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Here's the next piece I wrote for Junior Dos Santos vs Ben Rothwell.
Thanks for reading my fellow Sherdogers.
For all the users who've enjoyed my work in the past, this is for you.
If you're note quite familiar with my work yet, you can visit my last discussion on breaking down Conor McGregor Vs Nate Diaz here to see user feedback: http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/c...t-technical-breakdown.3194835/#post-114377097
Enter and escape.
This fight showed Dos Santos’ boxing at its finest. It was all classical boxing fundamentals landing the majority of the time. As an overall assessment, it was the feints and angular changes in striking that brought Dos Santos’ the bulk of his success when going on the offensive. With these simple approaches, Dos Santos effectively manipulated several aspects of the fight.
With Dos Santos, he used a combination of feint with his hand and footwork. It was more apparent he used his footwork to feint his advancement’s forward. By feinting, Dos Santos was able to do two important things that opened up a variety of opportunities for him; for one, he was able to measure Rothwell’s reactions in order to predict his head movement, and two, he was able to draw out simultaneous counters.
Dos Santos feinting to draw out Rothwell’s attempts to time a simultaneous kick.
One big issue with Rothwell’s stance is that he stands up straight in a more squared stance. Unlike some boxing-oriented fighters like Dos Santos or Nate Diaz, they tend to posture forward and/or stay linear. By posturing forward or just by having a more bladed linear stance, you have the ability of moving the head in various directions. You can slip right, left, or pull the head back.
A more bladed linear stance allows for better balance at the base of the feet to pull the head back.
To see the benefit from a more forward postured stance, here’s a demonstration of Dominick Cruz’ posture to utilize a pull.
Dominick Cruz has the option to pull the head back to evade and counter.
These next examples show how Dos Santos had the ability to use head pulling to defensively remain out of striking range.
Note here that Dos Santos is more linear and posses the ability to pull the head back and slip his head laterally.
Here Dos Santos is in a more linear stance with a slightly forward posture. He can fire a jab and pull the head back within inches away from counter punches.
With Rothwell’s stance, because he’s standing with his spine so straight up in a squared manner (feet spread laterally apart), he doesn’t have the omni-directional options that a linear boxer has for head movement. As a result, his main options were to slip right, or slip left. One of the advantages of being able to pull the head back is that the head is removed from striking range and it allows you to drop your arms to protect the body.
Take note of how you can drop the arms to protect the body as you pull the head away from punching range.
Nonetheless, Rothwell’s upright squared stance gave up these advantages and confined his defenses to a narrow rock, paper, scissors game of finding his openings. Rothwell’s simultaneous counters didn’t always work either with Dos Santos constantly feeding him several feints to draw them out.
Dos Santos identified every defensive reaction Rothwell had and answered every single one of them with effective offensive strategies. Check out the following examples:
Here Dos Santos knows the area’s Rothwell’s head position slips and tags him in either angle with his jab.
When Ben tried to keep him at distance with his stiff arm, Dos Santos moved passed it.
The arm is parried down and a cross is thrown.
Often times, fighters like Jon Jones uses his long reach to keep fighters at bay by push blocking the head. Dos Santos completely moves pass the stiff-arm by changing levels going to the body.
After several exchanges and feints used to measure Ben’s reaction, it was obvious for Dos Santos had knew where Rothwell’s head would move. It was so transparent to the point that Dos Santos actually managed to predict and throw his cross straight into a slipping position where Rothwell’s head would move.
Here Dos Santos was able to predict and catch Rothwell’s head position on numerous occasions.
With the shallow options for head movement, Dos Santos had a relatively high chance of just predicting where the head would slip.
To extend the use of jabs even further, Dos Santos was able to stuff and kill Rothwell’s rhythm on several occasions. When Rothwell attempted to use his stance switching and head movement he had used in the past to approach, Dos Santos shut him down with quick swift jabs. Rothwell’s head movement simply wasn’t quick enough to outwork the simple movement of a swift jab.
Dos Santos tagging Rothwell as he attempts to utilize head movement and stance switching to approach.
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(Breakdown continues in link below)
I can't post my entire piece here since the forums limits the characters I can post so feel free to follow this link to my page where the entire breakdown can be found:
https://strikingthoughtssite.wordpr...xing-prevails-post-fight-technique-breakdown/
sorry for any grammatical errors at this time. I've only proofread once through (will continue to edit).
Thanks for reading my fellow Sherdogers.
For all the users who've enjoyed my work in the past, this is for you.
If you're note quite familiar with my work yet, you can visit my last discussion on breaking down Conor McGregor Vs Nate Diaz here to see user feedback: http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/c...t-technical-breakdown.3194835/#post-114377097
Classic boxing
In Dos Santos’ post fight octagon interview, he mentions how big Rothwell is and that he knew it wasn’t a smart idea to stay on the inside with him. Surely enough, Junior used a lot of in and out movement against Rothwell, rarely staying on the inside to allow Rothwell a chance to counter back. This was one of the main basis of what made Dos Santos so defensively sound. He was able to initiate an offensive entry and reset with minimal chances of Rothwell returning counters.
Enter and escape.
This fight showed Dos Santos’ boxing at its finest. It was all classical boxing fundamentals landing the majority of the time. As an overall assessment, it was the feints and angular changes in striking that brought Dos Santos’ the bulk of his success when going on the offensive. With these simple approaches, Dos Santos effectively manipulated several aspects of the fight.
Feinting to Measure
The ability to use feints in a fight becomes one of the most valuable tools to use, especially against any elite fighter. Even the most godly fighter will be proven to be human from the power of a fighter’s ability to feint. Everyone has rhythm that’s breakable, and that’s exactly what feints can do. Feinting provides so much utility to a fighter, it’s nearly impossible to go without it in high level competition. In Dos Santos’s fight with Rothwell, feinting was used in various ways to measure and manipulate Rothwell.With Dos Santos, he used a combination of feint with his hand and footwork. It was more apparent he used his footwork to feint his advancement’s forward. By feinting, Dos Santos was able to do two important things that opened up a variety of opportunities for him; for one, he was able to measure Rothwell’s reactions in order to predict his head movement, and two, he was able to draw out simultaneous counters.
Dos Santos feinting to draw out Rothwell’s attempts to time a simultaneous kick.
Flaw In Stance
By feinting and measuring, Dos Santos could see that Rothwell didn’t quite have many options for defending. Rothwell’s main options for defending consisted of the following:- Stiff arm to keep him away
- Slip left
- Slip right
One big issue with Rothwell’s stance is that he stands up straight in a more squared stance. Unlike some boxing-oriented fighters like Dos Santos or Nate Diaz, they tend to posture forward and/or stay linear. By posturing forward or just by having a more bladed linear stance, you have the ability of moving the head in various directions. You can slip right, left, or pull the head back.
A more bladed linear stance allows for better balance at the base of the feet to pull the head back.
To see the benefit from a more forward postured stance, here’s a demonstration of Dominick Cruz’ posture to utilize a pull.
Dominick Cruz has the option to pull the head back to evade and counter.
These next examples show how Dos Santos had the ability to use head pulling to defensively remain out of striking range.
Note here that Dos Santos is more linear and posses the ability to pull the head back and slip his head laterally.
Here Dos Santos is in a more linear stance with a slightly forward posture. He can fire a jab and pull the head back within inches away from counter punches.
With Rothwell’s stance, because he’s standing with his spine so straight up in a squared manner (feet spread laterally apart), he doesn’t have the omni-directional options that a linear boxer has for head movement. As a result, his main options were to slip right, or slip left. One of the advantages of being able to pull the head back is that the head is removed from striking range and it allows you to drop your arms to protect the body.
Take note of how you can drop the arms to protect the body as you pull the head away from punching range.
Nonetheless, Rothwell’s upright squared stance gave up these advantages and confined his defenses to a narrow rock, paper, scissors game of finding his openings. Rothwell’s simultaneous counters didn’t always work either with Dos Santos constantly feeding him several feints to draw them out.
Dos Santos identified every defensive reaction Rothwell had and answered every single one of them with effective offensive strategies. Check out the following examples:
Here Dos Santos knows the area’s Rothwell’s head position slips and tags him in either angle with his jab.
When Ben tried to keep him at distance with his stiff arm, Dos Santos moved passed it.
The arm is parried down and a cross is thrown.
Often times, fighters like Jon Jones uses his long reach to keep fighters at bay by push blocking the head. Dos Santos completely moves pass the stiff-arm by changing levels going to the body.
After several exchanges and feints used to measure Ben’s reaction, it was obvious for Dos Santos had knew where Rothwell’s head would move. It was so transparent to the point that Dos Santos actually managed to predict and throw his cross straight into a slipping position where Rothwell’s head would move.
Here Dos Santos was able to predict and catch Rothwell’s head position on numerous occasions.
With the shallow options for head movement, Dos Santos had a relatively high chance of just predicting where the head would slip.
Jabs
Dos Santos threw so many jab to the body (A record breaking amount for the Heavyweight division). The fact that Rothwell had confined his defense to slipping left, right and stiff-arming, he had no real answer to the body jab other than absorbing them.To extend the use of jabs even further, Dos Santos was able to stuff and kill Rothwell’s rhythm on several occasions. When Rothwell attempted to use his stance switching and head movement he had used in the past to approach, Dos Santos shut him down with quick swift jabs. Rothwell’s head movement simply wasn’t quick enough to outwork the simple movement of a swift jab.
Dos Santos tagging Rothwell as he attempts to utilize head movement and stance switching to approach.
The offensive Craft of Dos Santos
Dos Santos had several unique sequences of utilizing classical boxing to open up Rothwell. I don’t want to go over every single one, but I will mention one’s that stood out to me and ones that played a significant role in winning the fight............................
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(Breakdown continues in link below)
I can't post my entire piece here since the forums limits the characters I can post so feel free to follow this link to my page where the entire breakdown can be found:
https://strikingthoughtssite.wordpr...xing-prevails-post-fight-technique-breakdown/
sorry for any grammatical errors at this time. I've only proofread once through (will continue to edit).
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