In The Tactical Guide to Edgar vs Rodriguez we reflected that whether or not he wins another title before he retires, Frankie Edgar is a fighter whose fight films are likely to be on constant repeat at the top gyms in years to come. Often outsized and outgunned, Edgar consistently makes very scary men look confused and outclassed. Against the gigantic featherweight up-and-comer, Yair Rodriguez, Edgar put on an unusually violent beatdown. Every small opening that Rodriguez had shown before this fight—his loopy boxing, his failure to set up his strikes, his habit for running onto the fence—was exploited ruthlessly by the savvy old veteran and Rodriguez scarcely got a word in edgewise against the Edgar onslaught.
From the outset Edgar showed exactly what he needed to on the feet: he was always “all the way out” or “all the way in,” and never lingering in kicking range long enough to eat a shin bone. When Rodriguez looked like he was going to kick, Edgar would step back, then he would resume walking towards the kicker as Rodriguez danced himself closer and closer to the fence. When Edgar felt he could run in a flurry, or Rodriguez stepped in to pump his telegraphed hands, Edgar got off some shots of his own and finished the push to the fence.
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The theme throughout the entirety of UFC 211 was not what the fighters did but where they did it. The man who controls where the fight happens can control his opponent’s options. Put on an infinite plane, Rodriguez could jump around with kicks all day and never hit a fence. Put in a cage with a man of Edgar’s proficiency and experience, it cost him big within the first minute of the fight and it was all downhill from there. Cage position didn’t just matter on the feet, it completely stifled Rodriguez’s guard through the first round. Rodriguez has been known to thrown up triangles, armbars, roll for leg locks, and even Roleta swept an opponent to mount in the UFC. But a good guard game, like a good scientific striking game, requires space. Rodriguez had no way of moving backwards and it is the man inside the guard who controls movement along the vertical plane.
Can’t throw up nice triangles and armbars with your body crumpled up, and of course you can’t overhead sweep someone when they can post their head on the fence.
Edgar pushed Rogriguez’s head to the fence early and proceeded to stand in Rodriguez’s guard, stacking Rodriguez’s hips up over him. Edgar was able to drop hard blows while Rodriguez had no space to shoulder crawl back through, and little chance to attack submissions or even up kick effectively. As effective as Rodriguez’s aggressive guard had proven in his previous fights, he has not demonstrated that third part of BJ Penn’s famous guard philosophy: sweep, submit, or stand up.
The second round went much the same as Frankie Edgar stepped away from any obvious attempt to kick his head off, flurried with punches when he felt he could get away with it, and dropped on Rodriguez’s hips when he felt it was time.
Rodriguez had a degree of success in the second round when Edgar took him down out in the open. Firstly he was able to roll and attack a kneebar, but Edgar was able to defend this and come up on top into that familiar Kazushi Sakuraba scenario—where one man is clinging onto the kneebar attempt while being fed a steady diet of brain trauma.
More interesting was Rodriguez’s rolling to turtle and again summoning the spirit of Sakuraba—this time the Japanese great’s positive traits—and using the kimura to briefly escape from Edgar’s pressure and even attempt a back take and then an armbar.
Ultimately Edgar was too savvy on the ground and simply continued to pound the eye which he had so badly damaged in the first round. The fight was called off before the third round and Edgar looked almost faultless in seeing off a young contender.
In the main event Stipe Miocic came out looking to exploit the obvious flaws in Junior dos Santos’ ringcraft and was able to do so far more impressively than anyone to date. It was pleasant to see both men kick almost as much in the first round of this fight as they did in the entire original meeting. Both stand in such long, boxing focused stances that they are susceptible to low kicks. But within the first minute, Dos Santos’ back hit the fence through his own movement.
Rather than rushing in to pin Dos Santos to the fence and trying to strike as he circled out, Miocic sought purely to land blows on Dos Santos in his compromised position. Again as Dos Santos circled out he ate the bigger blows. As we mentioned in our Tactical Guide last week, Dos Santos circled out to his left in a southpaw stance behind his right shoulder a lot in the original fight, but his left hand was always low and he ate blows from that side. In the match at UFC 211, Dos Santos circled out in this way and was hurt as he ran onto a hard right hook.
The end came just a couple of minutes in as Dos Santos ate a couple of right hands after dropping his jab on the way back, as he did in the first fight. Hitting the fence, Dos Santos ate another heavy right hand and that was all she wrote. Of course in the aftermath many are focusing on the mileage on Dos Santos, but Miocic put on a masterclass. His team had identified the biggest issues in Dos Santos’ performance in the first fight and went after it mercilessly. Even as Dos Santos applied low kicks nicely, there was never a moment in the fight where it looked like Dos Santos was in control of where the bout took place.
A final thought on controlling the placement of the fight: Demian Maia’s performance against Jorge Masvidal raised the usual questions over judging criteria, but proved exactly why he is the most multi-dimensional ‘one dimensional’ fighter in the game. When Maia couldn’t take Masvidal down with his usual single leg, he put a hand to the mat, scooched his butt in and went to half guard. When Masvidal dropped to his knees, Maia would come up on the single and suddenly find success with it.
We have seen it a few times now from Maia but it is still revolutionary at the highest levels of mixed martial arts. Certainly after watching Andre Galvao get stuffed on every attempt to take Tyron Woodley down, then looking completely bewildered, Maia’s willingness to sit to his butt just to make a grappling exchange happen on his terms is encouraging. Maybe someone will crack him in the head hard enough to knock him out before he scoots in under them or comes up on the leg at some point, but in the meantime he is actually making things happen where so many grapplers resign themselves to a deadlock when they cannot get the takedown.
Yet the most masterful demonstration of ring generalship on the entire UFC 211 card came from Joanna Jedrzejczyk in a performance of such virtuosity that it really deserves its own article. Get back to Fightland on Wednesday for the full Jedrzejczyk vs Andrade study.
