Jack Slack | UFC Betting Sites - The Best MMA Online Bookies

Josh Barnett: Catch Wrestling and Old-School Boxing

This is the second in a two-part series on Josh Barnett. Please check out the first part here.
The main theme that you will have noticed in our discussion of escapes in Part 1 is that Barnett does not waste time mucking around on the bottom if he doesn…

This is the second in a two-part series on Josh Barnett. Please check out the first part here.

The main theme that you will have noticed in our discussion of escapes in Part 1 is that Barnett does not waste time mucking around on the bottom if he doesn’t have to.

BJ Penn was the first to point to the three objectives of the man on the bottom: submit, sweep or stand up. Too often we see the best jiu-jitsu players in MMA focus almost entirely on the first two ideas and forget about the third.

Often the act of following the bottom player up to the feet will cause the top player to expose openings. Both Pablo Popovitch and Marcus “Buchecha” Almeida succeeded in using a simple technical stand up to create a neat turnover at ADCC 2013 in Beijing.

Here, Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu is in the guard of Buchecha. Almeida creates space and then performs a simple technical stand up. As Cyborg follows him up, Buchecha catches Cyborg’s back leg and attempts a simple knee tilt to turn Cyborg over. Cyborg drops Buchecha‘s leg, but Buchecha switches to a single-leg takedown and lands on top.

And here it is again in super slow motion courtesy of the super inspiring ADCC 2013 highlight from the brilliant Stuart Cooper:

Getting back to the feet is a huge part of the ground game in mixed martial arts. No matter how good a fighter is off his back, it is unlikely to be enough to offset how much it sucks to get hit with gravity working against him.

Plus, holding a fighter down if he is repeatedly getting up is hard work—just look at Cain Velasquez vs. Brock Lesnar. Barnett, who was influenced by catch wrestling legend Billy Robinson, is exceptionally good at getting to his base position and standing from there.

It is similar to turtle position in jiu-jitsu, in that one is posted on four points belly down. The difference is that while the turtle is held tight with the elbows on the mat, the wrestler’s base is on the knees and hands. The reasoning for the closed nature of the turtle in Brazilian jiu-jitsu is to defend oneself from the opponent throwing in his hooks and taking the back.

In the wrestler’s base—as used by Billy Robinson’s students, notably Kazushi Sakuraba—the intention is to return to the feet. Here’s the great Billy Robinson talking through it himself:

Now a more traditional jiu-jitsu approach from the turtle would be to Gramby roll back to guard, as Matt Serra famously did against Georges St-Pierre. The catch wrestling tradition is more about getting to base position and then separating the wrists and standing up. This stems from wrestling rules, wherein one can lose by pin, so what would be the point of rolling to guard and placing your shoulders on the mat?

As the top player tries to keep his opponent on the mat, he can expose himself to switches or Robinson and Sakuraba‘s most famous technique: the double wrist lock.

Sakuraba‘s match against Kevin Randleman demonstrated how attempting to keep Sakuraba down allowed him to attack with his kimura. Each time Randleman attempted to break Sakuraba down into a turtle position, Sakuraba got back up onto his hands and worked to separate Randleman‘s hands.

Now, here’s Josh Barnett countering an underpass from Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. He rolls to turtle, gets to his base, pops a leg up and returns to his feet. As Nogueira fights to keep Barnett on the mat, Barnett is able to work for a kimura.

The double wrist lock, a term used interchangeably with kimura and gyaku ude-garami, is a staple of the catch wrestling arsenal and a technique that Barnett has had success with. He has submitted Mighty Mo, Mark Hunt and John Marsh with it, and he has threatened it in combination a great many more times.

A brilliant example is the final sequence from Barnett’s first fight with Nogueira. Barnett lands in Nogueira’s half guard and threatens the kimura rather than looking to force a pass. Jeff Monson, Paulo Filho and many other strong top players have used the threat of the kimura to improve the effectiveness of their half-guard passing game.

Nogueira rushes to move to his deep half guard, but Barnett underhooks the Brazilian’s leg with his right arm, clears Big Nog’s head with his left and moves for a kneebar.

Leglocks are a staple of Barnett’s game, and it’s hard to think of a heavyweight who uses them better. As Nogueira attempted to come up on top of Barnett, he allowed the wrestler to straighten the leg and was saved by the bell from a submission.

Barnett on the Feet

Barnett is not an elite striker, but as heavyweights go, he is good enough on the feet to hold his own with most of the division. Having been trained by Erik Paulson, a pioneer in MMA and a man who consistently comes up with interesting ideas, Barnett has a good deal of interesting techniques on the feet.

Something that you will see in almost all of his fights is his attempt at a skipping right hand. That is when he uses a parry or hand trap with the right hand, and then he proceeds, as if skipping a stone, into a punch with the same hand.

Here is Barnett demonstrating the technique in answer to a jab from Daniel Cormier.

Above is the late Archie Moore, a walking textbook on boxing technique, showing the same technique in more of an offensive capacity.

Barnett has never been a brilliant striker; he’s more of a smart one who hits hard. That being said, he has shown enormous improvement since the days when Alexander Emelianenko and Pedro Rizzo made him look clueless on the feet. He avenged his loss to Rizzo by knocking him out in 2008, whatever that’s worth. But more importantly, he now shows a more confident and intelligent approach to striking.

In the Cormier bout, Barnett repeatedly returned to an old-school elbow block, attempting to catch blows on the points of his elbows. When this works, it can be a nightmare for an opponent and discourage power punching. Notice how close Cormier comes to a broken hand on the left hook.

Barnett projecting his elbow like this also gave him a good chance of Cormier running onto an elbow strike if he attempted to dive into a clinch. Here, Barnett slips inside and uses this elbow to keep space before landing a nice low kick:

Projecting the elbow like this can also leave the right temple exposed to a left hook, especially if the opponent can hook off the jab as Cormier can.

What is more important than form and technique, though, is that Barnett can recognize what is working and what isn’t. He tries his best to get his favourite techniques going, but he isn’t stubborn or pigheaded enough to ignore things that are working better.

For instance, in his bout against Cormier, Barnett recognized early that his knee strikes to the body were affecting his opponent, and he found numerous ways of attempting to land them.

My favourite attempt was this switch knee as Cormier came in. That’s not something you see the biggest men in the heavyweight division do often.

Barnett’s most recent bout against Frank Mir might well be his most impressive performance to date. Understanding that Mir’s wrestling is not his strong suit and having seen Shane Carwin abuse Mir along the fence, Barnett knew what he had to do. Pushing Mir onto the fence, he abused the former UFC champion and stopped him with a hard knee to the dome inside the first round.

Proving that he can take a technical approach to almost any area of the fight game, Barnett put together some of the most fluid clinch boxing work I’ve ever seen. Take for instance this grip-changing flurry, when he went into an angled left hook followed by a chasing left hook to keep Mir on the fence.

That would raise an eyebrow from Randy Couture or Cain Velasquez.

Barnett even found a chance to use the Jack Johnson uppercut, an uppercut thrown across the body so that it can be used with full hip rotation extremely close in. Just beautiful stuff.

There’s a ton to talk about when it comes to Barnett, as we haven’t even looked at his murderous mount and signature arm triangle or the decent kicks and elbows he’s showed more recently.

When he steps into the ring with the exciting, dynamic and durable Travis Browne on Saturday, pretty much anything can happen at UFC 168, but it has the potential to be a cracking bout.

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

Josh Barnett: Master of Escapes

This is part one of a two-part series on Josh Barnett. The second part can be found here.
There are plenty of divisive figures in the heavyweight division. Alistair Overeem looks better than everyone he fights, then throws away matches through ar…

This is part one of a two-part series on Josh Barnett. The second part can be found here.

There are plenty of divisive figures in the heavyweight division. Alistair Overeem looks better than everyone he fights, then throws away matches through arrogance. Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva won everyone over with a fight of the year performance, then got popped in the post-fight drug tests. But nobody in that division has quite the history that Josh Barnett does with performance enhancing drugs.

Now I don’t want to get into performance enhancing drugs talk too much. But if Nick Diaz can pass drug tests most of the time and be as avid a marijuana user and advocate as he is, you can quickly come to the conclusion that it’s not too hard to hide a banned substance if you know what you’re doing. Plenty of fighters are on PEDs, most of them don’t get caught, and frankly there’s a good case for turning a blind eye to it.

What we’re really here to talk about, however, is the phenomenal, dynamic and unique game of mixed martial arts’ premier catch wrestler, Josh Barnett.

Catch Wrestling versus Jiu Jitsu

Now when we’re talking tendencies, it’s important to note that nothing is absolute in the fighting business. It is very easy for me to say “jiu jitsu guys tend to excel at passing the guard and using the guard, but they don’t have the best takedowns“. Ricardo Arona was a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu phenomenon, and took down anyone he wanted, wrestler or not, at will through his ADCC run. As another example, Rambaa Somdet is a Muay Thai world champion who transfered to MMA very late into his combat sports career, only to develop one of the most inventive guard games in the business.

Stylistic tendencies are just that: tendencies, not absolute rules as to what a fighter can do. People are people and styles are just the gateway which got them into the martial arts business.

With that being said, the competitive focus of an art will affect its emphases. Wrestlers don’t train the guard generally (or the double body scissors as it’s called in old wrestling manuals) because it is essentially a pinned position. Jiu Jitsu players can pull guard, and many roll from the knees in the academy, so takedowns don’t always get trained so much.

Guys who spend a good amount of time training wrestling then transfer to the ground game or mixed martial arts tend to not be as good in the guard as the guys who start playing guard from day one. Josh Barnett is a brilliant example of this.

That is not to say that he is bad in bottom position but that he does not play the guard like other great grapplers in the heavyweight division can. One of Barnett’s great strengths, and this is something which you will see in wrestling a lot because of its roots and emphasis on takedowns, turnovers and pins, is in getting out of bottom position, not chilling out there and looking for submissions or sweeps.

The Elbow Escape

One escape which Barnett uses particularly well from his back is to place a hand behind his opponent’s triceps, generate some momentum by swinging his legs up and dropping them, or by bridging, then exploding out.

My description of that was pretty ham-fisted, and I am certainly not the guy to get your grappling knowledge from, but here’s a GIF from his fight with Jeff Monson.

Any time a fighter can get the arm which his opponent would normally be using to crossface across to the other side of his body, the man on the bottom can create space to turn away and either shrimp back to guard or come up to the knees.

Here is the great Marcelo Garcia demonstrating it. Of course it is a good deal harder without the gi for friction or as a handle.

The fight with Monson was pretty largely panned by MMA journalists, partly because it seemed like Barnett wasting yet another match of his incredible career potential in not fighting an elite heavyweight. But as Monson and Barnett are both ground fighters with a wrestling base, it provided some interesting moments. Both men used the guard simply for kicking away and looking to come up on a single, which is something you don’t see that often.

This same elbow escape has helped Barnett to get out of bad spots against some very dangerous fighters. Against Daniel Cormier, Barnett controlled the triceps to hinder DC’s attempts to elbow him, then attempted to make space through the elbow escape several times.

Failing to achieve this end, Barnett attempted one more time to stiff arm the triceps, before turning back in and coming up to his knees. Where many Brazilian Jiu Jitsu players will try to sit through to the half guard when they come up to their knees, Barnett worked his way up to the feet and broke away.

Similarly Barnett was able to get out from underneath the great Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, as the latter attempted to pass from half guard to side control, by using a similar technique. Exploding out to his feet, Barnett picked up a tight guillotine, something he threatened several times through his two excellent matches with Nogueira.

Barnett was also able to use a nice bridge to escape from the underside of Nogueira’s considerably dangerous mount. A basic escape no doubt, but to get away with it against a grappler of Nogueira’s caliber is certainly worthy of applause.

This is part one of a two-part series on Josh Barnett. The second part can be found here.

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

Demetrious Johnson and the Sneaky Right Hook

Pound for pound is a daft expression, and one which I hate using. Chael Sonnen likened pound-for-pound debates to arguments over all the possible variables involved in a Batman-versus-Superman matchup. In truth, the expression “pound for pound” was cre…

If you put Demetrious Johnson or even Anderson Silva in with a middle-tier heavyweight, they would probably lose—for the same reason that Ronda Rousey wouldn’t last a round against a decent male fighter of her weight. Strength and size are a big deal. I write a lot about technique and strategy, so you might imagine that I wouldn’t think that, but it’s the truth.

Demetrious Johnson, at his weight, is the finest in the world. And he proved that emphatically by starching Joseph Benavidez in a single round Saturday at UFC on Fox 9.

But more than that, per pound of body weight, he might just be the most skilled fighter in the world. A 200-pound Demetrious Johnson, with his wrestling, movement, and understanding of the technical and strategic sides of the game, would be a nightmare for anyone.

We’re all still reeling from the fights, so let’s take a quick look at how it took place.

Out with Ring Cutting, in with Low Kicking

I spoke last week about how Benavidez‘s trouble in the first bout was that he couldn’t manufacture the one situation where his advantage on paper, being the power striker, would matter. Out in the middle of the Octagon, chasing after Johnson and swinging at air, Benavidez was simply tiring himself out and getting picked apart by the flyweight king.

In that first bout, Johnson’s corner repeatedly told him to square up and cut off the ring. This is the boxing method of dealing with a fleet-footed fighter. Like all methods, it has its merits and its faults. The great fault of cutting off the ring is that it requires a fighter to square up to his opponent and offer more of a target so that he can be a more imposing presence.

In the first bout, Johnson spent much of the time circling, waiting for Benavidez to widen his stance, then firing a right straight and moving right into a clinch.

Since that first bout, Duane “Bang” Ludwig, an excellent kickboxer and coach, has joined Team Alpha Male and has been working with the already excellent wrestlers there toward rounding out their striking. With Ludwig in Benavidez‘s corner, you knew Joe-B-Wan would be operating to a well-thought-out game plan on the feet.

The plan seemed to be similar to Mauricio Rua’s answer to Lyoto Machida—back the runner up, then chop his legs out while he’s in no position to check low kicks. It worked a treat for the short duration of the bout. Benavidez would charge straight in, miss every punch, and as Johnson circled away, he would hammer in a good kick. Benavidez almost caught Johnson circling off the fence with a good high kick!

Midway through the opening round, however, Benavidez rushed Johnson but got turned onto the fence. We spoke about the downsides to each method of dealing with the runner. The chase-and-low-kick method’s great flaw is that the opponent can step in and jam the chase.

In the case of Shogun and Machida, Shogun ate a good few counterstraights and knees from Machida. In last night’s case, Johnson stepped in, met Benavidez, then easily turned him and reversed position. Of course it was part Johnson moving in and turning, and partly Benavidez placing himself on the fence, but Johnson wasn’t going to argue about responsibility when he had the opportunity for unanswered offence.

The Rear-Hand Hook

With his back to the fence, Benavidez refused to take Johnson’s route of running out and engaging from a better position, instead trying to fight his way out. Johnson, now in the driver’s seat, stepped in, checked Benavidez‘s lead hand and threw hard.

Benavidez had switched to southpaw while throwing a kick and attempted to hook at Johnson off the fence. Benavidez‘s narrowed gait prevented him from throwing an authoritative lead hook to where Johnson had moved his head off line. Benavidez also dropped his hand to escape Johnson’s hand control, then swung wide at the shoulder in attempt to reach out and catch Johnson.

The shot which Johnson dropped Benavidez with was almost identical to that which Mike Zambidis knocked Norifumi Yamamoto out with in K-1. Getting the head and lead foot on the outside of the opponent’s lead shoulder places the hooking shoulder almost out of sight of the opponent. It is such a dangerous counter because it is almost impossible to see coming when a fighter is throwing his own lead hand.

Yamamoto was attempting to jab off the ropes, while Benavidez seemed to be attempting to swing off the cage, and Zambidis‘ shot was more of a counter, while Johnson’s was a lead which ended up in an exchange, but the mechanics and effect are almost identical.

That rear hook from open guard (southpaw versus orthodox) has the potential to catch so many fighters out through the blind angle if you get in close enough to use it.

Add to that that the rear hook is near useless in a closed-guard (orthodox versus orthodox or southpaw versus southpaw) engagement because it must be thrown slightly overhand in order to clear the opponent’s lead shoulder and guard. From open guard it can be thrown almost on an upward trajectory if a fighter so chooses.

Aftermath

It is unfortunate and perhaps unfair that Benavidez showed to be troubling Johnson with a good game plan—suffering no consequences for throwing the low kicks which he was too cautious to throw in their first fight—yet ended up being finished in this bout and surviving to the decision in the previous one.

It is said time and time again about Demetrious Johnson, but he is getting better and better with each performance. This being his second dominating stoppage in two fights, if Johnson can continue this and establish himself as a finisher, he stands to become a true breakout star for the flyweight division.

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

Horrible Refereeing: What to Look for in a Referee

In the past few months, there has been a great deal of speculation surrounding the state of judging in combat sports. Scratch that. There has always been a great deal of speculation surrounding the state of judging in combat sports because it…

In the past few months, there has been a great deal of speculation surrounding the state of judging in combat sports. Scratch that. There has always been a great deal of speculation surrounding the state of judging in combat sports because it has always been pretty abysmal.

Judging changes careers; in a parallel universe, Johny Hendricks and Alexander Gustafsson are champions, and Quinton Jackson‘s record has about five more losses on it.

Bad refereeing, however, changes lives and—in the worst cases—can end them. We have not experienced an in-ring death in any major professional promotion in MMA. All of the accidents have been on smaller shows or even in unsanctioned bouts, but every time a referee goes into the cage with an incorrect understanding of how to execute their job, lives are put in danger.

I want to give you fair warning, this isn’t going to be a upbeat article. I hope that you can enjoy it and learn from it, but you are going to see fights in which fighters suffered undue punishment and some boxing matches that resulted in deaths, and we are going to assess how refereeing affected the outcome.

I have the utmost respect for all ring officials and fighters. It is a terribly hard job to referee a fight, but time and again in late stoppages and bad calls, there are positional failings of referees that we can point to as significant.

With that said, let’s discuss refereeing.

Position in the Ring/Cage

It is a common theme in my writing to say that footwork is everything. What you might not have realized, though, is that the referee has to focus on it as much as the fighters.

The only position from which you can police a fight effectively is one where you can see both fighters at the same time. This means getting between them on one side while simultaneously not getting in the way if one of them chooses to move.

One of the reasons that controversial judging is hard to avoid is because of how fights must be viewed. If all you can see is the back of one fighter, you can’t effectively judge what either is doing. This is something you can watch for as a viewer. Any time a broadcast shows the back of one fighter, it is failing to give you a good view of the fight, and you can appreciate how hard judging from a fixed position might be.

Before we talk about good refereeing position, let’s talk about bad refereeing position. A referee doesn’t always have to be right on top of the action, but he does need to make sure he is staying in position to see both parties and judge if one is hurt, intelligently defending himself or committing a foul.

For our first example, I am going to use the referee of a boxing match between Beau Jack and Ike Williams. BoxRec lists the referee of this bout as Charlie Daggert; I can almost guarantee you that by the time we’re done looking at him you will be disgusted.

Notice how Daggert, instead of being close to the action, is strolling around the ring. This is completely permissible. Referees can’t be expected to shuffle around near the fighters at all times, but they are supposed to keep a clear view of the action.

He walked around the back of one fighter, changed direction, walked around again and then walked all the way behind the other fighter, obscuring his own view of the action for as much time as possible.

Now this might seem like me being a pedant, but let’s take a look what happens later in the same match as a result of the referee not understanding where he needs to be.

Daggert‘s own inept positioning prevented him from seeing the obvious damage that Jack was taking. Williams angled off, as any good fighter would do, and Daggert‘s view was obscured again. He sauntered around the other side, then couldn’t make up his mind about which side he wanted to be on. While he was behind Williams, he could not see the defenseless Jack’s head being snapped back and forth. Williams actually appealed to the referee to stop the fight.

Jack was fine afterward, and the two actually met three more times, but fighters have died in similar situations. One need only think back to the flurry with which the normally middling puncher Emile Griffith caught Benny Paret along the ropes. That was the last thing Paret ever felt.

Though Daggert‘s positioning obstructed his view and meant he was out of position as many of the heavier blows connected, we cannot blame his positioning entirely. Daggert simply seemed to have been far too stupid to look after the fighters he refereed.

Daggert‘s other famous appearance in boxing history was as he opted to give the face-down, fully unconscious Jersey Joe Walcott a full 10-count before allowing the doctor and Walcott‘s corner to come in.

Now every referee makes mistakes and bad calls. That can’t be helped, and referees will always be the villains of the fight game, but the ones who are better at their jobs do receive some of the appreciation they deserve.

I’m going to use the example of Mills Lane in the second Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield fight to illustrate good refereeing position.

Despite being incredible fighters within the rules, Tyson and Holyfield were both terrible cheats. Tyson elbowed his opponents almost as much as Holyfield butted his own.

Lane was not a heavyweight, he was not in the prime of his life and he wasn’t going to change who both of these fighters were. He did, however, do a fantastic job of staying on top of the action.

Lane was a boxer in his youth, so he knew how to move. It’s not necessary to have any combat sports training to be a referee, but understanding the basic footwork that applies to every sport isn’t a lot to ask.

Lane did walk at a distance to the fighters, but for the most part, he remained on a side so he could see the action, and he immediately moved in when he needed to. He switched to a shuffling side-step when in close so that he didn’t get in the way of the action.

Early in the first round, Holyfield cracked Tyson, and Tyson backed onto the ropes. Because Lane had kept the same position relative to the fighters, he was already in position next to them along the ropes. He could see Tyson and exactly how troubled he was or wasn’t. As soon as Tyson hinted to be circling toward Lane, Lane moved around.

As a referee, you obviously cannot work from home for the same reason you can’t stand on the opposite side of the ring or cage from the fighters. You have to be close enough to actually have some say in the action.

Let’s contrast Lane’s positioning with MMA referee Kim Winslow.

Winslow gets a lot of stick, and a few defend her because she is the only female referee currently working the high-profile fights in MMA. Criticism of her can be sexist, but most criticism stems from her incredibly poor decision-making and stoppages.

In the bout between Cody Donovan and Gian Villante at UFC 167, Winslow showed more ineptitude than usual.

Notice in this GIF how Winslow, standing almost on the other side of the Octagon from the combatants, is forced to run across the cage, then runs around the fighters before placing her hand on the shoulder of Villante as if to ask him to stop punching.

This highlights not only Winslow’s positioning, which is awful, but her lack of authority.

Some complain that she doesn’t have the strength to pull large, strong, male fighters off of each other, but in truth, it is a matter of authority.

Lane is a small guy, especially compared to Tyson and Holyfield, but he made them respect him, and he called them out on all the dirty shenanigans he saw (though both were masterful at hiding their fouls).

I want to contrast Winslow’s performance with what I consider a good showing for an MMA referee.

I’m going to use the example of Yves Lavigne in the Michael Johnson vs. Joe Lauzon bout. With two light, fast fighters, Lavigne kept pace with both and made sure he was almost always in good position.

Check out this GIF and notice how Lavigne commits to side-skipping to stay in between the fighters and keep a good view. Notice that, when Lauzon is in trouble along the fence, Lavigne immediately moves around to one side. He doesn’t waste time switching sides or staying behind Johnson.

On the subject of authority, Lavigne also did well to impose himself on the fight.

As Lavigne broke the fighters for a stand up, Johnson shoved Lavigne‘s hand away. While I am sure it was a thoughtless action in the heat of the moment (Johnson had just dropped Lauzon for the second time), it was not the sort of behavior that can be allowed to go unchecked if a referee hopes to keep control of a fight.

Lavigne immediately warned Johnson in no uncertain terms, and as soon as the round ended, he followed Johnson back to the corner to make it abundantly clear to Johnson and his team that a disqualification would be forthcoming for further misbehavior.

Lavigne has made plenty of mistakes—every referee has. It is the hardest job in combat sports, but this fight was a fantastic example of positioning and authority.

The Limitations of a Referee

It would be unfair to put blame solely on a referee for preventable ring deaths. The referee’s powers in a fight are extremely limited at points. It doesn’t matter if a fighter is taking undue punishment. As long as it is not unanswered punishment, the referee’s hands are pretty much tied.

There are three parties whose responsibility it is to look after the fighter: the referee, the doctor and the fighter’s corner. The doctor can only act when he is brought in by the referee, which is normally for a cut rather than to assess a fighter’s demeanor. The corner, however, should be more invested in the health of their fighter than anyone.

If a fighter is taking punishment but returning fire and landing blows, the referee has no grounds to stop the fight, and this is where the corner must assess the danger to their fighter of continuing.

In the sad case of Leavander Johnson, his corner and the referee both let him down. Johnson looked wooden and uncomfortable all evening, and something was clearly not right. Yet as Emanuel Steward pointed out, the referee cannot stop a fight when a fighter is taking a beating but is fighting back, especially in a title fight. (This was also the reason that Duk Koo Kim was allowed to continue taking punishment from Ray Mancini in the bout that caused his untimely passing.)

Up until the last round, it would have been the corner’s duty to look after Johnson’s health. In the final round, however, Johnson was let down by the referee.

As Johnson took a prolonged flurry against the ropes, the referee was in the center of the ring, behind Johnson’s opponent. The negligence of Johnson’s corner and the ineptitude shown by the referee more than likely cost Johnson his life.

Conclusions

I want to wrap up by stating something that will perhaps turn readers against me.

Some deaths are unavoidable in combat sports. Deaths in sanctioned combat sports are rare, and each time one takes place, there is a concerted effort to improve post-fight and post-knockout care. Nobody is trying to inflict permanent damage on their opponent; fighters are just out to make a living in what they consider a sporting pursuit.

Damage, however, is part of the game, and it’s a big part. You’d be kidding to pretend that the slurred speech or declining motor skills of aged fighters are coincidental.

Equally, gymnasts have been paralyzed in training, jockeys have been crushed underneath horses and goalkeepers have broken their necks on the pitch. Sometimes good refereeing cannot prevent the misfortune of a combat sports fatality.

A sad example of that is the death of Pedro Alcazar.

In his loss to Fernando Montiel, he did not take a remarkable amount of punishment, he simply acted out of sorts, and the fight was stopped (from a good refereeing position) when Alcazar simply covered up against the ropes and refused to return fire. He did not seem badly hurt, yet the next day he collapsed and ultimately passed away.

The tone of this piece has been pessimistic. I have shown you several fights that ultimately ended in the death of the defeated fighter. In-ring fatalities, though, are a rare occurrence. While they have made romantic subjects for some journalists, there is no greater sadness in the sporting world than a death in competition.

There are so few referees who garner the respect of the fans, but the ones who consistently make the right calls (though far from faultless) earn the reputation for excellence that they deserve. They are not always appreciated for it when a competitive fight is stopped, but good referees are saving lives.

We cannot control all the aspects of a fight or the damage that a fighter takes, but if referees are not taught how to actually control a fight and stay within sight of all of it, we will continue to see late stoppages, and unnecessary injuries will result from these.

Mixed Martial Arts has yet to experience a high-profile death. Boxing has experienced plenty. Yet neither sport has anywhere near enough referees who actually know how to do their job. It is getting to the point where if you see a referee strolling around on the other side of the ring or cage from the fighters, you might actually hope that nothing happens while they are so far away from the fighters.

It is one thing to say that Winslow is a bad referee (and she is), but with few pointing out the effective habits of good referees, it will be hard to improve the standard of those referees who clearly mean well but have no clue.

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

Flyweight Apathy: Why Don’t Fans Care About the Little Men?

On the next UFC card, flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson and challenger Joseph Benavidez will meet for a second time to contest the title of finest 125-pound fighter on the planet. The problem for both men is that despite excelling in their field, a…

It’s not a secret—nobody is pretending that anything (spare Jose Aldo) south of 155 pounds is a draw. Think of every major pay-per-view you can remember. The ones which did well were headlined by welterweights and up. Outside of the superstars—the Anderson Silvas and the Georges St-Pierres—no one moves tickets in the fight world like big men who are going to swing at each other.

It is true in MMA and it was true in kickboxing, and it was true in boxing for a hundred years before that. Little guys are on the undercard, and big guys sell the tickets. Yet Demetrious Johnson is easily more technically skilled and well-rounded as a fighter than almost anyone in any division. Why is it that fans don’t care about the little man?

Why is it that 380,000 fans will pay through the nose to watch Cain Velasquez beat up a hopelessly overmatched Antonio Silva for a second time on pay-per-view, but Jose Aldo can fight truly elite competition in Chad Mendes, Chan Sung Jung and Frankie Edgar and draw only half that number of buys in some of his appearances?

Absoluteness of the Heavyweight Crown

Half of the issue is psychology.

It is easy for those who follow the sport fanatically to say that Demetrious Johnson could outfight the average 180-pound guy in the gym or the guy off the street. But the guy off the street doesn’t know that. He’s programmed to think that he could “have a good go at” beating up Demetrious Johnson because he has 40-plus pounds on Johnson.

Ask any man who knows anything about Cain Velasquez whether he could beat Velasquez in a fight, and all but the most arrogant and delusional will realize they would be in the fetal position or playing dead within moments. Size matters, not just consciously, but also subconsciously.

The heavyweight championship is the greatest absolute. It was that way in boxing, and it is that way now in MMA. With no upper weight limit (in effect, though the UFC does force its fighters to weigh in under 265 pounds), the heavyweight champion has proven that he can beat the biggest guys around. Anyone in the world can earn a fight against the heavyweight champion; there are very few men who can’t cut to 265 pounds.

Every other belt is seen by many on a subconscious level as almost a consolation prize—something which is qualified by weight. As if to say, “Hey, you may not be the absolute champion, but you sure do well against other guys of your weight.”

You may contend that people don’t think like that. Unfortunately, they do and always have. To give a classic example, I will refer back to the early days of professional boxing when weight classes and gloves were relatively young. George “Little Chocolate” Dixon, a bantamweight, and Joe Gans, a lightweight, were the first black fighters to win world titles. They defeated white fighters for the titles in 1890 and 1902, respectively.

Both men were enormously respected for their skill and accomplishments. But when Jack Johnson was finally allowed to compete for the heavyweight title and won it in 1908, all hell broke loose. The hunt for the “Great White Hope” began, and for years, rhetoric was repeated in the papers about returning the highest prize in pugilism to the white race. Whether you like it or not, the heavyweight title is a lot more important to people than the belts in other weight classes.

There’s a reason that fans love to throw around the ridiculous moniker “The Baddest man on the Planet” whenever someone wins or defends the heavyweight title.

In truth, one of the few ways in which lighter fighters can offset this ridiculous obsession with the “take on all comers” aspect of the heavyweight division is to fight up in weight, as Manny Pacquiao has throughout his career. In the MMA world, B.J. Penn was, of course, famous for his competing outside of his natural lightweight class, as was now-bantamweight Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto, who competed for most of his career as a successful lightweight.

Beyond the subconscious understanding that size matters, however, there are also noticeable trends in the dynamic of fights which cause fans to be more attracted to heavyweight ones and to care less about flyweight ones.

The Love of the Finish

While the heavyweight division is absolute, it also provides the most of what fans love: finishes. Casual fans watch MMA because knockouts are more frequent than in boxing, and the possibility of a submission from top or bottom if the striking is going south adds an element of come-from-behind excitement.

We may all be giddy from the brilliant showdown between Mark Hunt and Antonio Silva, but heavyweight fights by and large aren’t great. The level of technical proficiency in each area of the game really isn’t as high as in other divisions, the cardio of most heavyweights is atrocious, and the fights which go to a decision tend to be appalling affairs.

But heavyweight fights don’t go to decision. The majority of the time, the two participants swing and one gets knocked out. Or they get tired, then one fails to see a punch coming because he’s wheezing and gets knocked out.

Bantamweights and flyweights do not tend to gas out nearly so often as heavyweights. But because of their limited size, they lack the natural power of the heavyweights. If you’re 250 pounds or more and you flail like Lavar Johnson, you can still floor a man with a sloppy connection.

The fact of the matter is that finishes just aren’t as common in the lighter weight classes. Smaller fighters struggle to generate the power that larger ones do, even when utilizing their body weight fully.

If a lighter fighter can finish fights, he will have a far better chance of drawing attention than he would normally. In the boxing world, Prince Naseem Hamed was a divisive character, but his incredible punching power and flair brought interest to the lighter weight classes from casual fans who normally wouldn’t care.

The same is true in MMA. Featherweight finishing artist Jose Aldo has far greater drawing power than Dominick Cruz or Demetrious Johnson. Were Cruz a featherweight and Aldo a bantamweight, I think this would still be the case. Aldo has successfully broken out from the image of the lighter weight divisions.

If John Dodson were the flyweight champion, or if Urijah Faber had remained undefeated into his UFC tenure, how much more interest do you feel there would have been in their title defences?

Pace is a Killer

A final point worth considering is that the pace of bantamweight and flyweight fights is downright alienating to even the most passionate fans.

In a light heavyweight fight, the fighters will engage a handful of times per round on the feet or enter a grappling exchange, and you can see exactly what is going on. That is not the case in the vast majority of flyweight fights.

Contrast any heavyweight or light heavyweight fight that you can think of with Demetrious Johnson vs. Joseph Benavidez. The first meeting between Johnson and Benavidez had everything you could want to see in a mixed martial arts bout. All manner of strikes on the feet, ringcraft, pivoting with counterstrikes, takedowns, switches, reversals, body work and guard pulls. Where else can you see a takedown into a jumping butterfly guard pass and a rolling leg-lock attempt in the same round? You name it, it was in that fight.

But it all happened at such a pace, and in such a relentless fashion, that fans struggled to keep up. It’s my job to analyse fights, and I had trouble keeping up with what was going on in any exchange.

The pace of the fight is not helped by the fact that the Octagon absolutely dwarfs flyweights. Benavidez was repeatedly told to cut off the cage by his corner, but much of the fight was the two men running around the Octagon, nowhere near to the fence.

The hectic pace of lighter-weight fights, combined with the number of exchanges, is really what alienates viewers the most. The fact that very few flyweights pack one-punch power simply adds to the frustration which many viewers can feel when watching these fights. In a heavyweight bout, there are a handful of engagements per round and you are on edge when they happen. Anyone could get knocked out at any time. In the vast majority of flyweight and bantamweight bouts, there just isn’t that same sense of tension.

Conclusions

I don’t think we will ever reach a point where the casual fan will prefer to watch a bantamweight or flyweight title fight to watching a heavyweight or light heavyweight title fight.

Of the 20 top-selling UFC pay-per-views, just one was headlined by anyone below welterweight. That was B. J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian, and Anderson Silva was fighting on the same card. That being said, B. J. Penn is an excellent example of how to draw attention to lighter weight classes. In Penn’s best days, the UFC had only recently reinstated the lightweight division, now it is arguably the most exciting and deep division in the company roster.

Penn’s finishing ability and character, combined with his attention-grabbing fights at other weights, brought the spotlight to the lightweight division. Jose Aldo, through his finishing ability and undefeated streak, is in the middle of doing much the same for the featherweight division.

It is easy to point to Demetrious Johnson’s and Dominick Cruz’s lack of finishes and say that their inability to finish fights is stopping them from becoming major draws, but Jose Aldo and Renan Barao have been finishing world-class opposition for years and still only bring in pedestrian pay-per-view buyrates.

The truth of it is that the smaller fighters are always going to be overshadowed by the heavyweights. There will be individuals who draw more attention than the rest. Flyweight and bantamweight MMA will have their Prince Naseem or B. J. Penn, but for the most part, they will suffer smaller purses and less attention than the big men, and there is little that can change that.

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

Breaking Down Hunt and Bigfoot’s Heavyweight War

UFC Fight Night 33 was, as any event is, a mixed bag.
We had the customary bad decision as Julie Kedzie outworked the woefully inactive Bethe Correia and was somehow deemed the loser. We had a wonderful freak injury as Dylan Andrews tore his own arm ou…

UFC Fight Night 33 was, as any event is, a mixed bag.

We had the customary bad decision as Julie Kedzie outworked the woefully inactive Bethe Correia and was somehow deemed the loser. We had a wonderful freak injury as Dylan Andrews tore his own arm out on Clint Hester’s guard.

We had a couple of great finishes from Soa Palelei over Pat Barry and Mauricio Rua over James Te Huna. And we had a horribly uncomfortable mismatch between Ryan Bader and Anthony Perosh.

The night was topped off, however, by easily the best heavyweight bout I have seen since the last time Mark Hunt fought. Hunt and Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva went hell for leather at a pace that would be impressive in middleweights. They kept it up for four rounds before exhausting themselves but continued swinging until the finish.

So a ton of stuff happened and I’ve only got a thousand words to tell you about it in; let’s crack on!

Sao Palelei Pounds Out Pat Barry

Pat Barry is an enormously entertaining fighter and charismatic chappy. Conor McGregor famously described him in an interview with Tracy Lee as “mad as a box of spiders.” While this may be true of Barry’s personality, his switch-hitting striking game is unorthodox on the surface but downright predictable after studying any film of him.

Before the fight I pointed out to folks in the Twitter-sphere:

https://twitter.com/JackSlackMMA/status/409157403964239872

What did Pat Barry do? He came out, he got dragged into a clinch, he broke away, he switched stances, and he high-kicked.

Moments later Barry was on the floor in his half guard. Sao Palelei passed to mount as any good top player will do from there, particularly with a weight advantage, and pounded Barry out brutally.

This performance, aside from introducing Palelei to UFC fans, really cements the issue of Barry’s weight. As a small heavyweight, he benefits enormously from the terrible level of striking technique, the slow movement and the tendency to collapse when hit hard that the big men up there tend to display.

But being a small heavyweight is a double-edged sword; if you don’t have the escapes and survivability of a Cain Velasquez or a Fedor Emelianenko, you are not going to last long enough to turn the fight around. Getting trapped underneath giants, unless you are very experienced on the ground, is just the worst possible way a fight can go.

If Barry can make the cut to 205 lbs, he should move there, now more than ever. While the games are more rounded there, his strength and experience with bigger men should more than make up for his losses in speed advantage.

Lose the Swing, Train the Hook

I will only touch on this point briefly because, aside from some cool takedowns by Dylan Andrews and a nice bit of lateral movement by Clint Hester at the beginning of their bout, it was largely unremarkable. The bout was called to a close, however, by that most dangerous of punches, the swing.

Check out the gif of the injury here.

It was not a completely straight-armed swing that did the damage, so not that traditional cardinal sin of boxing, but it was a very extended hook. Any hook in which the arm is bent at an angle more obtuse than 90 degrees is an impure hook. It becomes less of a stable structure, and injuries are more likely to happen.

Of course long hooks can be used masterfully—look at Roy Jones Jr. But they can also cause ongoing injuries. For instance, Fedor Emelianenko and Igor Vovchanchyn both destroyed their hands with long “Russian hooks.”

Long overhand swings leave the possibility of the arm getting caught and torn out of its place. The shoulder is not a particularly hardy joint, as most bench pressers will know, and if you throw your bodyweight through while your arm is left behind and braced on something, bad stuff is going to happen.

Andrews’ hook got caught on Hester’s guard in a manner reminiscent to Chan Sung Jung’s punch getting caught on Jose Aldo’s shoulder. The major difference is that Aldo’s own punch coming over served to crank down on the Korean Zombie’s arm, making an unintentional standing-joint manipulation.

While Jack Dempsey said “Take the swing and throw it in the slop bucket,” I will say that overhands and long hooks have more than proven their efficacy over the years. A note should be made, however, that throwing the overhand and allowing it to drape over the opponent, hoping it finds its mark, is a great way to increase the likelihood of these sorts of injuries.

Ryan Bader Grinds Down Anthony Perosh

This fight was simultaneously impressive and disgusting. It shouldn’t matter if a fighter is slowly working his way back to full guard while getting pounded with strikes if he has done nothing once he gets to his guard for the entire fight.

This was as much of a mismatch as anyone expected, with Bader mauling The Hippo from top position for the duration.

The embarrassing part of this bout was the stand-up. Bader is a power puncher but typically a sloppy boxer. We examined earlier in the week how he will literally sprint at his opponents with his chin up and his arms flailing. Well…Anthony Perosh decided to do his Ryan Bader impression, except he has none of the power.

But it wasn’t just cringeworthy for Perosh. Each time Bader got hit with a punch coming in, which was more often than he should have against his atrociously overmatched opponent, he would stumble back as if hurt.

We all know that Bader is a little chinny, but his absolute absence of defence except in his ability to overwhelm opponents is not what you want to see from a legitimate contender this late into his UFC career.

Perosh made it to the final bell, but as he was accomplishing nothing and taking a horrible pasting, you have to wonder what the point of that was. At a certain point a corner should throw in the towel, save the fighter some years of his fighting life, and come back another day.

A guy who is only losing guard and trying to recover it again, and hasn’t attempted a single submission or sweep, is not going to pull out a magic submission after three rounds when he can barely move.

This gif sums up the fight.

Mauricio “Shogun” Rua Shocks with Knockout of the Night

There might be some real parallels between James Te Huna and Mauricio Rua. I have seen Te Huna strike intelligently, and it’s something to watch. But I have also seen him dive in with wild punches, like the lead left uppercut with right hand at nipple level, which got him knocked out here.

Mauricio Rua, plagued by injuries throughout his career, also has an infuriating habit of fighting masterfully to a plan in one fight, then swinging and looking mediocre against someone like Brandon Vera in another.

Rua seemed on point last night, however, as for the first time in years he committed to movement and kicks in the early going. The standard Shogun overhand as soon as Te Huna even hinted at stepping in was always there, but what shocked was his left hook.

As Te Huna attempted to leap in with a lead uppercut (a daft thing to do), Shogun timed him masterfully and landed a crushing left hook right on the chin.

Te Huna pretty much threw the fight away by making the bizarre decision to drop both hands and lead with an uppercut, but it would certainly have been exciting to see how Shogun continued. Rua looked as nimble on his feet as when he fought Chuck Liddell back in 2009.

Hunt and Bigfoot Go To War

My word, what a main event this was. If you told me a heavyweight fight was going to go to a 25-minute draw, I’d go to bed early. But this one was brilliant. Easily one of the best heavyweight fights in UFC history.

Firstly, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva gets a lot of criticism, because frankly nobody cheers for Goliath. But he showed not only heart and courage that big men don’t typically have, but he also showed once again that he is willing to work to a gameplan.

From the get-go, Bigfoot was chopping away at the legs of Mark Hunt. We spoke the other day about Hunt’s dislike of low kicks as Jerome Le Banner was able to chop him down in their fourth meeting. Just like that bout, the kick that hurt Hunt seemed to connect not flush on the thigh, but on the upper shin, just below Hunt’s knee.

Every time Hunt was getting used to the low kicks, Bigfoot would throw a front kick at face level, or a front kick to the body, and immediately slam in a punch from the same side.

Bigfoot’s hands are slow as molasses, but he kicks surprisingly quickly for a big man. If you have a heavyweight who can’t move his hands fast enough to make his mark with the jab, chaining it off of long kicks can work a charm. Semmy Schilt is a magnificent example of this, landing his jab almost exclusively off of his blocked kicks.

Hunt was obviously having trouble because Bigfoot was not giving him the opportunity to counter-punch. Hunt, instead, had to lead. Whenever Bigfoot came towards Hunt, the great danger was that Hunt was going to duck onto a kick as he loves to bob his head in low in response to attack. Hunt did a marvellous job of changing up his defences, though, never showing the same evasion twice in a row.

Hunt found his customary left hook to right straight in the the third round and send Bigfoot to the mat. Hunt uses his left hook against or behind the opponent’s guard to force them into the line of a shortened left straight. This hides the punch well and caught Bigfoot unaware.

Bigfoot’s chin held up incredibly well for the most part. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, his chin is pretty under-rated. Bigfoot has only been put down by punches that he didn’t see coming, which is true of most fighters. For instance, Mike Kyle hid his right straight behind jabs, and Cain Velasquez hit him on the counter. Hunt’s punches were coming the same way every time. Always hard but always expected.

Secondly Bigfoot’s commitment to hurting Hunt’s legs early may have taken away some of Hunt’s ability to throw with power. Punching power comes from the base, and Hunt was clearly having a hell of a time trying to stay standing on his after the early kicks.

An interesting point is that Hunt broke his hand on Bigfoot’s guard or head midway through the fight and noticeably switched to elbow strikes instead of punches. He was able to cut Bigfoot up nicely and land repeatedly with this elbow, and it is perhaps something that he should consider incorporating into his game more regularly.

Something that I would really like to see Hunt not do is drop his hands against the cage. Hurt by a Bigfoot punch that caught him by surprise, Hunt backed onto the cage, dropped his chin and hands and attempted to roll with Bigfoot’s punches.

Hunt’s reactions are great, but playing silly beggars with Bigfoot is a great way to get put in horrible positions. It was impressive, though, that while Hunt was looking at the ground and taking punches, he was able to immediately swing back with a left hook right on the temple of Bigfoot. He did this same thing off of the fence twice in the bout.

The fight went to the final bell and was scored, in a brilliant turn of events, as a draw. Some are saying that the referee’s decision to have Bigfoot’s cut checked in the last round, which was one-way traffic from Hunt, saved Bigfoot from being stopped.

But it is worth remembering that Hunt was taking unanswered shots from the mount earlier in the bout, and the fight could have rightfully been stopped there. Instead, Bigfoot exhausted himself on Hunt’s iron head, and Hunt survived to the end of the bout.

The fight told us so much about both men. To be honest, in future I would love to see Bigfoot kick effectively more often, and Hunt use his wrestling and ground-and-pound. Bigfoot was able to kickbox with a K-1 Grand Prix winner, and Mark Hunt was able to stuff the takedowns and deep half guard of a giant jiu jitsu black belt, while getting takedowns of his own.

With the biggest event of the year ahead of us at UFC 168, we have to wonder if it can possibly top Fight Night 33’s main event in cage drama and action.

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