Ahead of his second UFC appearance on Saturday at UFC Fight Night 26 in Boston, Conor McGregor‘s hype train has reached a scale comparable in size to the mythical Irish Rover. How deserved is the hype?
Well, he’s won titles in two divisions, but they were in small promotions devoid of the kind of talent that is in the UFC.
He has outstruck everyone who has stood against him and has a good enough ground game to take the offensive, but he’s never fought a wrestler who has tried to blanket him.
His upcoming match with Max Holloway will tell us nothing about either man’s future prospects against the elite wrestlers of the division, who serve as a watershed for world-class talent and exciting journeymen to roll down opposite sides of.
However, it is not necessary for every fight to demonstrate a fighter’s skill in adverse conditions or serve as part of his development. Indeed, sometimes it is good to have fights that are as fun as this one promises to be.
Few fighters have remained hidden from stylistically difficult opponents forever—with perhaps the exception of Nick Diaz, who managed to get a title shot at the best wrestler in MMA without fighting a great wrestler in more than half a decade.
Those who want to see McGregor laid on by a great wrestler and tested will see it at some point, but for now sit back and enjoy what promises to be a great stand-up bout.
While Holloway has shown to be a cut above the average MMA striker, hooking off the jab wonderfully and mixing in body work, he has not fought anyone as highly touted on the feet as McGregor. The Irishman is in the same boat. He just fought Marcus Brimage, who held a significant reach disadvantage yet insisted on swinging at McGregor anyway.
McGregor is a bread-and-butter striker who does a handful of things well. As a southpaw, he only needs to do a few things well. Even in this day and age, a southpaw is an unusual opponent.
One peculiar wrinkle in his game is that while he is mainly a boxer, he uses front snap kicks extensively. This seems to be because he is a counter striker predominantly and doesn’t like putting himself at undue risk.
The front kick is the longest strike one can throw with little commitment to move out of stance, and as he withdraws his leg, he often finds his opponents coming at him with the aggression that they lacked before getting kicked in the bread basket.
Front snap kicks to the face are becoming commonplace in MMA nowadays, but snap kicks to the body are rare because of their lack of obvious impact.
If a roundhouse kick delivered with the shin hits an opponent in the body, you and most of the spectators know about it. If a snap kick connects with the ball of the foot, there is no big bang, but the damage is there.
Men who target front snap kicks can use them to degrade an opponent’s will to fight. The difference between connecting with the ball of the foot to the well-muscled and padded abdomen and to the exposed and brittle floating rib or solar plexus is enormous.
The example I always use is that of Katsunori Kikuno. He is not a great boxer or grappler, but through front snap kicks alone, he outstruck Eddie Alvarez for the best part of 10 minutes before being taken down and submitted.
If Alvarez, one of the best strikers in the game, struggled against an opponent exclusively using this kick, you can consider it undervalued when no one else is making the commitment to practice it. Jon Jones also has much success with this technique, but it gets lost between the audible slaps and smacks of his low kicks.
The keystone of McGregor‘s game should be obvious to anyone who has watched him fight: He has a fantastic counter left straight. He thrives under pressure, baiting the jab or right straight from his opponent, leaning back or to the left to evade the punch and coming back with the left straight. It is a simple technique that relies on timing and anticipation.
McGregor manufactures a situation—through his pre-fight antics and talk, his bravado in the ring and his biting kicks—wherein the opponent must come after him.
His control of the lead hand whenever the opponent is in range (unless he is looking for a counter right hook, which we’ll talk about at another time) guarantees the opponent will attack with his longer, slower rear hand. This gives McGregor the knowledge of what is coming and time to prepare the counter. Lead hand control is a staple of good southpaw strategy, at least versus the far more common orthodox fighter.
So much of good striking is about becoming excellent at basic counters and strikes. The part that many miss, however, is that practicing a technique hundreds of times on the mitts and bags is not going to make the occasion for it appear in fights.
Name an elite striker or grappler and then think of his favorite technique; you will realize that opponents know that information too. The brilliance of Roy Jones, Anderson Silva, Marcelo Garcia and the like is in being prepared for anything but manufacturing a situation where they can do their best work.
Shutting down the lead hand, aggravating with front kicks, capoeira techniques and bravado, and giving the opponent a target for long enough to think about committing—these are the secrets of McGregor‘s simple but beautifully subtle game.
While Holloway’s decent jab and lead hook might not play that much of a role in the southpaw versus orthodox matchup, it will be interesting to see how well McGregor holds up against a more rounded striking assault. One of the great weaknesses of the purer boxers in MMA is that their choice to fight in the manner of a boxer leaves them exposed to the low kicks that traditional boxing doesn’t have to deal with.
McGregor’s long stance and dependence on footwork will make it interesting to see what low kicks would do to throw off his game. Even if he picks up his leg to check them, he would have to stand still, and no one can pull off lean-back counters that well while standing on one leg.
While we are expecting a stand-up war, it would not surprise me at all if either man looked for takedowns. Both Holloway and McGregor have well-rounded games and like to show it. I can’t make any predictions, but all the factors on paper point to this being an entertaining scrap.
Pick up Jack’s eBooks Advanced Striking and Elementary Striking from his blog, Fights Gone By.
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