Technical Analysis of Weidman's Knockout

[junkman12]

Great post.

 

[Chaos Theory]

Was he having success with leg kicks?

No he got KTFO.

Anderson does not have Shoguns huge thighs, his low kicks have no weight behind them. Sure they'd be irritating but they're not game stoppers.

Once Anderson started throwing more of them he quickly got KO'd, I personally interpret that as unsuccessful.

 

[wlu29]

No he got KTFO.

Anderson does not have Shoguns huge thighs, his low kicks have no weight behind them. Sure they'd be irritating but they're not game stoppers.

Once Anderson started throwing more of them he quickly got KO'd, I personally interpret that as unsuccessful.

he was landing them lightning fast and weidman wasn't able to time them or check them (that was successful)

he abandoned that and decided to only go to punches (which he couldn't land on weidman at all)

 

[kpt018]

No he got KTFO.

Anderson does not have Shoguns huge thighs, his low kicks have no weight behind them. Sure they'd be irritating but they're not game stoppers.

Once Anderson started throwing more of them he quickly got KO'd, I personally interpret that as unsuccessful.

They were bothering CW. He said in a post fight interview that he needed to start checking them and if he kept throwing them, he was going to shoot and take AS down.

 

[a guy]

Dropping your hands is always playing with fire, unless he is out of range, like in the Vitor fight.

Dropping your hands has a few benefits but its so risky that it is obviously clowning.

Jones and Weidman also know that it is clowning (Weidman calls him a disrespectful POS after the KO). Now, the clowning has purpose, but it's clowning.

You're right, I just realized I didn't actually explain what I mean by hands down. Dropping the hands low like Silva does is absolutely playing with fire.

Having them a little bit below chin level (around chest height), especially only the lead one, is what I meant when I said it's an excellent strategy when down properly. It isn't nearly as risky as it appears to your opponent, lets your punches come from underneath their vision, gives you that slight edge if you need underhooks, increases your own vision, keeps your lead hand free for offense and ends up threatening the opponent more.

There was actually a huge thread in the standup subforum about this topic and it got out of hand because people assumed hands down meant like Silva, and others assumed hands up meant gloves pinned to your forehead at all times.

 

[a guy]

So much analysis making it seem like fighters have some kind of instructions they have to follow in order to exploit their game. They're fighting, they throw punches and defend themselves, there's no need to decipher every single move that happens.

The quote below is a good response to what you're saying. There's a hell of a lot more going on in these fights than two guys "throwing punches and defending themselves". But it's only there if you know what you're looking at.

your coach should have you repeat this many times, so the movements become automatic. You think alot when in training so that these kind of movements
are drilled into you like a reflex.

 

[kpt018]

You're right, I just realized I didn't actually explain what I mean by hands down. Dropping the hands low like Silva does is absolutely playing with fire.

Having them a little bit below chin level (around chest height), especially only the lead one, is what I meant when I said it's an excellent strategy when down properly. It isn't nearly as risky as it appears to your opponent, lets your punches come from underneath their vision, gives you that slight edge if you need underhooks, increases your own vision, keeps your lead hand free for offense and ends up threatening the opponent more.

There was actually a huge thread in the standup subforum about this topic and it got out of hand because people assumed hands down meant like Silva, and others assumed hands up meant gloves pinned to your forehead at all times.

Oh, gotcha. Totally agree. Good analysis, once again.

 

[a guy]

If you really watch the fight, you see Anderson begin clowning after Weidmans failed takedown attempt in the first. Weidman lookes brilliant because he was the only one fighting since Anderson was clowning. Anderson saw he had no trouble stopping Weidmans takedowns. Weidman was breathing through his mouth and looked gassed after the successful takedown in the first round.

Again, Weidman only looked good because Anderson started clowning because he was overconfident and he felt he could finish him any time. Anderson stopped fighting at this point.

Stop the silliness about how much greater Weidman is. Anderson was putting on a show for all the celebs who were there to see HIM! Including his idol Rjj.

That was about the best you will see out of Weidman.
THAT WAS NOT THE BEST SILVA!!!!!!
Silva will destroy him in the rematch an deep down, Weidman knows this too.

Stop with the Weidman fantasies. He is good but he is not great. Anderson is great and you will be reminded how much so in the rematch.

No one is saying Anderson isn't great, and I never said Weidman is better than him. He won the fight convincingly, but that isn't taking anything away from Silva. But at the same time, that was still Silva in there. He looked the same as always. He used the same attacks and strategy, just with the taunting to an extreme. It wasn't just to put on a show, it was to get Weidman to start making mistakes and overreaching. But Silva got knocked out the only time Weidman fully committed to attacking.

It's very possible that Silva will dominate the rematch, he's definitely a more technical and more well rounded striker, but that doesn't change the fact that Weidman intelligently beat him at his own game in this fight.

 

[PD4838]

You can still say Weidman fought perfectly and also say that Anderson fought stupid. Anderson fighting smart could also lose to Weidman, but it would have been less embarassing if he lost

this is 100% correct. Props to CW for beating AS but I don't think he would've if AS didn't clown, but maybe CW would've. That's why everyone wants to see the rematch so there will be no excuses. This reminds me of when Serra knocked of GSP, identical comments on these boards.

 

[Taric]

They were bothering CW. He said in a post fight interview that he needed to start checking them and if he kept throwing them, he was going to shoot and take AS down.

Which is why leg kicks are the worst possible strategy for Anderson to employ in the second fight. Weidman will take Anderson down at will if he just keeps throwing kicks.

 

[a guy]

looking at the exchange that knocked out silva, I think
this situation is taylor made for vitor... the boxing exchange,
vitor would get in weidman and throw some shots from inside.

Vitor probably would have been on his back already at that point. :wink:

Out of all the possible opponents for Weidman (excluding Silva), Vitor is probably the most threatening. Jacare Souza is up there as well.

 

[a guy]

I know this definitely isn't the place for it..... But that punch from Franklin should NOT have knocked Liddell out!! It still pisses me off!! Carry on.....

That punch had every reason to knock Chuck out. He leapt directly into it. Look at how far his feet travel in that short gif, and think of how much of a collision there must have been between him and that fist, moving directly into each other. That and it landed when Chuck's feet weren't even on the ground, so like when Silva got knocked out, there was no balance.

 

[a guy]

No he got KTFO.

Anderson does not have Shoguns huge thighs, his low kicks have no weight behind them. Sure they'd be irritating but they're not game stoppers.

Once Anderson started throwing more of them he quickly got KO'd, I personally interpret that as unsuccessful.

The leg kicks didn't really have much to do with the fight in the end. They didn't break Weidman down, none of them got caught and none of them got countered. So I agree that they weren't game stoppers, but they weren't unsuccessful either. And they definitely didn't lead to the knockout.

Who knows, maybe in the rematch Anderson will take Barboza's gameplan and kick Weidman until he can't walk anymore.

 

[a guy]

Which is why leg kicks are the worst possible strategy for Anderson to employ in the second fight. Weidman will take Anderson down at will if he just keeps throwing kicks.

That depends. Weidman hasn't been getting most of his takedowns by catching kicks and his focus might be elsewhere. Also, Silva doesn't throw kicks that are very easy to catch. It's also possible that if Chris tried too hard to catch kicks, Silva could trick him into reaching down and getting kicked in the head. There are a lot of possibilities for the rematch and it's very exciting.

 

[trench foot]

Great thread and analysis.

 

[Polish Punisher]

This is what Silva always does when his opponent wont run at him swinging wildly giving him an opening to counter.

Anderson is not a power puncher, his round kicks are not brutally powerful either.

He knows this and its why he is such an awesome counter fighter. He places pinpoint strikes on fighters rushing in which increases the impact and results in KO's

So if a fighter does not either rush in or stand flat footed giving him a stationary target, he gets frustrated.

 

[dfoster]

everything you said Weidman did could have been instinct, not necessarily skill. Some people have good instinct of timing and distance and movement. It's like you dangle something in front of a cat, pretty soon it's gonna get your timing and catches it. Or if you swat at him, he will know which way to move to avoid it. It's instinct.

 

[CPH]

Which is why leg kicks are the worst possible strategy for Anderson to employ in the second fight. Weidman will take Anderson down at will if he just keeps throwing kicks.

Not true. Part of knowing how to kick is pulling the trigger at the exact moment your opponent cannot counter or defend. Same as boxing. Anderson is very capable of doing this over and over again, esp. to a guy as green as Weidman.

 

[Claude]

Alright, there's a lot of nonsense talk about Weidman's knockout of Silva so I'm gonna do a little explaining of why Weidman deserves a LOT more credit than he's getting from most people. First thing's first, Silva was clowning because Weidman wasn't giving him anything to work with. Silva doesn't look spectacular striking unless he gets opponents to overcommit in the standup or otherwise get out of position. This is common knowledge. What Weidman did was take him down immediately and show that he could land some serious shots on the ground and refused to be controlled in Silva's body triangle in closed guard. When they got up, Chris stayed in range and tracked Silva. He stayed in his face and gave him no openings. As a result, Anderson had to taunt more and more and even attack first to try to get Weidman coming at him. When Weidman did attack, it was with one or two shots that left very little openings and were impossible to time because he had no rhythm. However, Weidman was able to time Silva's footwork.

For example, in this gif, Weidman connects with a right hand. But notice how Anderson moves when it happens. Silva is very fond of pivoting to move his head and move backwards, he rarely actually moves straight back. He mostly steps his lead foot back as he does so, switching stances because it allows him to cover more distance. Weidman sees Silva baiting him with his hands on his hips. Notice that Silva's right foot is forward, meaning he will likely pivot on his left foot, moving to his own left (Weidman's right). Thus, Weidman comes forward and when he throws his right hand, he steps his right foot off to the side to cut Silva off and land the shot while also switching stances. This shows great anticipation, as it allows him to both land the shot AND angle off to his left immediately after landing. That's smart stuff.

This second gif shows the type of pressure I'm talking about. Weidman stays right in front of Silva and taunts back when Silva taunts him. When Silva attacks, he hops back a little to avoid taking damage then immediately gets back in front of Silva. Notice how Weidman is actually also baiting Silva by having his weight forward, so he can pull it back as soon as Silva attacks. He even does this by jabbing and leaning forward so that he can pull away from Silva's counter left straight in that gif.

Eventually, Weidman saw an opening left by Silva that he believed he could really exploit and even though it took 4 punches, he did it.

The short version is Weidman stayed in Silva's face while leaving him no openings, Silva did everything he could to bait Weidman into reaching, but Weidman covered enough ground and disrupted his movement to land the knockout. Here's the gif:

Two things happen immediately in that gif: 1. Weidman pivots to his left with a jab to take the picture perfect example of an inside angle and gets Silva fully square. 2. As this happens, Silva steps his left foot to the left and squats a little, making himself even more square and making himself less mobile.

At this point, I don't think anyone in the world could resist trying to punch Silva. His back is near the cage, he's completely square, his hands are down (they don't look threatening) and his head is RIGHT THERE. Weidman decides to go for it and truly commits to attacking with strikes for the first time in the fight.

He throws a jab and a hard cross right behind it that should have taken out anyone in mma who isn't Silva, but of course Silva was planning to move his head the whole time and has the skill to do it with a pivot. As the right misses, Silva's footwork has actually put him at an inside angle with Weidman in a pretty bad position. So everyone saying his footwork was off should really watch it at work in this gif. It's still beautiful. But, notice how he moves the same way he did before in the gif above when Weidman landed on him.

Weidman, in a pretty awful position, throws an improvised backhand that ended up being the key to the fight. Now a bunch of people read that great Jack Slack article (that article might even be called prophetic haha) and assumed Weidman must have been planning this his whole camp. Personally, I'm not sure. He DEFINITELY didn't plan to throw it when he started. Whether or not he trained it as a backup measure for similar situations is up for debate. I like to think that he at least understood its function when he threw it. From his knockout of Munoz and his patience in this fight, the one word I would use to describe Weidman's standup is intelligent. Maybe not technically perfect, but his last two knockouts have been really well set up and both capitalized on specific tendencies of his opponents. That leads me to believe that the backhand wasn't some desperate flail at a legend, but at the very worst a feint to deter Silva as Weidman tried to regain his balance and throw the left hook, at best an intelligently thrown shot to disrupt Silva's timing and make him move to the wrong side. Honestly, in some ways it very closely resembles a soft right hand.

As the backhand comes, Silva performs another small pivot to the other side. While this ordinarily should have caused a left hook to sail by an inch or two short, it actually lines him up in front of Weidman (though both of them have their feet way out of position) Weidman steps his left foot forward right towards Silva's center as he throws the left hook. One important thing to note is that Weidman brought his right foot with him as he threw the cross and the backhanded right, though not to the same extent as before when he switched stances, because this time he wants to unload. This actually works to give him the ability to step really far into the left hook so that he can cover the distance needed and land the fight-finishing blow. Note that at the time of contact, Weidman is at an inside angle, Silva is square, leaning over his feet, off balance and moving towards the left hook. But, if Weidman didn't fully commit, didn't bring his right foot forward, chose to attack at a less opportune time, didn't step his left foot all the way in with the left hook and didn't use the backhand to fuck everything up, Silva would have looked as untouchable as a ghost like always.

In the end, I think Weidman fought a perfect fight for what he's able to do. He forced Silva to work harder and harder to make the bait attractive enough to bite, and when Weidman bit he did it with commitment and covered enough distance with his footwork to pull off one hell of an upset.

Good post. Weidman really outclassed Silva in the stand-up. He pushed him to the point he was desperately baiting him and knocked him out.

 

[a guy]

everything you said Weidman did could have been instinct, not necessarily skill. Some people have good instinct of timing and distance and movement. It's like you dangle something in front of a cat, pretty soon it's gonna get your timing and catches it. Or if you swat at him, he will know which way to move to avoid it. It's instinct.

Just because it's instinctual doesn't mean it isn't skill. Some people are naturally better at some skills than others. Weidman picked up some solid striking pretty damn fast compared to other grapplers, but he's apparently been learning everything pretty fast. He might be one of those guys who just gets fighting, or his coaches might be doing a really great job with him. Probably both.

No matter what though, what he did against Silva can only be called skill. That doesn't mean he's a better striker, but he absolutely outstruck Silva.