"New Breed"? A Realistic Assessment of the UFC Heavyweight Division

The heavyweight division has traditionally been sparse on talent. Yet with the upcoming all heavyweight spectacular at UFC 146, all eyes are focused on the division and fans are more excited for a card as a whole than they have been for some time. Perhaps people think that they are excited because the heavyweight division is ever improving, and the men competing today would trounce the heavyweight division of three or four years ago? Probably not. The reason most fans are excited is because the heavyweight division promises FINISHES. Big ones.

Why You Buy Heavyweight Fights
Heavyweight fights have always been viewed as the ticket sellers, which is why the atrocious Frank Mir vs Cro Cop match up (replacing the only slightly less atrocious Frank Mir vs Big Nog 2 match up) was still able to headline a UFC event, despite a wealth of talent elsewhere on the the same card. People pay to see heavyweights because big men can generate a lot of force in their punches, tend to have a harder time covering up (due to their massive frames) and gas so quickly that a knockout delivered by the second man to tire is pretty much assured.

When heavyweight matches go the scheduled distance however, they tend to be open mouthed panting, clinched against the fence affairs which put a dampener on the whole evening of fights. Sean Sherk vs Evan Dunham was a back and forth technical exchange with significant ramifications at lightweight, buried in the memory of fans beneath 3 rounds of Frank Mir failing to take down an opponent who was 30lbs lighter than him, with an injured eye.

Much of the talk three years ago, when Fedor Emelianenko had turned down the opportunity to fight for the UFC, was around the "new breed" of heavyweights. Men just as skilled as Fedor who were bigger, and a marked improvement on anything that had come at heavyweight before. How much of this "new breed" was hype? We'll examine that below.


The New Breed: Fact or Fiction? 
Fedor Emelianenko, wherever you stand on his legacy, is the single best rounded heavyweight to have had major success in MMA. HIs stand up was the best in the division, his clinch work was also world class and he was equally dominant from the top and from his back. In addition to this he was one of the few heavyweights in the world to not visibly have trouble with going the distance. He has declined massively since his heyday, and from his fight with Tim Sylvia onward seemed to only want to swing wild at his opponents, but none have matched his effectiveness in all areas. In order to understand just how routine the "new breed" of heavyweights are when compared to the standard set by The Last Emperor, it is necessary to examine them one by one.



Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin: When forum members and MMA journalists spoke of the "new breed" in the heavyweight division, they always used the generic example of the "big wrestler". And by this they usually meant Brock Lesnar or Shane Carwin. Brock Lesnar made his way to the UFC heavyweight title with no skill other than his wrestling, which had severely decayed since his dominating NCAA Division I run.


The assertion that this "big wrestler" with relentless top control would be able to smother and pound out anyone in the heavyweight division was more based in the imaginations of fans than in reality. Brock Lesnar's takedown success rate was just 57%, most of which came against only semi-competent wrestlers Heath Herring and Frank Mir. Factor in that of Lesnar's 11 career takedowns, Couture stood up again twice and Velasquez stood up again twice. Only 7 of Lesnar's takedowns were of any effect. 5 of these takedowns also came against a washed up Heath Herring, who Brock was unable to finish. Impressive strength? Hell yes. But not the modern Smashing Machine that we were promised.

Shane Carwin's takedown percentage meanwhile is just 29%. That's not too bad when you consider that Carwin's M.O is to stand and bang, but aside from a crisp 1-2 he wasn't the most technically proficient at this. Gabriel Gonzaga was able to put him on the brink of a TKO loss with a half foot reach disadvantage and limited punching ability himself. Carwin was able to rally admirably against Gonzaga and KO the Brazilian moments later, but a man with an 80 inch reach should never be in trouble on the feet. Carwin has a ton of heart, as demonstrated against Junior dos Santos, but his cardio, if anything, is worse than old school heavyweight gassers Kevin Randleman, Mark Coleman, Mark Kerr.





Both Lesnar and Carwin were intimidating presences in the octagon... but not in any way a "new breed". Mark Kerr was ragdolling opponents and then gassing out ten years before these guys.


Cain Velasquez: A relentless wrestler who can also kickbox well. Or so it seemed. But a closer inspection of his three biggest fights, against Kongo, Lesnar and Dos Santos reveal an inability to get away from punches that removes all suggestion of his being the best rounded heavyweight in MMA. Cheick Kongo threw about five real punches in his fight with Cain Velasquez, while running backwards, and dropped the American twice. Brock Lesnar, a horrific striker, was also out jabbing Cain Velasquez until he realized that he hated being hit. Junior dos Santos finished Cain's night as Cain turned his back on Junior's overextended, sloppy overhand so that it connected on the back of his head.

Cain Velasquez can do it all on offense, but hasn't learned to defend himself adequately on the feet just yet. His amazing cardio is the main argument for his being an improvement on the original heavyweight model, and it's a convincing one. But he is one of the smallest heavyweights in the UFC, which counters the notion that big wrestlers are the future of the division.



Following the dos Santos fight, in which Cigano had to do no defending of takedowns and knocked Cain out with a sloppy overhand, there is little argument that even at this late, brawling exclusively stage of his career, Fedor couldn't knock Cain out.

Cain Velasquez puts in one of the best cases for being "new breed", but ultimately is just a skilled light heavyweight who doesn't like cutting weight.

Frank Mir: Frank Mir deserves a lot of respect for what he has attempted to do with his career. In the PRIDE years he was seemingly unwanted by the largest organisation in the sport and carved out a niche submitting heavyweight also-rans. But since then he has attempted to improve his stand up relentlessly and has had decent success doing so.

The only issue is that striking wasn't Frank's main weakness. His weakness, as displayed by Pe de Pano, Ian Freeman and later Brock Lesnar, was getting stuck on the bottom and pounded out when he used all his strength on a failed submission. He lacks the positional game of a Nogueira or a Werdum, who are able to sweep or simply stand up from a takedown, rather than sit under the opponent eating punches.

Then there is Frank's wrestling, failing to take down a decayed Cro Cop despite a 30lbs weight advantage is fairly bad, but to be out muscled by Nogueira in the clinch is just bizarre.





An entertaining finisher who often puts on great fights, but Mir's rounded game is an illusion brought about by fighting terrible opposition. If Big Nog and Cro Cop are still looking passable against him (and even rocking him) a decade after they lost to Fedor, he can hardly be considered a "new breed".

Junior dos Santos: An astounding fighter, but hardly a case for well rounded heavyweights. Competent takedown defense and rumored excellent Jiu Jitsu, Cigano has still showed signs of gassing in his fights with Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin (it just so happened that they gassed worse). Cigano's success with two or three punching combinations in the heavyweight division really just demonstrates how lackluster the standard of kickboxing there still is. The fact that a decent boxer with an average sprawl sits atop the heavyweight division is damning to the idea of a new breed.

A spectacular finisher, and the owner of some of the fastest, heaviest hands in MMA, but hardly "new breed". Sprawl and brawlers have been around for years, he's just Andre Arlovski before Arlovski's chin declined.




Cheick Kongo: I don't think I need to go in to detail as to why Cheick Kongo isn't a well rounded heavyweight. He's a kickboxer who lacks boxing ability.

Alistair Overeem: A powerful submission grappler, a world class kickboxer and a 265lbs collosus, nobody makes the case for being a "new breed" of heavyweight as well as Alistair Overeem does. He is, however, a new acquisition of the UFC, and not one of fighters who had been hyped as well rounded by Zuffa for the last three years.

Conclusions
Ultimately the new breed is almost entirely a myth, (you might well have noticed my failure to even mention Todd Duffee, once marked to be the next big thing in the UFC's rebranded heavyweight division). We have a top quality match up for the heavyweight title coming up between Overeem and dos Santos, but it is not the battle of well rounded athletes that others are making it out to be. It is simply one of the few times that two competent strikers have met at the top of the heavyweight division. The sad truth is that Overeem (barring a moment of stupidity in which he fights in the only place where JDS can win) will probably choose to grind Cigano out on the ground or against the cage, and that will be another "new breed" heavyweight's lack of depth exposed.

There are a handful of better rounded, fairly well conditioned heavyweights in the UFC, but that has always been the case with the division. The rest are still the same cut and paste punchers who end up panting by the end of the first round, and swinging with their hands by their knees by the third. But isn't that what makes heavyweight fights entertaining?

First Book: Table of Contents

Hey folks,

As you might have noticed, it's a damn slow month in the combat sports world unless you like reality shows. As I personally don't care for The Ultimate Fighter, I haven't been keeping up my regular output of articles but it has given me time to work out the creases in my first ebook.

Now titled Advanced Striking: Tactics of Kickboxing, Boxing and MMA Masters, my first book will be out in 2 - 3 weeks time. I might not have properly described the book in my previous posts about it; it's purpose is equally to serve as an instructional in to some of the tactics employed by combat sports finest which haven't been touched on in other instructional material, and also to serve as a viewers guide.

Combat sports fans are seriously let down by commentators and analysts who work in vague terms and cliches. Every football, hockey or basketball fan has an understanding of plays, formations and substitutions, and is able to develop their own educated opinion on matters. Boxing, kickboxing and MMA fans can only say "fighter x was too strong", "he should've worked the jab" or "he used crazy angles" without any real understanding of why one fighter is able to win more consistently than another. I hope my first book will give fans the ability to watch a fight and see the tactical maneuvers that make Roy Jones Jr, Badr Hari and Anderson Silva seem like demi-gods.

So without further patter, here is the table of contents of my upcoming book: Advanced Striking: Tactics of Kickboxing, Boxing and MMA Masters


Cheers,
Jack

Table of Contents

Introduction 

The Purpose of This Book 

For the Boxing, Kickboxing or MMA Student 

For the Fan 

How to Watch a Fight 

A Note on Photos 

Badr Hari – The Golden Boy of K-1

Right Straight to the Body 

Head – Body – Head – Head 

Drawing Hook 

Ernesto Hoost – Mr. Perfect 

3 – 4 – 3 Low Kick 

Counter Low Kick 

Knee Spike 

The Diaz Brothers – Machismo Powered Volume Punchers

Lever Punch or “Doubling Up” 

Drawing Parry 

Window Stance 

Floyd Mayweather Jr. - The Pretty Boy 

Elbow Block 

Hook and Clutch 

Body Jab 

The Mayweather Cross Counter Variation 

Shoulder Roll Counters 

Buakaw Por. Pramuk – The White Lotus 

Probing Lead and Teep 

Step Up Knee 

Frankie Edgar – The Undersized Answer 

Jabbing to Knee Tap 

Knee Tap to Liver Kick 

Outside Low Kick 

Edgar Pivot 

Junior dos Santos - Cigano 

Hands Low Stance 

Body Straight Counter

Left Hook – Right Uppercut 

Andy Hug – The Blue Eyed Samurai

Hug Tornado

Axe Kick 

Round Kick – Rear Straight 

Sugar Ray Robinson – Boxing's Smoothest Fighter 

'Operation Left Hook' 

Safety Lead 

Shoe Shine Flurries 

Anderson Silva – The Spider at the Center of the Middleweight Web

Southpaw Takedown Defense

Pursuing Right Hook

Front Snap Kick

Back Elbow

Outside Low Kick Trap

Inside Low Kick Trap

Alistair Overeem – The Strongest in Seven Billion

The Cross Counter

'The Uberknee'

Lunging Right Hand

Stepping Lead Uppercut

Fedor Emelianenko – The Last Emperor

Casting Punch

Right Straight – Left Uppercut – Left Hook

Jab and Sprawl 

Zulu

Inside Hand Trap

Joe Louis – The Brown Bomber

Jab – Left Hook – Right Hook

Braddock KO

Back-Step Jab – Uppercut – Left Hook

Jersey Joe Walcott – The Savviest Man in Boxing

Side Steps

Cakewalk

'The Perfect Punch' 

Manny Pacquiao – The Saviour of Boxing 

The Hatton Side Step 

Double Left Straight 

Weaving Right Hook 

B.J. Penn – The Prodigy 

Slipping Counter Jab 

Sean Sherk Running Combination 

Open Guard Cross Counter 

Jack Johnson – The Galvaston Giant 

Leaping Jab into the Clinch 

The Jack Johnson Uppercut 

Underhook Left Hook 

Roy Jones Jr. - Mr Unstoppable 

Right Lead Stance 

Step Back Lead Uppercut

Step Back Right Straight

Upper Arms Defense 

Jerome Le Banner – The Hercules of K-1 

Lead Low Kick 

Lead Low Counter 

'The Millennium KO' 

Giorgio Petrosyan – The Southpaw Doctor of Muay Thai

Jab – Pull – Lead Hook

Jab – Step Back – Cross Counter 

Southpaw Knee Strike 

The Petrosyan Shift

Igor Vovchanchyn Part 3: Bear Slaps and Defense

Igor Vovchanchyn in his hey day was perhaps the most feared mixed martial artist on the planet and had unparalleled success under the one night tournament format of old school no holds barred fighting. In the first installment in this three part series I dissected Igor's pioneering use of punching while on the retreat to prevent grapplers from clinching him and to drag them out of their depth on the feet. In the second part we turned to Igor's fabled "Russian Hooks" (variously called "Corkscrew Swings" or "Casting Punches") and his fondness for landing strikes with the top of his fist rather than the front of it in order to maximize his limited reach. In this installment we will discuss another peculiarity of Vovchanchyn's striking, his use of "Bear Slaps" or palm strikes to damage opponents over short distances, and his excellent head movement.

Vovchanchyn's roots were in bareknuckle, no holds barred fighting. This is important to remember because his style of striking would have been largely affected by this. Spending much of his early career with no gloves, and having few weapons to defend himself other than his ungodly punching power, the health of Igor's hands took priority. A boxer with "glass hands" will have a hard and painful career but has eight or ten ounce gloves to soften the blows. A bareknuckle fighter with recurring hand injuries loses the use of his primary weapons altogether.

In efforts to protect the hands which he routinely threw like meaty bricks, Vovchanchyn would often utilize strikes with the heel of his palm or his open hand. When throwing the flurries of looping hooks which became a trademark of Vovchanchyn, Igor would often intersperse open handed swings for numerous reasons:

• To save his hands, which could often get damaged in the middle of exchanges by misjudging the position of an opponent and striking their skull or elbows.
• To feel where his opponent was in the middle of an exchange and to stop them moving their head in one direction.
• To maneuver the opponent's head into Igor's next punch.

Continue reading this post »

The Striking of Igor Vovchanchyn Part 2: "Russian Hooks"

http://www.headkicklegend.com/2012/3/15/2876151/the-striking-of-igor-vovchanchyn-russian-hooks



Igor Vovchanchyn, Ukrainian superstar and pioneer of the striking game in No Holds Barred fighting, seems a peculiar man to have brought kickboxers to the main stage of MMA. Igor's offense was notably almost completely devoid of jabs, and lacked straight punches, for the most part, period. Yet he had enormous success against Jiu Jitsu players who had spent their entire martial arts careers proving how easy it was to step inside and clinch up against the kind of wide bombs which Igor was known for.

One of the brilliant assets of Igor's career from a spectator's or an analyst's standpoint is that he had almost 70 fights in Mixed Martial Arts after supposedly having been bored with a 40+ fight kickboxing record, which he in turn transferred to after boxing for several years. There is a menagerie of fight film available of Igor Vovchanchyn and the same strategies seem to work time and again for him in these videos despite the perception that he was a limited and wild fighter.

In the first part of this series I examined Igor's use of retreating punching. It was not as polished as that ofAnderson Silva or of Fedor Emelianenko, but he pioneered it's use in Mixed Martial Arts and applied it with a power which neither of aforementioned champions could match, despite their notable punch. Many spectators do not notice Igor's fondness for striking on the retreat and instead write the knockout wins he obtained doing this to freak power, yet it is a technique which is present in so many of his fights that it is highly unlikely that he simply lucked into it.

In this part of the series we will examine the far more obvious "eccentricities" of Vovchanchyn's striking arsenal. These are the points which are immediately noticeable to even novice MMA fans such as his "Russian Hooks" in which he turns his thumb knuckle almost toward the floor and swings his arm close to straight.

Russian Hooks

These are undoubtedly Igor's signature technique. One could watch a silhouette of Igor fighting or even hitting the heavy bag and they would know it was him simply from his unique way of throwing punches. The Russian hooks of Igor Vovchanchyn were advantageous in three ways:

• They could be thrown with the arm almost fully extended - making them the only circular hand strike which was effective in outfighting range.

• They protected his fingers and could be thrown in rapid combinations

• They forced his elbows to flare and his shoulders to instinctively rise to cover his chin. Something he would have to consciously force when throwing orthodox hooks.

Jack Dempsey stated that a punch with has less than a 90 degree bend at the elbow ceases being a hook and becomes a swing, and further advised that the swing should be "cast into the slop bucket". His reasoning was that when one throws a swing in the modern, American style (the knuckle at the base of the thumb pointing toward the ceiling), it is easy to connect with the fragile door knocking knuckles and difficult to connect with the solid, base knuckles. He also reasoned that if one were to keeping the thumb knuckle turned in towards himself it would be very likely to connect first and break also, as shown below.





Of course, this means that the range of a hook is much shorter than a swing, but the lack of a solid surface with which to land on a swing means that they are often completely ineffectual when thrown. What Igor Vovchanchyn did was to turn the swing into a dangerous and lengthy weapon, a "Russian Hook" - so called because they are only really seen from Russian boxers and Igor and Fedor in MMA. By turning the hand over all the way so that the thumb knuckle is facing down one can ensure connection with the base knuckles of the fingers. In MMA gloves, this makes it so that the padding of the glove connects rather than the unpadded and brittle digits.In Karate circles this technique is known as "Furi-uchi" or whip strike. Watching Igor chain them together it is certainly clear why.

The fact that these hooks can be thrown with any slight degree of bend in the elbow effectively means that the reach of a Russian Hook is almost the same as that of a straight! This can certainly be seen in the fact that Igor Vovchanchyn - a short, stocky fighter at 5'8", was able to land by leading with hooks from outfighting range while is opponent was limited to straight punches.



Notice how, in the above gif, Igor's opponent misses with a long straight, yet is still in range for Vovchanchyn to connect a straight armed slap, and a rear hand Russian hook which has almost the same reach. A second reason for utilizing a Russian hook, or turning the punching hand all the way over so that the thumb knuckle faces the floor, is elaborated on by Fedor Emelianenko in his excellent self titled instructional book. The turning of the hand all the way over forces the elbow to come out, which in turn raises the shoulder of the punching arm up to cover the chin. Notice how Igor's right shoulder flows out to almost his his chin, and then as he recovers he tucks his chin behind his left while ducking.



When done right the Russian hook ensures that the chin is protected throughout most of the movement, better so than when many fighters throw a regular hook, as it is hard to force the shoulder to cover the chin without turning the hand all the way over. Notice how tight Igor's lead hooks are against Goodridge, the first one almost looks as if he is throwing a jab in this twitchy gif. The tightness of these hooks, even though they looked wide, was largely responsible for the difficulty opponents had in clinching Vovchanchyn when he was throwing punches.

This is why Fedor Emelianenko was able to come out of so many seemingly wild exchanges unscathed - for all the talk of his being wild, it is hard to pinpoint a counter opening amid the whirling dervish of well protected Russian Hooks he throws against Naoya Ogawa or Gary Goodridge. His dropping of Zuluzinho, who had a much longer reach, was also accomplished by a hand trap and a long Russian hook which was able to sneak around Zulu's guard. It was only when Emelianenko attempted his long hooks in a range befitting of infighting which he exposed himself to counters. Watching his fight with Fujita, Fedor is almost on top of his opponent when he is countered by Fujita's overhand. Fedor finished the fight by dropping Fujita with Russian Hooks and following with a choke - but this time he made sure that he physically pushed Fujita back, establishing range for a long lead hook.

The main fault of Russian hooks are that they can damage the hand. Landing with the correct variation of this technique will save the hand from damage it would suffer throwing a normal swing at range. But conversely, a Russian hook thrown too close or when the opponent moves in unexpectedly can lead to landing with the base thumb knuckle - and is likely responsible for many of Fedor's recurring hand injuries. Vovchanchyn, now a retired restaurant owner whom many thought got out of the sport with his health has also gone on record in interviews to say that he damaged his hands and wrists significantly from poor connections and years on the bareknuckle circuit. The Russian hook is certainly a worthwhile technique to learn, and packs significant power and range, but one must always be careful to measure the distance and anticipate the opponent's movement, or it is possible to land incorrectly and significantly damage the hands. But this happens to even the best, orthodox punchers and is a risk of the fight game.



Jack Slack's first ebook - "Advanced Striking: Tactics of Kickboxing, Boxing and MMA Masters" will feature in depth breakdowns of the techniques and gameplans of 20 of the world's top fighters with demonstrative photography, and will be available around Easter.

The Striking of Igor Vovchanchyn: Part 1 - Backstep Punching

With no major UFC or Strikeforce event on the cards for a couple of weeks, those of us uninterested in The Ultimate Fighter will have to find other ways to entertain ourselves. One of my personal favorite activities at a time like this is to dust off the videos of legendary Ukrainian mixed martial artist, Igor Vovchanchyn. Igor's power was paralyzing, his style inspired tension until the match's conclusion, and his ability to leave bigger men in crumpled heaps gave birth to fear and admiration in equal measure.

One of the most fascinating features of Igor Vovchanchyn's life is that he was essentially a kickboxer when he entered mixed martial arts. Despite this being thought at the time to be a handicap, Igor went on an unparallaled winning streak against bigger, stronger, wrestlers and grapplers - becoming the single consistent exception to the "grappler beats striker" rule of early MMA.

Vovchanchyn is always given the credit he deserves as a terrifying power puncher, but he is rarely celebrated, as he should be, for his technical ability. Many observes simply see the wide swings and assume that Igor was a barn-burning brawler and no more. But brawlers had never had results knocking out grapplers - striking wide was an invitation for a clinch or takedown. Limited in the number of punches or combinations he threw, Igor had means of dragging grapplers into exchanges wherein he could knock them out nonethless. In this series we shall examine a few of Vovchanchyn's slickest tricks.

Back-step Punching

Anderson Silva has famously said that any man alive can fight well going forwards, it is fighting while going backwards that separates the men from the boys, and this is certainly true. Chuck Liddell, Anderson Silva and even the not so hard puncher, Muhammad Ali shared the ability to drop a man to his knees while they themselves were on the retreat. Igor Vovchanchyn pioneered this technique in mixed martial arts and it has caught on with top level strikers since. In the "Mister Powerman" tournament's final round, a young, trim Igor Vovchanchyn knocked his opponent out cold with the first punch he landed by drawing him in and punching him while on the retreat.


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Wanderlei vs Vitor & 3 Other Tailor Made Matchups

The prospect of Wanderlei Silva vs Vitor Belfort II is on the horizon and the truly head scratching question is not so much who will win, but rather why such a mismatch on paper is being treated as a legitimate contest. Wanderlei Silva is a declining, chinny brawler whose aggression and swinging wild has been working against him since 2006, while Vitor Belfort is a heavy-handed boxer who decimated Silva a decade ago before the PRIDE superman began his physical decline.

The sport of MMA is a beautiful and fascinating one, but it is a combat sport and so we often have to realize that it is almost as rotten as boxing. Big name fighters are fed stylistic dream match ups, while hardworking fighters without fan interest are sought out simply to lose in the most spectacular fashion possible. In the sport of MMA, where skill sets are so lop-sided and there are so many areas to the fight, putting on glorified exhibitions is an easier task than in any other combat sport. Of course, there is always the chance of an upset, but often the man with the better skill set can be assured to come out on top. Tailor made match ups are far from a crime, and only to be expected in any combat sport, but should always be well considered by the fan before getting caught up in hype.

Examples are not in short supply - just recently Chael Sonnen was matched against one dimensional brawler Brian Stann in order to announce his return to the UFC with a bang. Here are some of the most transparent hype building match ups in recent memory.

Wanderlei Silva vs Vitor Belfort II
Gift match for whom?
Vitor Belfort.

How?
Wanderlei's looping punches and straight forward charges leave colossal gaps for a competent boxer to shoot through. Where Cro Cop ended Silva's image as a world class MMA striker by side stepping the swinging Brazilian's charges, Belfort could easily trade blow for blow and come off the better. Silva has been chinny since his early days, but recently proved vulnerable to even light-fisted Michael Bisping and Cung Le. What's more is that Belfort has already destroyed Silva once before, and neither of their styles has changed all that much since.

Why is this match happening?
Vitor Belfort and Wanderlei Silva are legends in Brazil, and will doubtless gain much attention as the coaches for The Ultimate Fighter Brazil. What's more, the rivalry angle of this match can be played up enormously. Brazilian fighters are always feuding and reconciling (anyone remember when Wanderlei vs Anderson was the talk of the internet?), drama comes naturally to them and will likely make everyone forget the cold, hard logic around this match.

Vitor needs another stunning knockout victory without risking his record against a competent wrestler. When fights go past the opening exchanges, he looks lackluster.

Most hilarious factor?
Vitor Belfort is 7 - 1 in his last 8. Wanderlei Silva is 3 - 5 in his own and looked vulnerable in the most recent two wins. This match makes absolutely no sense from a realistic sporting point of view, only from an entertainment one.



Kimbo Slice vs James Thompson
Gift match for whom?
Kimbo Slice

How?
Kimbo Slice was a one dimensional brawler. He had a big punch and few other skills for MMA.

James Thompson has the worst chin in the heavyweight division and British level wrestling.

Why did this match happen?
Kimbo Slice was the marquee attraction for EliteXC, the famously corrupt promotion under the Pro-Elite banner. After Kimbo's massacring Bo Cantrell and Tank Abbott, EliteXC realised that they would need to have him fight fighters with some notable wins in the last decade to sell the brawler to discerning MMA fans.

Most hilarious factor?
Even with the odds stacked in his favor, Slice couldn't knock out the glass jawed Brit. After getting laid on for much of the second round while being hit with 30 unanswered, wheezing elbows, Kimbo eventually finished with an unspectacular TKO by opening Thompson's cauliflower ear. The legend of Kimbo's punching power, all that he had, went up in smoke.



Brock Lesnar vs Frank Mir
Gift match for whom?
Brock Lesnar

How?
Frank Mir already had a history of being pounded out on his back after he lost his first submission attempts. Ian Freeman did it, Marcio Cruz did it, and Brandon Vera finished him by trapping him in half guard and TKOing him.

Why did this match happen?
Brock Lesnar was anticipated to be a huge draw even in his debut with the UFC, but management wanted more than that. They wanted to build him up to a title shot in record time. Mir was an ex-champion who had looked unspectacular in his matches since his return from a tragic motorcycle accident. As mentioned before, he has also always struggled when trapped under competent positional grapplers. Mir also had little to no striking ability, and his wrestling was sub-par. Brock Lesnar was stylistically tailor made to lay on Mir for either three rounds or until he could hammerfist Mir into unconsciousness. It only took half an hour of Countdown to UFC footage for everyone to forget Mir's recent slump and believe he was a top ten fighter.

Most hilarious factor?
It's always funny when a gift match up backfires on the promoter. A chance stand up and inexperience had Lesnar caught in a kneebar in Mir's only seconds of effective offense throughout the short match. The UFC PR department rolled with the punch however, and both men were suddenly top ten prospects, setting up a rematch for the title which went exactly the same way as the first, but with Lesnar not giving Mir the space to move.



Anderson Silva vs Forrest Griffin
Gift match for whom?
Anderson Silva

How?
Anderson Silva is a counter-puncher to the point of inactivity if his opponent doesn't oblige him. Forrest Griffin has pillow fists and relentless aggression. Anderson could make a fool of Forrest without fear of getting hurt. Both are world class fighters, but Forrest's lack of wrestling meant he couldn't get this fight to the ground even if he wanted to. Add to this the understanding that he and UFC management apparently had that he would run at Silva and it seems almost as shady as the aforementioned EliteXC offering Seth Petruzelli a bonus for standing with Kimbo Slice.

Why did this match happen?
Anderson Silva is the greatest fighter on the planet, but he does himself no favors when he refuses to engage with Jiu-Jitsu players or people who won't throw the first punch. After a pair of spectacularly unimpressive performances against Patrick Cote and Thales Leites, it was necessary for him to make a big splash. A fight at 205lbs against a legitimate contender would do this. But why would they pick one of the multitude of well rounded wrestlers or power punchers such as Quinton Jackson or even Matt Hammill for him to meet when they had a number 2 ranked lightheavweight who was tailor-made to stand with and lose to him.

Most hilarious moment?
The most hilarious moment of this fight was the many MMA fans who didn't realize it was Anderson's stylistic match up that made him so incredible here and so lackluster in his last two title defenses. What is even more impressive is the amount of weight fans and spectators put on "motivation". The Griffin win was put down to want of a challenge, while the mediocre performances against lesser competition at middleweight were put down to lack of interest. When Silva met Demian Maia in his next fight and again refused to engage, it became obvious to all but the most stubborn fanatics that styles make fights.

Even for the greatest fighter on earth.

Anderson Silva's striking tactics and techniques will be broken down in Jack Slack's upcoming ebook: "Advanced Striking: Tactics of Boxing, Kickboxing and MMA Masters" which will be available around Easter.

Jack Slack can be found on Twitter @JackSlackMMA

Book Update!

Hello Readers,

I have recently been making a committed effort to completing my first book - "Tactics of Kickboxing, Boxing and MMA Masters". I'm sure many of you will be pleased to hear that I have almost finished the writing phase and will soon be moving on to the considerations of photography.

While there is still some detail to work out, I can now give a little more insight into what the text is actually going to contain. The full text will detail the techniques of:

- 20 Fighters - including the 8 selected by readers at BloodyElbow and the Underground.

-Over 60 techniques, broken down in demonstrative photographs.

-Breakdowns not only of single techniques, but how fighters utilize them together to form a complete game. Such as:
- Roy Jones Jr.'s right hand forward guard and the many offensive options which spring from it

- Giorgio Petrosyan's series of counters after faking a jab to illicit a response.

- Buakaw Por. Pramuk's use of the teep to land more telling strikes later in the match.

And many more!

The book will be sold through www.FightsGoneBy.com and will include my own translated version of the 1947 Russian book "Tactics of the Foreign Masters". The layout of this rare boxing text was the inspiration for my own book, and there is much that can be learned from it.

Hope all is going well,
Jack