There is one word to describe Clay Guida’s style inside the Octagon: frenetic. Clay Guida used his frantic pace, constant movement and solid wrestling to stifle and confuse the last WEC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis.
Guida was on the winning side of a 30-27 unanimous decision over the Duke Roufus student Pettis this Saturday night in the co-main event of the The Ultimate Fighter Season 13 finale.
Pettis’ last fight in the WEC was a career-defining moment for the young athlete as he captured the lightweight title from Ben Henderson just before the promotion was folded into the UFC.
More important than the title perhaps was “The Kick” landed by Pettis in the fifth and final round of the fight with Henderson. He cage walked and exploded with a right kick to the head of Henderson that knocked the champion down and sent shock waves around the world launching him to mixed martial arts super stardom at just 24 years old.
Pettis’s performance in his last WEC fight was enough to get him the UFC lightweight title shot against the winner of the second battle between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard.
Unfortunately for Pettis, Edgar and Maynard fought a battle that is definitely in the running for fight of the year, but ended in a draw.
The Edgar vs. Maynard rematch was set, but Pettis didn’t want to sit and wait on the side lines, so the UFC offered veteran Clay Guida as Pettis’ welcome into the Octagon.
Although there is a ton of hype behind Pettis and at 24 years old the sky is the limit for this young fighter, Guida is certainly no slouch and showed us why.
Of course Pettis is known for his spectacular kicks and an extremely active guard, but the one thing Guida exposed tonight was the young man’s take-down defence.
Guda was successful on five of eight take-down attempts and spent the majority of all three rounds in top control.
Although Pettis took Guida’s back late in the third round and used a very active guard to look for submissions throughout the fight, Guida’s wrestling and submission defense were too much for Pettis to overcome.
Fans were still privy to some nice kicks from Pettis, one from the bottom as he was trying to make space to get back to his feet and a 360 spinning back kick; unfortunately for him neither of them did very much to slow Guida down.
Of course this was Pettis’ first fight in the UFC and they always say the first one is the toughest one. At 24 years old, he has plenty of time to go back to the drawing board and make the necessary adjustments to get back on track.
What was most impressive in this fight was Guida and the continued improvement he has shown over his last four fights.
It wasn’t very long ago that many people were writing Guida off as a gatekeeper who could grind out some big wins, but would ultimately lose when the competition stepped up. This was evidenced in back-to-back losses to Diego Sanchez and Kenny Florian.
Since then Guida has rattled off four straight victories including his win over Pettis. Three of his last four victories ended in submissions, one of them being a guillotine choke of former Pride champion Takanori Gomi.
Despite not looking like the most technically sound stand-up fighter, Guida makes up for it with his relentless pace and constant movement to keep his opponents off balance. As soon as Guida can get a hold of a leg, that’s where his grinding wrestler style shines through. Some may say grinders are boring, but at the pace Guida is going, that is a tough case to make.
Part of Guida’s evolution probably has a lot to do with being part of Greg Jackson’s camp as evidenced with almost every fighter that transitions to Jackson’s camp.
With a win over Pettis, the man touted to be the next lightweight contender and the four-fight win streak, Guida can’t be all that far out of title contention.
One would expect that with another solid victory over a top-ranked opponent such as Jim Miller or Ben Henderson that Guida will be fighting for the title.
No matter what the outcome for Guida in any fight, his motor is simply unmatched in the division and quite possibly all of the UFC. It will be interesting to see if that motor coupled with his strong wrestling can carry him and his long curly locks to UFC gold in 2011-2012.
Leon Horne has been contributing to Bleacher Report for three years now. He focuses mainly on mixed martial arts, but he has also written about tennis, football and hockey. Just send him a message if you want to talk sports or discuss any opportunities. You can follow him on Twitter for updates: 
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