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There is a bunch going on with what Covington is doing. Buts hard to explain not in person
Maia Prayer Vigil
- Thread starter thegreenblender
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Another thing from what I have seen too recently is that Maia rarely tries different takedowns. And he seems to mostly just go for the same singles and usually on the same leg.
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Until he develops a credible threat striking it won’t really matter which shot he takes in my opinion
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Colby shut down Maia’s hips at every shot. The Jiujitsu devil was on his side this time
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The thing with Woodley is that he was doing all the right 'first moves':
1. Punch with the hips/hip thrust to meet the shot with impact
2. Jam the outside underhook in to lift up, and
3. Block the inside arm to stop the change off to the double
In this situation, someone deeper in wrestling would either, go to the crack down, go out the back door, or beat feet and turn the corner.
John Smith had a pretty good single leg, you might hear, but his high crotches rarely ever went on 'without a hitch', and he scored most of his points with these three methods.
Another thing is that there were a few times Maia did get Tyrun's leg pulled out, but tunnel visioned on running the pipe (like a lot of guys who take a more 'supplementary' perspective to learning takedowns, to a lesser or greater degree), which is a stalemate against guys with good balance until it ends with them wriggling out/getting the underhook in.
In this situation, the strongest single leg finish there is is bringing the leg up into the treetop.
Another more mma specific example would be Ben Askren, who uses his shot more like a greco high dive, to get a waistlock/double underhooks to come up and wrestle them down.
And of course there is the cage itself, which makes attacking the legs harder, but upper body takedowns easier. This is another area where Maia's tunnel vision on the single leg cost him, which was doubly frustrating because he, himself, had shown good clinch takedowns against the cage in the past (particularly with a move i personally call 'The Broomstick').
Which bears formal similarities with the classic over/under step around attack (eg; metzger, kosoto gaki, et cetera).
Another great one is the underhook throw by.
Which is very similar to how Yazdani uses the underhook, by driving at a critical angle, obliging the opponent to either, just let him throw him by, or try to keep his chest in, whereupon he hits the knee tap, or try to whizzer hard, where he'll finish by shelfing the leg or stepping around.
Eg:
Pushing your opponent around is great since, if you're moving him, he has no base to strike you with, while you're in position to strike him (and if you end up against the cage, all the better).
The slideby is a great untapped resource for the clinch in mma i think, since, a collar tie+bicep tie is the classic strong position for throwing knees, or just the collar tie alone for short uppercuts, which opens up the opportunity to attack the back angle with the merkel.
(throw by here but same substantial principle)
There are a lot of interesting nuances in attacking the legs, and many of the same techniques can also pull double duty as methods of sweeping as well. I think on balance though, it pays to focus the most on upper body work for mma, as it translates better to strong clinch fighting (something which many fighters, even many with wresting backgrounds, have weakness in).
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I really wish I could like this more than once
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ttt
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Well, it’s hard to watch Maia fight now, it’s the same game plan imposed by strong wrestlers, sprawl and do not engage in a grappling situation.... at all...
You wanna make him fight give him a striker for the fun of it.
You wanna make him fight give him a striker for the fun of it.
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Maia never uses upper body takedowns (Judo/Greco).
Cannot believe after 2 losses, he did not change his gameplan.
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Every Judo player who's ever taken someone down in MMA was using wrestling :^)
Really though i think if anything, fights like these (and commentaries on fights like these) really demonstrate the myopic or caricaturized way many people tend to view wrestling from the outside. Like, you say to someone 'lets work on wrestling', and they think, 'okay, lets do some single legs'.
Single leg to running the pipe in practically a meme in bjj lol. Everyone and their mother tunnel visions on them, even the best guys in the world like Cobrinha, and practically every guy from bjj who went into mma defaults on it too. And perhaps you might ask, 'is there some particular stylistic or strategic aim you are serving by focusing on the single and finishing by running the pipe?', and as a reply, 'what do you mean? we're just doing wrestling'.
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Yup - I am well aware of the lateral drop against Sonnen. Saw it, and it was absolutely beautiful.
Thanks for bringing up 1 of a handful of exceptions - lol.
C'mon man. Against Silva, Woodley, Covington, and Usman - it was single, single, double, single. Snooze. I'm sorry, but I expect more from a world-class grappler.
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His last 3 opponents were just avoiding as much contact as they could with him... he backed Usman against the cage and was working his way to his back, till they got separated. All of these guys did something that previous Maia’s opponents did not..: they got the center of the octagon and did not allow Maia to back them against the cage. Every time Maia went of some type of clinch, that be via single double or whatever, they would immediately sprawl and bail out... they would grapple as little as they could...it’s really really hard to take anyone down like this, Maia still got pretty deep a couple of times, but man these guys are hard to take down...
Honestly friends I'm kind of ready to see our boy hang it up. I hate saying that. He's probably the GOAt fighter for BJJ in MMA and he had a hell of a run and got so close to the title. At his age and with his mileage I just hate seeing him eat punishment and drop 3 losses in a row when he admits that he's close to retirement anyways.
That 7 fight win streak from 2014-2017 was legendary. He basically didn't get hit and he put on multiple clinics of takedown -> pass to mount -> back -> RNC against a murderer's row in one of the deepest divisions in combat sports.
I'm glad he's not getting KO'd every fight like some guys in the tail end of their careers but I still hate seeing him take accumulated damage like this.
He's also one of the most interesting fighters ever. Most fighters to be great in MMA on some level have to enjoy hurting (or at least hitting) people and Maia seems to genuinely want to damage his opponents as little as possible. He has a lot of quotes saying as much. It's amazing to me that a man like that was able to be successful in the UFC for so many years and to reach title contention with that philosophy. Not to mention re-inventing his style at an older age.
WAR Maia forever.
That 7 fight win streak from 2014-2017 was legendary. He basically didn't get hit and he put on multiple clinics of takedown -> pass to mount -> back -> RNC against a murderer's row in one of the deepest divisions in combat sports.
I'm glad he's not getting KO'd every fight like some guys in the tail end of their careers but I still hate seeing him take accumulated damage like this.
He's also one of the most interesting fighters ever. Most fighters to be great in MMA on some level have to enjoy hurting (or at least hitting) people and Maia seems to genuinely want to damage his opponents as little as possible. He has a lot of quotes saying as much. It's amazing to me that a man like that was able to be successful in the UFC for so many years and to reach title contention with that philosophy. Not to mention re-inventing his style at an older age.
WAR Maia forever.
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