UFC 207 is in the books, and we have a brand-new men’s bantamweight champion to go along with what looks like a dominant women’s bantamweight champion after Cody Garbrandt upset Dominick Cruz to take his belt and Amanda Nunes brutalized Ronda Rousey to retain hers.
While Garbrandt needed 25 minutes to take out the immortal Cruz and Nunes required just 48 seconds, both fighters were impressive in victory. Though their fights weren’t on the marquee, TJ Dillashaw and Ray Borg both showed their quality as well.
In this technical recap, we’ll dig deeper into each of these fights to explain how and why the victors came out on top.
Ray Borg vs. Louis Smolka
The story of this fight was Borg’s physicality. He was faster, stronger and a superior all-around athlete, which became clear every time the two fighters locked up.
When Smolka could use his reach advantage to maintain distance with jabs and kicks, he did fine, though Borg has made some improvements to his footwork and forward movement since his one-sided loss to Justin Scoggins in February. When Borg grabbed ahold of Smolka, though, the physical disparity was too much for Smolka to overcome.
This was most obvious in the transitions, a phase in which both fighters excel and rely heavily on. Even if Smolka were more skilled there (not that he was), scrambles tend to go to the quicker fighter who can capitalize on the smallest openings in a split second. That was unquestionably Borg.
There was a moment in the third round that summed up exactly why this was such a tough fight for Smolka. In a scramble, Borg grabbed a rear waistlock on a standing Smolka and tried an ill-advised jumping back-take. Borg fell to the ground, and Smolka tried to capitalize by hopping on top, but somehow Borg managed to recover, grab a single-leg takedown and establish his own top control.
Borg’s athleticism gave him a huge margin for error that Smolka couldn’t overcome, and there wasn’t much Smolka could do about it. Borg was stronger, faster and more skilled in exactly the kinds of scrambles Smolka needed to control to win the fight.
If Borg can get his weight under control, he has the look of a potential future contender.
TJ Dillashaw vs. John Lineker
Heading into this fight, it was easy to see how the aggressive, offensively focused Dillashaw could get himself into trouble with an iron-chinned, quick-paced puncher like Lineker. Dillashaw is down to exchange, likes to stick to his opponent to land long series of strikes and is willing to eat a shot or two to land five or 10 of his own. Even if he won those battles against Lineker, it would only take one reckless punch to lose the war.
That’s not what we saw from Dillashaw. His game plan, courtesy of coaches like Duane Ludwig and Leister Bowling, was perfect: maintain distance with jabs, kicks and footwork, feint to draw out Lineker’s punches, and shoot takedowns when the Brazilian overcommits. What’s more impressive is how perfectly Dillashaw executed that plan. He stayed disciplined and never gave in to the urge to exchange.
It’s stunning how easy Dillashaw made this look, but that’s a testament to the former champion’s skill and savvy, not a knock on Lineker. The Brazilian hadn’t conceded a takedown since his January 2015 win over Ian McCall; Dillashaw took him down five times. Lineker pressured the skilled, lightning-fast John Dodson as effectively as anyone not named Demetrious Johnson; Dillashaw was the one pressuring Lineker.
Everything about Dillashaw’s game was on point. His footwork and movement were efficient and effective both in applying pressure and to avoid Lineker’s pressure, and his timing was off the charts. When he got to top position, he did damage.
Dillashaw has earned a shot at what used to be his belt. Cruz’s resurgence and Garbrandt’s rise to the top dominated the headlines in the bantamweight division in 2016, but Dillashaw might still be the best fighter in the division.
Dominick Cruz vs. Cody Garbrandt
It wasn’t just one thing that led to Garbrandt’s stunning dismantling of Cruz but several. First, Garbrandt’s raw speed, athleticism and especially his power were orders of magnitude greater than that of anyone Cruz had ever faced. Second, Cruz looked just a bit slower on his feet, his reflexes a little slower, than he did against Urijah Faber in June or Dillashaw last January. The physical gap between the two men was wide and noticeable.
The most important factors, though, were Garbrandt’s footwork, defense and counters, and the game plan they allowed him to implement.
Most opponents try to pressure Cruz, walking him toward the fence where they can take his footwork and movement out of the equation and unload punches with impunity. Some have even had success with this plan, including Dillashaw and Johnson, though not for extended periods.
The problem with this approach is that when that pressure isn’t 100 percent effective, it gives Cruz his best opportunities to land counters and duck under to work his takedown game. It’s impossible to build a sustained rhythm with this approach, and when Cruz does go on the offensive, he knows he can always bait his opponent into chasing him afterward.
Garbrandt refused to play that game. He sat back and made Cruz come to him, finding the brief windows of opportunity to land counters as Cruz darted into range. He isn’t the first fighter to try this—Faber gave it a shot, more successfully in their second fight than their third, and Dillashaw landed some good ones—but none of them had the commitment to the plan nor the tools at their disposal that Garbrandt had.
Footwork was the most important of those. Garbrandt’s movement wasn’t as noticeable as Cruz’s, but he constantly took small, subtle adjustment steps, pivoted, turned and generally never let Cruz find the kinds of angles he needed to be successful as he came in. It’s not that Cruz was entering on straight lines but that Garbrandt never let him have those angles for more than a split second.
This is what made Cruz so shockingly hittable on the counter. Instead of Cruz coming in at an angle, throwing and then exiting on a different angle to avoid the return fire, Garbrandt’s footwork took those escape angles away. Cruz wasn’t moving on straight lines; Garbrandt’s footwork just made it seem that way, so when Garbrandt threw his counters, Cruz was right in front of him waiting to be hit.
Add to that Garbrandt’s exceptional timing, quick triggers, great shot selection and blazing hand speed, and the recipe for Cruz’s disaster was clear. The counters were there for Garbrandt in every round.
To make matters worse for Cruz, Garbrandt wasn’t easy to hit. His head movement was outstanding and constant, and per FightMetric, Cruz connected on just 23 percent (58/250) of the strikes he threw at Garbrandt’s head. Cruz likes to throw volume and has never been an especially accurate striker; he rarely misses that badly, though, and opponents have never made him pay so badly for missing.
That was the recipe for Garbrandt’s upset win. He rose to the occasion, showing some things we’d seen before—the triggers on his counters and the tight footwork, but only in brief glimpses—and others we hadn’t, like the head movement, the constant commitment to fundamental footwork and the discipline to put it all together and execute.
The UFC may have a new star on its hands if Garbrandt can continue to grow. At only 25 and with just four years as a professional under his belt, it’s a safe bet we haven’t yet seen the best version of him.
Amanda Nunes vs. Ronda Rousey
There isn’t much to say about this fight aside from the fact it confirmed both the worst suspicions about Rousey’s game and her mental state after the loss to Holm and the best assessments of Nunes’ strengths.
A few notable things still stand out, though, even though the fight took only 48 seconds to play out.
First, it’s fundamental footwork, not so much sticking and moving as Holm did so successfully, that Rousey struggles to deal with.
Nunes did a great job of sticking Rousey on the end of her reach, but it was her footwork that prevented Rousey from getting inside and clinching when she let her punches go. Every time Nunes threw a combination, she stepped off to a new angle: jab-cross, then pivot; straight, right-lunging left-overhand right, then sidestep followed by a pivot.
When Rousey tried to grab ahold of her, Nunes had created an angle that prevented Rousey from stepping in, and it was a simple matter for Nunes to break any weak grip that Rousey managed to establish for a moment.
Second, Rousey doesn’t react well to getting hit. She’s not Brock Lesnar, who shied away from damage, but eating a flush shot seems to remove Rousey’s fragile calm and her ability to stick to anything resembling a plan.
Intelligent pressure went out the window against Holm the second the challenger started to land, and Rousey’s footwork and clinch entries deserted her the second Nunes’ fists made contact. Even looking back at the Bethe Correia fight, Rousey seemed to go wild when her opponent landed a couple of flush shots. This is a consistent issue for Rousey.
That’s not a knock on Rousey’s toughness or her heart; she took a tremendous beating from Holm before succumbing to the head kick, and most fighters would have quit after eating far fewer than 27 flush shots, per FightMetric, from Nunes.
It’s hard to be successful against elite strikers if you can’t stay calm and measured after getting hit, though, and that’s where Rousey stands right now. If she plans to fight again, that’s a hurdle she’ll have to overcome.
Patrick Wyman is the Senior MMA Analyst for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Heavy Hands Podcast, your source for the finer points of face-punching. For the history enthusiasts out there, he also hosts The Fall of Rome Podcast on the end of the Roman Empire. He can be found on Twitter and on Facebook.
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