Issue 096
December 2012
First, FO analyst Andrew Garvey takes a look at the state of play: what are the career implications for the combatants? Where are they coming from, and what will victory or defeat hold? Next, our technical advisor Pete Irving breaks down the athletic considerations.
UFC 155 December 29th,
Las Vegas, Nevada
Junior Dos Santos vs. Cain Velasquez
88%
Junior Dos Santos has defended 88% of opponents’ takedown attempts in the UFC.
2nd
Dos Santos has the joint second-longest active winning streak in the UFC with nine, according to FightMatrix. Equal to Georges St Pierre and behind only Anderson Silva (15).
4th
Cain Velasquez ranks joint fourth amongst all UFC fighters, past and present, for takedown accuracy. He’s completed 66.7% of his shots.
20
In college, Velasquez used to wrestle at 285lb, 20lb heavier than the upper limit for the UFC’s heavyweight division
1+2
Dos Santos and Velasquez share the number-one and number-two spot for most UFC strikes landed per minute. Cain has achieved 7.47 and Junior 6.85.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Some 13 months on from their US TV ratings-smashing first fight – a stunningly quick affair that clocked in at just 64 seconds and was witnessed live on Fox by some 9.6 million American viewers – the sport’s two best heavyweights clash again to finish 2012 with a bang. Twice an All-American wrestler in college, former champion turned challenger Cain Velasquez (10-1) is one of the more frightening heavyweights in MMA history. Champion Junior Dos Santos (15-1) apparently has an excellent submission game but is usually far too busy brutalizing his unfortunate opponents on their feet for anyone to know whether that’s just hype. Both have fought just once since their first meeting, with Dos Santos outclassing big-talking Frank Mir, and Velasquez, in terrifying form as he obliterated Antonio Silva in so gruesome a way he left ‘Bigfoot’ looking like one of Jason Voorhees’ victims.
Neither 30-year-old Mexican-American family man Velasquez, who consistently looks uncomfortable in media appearances, or the calm, respectful Dos Santos court controversy or go in for the kind of trash talking that so often draws attention and money. Both do their talking inside the Octagon and have built up sizable fan bases in doing so. Their nationalities help them tap into reservoirs of likely support but both men are also popular simply for being fantastic fighters who put on entertaining fights with conclusive finishes.
Of their combined 25 victories, a whopping 20 have come via KO or TKO. Incidentally, in one of the most memorable of those, Velasquez smashed Dos Santos’ mentor Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera to defeat in the first round.
First time around, Brazil’s Dos Santos floored the first Mexican, or Mexican-American, to win any kind of major combat sports heavyweight title with an overhand right and followed up with a quick barrage of punches on the ground, in what was a battle of the secretly walking wounded. Prior to the fight, Dos Santos had suffered a very limiting knee injury while Velasquez had re-injured the rotator cuff he’d originally torn just over a year previously in obliterating Brock Lesnar to lift the title. Assuming both men are healthier this time, we could be in for a long, tense fight. Even in the UFC, few major fights are this hard to pick a winner from. Sit back and enjoy the occasion, the atmosphere and what should a truly great heavyweight title fight.
TECHNICAL BREAKDOWN
Little can be said about the first fight, so short as it was, other than to confirm that Dos Santos has the reach advantage on Velasquez, and the one-punch stopping power that can put anyone in the world to sleep.
In truth, Velasquez has the more complete skill-set, with well-developed striking, wrestling and ground grappling, and moreover a seamless transition and combination between the ranges. Velasquez is exceptionally well coordinated, fast and mobile for a fully fledged heavyweight. Junior Dos Santos, a truly gigantic man, although not clumsy by any means, is cumbersome by comparison. For all that JDS is a heavy and accurate puncher, their initial meeting notwithstanding, it is Velasquez that is the more competent boxer. In MMA discussion, punching ability and boxing skill are often synonymous or confused, but Velasquez’s head movement and footwork sets him apart from the heavyweight pack – especially the way he uses skipping and rolling to set up his takedown.
Simply because of his build, Dos Santos is stiffer legged and more upright, and being of taller stature than Velasquez anyway, he presents a large target for the high leg tackles that Velasquez executes so very well.
In light of the reach advantage and the brutal knockout Velasquez suffered at the hands of ‘Cigano’ in their initial clash, expect Velasquez to press for his takedown early and apply the advantage his ground skill gives him. Velasquez’s style of ground work is very much adapted from his wrestling base, a sort of wrestling-jiu-jitsu hybrid that pays off so well in MMA: controlling the guard, pinning and punching from cross body, or controlling the turtle with leg rides to punish his man with uppercuts and hooks to the body. But, Dos Santos does a good job in not engaging superior grapplers in the ground game, breaking away and punching down without getting tied up.
UFC 155, December 29th,
Las Vegas, Nevada
Chris Weidman vs. Tim Boetsch
4
Chris Weidman earned a UFC invitation after only four bouts, coming out the right side of two TKOs, a submission and a decision.
2
Weidman was a double Division I All-American wrestler, placing sixth in the nation in 2006 and third in 2007.
2010
Tim Boetsch hasn’t lost since Phil Davis ‘Wonder-barred’ him at UFC 123 in 2010. He’s since put together a four-fight win streak.
7-3
Between two UFC stints, Boetsch is 7-3 in MMA’s top tier of competition.
69%
Win or lose, in 29 bouts, Weidman and Boetsch have gone to the judges only nine times. That’s an early shower rate of 69%.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Fresh off an utter stinker of a fight with Hector Lombard at UFC 149 that neither man deserved to win, the hard-as-nails but clearly limited Tim ‘Barbarian’ Boetsch (16-4) has the unenviable task of being the next man on middleweight hot prospect Chris Weidman’s (9-0) march to the top. Rattling off five UFC wins in 15 months, destructive 28-year-old former NCAA wrestler Weidman really made his name with a decision win over former title contender Demian Maia (on just 11 days’ notice), and his complete domination of dangerous veteran Mark Munoz that put him in and around the title picture. A win over Boetsch should earn him either a title shot or an official eliminator with Michael Bisping, depending on champion Anderson Silva’s upcoming schedule. In his fight with highly touted newcomer and former Bellator middleweight champion Lombard, Boetsch was not expected to win. That he did owes much to Lombard’s pre-fight injuries and awful performance. And before that, at UFC 144 in Japan, Boetsch was doing a fine impression of Yushin Okami’s punching bag before staging a third-round comeback that had color commentator Joe Rogan highly excited. Clearly, Boetsch does well in the underdog role but Weidman looks like something special.
TECHNICAL BREAKDOWN
Weidman’s wrestling credentials (left) speak for themselves, but his striking and submissions are remarkably developed for a fighter with only nine pro fights under his belt. Undefeated, Weidman has picked up both ‘Submission of the Night’ and ‘Knockout of the Night’ honors and his confidence must be riding high, coming off an extremely dominant performance over the highly regarded Mark Munoz. Weidman took Munoz down with ease with a lightning-fast single shot, and his Greco skills left nothing to be desired either, with an outstanding and spectacular belly-to-belly suplex.
Stylistically Boetsch looks unremarkable, but gets excellent results with a simple formula. His softer physique belies exceptional strength, and Boetsch is capable of pulling off big throws, like the incredible harai goshi that launched Nick Ring. Boetsch favors his right knee, and throws it aggressively whilst managing to avoid the takedown.
UFC 155, December 29th,
Las Vegas, Nevada
Gray Maynard vs. Joe Lauzon
30
Three-time All-American wrestler Gray Maynard has passed his opponents’ guards a massive 30 times.
0
Joe Lauzon has never won a fight by decision. All 22 of his wins have come by strike or submission stoppage.
2
Lauzon has a two-inch height advantage over five-foot-eight Maynard, but both men have a 70-inch reach.
21
Lauzon has attempted 21 submissions in the UFC, which is good for sixth-best in the company.
72.7 %
Exactly 72.7% of opponents’ strike attempts have missed Maynard in his UFC career. Which places him third amongst his peers.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
One of the UFC’s more physically dominating lightweights, Gray ‘The Bully’ Maynard (11-1-1 (1 NC)) faces bonus magnet Joe Lauzon (22-7 and 9-4 in the UFC) in a battle of high-quality 155lb’ers, one on the edge of title contention and the other firmly on the fringes. After coming so close to lifting the title in both of his 2011 fights with Frankie Edgar (drawing the first and losing the second by fourth-round TKO), Maynard picked up a decision win over the maddeningly reluctant Clay Guida in June. That was Maynard’s ninth career decision win, a fact that goes a long way to explaining his longstanding reputation as a dull fighter.
Lauzon, who should be the underdog, is anything but boring, picking up a whopping 11 ‘…of the Night’ bonuses in his seven-year UFC career – six of them for submissions. Earning two (‘Fight…’ and ‘Submission…’) in his last outing, a rousing fight with Jamie Varner, Lauzon is always entertaining but for all his undeniable talent just never seems quite good enough to move up the ladder, having never won more than three consecutive UFC fights. He looks superb in some fights but pedestrian in others, while Maynard is both effective and a proven winner.
TECHNICAL BREAKDOWN
Maynard exemplifies the boxer/wrestler archetype, short in stature and heavily muscled, he throws his hands or takes a shot with total commitment. He sticks to the basics, throwing left hooks, right straights and the big right uppercuts from a collar tie – as one would expect from a student of Randy Couture. A former Division I wrestler, Maynard is a highly proficient takedown artist, setting up his shot in the center of the cage with his powerful punching or working against the fence, dominating the tie-ups and hassling the legs until he gets the lift from a double or single.
Submission specialist Lauzon owes 18 of his 22 career victories to sub finishes. Maynard, though, has never been submitted as a professional, and only been tapped once in the early days of his MMA career, in a TUF ‘exhibition’ bout, by Nate Diaz. Although Maynard possesses good punching power, his defensive boxing is far from perfect. Edgar found his mark many times as Maynard winged in his punches wide open to counter. Lauzon, although never a masterful striker has always shown a willingness to trade blows in a committed fashion but looks for his takedown and prefers to control the top position or take the back. Maynard is a strong starter, but Lauzon is resilient, and has come back from tough openings to win the later rounds.
