Controlling the Opponent’s Lead Hand When Your weight is on the front foot.

Sodiq Yusuff uses his rear hand to control the opponent’s jabbing line when he enters into range. This will fit perfectly into your game because of your active lead hand.

The reads from this position are pretty simple, but its going to take practice and drilling to get it right:

1. Opponent does nothing = You Jab or double jab

2. Opponent hooks = You block with the rear hand, look to counter if hook touches your gloves.

3. Opponent backs up = You low kick

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Raphael Uchegbu wants a low paced affair on the feet and when that’s not getting it done he starts to drive his opponent’s to the fence and looks to take them down. His A-game recently has been looking to ground and pound from top position, especially when his opponent’s decide to take him down with badly timed shots.

Fence Wrestling Offense

He looks to enter with hands upstairs and looks for the locked hands double. When he executes this type of entry, he squares his stance which can make him vulnerable to uppercuts to the body or even straights to the body. The shot he takes hinges at the waist so its not low.

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Carlos Condit was an exciting fighter to watch. He had a large variety of kicks, an opportunistic bottom game, and a complete lack of wrestling. He’s a very problematic fighter that lacked the proper fundamentals which gave him utterly horrendous mechanics and terrible cage awareness. Despite all of his deficiencies, he was a fun fighter to watch.

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Lack of Wrestling

Despite training at Jackson-Wink, a gym known for developing well rounded fighters (because of their focus on variety than fundamentals), Condit never developed the fundamentals for stopping takedowns or developed a wall walking game to get back up. This is a significant disadvantage especially in todays meta game, since playing on bottom is a formula to lose rounds.

The biggest problem with his takedown defense is that he squares his hips upon initiating striking exchanges. This gives his opponent’s easy clinch entries and lower body takedowns. Its his run up combinations that put him in these situations (Video 1).

Video 1: Condit throws his jab followed by a hook to the body, but throws it while Kampmann is already closing the distance. This give Kampmann an easy clinch entry.

There are 5 lines of defense in any form of wrestling defense:

1. Feet

2. Head

3. Hands

4. Forearm

5. Hips

Custom Study Requests

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Dustin Poirier has three weapons he relies on at long range (borders)

1. jab

2. rear body kick

3. shifting attack

Poirier is most dangerous in the inside since he changes levels with his combinations often working the body and the head with two handed hitting.

Defensively he relies on the shoulder roll where he extends his lead elbow up to his face. This leaves him v…

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This is my YouTube video on Israel Adesanya. I highlight his primary weapons from both stances and potential habits that can be exploited.

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This is Study into the striking of Fabricio Andrade in both kickboxing and mma.

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It's very peculiar that Andrade ended his career in kickboxing as a orthodox fighter while in mma he's mainly fights as a southpaw.

Orthodox Andrade in kickboxing.

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Jonathan Haggerty is a fight nerd's wet dream since he has interesting tactics and strategies that are simple yet provide a complex problem for his opponents. Both Downward Elbow and Jack Slack have written extensive articles on Haggerty which are great reads on the techniques and tactics he applies and I highly recommend reading those pieces at some po…

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Striking

In all his fights, Dariush places all his weight on his lead foot when in stance.

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Striking

From range, Tsarukyan often looks to high kick from the open side. Against orthodox opponents it’s his step up left high kick. Against southpaws it’s his right high kick.

Open side high kicks are generally free in mma, even Machachev couldn’t get takedowns off it. This is because many fighter’s are not used to catching kicks to the open side lik…

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Jiri Prochazka is a reader of the Book of Five Rings. One of the concepts in that book is to look for initiative and keep hold of initiative as applied in duels involving samurai swords. Initiative in the Book of Five Rings is defined as making the opponent reactive. Prochazka in most fights is able to attain initiative through his stance and strange lo…

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Tom Aspinall is the current reigning Interim Heavyweight champion of the UFC and has defended his interim title earlier this year against Curtis Blaydes. This is an absolutely absurd situation since Jon Jones was busy beating up a geriatric Stipe Miocic for a silly legacy fight. While there is not a lot of information about Tom Aspinall since most of hi…

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Distance

The distance that Pereira operates at in both kickboxing and mma is just outside the reach of his opponents punching range. At Fight Ready they call this distance “Boarders”

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Carla Esparza is a weird fighter in that all she has is the wrestling. However, its the way she gets her takedowns that is peculiar. The popular strategy for wrestlers is to pressure and find takedowns along the cage, then slow down the wall walk with leg and wrist rides. Esparza, on the other hand will look to time shots out in …

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Amanda Lemos A-Game

Lemos’s…

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Taking a close look at how Covington enters into double legs, knee picks, single legs and body locks.

Out in open space Covington will look down, throw a high kick and enter on a double leg.

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