Author: Jack Slack

Can Urijah Faber Kill the King?

Urijah Faber deserves the respect of everyone south of 155lbs.
There was a long time when the featherweight division was just him and Kid Yamamoto putting together highlight reels on opposite sides of the globe. While the UFC’s first featherweight cham…

Urijah Faber deserves the respect of everyone south of 155lbs.

There was a long time when the featherweight division was just him and Kid Yamamoto putting together highlight reels on opposite sides of the globe. While the UFC’s first featherweight champion was Jose Aldo, no one is more responsible for the success of the featherweight division, and its reputation for excitement, than Urijah Faber.

Since being dethroned in the WEC by Mike Brown, Faber has been on campaign after campaign to gain another world title, but has fallen at the last hurdle each and every time. With his old nemesis, Dominick Cruz, dropping out of a bantamweight unification bout with Renan Barao, Faber has stepped up at short notice to rematch Barao for what could be the last time.

In traditional Faber fashion, he has decimated every contender put in front of him up to this title fight. Yet it seems highly unlikely that Faber will get another shot at bantamweight gold should he lose this fight and Barao remain the champion for some time.

So without further delay, let’s take a look at their first bout and what Faber could do to perhaps get the better of the Brazilian champion.

 

Distance and Movement

Faber’s first bout with Barao showed many of the same tendencies which his matches with Jose Aldo and Dominick Cruz did. Urijah Faber has real trouble using appropriate distance against decent strikers.

What Faber does so well is to run in on his opponents with his right hand, or to get them chasing him, then stop and throw his right hand over the top. It has always been that way. His finish of Michael McDonald is being praised as a rebirth for Faber, but really the counter right hand which won him the bout wasn’t far removed from the one he hurt Eddie Wineland with. If you chase Urijah Faber, he’s going to stop and chuck a right hand over the top, and it’s probably going to knock you down.

What Faber doesn’t deal well with is an opponent whom he can’t simply run in on, but who won’t chase him and give him these opportunities to fire over the top. Men like Jose Aldo and Renan Barao.

The thing about strong kickers is that you have to always be too far away for them to kick you, or too close for them to kick you without risking being bundled over or hit. It seems strange to point to Wanderlei Silva for an example of strategic excellence, but his bout with Cung Le demonstrated this amply. 

Instead, Faber moves around a little bit, then stands straight in front of his opponent, in a range where he cannot reach them with his right hook, but they can reach him with their kicks and jab. It was almost identical in the Barao and Aldo fights.

 

No Left Hand

This is a real problem for Faber. It is one thing to be a puncher trying to fight strong kickers, but if you only have one hand with which you can land with any dexterity, you are going to have a really hard time getting there.

Nowhere is this more noticeable than against strong kickers like Aldo and Barao. He will park himself in front of them and extend his right hand to check their left. This is an awesome little trick if you have a killer jab like George Foreman, or a slick-leaping left hook and left uppercut like Roy Jones Jr. If all of your power punches come off of your right side, however, and your right hand is extended to check, you have put yourself in a purely defensive position.

Really the only thing which Faber can do from this right hand extended, checking position is to pick up his left leg for a teep (push kick). This is actually a pretty good idea against strong kickers, most folks know that when someone is on one leg, or initiating a kick, you need only give them a slight nudge and it will knock them right out of the kick and perhaps to the floor. Indeed, Faber was able to knock Barao to the floor with a well-timed teep.

 

Deep Stance

This brings us to something else which works against Faber in his fights against strong kickers. It’s certainly not a mistake but rather preference. Faber fights in a very wide crouch, ready to throw his right hand or shoot in at his opponent’s hips. As a result, he struggles to get his leg up to check kicks in time and those teeps we talked about a minute ago are much slower, more telegraphed and more laboured than any you would see a fighter in a higher stance throw.

Notice in this instance how Faber sees a kick coming, raises his leg to check, but is in such a deep, side on stance that his check is simply kicked across his body rather than acting as a barrier.

 

Conclusions

Time constraints have prevented me from researching and writing a full “Killing the King: Renan Barao” but I hope to have pointed to some of the factors which gave Faber such a hard time in their last meeting.

Renan Barao is far from without weaknesses though. Eddie Wineland boxed him up nicely in the first round of their fight before getting knocked out by a breathtaking back kick. 

One of the best thing which Faber could do for this bout, and for his career as a whole, is to develop a solid counter left hook. Everyone he fights is just looking out for the one hand at present, and he has so much opportunity to work with the other side.

Renan Barao has one of the finest jabs that I have seen in MMA, and slick kicks, but every time he throws his right hand he descends into wide swings with his chin up and his hands away from his face. Faber, or any other strong puncher, stands a decent chance in simply performing catch-and-pitch style defence. Covering up and returning fire as Barao opens up. For a textbook example of this, check out Quinton Jackson versus Wanderlei Silva III.

Whoever wins at UFC 169, it promises to be a fantastic event and is probably the strongest card of the year so far. Don’t miss it, and watch out for these tells in Faber’s game.

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

Andy Hug: The Greatest Kicker of All Time

Last week I wrote a short piece called The One Minute Rivalry. It was about the rivalry between Andy Hug and Patrick Smith.
This week I thought I’d have some fun with all the old K-1 footage I looked through. Hug might just have been the best kicker to…

Last week I wrote a short piece called The One Minute Rivalry. It was about the rivalry between Andy Hug and Patrick Smith.

This week I thought I’d have some fun with all the old K-1 footage I looked through. Hug might just have been the best kicker to ever compete in combat sports, so he’s definitely worth a watch.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Is Luke Rockhold Ready for a Rematch with Vitor Belfort?

Luke Rockhold returned to form with a spectacular destruction of the dangerous Costas Philippou on Wednesday night. Afterward, Rockhold announced his desire for a bout with Michael Bisping and a rematch with Vitor Belfort.
Challenging Bisping…

Luke Rockhold returned to form with a spectacular destruction of the dangerous Costas Philippou on Wednesday night. Afterward, Rockhold announced his desire for a bout with Michael Bisping and a rematch with Vitor Belfort.

Challenging Bisping is a win-win. He’ll sell the fight for you, it’s almost guaranteed to be the co-main event, and Bisping will be returning from a long layoff due to injury and might not regain anything like his form in previous bouts.

If you want attention, call out someone you’ll never have to fight: Roy Jones or someone in a different weight class. If you want to call out someone and actually fight him, someone coming off a layoff is the best bet because he will engage you in Twitter beef just to keep his name in the spotlight.

But enough of my cynicism. Let’s talk about Rockhold’s showing on Wednesday and the question of Belfort.

 

What Did Rockhold Show Us Against Philippou?

Luke Rockhold looked sublime at Fight Night 35 as he walked down Philippou, kept the Cyprian along the cage and generally looked like he was the boss. Philippou’s sole notable moment of offence came as he lunged in at Rockhold, and the latter skipped back with a tight southpaw right hook in counter that dropped Philippou.

This is just standard Rockhold. He backs his opponent toward the fence, and if he circles to his left, Rockhold throws the round kick. If his opponent circles right, he throws the back kick, and if he comes forward, Rockhold moves back and throws the counter right hook. 

Using John Madden-esque draw-on-screen technology, here is Rockhold in a nutshell.

  1. Opponent circles to his own right, Rockhold intercepts with left round kick.
  2. Opponent circles to his own left, Rockhold intercepts with left back kick.
  3. Opponent rushes Rockhold, Rockhold retreats (leading with left foot) and throws counter right hook.

Rockhold does different stuff in bouts, obviously, but most good offensive fighters have a technique they favour in response to one direction of movement. We could do the same thing in breaking down the techniques of Matt Brown, Jon Jones or Anthony Pettis.

Back to that counter right hook. Rockhold showed it to Philippou seven or eight times in flinching and making it clear that this was his intended counter before Philippou actually committed. Philippou finally committed anyway and ate the hook.

From there on it was all downhill for Philippou as he was almost always backed into the fence and ate hard kicks to the body (including a kick once he hit the ground) that ended the bout.

Has Rockhold improved? Maybe. But he was given the type of fight he likes. Rockhold was the aggressor, and any time his opponent came forward, it was slow enough that Rockhold could back straight up the same way and throw his counter right hook.

 

The Standard Method of Troubling Belfort

Now Belfort isn’t a strategic magician. He comes in on a straight line and doesn’t really move his head, but his form is crisp and he’s as fast as anyone in the business.

If you back straight up against Belfort, you’re going to have a really bad time. It is not worth risking getting hit by one punch, then another one and then more just to try and land a good countershot on someone who is fast enough to tighten up openings through speed alone.

What is needed to beat Belfort is a fighter who is able to step off that line of attack. Even Anderson Silva, who loves that retreating right hook that is Rockhold’s forte, had to leave this line to escape Belfort.

Here is Jon Jones leaving the line in his own way with the same effect. Belfort can only punch fast enough to leave no openings and overwhelm folks for so long, and he has a habit of mentally shutting down when the fight isn’t going his way. Sidestepping his rushes cannot be overstated; it is vital for anyone fighting against him to be able to pivot off like this.

The other thing that does Belfort in is facing a fighter who can jam his charges with a stiff kick.

We’re not talking a lazy teep just to tick a box—the kind you’ll occasionally see Urijah Faber attempt—but instead a Jon Jones side kick, or the back kick that Kazushi Sakuraba broke Belfort down with a decade earlier. Belfort can keep getting better at what he does, but as long as it is coming in on a straight line, the same stuff will always be the key.

Distance is the key against Belfort, but if you have no means of keeping it, he’s just going to swarm all over you.

 

Does Rockhold Have It in Him?

Fighting as he does now? Probably not.

Not an awful lot had happened in the first fight between Belfort and Rockhold before the huge spinning kick landed and ended the bout, but enough had happened to show that Belfort is a nightmare matchup for Rockhold.

Rockhold came out and did his usual bigger-man part, attempting to pressure Belfort toward the fence. Belfort might not be varied in his offence, but he knows how to circle out. Where Costas Philippou was backing himself onto the cage from the start last night, Belfort was having none of it. Rockhold was visibly stifled within the opening minute of the bout.

Rockhold couldn’t pressure Belfort toward the fence and make him circle into kicks, and the more Belfort circled away from Rockhold’s left leg, the more clueless Rockhold looked.

By the two-minute mark, Rockhold was willing to shoot a takedown from far too great a distance to do anything of use, and then he was on the fence himself. Before he knew it, Rockhold was between Belfort and the fence with nowhere to go (as he always moves straight backward) and ate the wheel kick that put him to sleep.

With all that being said, Rockhold does have the tools necessary to give Belfort fits—he just doesn’t like to use them so much as his usual methods. 

On the subject of sidestepping the rush, Rockhold was able to reverse positions on Belfort nicely during one of Belfort’s attempts at a flurry along the fence. This, more than attempting to back straight up, is the way to defuse the horrible danger of getting caught on the end of a Belfort flurry.

Rockhold also showed a nice back kick that Belfort ate in the bread basket as Belfort continued to circle toward it through the fight.

But Rockhold threw it once. Sakuraba had incredible success with long back kicks in this manner against Belfort a decade ago, and since he’s such a hyper-aggressive fighter, they work just as well on him now. Jones’ stumping of Belfort came from keeping “The Phenom” at the end of his leg and winding him with kicks as well.

To conclude, Rockhold has shown the technical components necessary to be a stylistic nightmare for Belfort. Unfortunately, Rockhold’s preferred method of fighting is just unlikely to cut it against Belfort. Beating fighters who will engage you exactly the way you want them to is not showing improvement—it just shows that you’re still good at what you always were good at.

 

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

The One-Minute Rivalry

A fight is always greater than the sum of its components.
On the surface, it is just two (or occasionally more) men in a ring, swinging at each other. In truth, though, it is the months of preparation that both men have made, the sacrifices in each man…

A fight is always greater than the sum of its components.

On the surface, it is just two (or occasionally more) men in a ring, swinging at each other. In truth, though, it is the months of preparation that both men have made, the sacrifices in each man’s personal life, diet and enjoyment. It is not just the fighters’ endeavour and sacrifice, it is also the time and effort of their coaches and their training partners.

No sparring partner wants to take a pasting in camp, then watch the man who handled him lose the big fight. No trainer wants to see someone he feels responsible for the safety and success of take a loss when they have worked so diligently together through the camp.

The fight is the culmination of weeks of monastic discipline, and there’s still a fifty percent chance that all that sacrifice will come to naught. In fact in any fight you watch, one man is going to go home feeling like he has wasted months of his life and failed to give a fair account of himself.

These are the stakes of the fight game. Heartbreak and jubilation built from months of active preparation can turn on a single punch.

The story I want to share today is of a two-fight rivalry that shook Japan and the kickboxing scene. Yet the total time of both bouts amounted to just seventy five seconds.

Andy Hug was a Japanese superstar.

The Swiss born karateka had won numerous high profile knockdown karate competitions, including the World Seidokeikan Cup. He had been the first foreigner to reach the finals of the Kyokushin World Open, where he lost a decision to the great Shokei Matsui. His almost religious passion for karate and for Japan, combined with his eccentric style of fighting, had already gained Hug a huge following in Japan, and after an appearance in a karate match at a K-1 event, he transitioned into kickboxing under the K-1 banner in 1993.

K-1 actually named the event “K-1: Andy’s Glove,” which gives you some idea of how important Hug was to the Japanese martial arts culture already.

Smashing through his first two opponents with impressive knockouts, Hug took on Branko Cikatic in just his third professional fight.

The first, and at this point only, K-1 Grand Prix champion, Cikatic was coming off of a knockout over kickboxing legend, Ernesto Hoost, and Hug cemented his status as a legitimate kickboxer by winning the decision over Cikatic in front of 15,000 people, the largest crowd in K-1 history to that point.

Perhaps it makes sense that the fighter to derail Hug’s incredible momentum would be something of a wild man.

Hug was a small heavyweight, just 5’11” and a trim 215lbs. His style had a great deal to do with his success. Where the kickboxing game was traditionally one of punching combinations into low kicks, Hug was throwing axe kicks and spinning back kicks to the thigh (or the Hug Tornado as it is now known). He was an offensive whirlwind who would eat his opponents up at kicking range.

Patrick Smith had allegedly amassed a record of sixty-odd wins in kickboxing by this time, though records are obviously hard to find outside of the K-1 organization.

Smith entered the 1994 K-1 Grand Prix and was matched in the first round with Andy Hug.

For many, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Hug would mop the floor with Smith. Hug had just beaten the previous Grand Prix champion after all and he seemed to be getting stronger with every fight. 

When the bell came for the opening round, however, Smith shocked the small portion of the world which then cared for K-1.

He rushed across to meet Hug, pushed him with a light teep kick, then swung up an axe kick. The kakato-geri, or otoshi-geri, is a kick which is almost unused in kickboxing outside of Andy Hug’s bouts. It is a punishing downward kick with the heel onto the top of the head or the shoulder.

The axe kick is not only difficult to execute (requiring flexibility to get it up there, but also good leg strength so as not to injure the knee joint when resistance is met), but often seems unrewarding.

Few knockouts can be attributed to the axe kick itself, but its threat from an entirely undefended angle will make opponents react in strange ways.

Smith’s axe kick seemed to take place just as Hug was attempting his own.

Consequently, as Smith’s kicking leg landed and he was ready to punch, Hug was still on one leg. A right straight put Hug to the canvas. He rose and met a flurry from Smith, fell again, and immediately rose to get dropped a third time before the ref could intervene to even call the second knockdown.

In his fourth fight in K-1, Hug had been defeated resoundingly by a newcomer.

This was made all the worse by Peter Aerts starching Smith moments into the fight in the next round of the grand prix.

Yet Aerts struggled with Smith all the same in the opening moments. Smith came out behind his push kick, axe kicks, flurries and spinning backfists. It was Aerts‘ good sense to clinch or to cover and let Smith wear himself out in these wild, bull-rushing tactics that allowed Aerts to catch Smith wide open.

At K-1: Revenge, just a few months later, it was clear that Hug had to put on a show.

The show’s title referred, obviously, to Hug’s opportunity to avenge his loss. But equally, Patrick Smith was given the chance to show he had not simply gotten lucky against Hug.

And the truth is that he didn’t. Hug was an offensive fighter, as was Smith. Hug had met a wild, unpredictable offensive kickboxer, who was significantly bigger and stronger than Hug.

In order to win, it was necessary for Hug to do exactly what Aerts had done: weather the storm. 

As the opening bell rang, Patrick Smith ran across the ring and attempted to get his axe kick in on Hug first.

Hug met him with the Hug Tornado, taking out Smith’s supporting leg. This was a remarkable counter that Hug attempted from time to time, most notably injuring Mike Bernardo’s knee with the technique and throwing Masaaki Satake into the air with it.

The bout was short.

But in it, Hug weathered Smith’s assault in clinches, throwing up high kicks any time he saw an opening. This instance in the corner shows a nice lead high kick straight from the floor. Not a powerful kick, but enough to get Smith thinking. 

After a few bum rushes and a few kicks coming awfully close to his temple, Patrick Smith was out in the open and in a proper kickboxing match against a better technician.

This was where Smith was done for. When he had been on top of Hug, and even Aerts, it didn’t matter where his guard was, he was too busy throwing a storm of strikes. Out in the open, his shortcomings were obvious.

Carrying his hands high because of the threat of Hug’s high kicks and axe kicks, Smith ate a crisp kick to the liver. Hug followed up with his left straight and a left knee, which sent Smith down as if he had been shot.

Andy Hug worked for years to achieve the respect he garnered in beating the first K-1 Grand Prix champion. Years of work in dojos and gyms, months in training specifically for opponents. And in nineteen seconds, Patrick Smith destroyed it.

Five months later. Five months of arduous training by both men. Five months of both trying to prove that they were not a flash in the pan, and that their successes had not been a fluke. Five months later they met again, and in 56 seconds, one began his path back to the top, and the other proved to be just that: a flash in the pan.

Andy Hug had 42 more fights after avenging his embarrassing defeat to Patrick Smith. Smith went on to have just five more kickboxing bouts, all of which he lost.

Hug took on the best names in kickboxing and had his ups and downs.

He won a K-1 Grand Prix and is remembered as one of the best kickboxers to have ever competed in K-1 after his untimely death from Leukemia in August of 2000. Smith appeared as one of the first names on the MMA scene by entering the first Ultimate Fighting Championship. Smith put together a total MMA record of 20-15, his last fight taking place in 2009.

Their achievements are in no way comparable, yet on one occasion it took only 19 seconds for their positions to reverse and only a further 56 seconds to restore the original order. Yet those seconds had more invested in them by Hug, Smith, their teams and the K-1 organization than any of us will ever know.

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

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

The Blackzilians: On the Upswing into 2014?

The Blackzilians had a tough time of it last year.
There was a point in time where the camp’s name was the punchline. In the latter half of 2013, however, something clicked. The team, which always had stellar talent, began to pick up wins left, right a…

The Blackzilians had a tough time of it last year.

There was a point in time where the camp’s name was the punchline. In the latter half of 2013, however, something clicked. The team, which always had stellar talent, began to pick up wins left, right and centre. Today we’ll examine some of the lows and highs of the Blackzilians. 

 

The Continued Flops of Alistair Overeem

Alistair Overeem should beat almost anyone put in front of him. In fact, for most of a fight, he does and does it handily. In a sport where folks complain constantly about point fighters, Overeem is an offensive juggernaut who smashes through his opponent or gets knocked out trying. And that there is the problem. He seems to have one speed, go, until he gets hit in return and it all spirals out of control.

Returning from suspension in February of 2013, Overeem took on mid-tier heavyweight Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva. And it went exactly as expected for two-and-a-half rounds as Overeem put the giant through the meat grinder on the feet, in the clinch and on the ground. There was a great deal more hand-dropping and showmanship than in most Overeem fights, and many fight fans were delighted as he ducked into an uppercut, then got knocked out with a flurry against the cage by Silva.

His match against Travis Browne was eerily similar, just at a higher pace. With his usual move to the clinch along the fence, Overeem made Browne go foetal with a knee to the midsection in the opening moments. Overeem looked to be fighting a smart, and characteristically dominating, fight. As Browne returned to his feet and broke free of Overeem’s grasp, he was able to time Overeem with a front kick coming in.

Overeem’s forward-leaning stance, with his head well in front of his hips, leaves him vulnerable to the uppercut and the front kick, both of which gave him trouble in his last two fights, but his refusal to adapt after Browne’s first four attempts at the front kick are more worrying.

With a match against Frank Mir, who is certainly not known for reversing the momentum of fights, on the cards, it looks like Overeem is set up for an easy win to start 2014. But then that’s what we thought about his last two fights.

Tyrone Spong‘s Continued Success

Tyrone Spong continued to gather momentum through 2013. Taking six fights in total through 2013, Spong picked up six more victories. The most significant of these came in kickboxing as Spong won the Glory light heavyweight grand prix against top competition. He also began the year with a knockout of heavyweight kickboxing great Remy Bonjasky in which he showed some brilliant ringcraft, bullying the taller, older man into corners and opening up on Bonjasky‘s head and body with punches.

Spong continued to dabble playfully in MMA. He took a single MMA bout in 2013, against an opponent with no Wikipedia page (always a good measure of competition), which is understandable, as Spong himself was only 1-0 in MMA going into the fight. Spong picked up a decision win in the main event of World Series of Fighting 4, but he didn’t knock anyone’s socks off.

Spong capped off the year, however, with one of his best performances to date. At Glory 11: Chicago, Spong was able to put away his longtime rival, Nathan Corbett, with a couple of brilliant counters and a final left hook. Each time Corbett threw his right round kick, Spong would come back with a left hook. He threw plenty of left hooks to the body, and was able to catch Corbett on the jaw and drop “Carnage” with two left hooks throughout the bout.

His dabbling in MMA isn’t likely to amount to much, but his kickboxing skills are some of the finest in the world. With Glory’s new deal with Spike TV, and its growing popularity as a result, expect to hear a lot more about Tyrone Spong this year.

Rashad Evans’ Recovery

One of the figureheads of the Blackzilians team, Rashad Evans has a lot riding on him. In addition to being a pundit on the UFC’s Fox shows, Evans is still pursuing his light heavyweight career. Coming back from a loss to Jon Jones, Evans was given a fight with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira that he really should have won.

It was as clear as tune-ups come. Noguiera has always struggled with strong wrestlers, as his three bouts previous to this could attest, and Rashad is one of the best wrestlers at 205 lbs.  What followed instead was a bizarre case of the southpaw, Nogueira, jabbing into Evans’ lead hand for 15 minutes, and Evans doing little in response. It was dull to watch, but all sorts of things can make a fighter look out of sorts.

Rashad returned to form somewhat against Dan Henderson, coming off the canvas to win. Finally Evans met Chael Sonnen in something of a gimme match and manhandled him as he should have manhandled Nogueira. Was it an easy matchup? Yes. Was it impressive though? Definitely yes. Sonnen‘s a tough guy even if he has no business competing at light heavyweight.

With a match against Daniel Cormier, a remarkable talent who is coming down from heavyweight, on the way, Evans has the chance to pick up one of the best wins of his career and to propel himself towards another crack at the light heavyweight crown. It’s been a bumpy year, but he’s back on track.

Eddie Alvarez Recovers His Momentum

Eddie Alvarez had a tough old year. Tied up in legal disputes between an excited UFC, who would love to have him, and a Bellator who would give anything not to see him go, Alvarez was kept out of action through most of 2013. In November, however, Alvarez was able to return to action against the last man to beat him, Michael Chandler, in a bout for Bellator‘s lightweight title.

What followed was one of the best fights of the year, with Alvarez outboxing Chandler on the feet, but Chandler picking up takedowns and scoring some nasty ground-and-pound. Alvarez picked up a split decision and put his name back in the mind of all the fight fans who had forgotten what he could do outside of the courtroom.

Little has been said about Alvarez’s future outside the idea of a rubber match with Chandler. While few would say no to this, it seems like there is little for Alvarez to do in Bellator if he beats Chandler a second time, and signing this match right away might be a waste of a good rivalry.

At any rate, when he’s fighting in the cage and not in the courtroom, things are going pretty darn well for Eddie Alvarez.

The Vitor Belfort Success Story

You cannot talk about the Blackzilians successes without mentioning Vitor Belfort. Following a disastrous return to light heavyweight to fill in for an injured Dan Henderson, Vitor Belfort has put together an incredible streak of victories at middleweight and moved himself straight to the front of the line for a shot at Chris Weidman‘s newly solidified title. 

Working with Henri Hooft has certainly seemed to inspire a new fire in Belfort, and getting an exemption for TRT has also worked wonders. Whether you approve of TRT or not (my stance on drugs is not to care as long as folks are passing the tests and ticking the boxes), Belfort seems truly reinvigorated by both factors.

The talk of a new Belfort as if he has made incredible strides as a technical fighter might be a little premature. He does what he has always done—runs in with flurries, punctuating them with left high kicks—but he has added a slick-as-anything wheel kick to the mix. The point is that he has starched at least two opponents who should know better than to take him on head-to-head (in Michael Bisping and Luke Rockhold) and one who seemed like the only guy who could get away with fighting him like that (Dan Henderson).

That said, his left high kick has always been there, but his setups might well be getting better. Body kicks and noticing that Michael Bisping was leaning to stay away from Belfort‘s left straight set up that left high kick. His high kick against Henderson came in the instant between Henderson’s hand leaving the floor and returning to his guard as he stood up from the mat. Both lovely recognitions of context, where before Vitor just threw his left high kick whenever he felt like it and wondered why it never worked.

Belfort is the 2:1 underdog against Chris Weidman, but when you have power like his it only takes an opponent to make a mistake, or fight a little dumb for an instant, for you to knock them out cold. Hell it’s happened to three top-tier middleweights in a row.

Conclusions

The roster at the Blackzilians is forever changing, and there are certainly plenty of fighters we could talk about here but haven’t.

Thiago Silva, for instance, continues his dramas in and out of the cage. Suspended for a second time as the result of a drug test (though this time it was for marijuana, draw your own judgements there) Silva returned against Rafael Feijao and knocked the one-handed power puncher out in the first round. Silva then fought Matt Hammil, who was gassed after the opening minutes, and looked mediocre in failing to finish the American. In addition Silva missed weight by three pounds for this bout. He has the talent, but unless he can keep on the right side of the commission he’s going to keep losing money and months off of his career.

And I haven’t even mentioned the Blackzilians‘ signing of Guillermo Rigondeaux. This might well just be a publicity move, but it took place a few weeks before Rigondeaux handily outboxed the great Nonito Donaire. Rigo might not even be with the Blackzilians anymore, but his 2013 was certainly a stellar one. He followed his victory over Donaire with a victory over Joseph Agbeko. If you don’t know much about boxing, check him out—he’s one of the sharpest southpaws in the game.

The Blackzilians’ year has been a soap opera, losing and gaining fighters and coaches throughout the year, but something over there seems to be coming together. In a gym full of insanely gifted underachievers like Overeem and Belfort, it will be interesting to see if the environment that they have created can carry them to the titles that they have more than the requisite skill to acquire.

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

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Benson Henderson: The UFC’s Best Forgotten Fighter

One mistake, and it all fell apart.
Benson Henderson was in a position where he had been hundreds of times before: inside the guard and with his opponent moving for an armbar. But in this instance, he was too slow. 
Henderson had been on top of th…

One mistake, and it all fell apart.

Benson Henderson was in a position where he had been hundreds of times before: inside the guard and with his opponent moving for an armbar. But in this instance, he was too slow. 

Henderson had been on top of the lightweight heap. He had tied BJ Penn‘s record for most defences of the UFC lightweight title. Yet one loss later, he is almost out of the title picture.

He is still ranked No. 2 in the world—right behind Anthony Pettis, the man who bested him. And he’s still considered one of the best fighters in the game. But he has lost two matches to Pettis, so campaigning for a third meeting with nothing in the win column through their last two is a daunting task. 

A rubber match is typically put together because two fighters went 1-1 in their two meetings. The finality sells the trilogy. The need for closure. However, a third match when one of the fighters has won the first two is not unheard of in MMA or even the UFC.

Quinton Jackson picked up his win over a shadow of Wanderlei Silva inside the UFC despite being brutally stopped by Silva twice in PRIDE FC. Tito Ortiz got to rough up Ken Shamrock a third time because UFC brass realized that fools would still buy into the rivalry after two lopsided beatings.

Henderson’s losses, though one was definite, were not lopsided. The problem is that there has never been this sort of false rubber match in a UFC title fight.

 

155 Problems

Henderson is going to have trouble getting that second shot at the belt that he held for more than a year. But more than just his record against Pettis is standing in the way. He is in perhaps the most cutthroat division in the UFC.

Think about the heavyweight division, where there is just a dearth of talent.

Junior dos Santos took one of the worst beatings in UFC history against Cain Velasquez in their second bout but was still considered head and shoulders above the rest of the UFC division. He beat Mark Hunt, a fighter with skills nowhere near comparable or even in the same area as Cain Velasquez, and that was used to justify a rematch for the title.

Dos Santos took an even more brutal beating.

The lightweight division is not like that. The next challenger for the belt is not just keeping the champion busy while the clear No. 2 takes a tune-up match. When Frankie Edgar lost to Henderson, Nate Diaz was up, then came Gilbert Melendez, and finally it was Pettis.

Lightweight is just a murderers’ row of men who could all beat the champion, if they got their chance and did it right—and all of them would struggle to get a second go if they messed it up.

 

Henderson vs. Josh Thomson

Henderson’s upcoming bout is a meeting with the rapidly rising Josh Thomson.

Nothing highlights the volatile nature of the lightweight division quite so well as Thomson’s recent success. He had lost to Tatsuya Kawajiri and then lay all over K.J. Noons in an unexciting decision win before rapidly raising his stock with a controversial decision loss to then Strikeforce champion Gilbert Melendez.

In his return to the UFC after almost a decade outside it, Thomson was matched against Nate Diaz. The younger Diaz brother has always been a force in the division, and few rated Thomson’s chances highly. But against an opponent who hates wrestlers and kicks (something which Henderson demonstrated amply in their title bout), Diaz had all kinds of trouble.

The third clack of Thomson’s shin off Diaz‘s dome heralded the end of the bout and the awakening of public interest in Thomson. He was signed to fight Pettis at short notice for the title as a replacement for the injured T. J. Grant, but Pettis injured himself and was forced to pull out of the bout.

Just one good finish separates a fighter from being an also-ran in the lightweight division—nothing demonstrates that as well as Thomson.

In a match of skilled grapplers with kicking-based stand-up games, Henderson and Thomson will fight almost mirror images of themselves. They are not fighting for the chance to move closer to a title shot though, but to stay stable as the constantly shifting tectonics of the lightweight division continue to cause other fighters to fall out of contention.

 

Conclusions and Brief Technical Analysis

Not only should Henderson not be forgotten, he is a fighter who consistently shows improvement. In a sport with so many different facets, it is tempting to work consistently to drag the opponent to where you excel.

Henderson recognizes what he is best at but fights effectively outside of it. I have had the pleasure of discussing strategy with him and have found him to be as open-minded and conscious of improvement as any fighter in MMA.

Most recognize him as a wrestler, but in his bout with Diaz, he embarrassed the challenger on the feet as well as on the ground. It was easily the most one-sided lightweight title defence since the days of Penn. 

The main thing that we have been seeing more and more from Henderson is a focus on his kicking game. Where before he was mainly a wrestler with some nice kicks, now he seems to be as much of a kicker as a wrestler. This kicking game is not—like so others many in MMA—based in Muay Thai or kickboxing, but seems to be drawn along Tae Kwon Do lines.

Henderson chambers his leg before many of his kicks, and he tends to make more of a snap at the knee than most kickboxers do. Particularly oddly, he will kick two or three times high to set up a good low kick. Most fighters will use the exact opposite method, hoping to land a big high kick. It’s a neat little quirk that annoyed Melendez.

With regard to his boxing, Henderson’s hands aren’t the slickest, but he hits with power, and his money punch is his right hook. He throws punches from his legs and hips (a doubly smart move if you have legs like Chris Hoy on a lightweight body to begin with) but tends to get hit while he’s punching.

One of the most exciting aspects of his game, however, is his ability to scramble. Henderson has a habit of getting into bad positions and then fighting his way out of them and coming out on top.

Check out this instance against Pettis in their WEC bout (still one of the best fights I’ve seen). For those who don’t know, the WEC lightweights were guillotining each other left, right and centre before the UFC buyout. Pettis attempts a guillotine, but Henderson rolls to his back and scrambles out on top.

How about this sequence where Henderson gets a jumping knee caught, scrambles, grabs a front headlock, looks for his guillotine and winds up throwing elbows from the top of half guard. 

This underlines what Henderson does best: outpace opponents. You will often see him tweeting about 25-minute controlled explosions, and that philosophy can be witnessed in any of his fights. Edgar, Melendez and Pettis fight measured fights. Henderson excels when he can make a fight into a fight.

Hell, he even put the pace on Clay Guida.

Indeed, Henderson’s least impressive performances occurred when he was trying to fight more measured. Against Melendez, for instance, he sat back and pawed backhanded jabs for long periods before attacking with a few crisp kicks. There are occasions—for instance against Diaz—where being measured on the feet is necessary, but in his bout with Melendez, Henderson gave a methodical fighter time to think and work.

Whether he realizes it or not, Henderson’s ability to work with precision at high speed is what makes him unique. By all means he should work to improve himself but in a way that allows him to get in his opponents’ faces. 

Henderson meets Thomson on January 25 on UFC on Fox 10, and in a division as stacked and dynamic as this one, you can’t afford to miss it.

 

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