Analyzing Fedor 2: Revolutionizing Ground and Pound

Hey folks,

The overwhelming attention and positive feedback I received from my first piece pushed me to get the second one out on time and not simply leave the series hanging as I have done some times before! Here is an examination of some of Fedor's ground and pound techniques. This is my first piece on grappling, and I am by no means an expert in that, so it is written very much from a striking perspective, but then I feel that this is how Fedor approached groundwork. Hope it goes down well.

Cheers,

Jack

Fedor Emelianenko is, to my mind, the most rounded fighter to have ever competed in MMA to date. Very few men can claim to have olympic alternate level judo and still able to out-strike the best kickboxer in MMA history. What Fedor will always be remembered for by fans who saw him compete in his prime, however, was his revolutionizing of ground and pound.

Ground and pound had existed since the early days of MMA - and Mark Coleman found his way to the UFC belt through holding men down and mauling them with short strikes from the top position. The difference between the ground and pound utilized by a Mark Coleman or Matt Hughes type fighter and Fedor is significant. I would call the majority of wrestlers' ground and pound techniques Static Ground and Pound, in that their job is to hold a man down and hit him while he cannot move.

Fedor Emelianenko, on the other hand, brought a unique brand of Dynamic Ground and Pound to the fore. I refer to Fedor's ground and pound as dynamic for two main reasons. Firstly, he moved routinely between being postured up and broken down in his opponent's guard when he sensed his opponent changing grips or loosening their hold. Rather than struggling to post up against his opponent's strength, or staying down and throwing muffled strikes, he would stay down, and bait them with a hand to the mat, then punish them by posturing up and landing a pair of strikes while they changed grip.

Secondly, Fedor's best work was done while changing positions. He is remembered for bouncing Nogueira's head off of the mat with 4 successive power punches from the guard, but a great many of his more punishing shots were landed when:

• He was passing guard.
• His opponent was attempting to recover guard.

Traditionally these are situations in which the top player holds on for dear life, but Fedor actively preferred landing damaging shots to maintaining forward progress through the positional hierarchy. This flies in the face of the traditional BJJ mindset, but his punishment of men such as Nogueira and Herring as they recovered guard really underlined that the punches he landed while they did so were far more significant than the act of recovering guard.


Over the course of this article we will look in detail at some of the subtleties Fedor Emelianenko used to landed his dynamic ground and pound. Some will be spectacular visually, and others will seem mundane, but the devil is in the details. Fedor was skilled on the ground, but he was no Jiu Jitsu master, just as he was no master kickboxer. Yet his bag of tricks was enough to stifle both such fighter groups and can, with some practice, be emulated by men who lack the physical ability so often (and foolishly) credited as Fedor's only reason for success.

Continues at: http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/6/3/3059390/analyzing-fedor-revolutionizing-ground-and-pound