UFC Fight Night 29 was an interesting event for many of the wrong reasons. Demian Maia’s loss to Jake Shields threw the welterweight division further down the path of confusion, Thiago Silva and Matt Hamill re-enacted Kimbo Slice versus Houston Alexander, and Joey Beltran managed to make Fabio Maldonado look sharp on the feet.
Even with some bad fights on Wednesday, however, stories unfold through the various stanzas, twists and turns. Some endings are foreshadowed in the opening act, such as Dong Hyun Kim’s knockout of Erick Silva. Other fights take a complete turnaround as the bout progresses, such as Thiago Silva versus Matt Hamill.
Erick Silva: Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword
To get straight down to business, Erick Silva was surprisingly starched by Dong Hyun Kim. “Stun Gun” has always been a peculiar nickname for Kim, with 10 of his 18 career wins coming by way of a grinding decision victory, but he certainly lived up the the moniker in this bout.
Kim is peculiar as a striker because his striking manages to commit the dual cardinal sins of being both wild and predictable. Normally a fighter who does unorthodox things is a little intimidating because of the “anything can happen” factor, but Kim will pick a showy move and abuse it repeatedly throughout the length of a bout.
Against Sean Pierson, Kim threw more crane kicks than you can count on both hands, and I shouldn’t have to point out that this is probably too many. Against Silva, however, it was the spinning backfist that Kim missed several times but repeatedly attempted anyway.
One of the points that this fight so beautifully illustrated is that if a fighter can wrestle so well that it forces a compensation in striking method from his opponent, he can start outstriking them too. Just as with Cain Velasquez versus Junior dos Santos or Georges St. Pierre versus anyone: If a fighter has to focus on stuffing takedowns, he will more than likely open himself up for strikes.
Erick Silva punches with his non-striking hand low. This is pretty common among strikers attempting to compensate for a lack of wrestling pedigree. Junior dos Santos does it routinely. It basically means that while Silva tries his luck at taking his opponent’s head off as they come in, he will still have an underhook should he miss.
I am sure that I don’t have to point out the shortcomings of this method. Boxers realized way back when that the most common instance in which to get knocked out is in exchanging punches. Gradually word got around that keeping the non-punching hand high could minimize the risk of such embarrassments.
Here is Georges Carpentier demonstrating it way back in the 1920s.
One can punch with the non-punching hand out of position, but something else should be done to alleviate the ever-present danger of an exchange. The head should be moved, a side step should be incorporated or the opponent’s hand should be checked. Silva did none of these things and got caught standing straight upright by Kim, who also had his non-punching hand low, but moved his head to avoid Silva’s punch.
Silva was unfortunate to get caught against an opponent who has never exhibited especially skilled striking, but carrying the hands low to hinder the wrestler is a double-edged sword. Chuck Liddell lived and died by it in the Octagon and it will work the same way for others.
Say what you want about Quinton Jackson, but even at his worst he was one of the best fighters in the world at stuffing takedowns without unnecessarily exposing himself to strikes. His hands were seemingly always high and active or underneath his opponent’s armpits as they attempted to shoot on him.
Hamill versus Thiago Silva: Kimbo versus Houston II?
This bout was by far the most disappointing bout of the night for many. Matt Hamill, coming back from retirement—and having been in sharp decline before that—probably shouldn’t have been fighting. This had all the marks of a gimme match for Thiago Silva (no relation to Erick).
Thiago Silva, despite being a headache for UFC brass, still has the potential to be one of the more exciting fighters at 205 lbs. On paper this match almost guaranteed him a highlight-reel knockout in front of a Brazilian crowd.
In actuality we were treated to the best Matt Hamill in years for the first three minutes. Hamill surprised most of us by coming forward—exactly as Silva wants in all of his fights—and kickboxing Silva. What’s more, he did it pretty well.
Silva’s modus operandi on the feet has always been to stand directly in front of his opponent and hope that they oblige him. When they do, as Rafael Feijao and Keith Jardine did, Silva can look brilliant with his hard catch-and-pitch counters. When they don’t, he can work himself up and charge face first into a beatdown, as he did against Lyoto Machida and Alexander Gustafsson.
Hamill obliged Silva and hit him with hard low kicks, jabs and body shots. It didn’t last, however, and a mildly entertaining gave over to two rounds of both men gassing.
While Silva was expected to run out of breath, having come in significantly overweight and being fined 25 percent of his purse as a result, Hamill’s continuous work to the body and insistence that he was in good shape should have made this bout easier for Hamill as it progressed.
It is hard to take away good technical points from a bout where both fighters are so exhausted and fighting so sloppily, but there were a couple of important moments.
The first time Hamill was hurt was in answer to his low kicks. If one throws rear-leg low kicks without a proper setup, it is pretty much guaranteeing the opponent will eventually step in, jam the low kick and counterpunch.
Gokhan Saki uses right low kicks without a setup pretty routinely to draw his opponent into walking him down and thereby setting up his own counters, as I examined in my Glory 11 preview.
The second point to take away is the long cross counter that Silva hurt Hamill with late in the bout.
Both men were exhausted so it looked awful, but the long cross counter is slipping to the elbow side of a jab, lifting the opponent’s head with a counter left hand and attempting to catch him with a long right hand over the top while his head is up but before he can back away. This is a variant of the cross counter because it still effectively crosses over the opponent’s jabbing hand (if the jabber is pulling back into guard, though Hamill was too exhausted).
The final point to take away from this bout is that Thiago Silva seems to be one of the least coachable fighters in the sport. His attitude during fights and even in his corner, refusing to face his coach, is not indicative of a mature, adaptive fighter.
The fight concluded with Hamill barely able to keep himself from resting on his laurels, while Thiago Silva was going all out and couldn’t finish. Silva is a very talented and entertaining fighter, I truly hope he can work himself through whatever is causing this career meltdown and return to the form he carried through his first 13 bouts.
For Hamill’s part, it was brave to come back and his story has always been one which I admire, but you cannot age gracefully in the fight game. Past accomplishments and achievements do not stop a fighter from getting hit. If we see Hamill inside the Octagon again, it could end much worse than this bout did.
Pick up Jack’s eBooks Advanced Striking and Elementary Striking from his blog, Fights Gone By.
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