pride Bushido 13, November 5, 2006

If you’re just getting to know Mousasi, a sensible place to start might be this bout. He did not look much like the fighter he would become, and neither did Lombard, but a few things have remained constant.

First, Lombard is a strong judo player and always has been. He was able to get Mousasi to the floor several times throughout the bout, but Mousasi’s ground game proved too wily as he managed to escape or claim top position several times.

Second, Lombard can punch. Even before he went on his tear in Bellator, he was a frighteningly hard hitter. One thing that this fight proved more than any other is that when Mousasi’s polished striking isn’t there, his chin remains. And what a chin it is.

Mousasi gritted through an even fight, and his grappling chops picked him up a close decision.

 

Denis Kang: DREAM 2, April 29, 2008

After the dissolution of Pride, Mousasi fought all over the place through 2007—in Canada, the Netherlands and United Kingdom, he and didn’t pick up a single loss. In 2008 he was invited back to Japan by the new DREAM organization in order to take part in its middleweight grand prix.

Unlike DREAM’s later events, this one was stacked with talented fighters, and in the first round, Mousasi was matched against the formidable Denis Kang.

Kang had something of a similar career to Mousasi, maintaining a relentless schedule and building up an incredible record, but he was invited to the UFC far later than he deserved to be. In 23 fights from April 2003 to November 2006, he didn’t lose a single one. Mousasi was considered a remarkably active fighter, but his fight frequency had never been anywhere close to that.

The fight was all Kang in the early going.

There was a quick exchange on the feet and then a takedown, with Kang working to pass the half guard and eventually locking a kimura grip from side control. Mousasi found himself defending the kimura and attempting to knee Kang in the head from the bottom. Mousasi scrambled back to guard and attacked with his famous upkicks (something I discussed at length in the technical article). As Kang ducked in under one of these upkicks, he got locked into a triangle choke, which ended the bout.

Survival and opportunism were going to become Mousasi’s defining traits in the tournament.

 

Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza: DREAM 6, September 23, 2008

Mousasi worked his way through Yoon Dong Sik at DREAM 4, narrowly avoiding being submitted by the famous “Dong bar.” Then he took an easy win over kickboxer Melvin Manhoef in his first fight at DREAM 6. His second of the night was against fellow tournament finalist Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza.

In similar fashion to Mousasi, Jacare had finished his first bout of the night in 90 seconds by submitting Zelg Galesic. 

A true jiu-jitsu master, Jacare had looked incredible through the tournament, and by the minute mark of the bout, he had slammed Mousasi to the mat. Despite Jacare’s grappling credentials, Mousasi was able to hold the Brazilian up in half guard for long enough that Jacare decided to stand and then dive back in with strikes.

As Jacare jumped back in, he was hit with one of Mousasi’s fearsome upkicks and knocked out cold. Mousasi became the Dream middleweight champion and was considered by many to be the breakout fighter of 2008.

 

Renato “Babalu” Sobral: Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg, August 15, 2009

In his Strikeforce debut, Mousasi met the wily veteran Renato “Babalu” Sobral. Babalu had been dismissed from the UFC for holding a choke too long in his victory over David Heath. In the aftermath, he together a five-fight streak and won the Strikeforce title.

He seemed like a great test for Mousasi, and the matchup appeared to be an exciting one when it was announced. In fact Mousasi was so on point that it was almost underwhelming. In one minute, he starched the Brazilian veteran from inside the guard.

What seemed like a great matchup of world-class fighters turned out to be a comical mismatch. It certainly didn’t help Strikeforce that in the next bout of the night, women’s MMA poster girl and Strikeforce breadwinner Gina Carano was just as outmatched by “Cyborg” Santos.

 

Kyotaro: Dynamite!! 2010, December, 31 2010

Japanese New Year’s Eve events always involve a cross-over between MMA and kickboxing. This could mean a K-1 star taking an ill-fated MMA match or an MMA fighter taking a kickboxing match. Just three weeks after the K-1 Grand Prix, Mousasi signed to fight Japanese kickboxer Kyotaro.

In fairness to Kyotaro, he had fought Semmy Schilt three weeks earlier, was underprepared and overtrained, and he didn’t do himself justice at all. But he uses the same methods in every bout, backpedaling until he can convince his opponent to run onto his tremendous right hand.

Mousasi defused this beautifully and outpointed Kyotaro to the extent that the kickboxer got overaggressive, and Mousasi was able to knock down the K-1 heavyweight champion.

It didn’t mean much, given the circumstances, but because of the similarities in methodology between Kyotaro and Machida, and because it is one of Mousasi’s better showings on the feet, it is worth checking out.

 

Bonus Fight: Fedor Emelianenko vs. Mousasi Exhibition

This one is always worth a watch.

Pick up Jack’s eBooks Advanced Striking and Elementary Striking from his blog, Fights Gone By. Jack can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson vs. the UFC Light Heavyweight Division

Anthony “Rumble” Johnson has been at the centre of a whole heap of criticism throughout his career. With the announcement that he will return to the UFC against Phil Davis, many are still critical of his chances as a UFC light heavyweight.
In terms of…

Anthony “Rumble” Johnson has been at the centre of a whole heap of criticism throughout his career. With the announcement that he will return to the UFC against Phil Davis, many are still critical of his chances as a UFC light heavyweight.

In terms of physical ability and God-given talent, there aren’t many who can contend with him at any weight. But then again, weight has always been the issue. 

In between collapsing after weigh-ins, missing weight and gassing out as soon as his fights got past the midpoint of the second round, Johnson has posted a hit-and-miss record in his UFC tenure. Johnson’s repeated trouble making his severe weight cuts has developed into a running gag about him fighting at “rumbleweight.”

Most recently, Johnson, a former welterweight, has competed at light heavyweight and even heavyweight. It seems as though Johnson has found a place at light heavyweight and has abandoned the enormous size advantage that he formerly enjoyed in favour of actually being able to fight the full number of rounds.

Let’s examine Rumble and ask: How does he stack up against the UFC light heavyweight division?

 

Original UFC Run

Rumble’s original UFC run was equal parts terrifying and disappointing. If you need help understanding just why a fighter would go to such extreme lengths in weight cutting, I heartily recommend you watch his fight against Charlie Brenneman.

Brenneman is a great grinder who has solid takedowns, but he could do nothing against Rumble, who appeared to dwarf him in stature. Johnson manhandled Brenneman before landing a brutal high kick to end the fight. If you struggle to understand why fighters make the cuts, do the diets and ultimately risk a 20 percent cut of their purse if they come in overweight, that fight should tell you everything.

In 2009, Johnson was on a streak of three wins when he took arguably the biggest fight of his career against Josh Koscheck. The early part of the fight saw Johnson working Koscheck over with kicks and punches and sprawling on the accomplished wrestler with ease. Koscheck‘s savvy showed through, however, as he milked an illegal knee that he suffered while on the ground, then gouged Johnson’s eyes twice and forced Johnson into a less aggressive game. Johnson appeared to be getting tired, as he is wont to do, and Koscheck got a takedown and picked up a submission by rear-naked choke.

Even considering Johnson’s successes at welterweight, he was still facing heavy criticism over his severe weight cuts. Against Yoshiyuki Yoshida, Johnson starched his man in under a minute but still lost 20 percent of his purse and missed out on the Knockout of the Night bonus, both due to coming in overweight. While he had nowhere near the number of problems that John Lineker has had making weight, it was generally thought that Johnson did not belong at welterweight.

In January of 2012, Johnson moved up to middleweight (185 pounds) for what would be his last fight in the UFC at the time, against Vitor Belfort. Despite having to cut 15 pounds fewer than he would have had to at welterweight, Johnson came in at a whopping, and embarrassing, 204 pounds. Belfort had not fought anyone who would test his takedown defence in a long time, and Johnson looked to be giving the Brazilian problems with his takedowns.

It was obvious that Rumble was not in shape, however, and he was breathing heavy by the two-minute mark. Combining that with some of the shadiest stand-ups from guard that I have ever seen, Johnson was a dead man walking by the four-minute mark. Belfort got Johnson’s back and choked him out, whereupon Johnson was promptly released from the UFC.

 

Rumbleweight Champion of the World

Since Johnson’s initial release, weight-cutting dramas have not altogether subsided. He weighed in at 194 pounds for his 185-pound bout against David Branch. Though he picked up the decision, it was not impressive.

Recently, however, Johnson has competed exclusively at light heavyweight and heavyweight and has put together some decent results. Most recently, he decisioned Andrei Arlovski and handily starched Mike Kyle. 

Tuesday morning, Dana White announced via his official Twitter account that Johnson would return against Phil Davis.

 So this raises the question:

Does Rumble deserve to be back in the UFC, and how does he stack up against the UFC light heavyweight division?

My answer to the first part is an emphatic yes. Why not? There are many worse fighters in the UFC than Johnson, and as long as he is fighting at a realistic weight and not threatening cards or gassing out in a round-and-a-half, he deserves another chance on the big stage.

With regard to the rest of the UFC light heavyweight division? It’s an interesting one. Blasting a chinny Mike Kyle is one thing, but isn’t the UFC the home of the big dogs?

Certainly, there are plenty of fighters out there that Rumble could likely beat by merit of his wrestling and heavy hands alone. Rafael Feijao, James Te Huna, Thiago Silva or Ryan Bader seem like fair tests for Johnson. Those are also entertaining matchups, which could spice up any card. At a push, he could lay all over Mauricio Rua or Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, both of whom hate strong wrestlers.

The interesting questions come when you ask how good Rumble’s wrestling is without an enormous size advantage. Phil Davis, his scheduled opponent, could be a nightmare matchup for Johnson. A strong kicker and wrestler, he’s kind of like a mirror image of Johnson, but with much better cardio and real experience at light heavyweight.  

Rashad Evans, with his elite wrestling, heavy hands, edge in speed and championship-level experience, is also just a nightmare matchup for Johnson. 

How about Glover Teixeira? He’s a guy who only knows one way to fight, and that is the kind of fight that Rumble has traditionally liked. Fast, furious and normally done in the first round. Glover’s size, power and timing could cause Rumble nightmares, but he’s the highest-ranked opponent I could see Rumble having a good shot at beating, albeit in an ugly fight, at present.

Lyoto Machida is a pretty horrible matchup for Johnson. While Johnson’s great low-kicking game could trouble Machida, his hyperactive behaviour in the early rounds would work to his disadvantage. Since Machida loves to sit back and let his opponents flail for a while, this would be a fight where Rumble could easily gas himself out while accomplishing little. In a three-round fight, Rumble could pull it off, but in a five-round fight? I doubt it.

A match with Jimi Manuwa or Alexander Gustafsson could turn into a snoozer. Both can defend themselves adequately from takedowns and ground offence, but I don’t know if they could stop Johnson from getting to the clinch and leaning on them each time. We could just see two reruns of Manuwa versus Jimmo, as one man fights off takedowns and the other offers little else.

Finally, Jon Jones. This fight interests me even though it’s stupidly premature to be talking about it. Jones’ command of long-range engagements and his excellent clinch game have long convinced me that a wrestler with a strong kicking game could give him some trouble, and Johnson is certainly one of those fighters. Johnson’s 78″ reach is greater than some of those whom Jones has troubled at range, too. But Jones is excellent at side-stepping or jamming charges; just watch his bouts with Vitor Belfort and Quinton Jackson.

Jones is an attrition fighter, and Johnson is a fighter who is nowhere near as effective by Round 3 as he was in Round 1. Despite Rumble’s kicking game, heavy hands and strong wrestling, Jones is a nasty matchup for him.

 

Conclusions

Frankly, if I had my way, everyone with even a chance at being a great fighter would be in the UFC. From Ben Askren and Jon Fitch to Rumble Johnson.

Realistically, though, this is a spectator sport. Nothing is worse for the UFC as a spectacle than having Ben Askren or Jon Fitch grinding out uneventful decisions, and little is worse for the UFC as a sport than having Rumble or John Lineker coming in 10 or 20 pounds overweight and obliterating much smaller opponents.

Now that Johnson has proven that he can put on great fights with no weigh-in drama, no mid-fight cardio crash and an impressive finish, there is little reason to question his return. The light heavyweight division can always use some new blood with the rate that Jon Jones is going through title defences, and if that new blood is an exciting finisher like Johnson, all the better.

 

Pick up Jack’s eBooks Advanced Striking and Elementary Striking from his blog, Fights Gone By. Jack can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC 169: How Renan Barao Defended the Crown

I am not into the “Urijah Faber is so close to greatness” narrative. In my book, and in the opinion of most who watched his featherweight performances in the WEC where he basically held the division up, he has already more than proven himself.
At UFC 1…

I am not into the “Urijah Faber is so close to greatness” narrative. In my book, and in the opinion of most who watched his featherweight performances in the WEC where he basically held the division up, he has already more than proven himself.

At UFC 169, however, Faber came up short once again in his quest to gain the UFC belt which has eluded him since the WEC was merged into the UFC. Let’s take a look at how the fight went down.

Coming into this title bout, much was made of Faber’s improvement on the feet under coach Duane Ludwig. But even the best coach can only do so much in a relatively short time with a fighter who is well into his career and is set in his ways.

In Faber’s last two fights, there was little present which wasn’t there before. Timing the right hand over the top, an absence of left-handed strikes, it was the same Faber, still capable of crushing everyone but the truly elite.

The opening of the bout showed more movement from Faber and, to his credit, he was not standing directly in front of Barao in kicking range as he did throughout their first bout and his bout with Aldo. As the fight progressed, it was the usual Faber, though, and he showed little for Barao to worry about until the stoppage, though it could have been considered a strange point to stop the fight.

Something which I regret not including in my short piece on Renan Barao before the fight (time constraints prevented a complete “Killing the King”) was the idea of pinning an opponent in place with low kicks. Now if you punt an opponent’s leg out of his stance, he is stuck in one place while you are able to run in on him, but if he checks the kick, he isn’t in much better position.

There is no one in the world who can box off of one leg. A few guys can punch off of one leg, Benson Henderson and Yodsanklai Fairtex do it all the time when their kicks are caught, but few can defend against punches nearly so well when they are checking kicks. When one leg is off of the mat, a fighter has no means to control distance and evade strikes. 

Think about how many men Dan Henderson has held in place for that headache maker of a right hand with stumpy inside low kicks alone. It’s not the most subtle set up, but you either check it or you eat it, and both make it hard to run away from the right hand.

The watershed moment in this bout came as Faber was caught with a hard outside low kick to his lead leg, attempted to check the next one but instead was punched in the chops with a long right straight as he stood on one leg.

Now this rooting the opponent to the ground by forcing him to lift a leg is something which I had hoped we would see from Faber. In the first bout between Faber and Barao, Faber was actually very effective with an inside low kick against Barao. This chopped away at Barao’s stance or forced Barao to check. The problem was that Faber never followed up.

In their rematch at UFC 169, Faber failed to follow up on the same success. He landed decently with a few inside low kicks, and he mucked around with Barao’s stance and ability to move for an instance each time he did so. But rather than use that opportunity to follow up on the kick by planting his lead foot and start punching after he had kicked, Faber simply kicked or punched.

His actions were predictable, and each time he ran in with a flurry, there was absolutely no reason for Barao to be stood there.

As a general rule, if an opponent is not:

1. backed up to the fence or ropes

2. moving in or

3. on one leg or off balance from a trip or kick…

There is absolutely no reason for him to not simply move out of the way when you rush him.

On a similar note to all this low-kicking-into-punches stuff: In the co-main event, Ricardo Lamas attempted low kicks against Jose Aldo, and Aldo checked almost every one. You can’t expect to land naked kicks on a guy like Aldo or Barao, but a fighter can and should try to get in behind those kicks and land some punches while the checking fighter is on one leg or recovering.

Urijah Faber has all the talent in the world. And he has a brilliant coach and camp. He just needs to sit down, watch the tape and decide whether he wants to keep working kickboxing with an elite kickboxer if he intends to simply run in with overhand rights when fight time comes.

Pick up Jack’s eBooks Advanced Striking and Elementary Striking from his blog, Fights Gone By. Jack can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com