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In monday's article I spent almost 4000 words searching for a chink in Anderson Silva's armour, and came to the conclusion that the holes in Silva's game certainly require a unique skill set to exploit. I won't say a rounded skill set because almost no-one at middleweight has one of those; which is in no small part responsible for Anderson's incredible success and consistency. It seems that one needs a world class ground game or the threat of world class takedowns to force Anderson to square up to sprawl, then - while continuing to threaten with the takedown - power strikes must be mixed in. I also demonstrated that few people have ever had that much success (at least in the octagon) in closing the distance if they are in the opposite stance to Silva (or Open Guard).
Today, we will examine in more detail the technique that Chael Sonnen used to close the distance and hurt Silva numerous times throughout their bout, the rear straight. Of course, Silva had fought competent rear hand punchers before - Dan Henderson and Vitor Belfort most notably. Dan Henderson is an orthodox fighter and was therefore not able to find much home for his tremendous right hand due to the enormous distance in Open Guard with Silva, furthermore Henderson throws his rear hand in a looping swing, and is thus already handicapped in the reach of his punch. Vitor Belfort, meanwhile, despite taking Silva down off of a kick at the start of their fight, was not much threat on the ground (having done next to nothing there in MMA despite his sterling ADCC record) and Silva felt no need to square his hips up or fight a takedown defence based game. Chael Sonnen was able to nail Silva so routinely with strikes because Silva's hands were low and hips were squared to defend the shot. It was not magic, just effective variation of offence.
The truth is that Anderson isn't half the counter fighter that he is against strikers when he is squared up and prepared to sprawl. He cannot shoulder roll or put much power in his rear hand, and if more grapplers were wiling to swing punches at him they would not only be capable of landing strikes more than they expected, but also be awarded with takedown opportunities that wouldn't otherwise exist.
Chael Sonnen's use of the rear hand straight to tie up of, shoot off of, and just deal damage with is something I have been calling for more grapplers to use for a long time. The old method of jab and shoot is enormously outdated, and not technically sound, it only succeeded because of the element of surprise and an enormous disparity in wrestling abilities between competitors. Tying up or shooting off of the rear hand is an excellent way of securing a takedown or a jarring right hand, and if more grapplers opted to utilize it we would see a rise in the number of knockouts secured by grapplers and in the number of successful takedowns.
After the jump I will detail the shortcomings of "Jab and Shoot" and outline the supremacy of the rear straight.
Continues at: http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/7/4/3136780/ufc-148-judo-chop-how-chael-sonnen-out-struck-anderson-silva#storyjump
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