What did you think of the striking of the UFC 217 title fights??

a guy said:
Watch TJ frame with his left arm before throwing that right hook. That's what fucked Cody up and let TJ land so clean.
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so you dont think if he had thrown it differently if wouldve mattered?
 
freaky said:
I'm still trying to figure out how Rose threw that hook cuz it looked like it somehow got Joanna to react to it like it was a straight?

Joanna had her guard up but when Rose popped forward, Joanna extended her arm exposing her chain for the left hook. Was it the way Rose was throwing it or what?



Looks like that was only the start of her combo too. Lead hook>rear straight>round house. IDK why Joanna thought it was a left straight and extended her right arm to grab it but that's why she got wrecked
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Joanna has always had a bad habit of reaching for punches. It's something I've pointed out in my analysis of her:

"That said, Joanna herself is far from perfect. She finds herself clinched against the cage by almost every opponent, has been hurt in the pocket by Karolina and Gadelha, has a bad habit of extending both arms and standing up straight, will step out of stance on occasion, lacks head movement..."

http://cagecraft.net/index.php/2017/05/23/fighting-long-with-joanna-jedrzejczyk/
 
@freaky at that point Joanna was probably dizzy from the first knockdown. After the first knockdown, you could see Joanna's right hand slowly dropping down and Rose saw it too.
 
Jimmy Jazz said:
so you dont think if he had thrown it differently if wouldve mattered?
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I just realized you guys were talking about the left hook Cody throws right before he gets dropped. I was talking about the punch after, my bad.

He definitely would have had way more power on that punch if he threw it with better form, but he also hit Tj's arm so it lost a lot of steam before it even made contact. If he hadn't touched anything before Tj's head, it probably would have been another knockdown for Cody.

BTW, I'm really pissed he got caught by that head kick. I saw him duck under a head kick earlier and said he'd get knocked out if he didn't start pulling from those head kicks. Sure enough he ducked down into one a minute or two later. Great job by TJ to recover, adapt, set Cody up then shock the world and beat him at his own game.
 
freaky said:
I'm still trying to figure out how Rose threw that hook cuz it looked like it somehow got Joanna to react to it like it was a straight?

Joanna had her guard up but when Rose popped forward, Joanna extended her arm exposing her chain for the left hook. Was it the way Rose was throwing it or what?
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She exploited Joanna's bad habits from her previous couple fights. In her recent fights especially the one against Andrade, Joanna would extend her arm, post it against her opponent's shoulder and use the leverage guard to defend punches. It can work fine when she has a sizable reach advantage against slower opponents similar to how Jon Jones stiff-arms opponents trying to get in on him with punches. It gives her a quick transition to the clinch and/or a "handle" for her to swing her opponent away so she can get off the fence. Works fine against opponents like Andrade and to a lesser extent Claudia and Karolina. Against someone with similar reach & speed, well, we all saw what happened.
 
a guy said:
I just realized you guys were talking about the left hook Cody throws right before he gets dropped. I was talking about the punch after, my bad.

He definitely would have had way more power on that punch if he threw it with better form, but he also hit Tj's arm so it lost a lot of steam before it even made contact. If he hadn't touched anything before Tj's head, it probably would have been another knockdown for Cody.

BTW, I'm really pissed he got caught by that head kick. I saw him duck under a head kick earlier and said he'd get knocked out if he didn't start pulling from those head kicks. Sure enough he ducked down into one a minute or two later. Great job by TJ to recover, adapt, set Cody up then shock the world and beat him at his own game.
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yeah I was so sure Cody would win. You would think if he worked on one thing it would be defense against headkicks. As far as hands tho I was sure Cody was better in that regard, but he barely threw any jabs or crosses. He just wanted to close the distance and flurry hooks. :(
 
Jimmy Jazz said:
yeah I was so sure Cody would win. You would think if he worked on one thing it would be defense against headkicks. As far as hands tho I was sure Cody was better in that regard, but he barely threw any jabs or crosses. He just wanted to close the distance and flurry hooks. :(
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It was weird because in the first round Cody looked amazing and made TJ miss by miles with everything he attempted. His footwork was so on point and it looked like he was gonna do the same thing to TJ he did to Dom. Then he dropped TJ and swarmed him, and it looked like he'd do even worse than he did to Dom. But then Cody was super hesitant. In previous fights he's done a very good job of moving forward slowly and setting up his right hand, but this time he was just waiting on TJ. Hanging back so much let TJ figure him out and set him up, then once he was hurt TJ could swoop in for the kill. I don't think anyone in the world predicted TJ to trade hooks with him and come out on top, but because Cody was so predictable with what he was doing TJ pulled it off.
 
a guy said:
It was weird because in the first round Cody looked amazing and made TJ miss by miles with everything he attempted. His footwork was so on point and it looked like he was gonna do the same thing to TJ he did to Dom. Then he dropped TJ and swarmed him, and it looked like he'd do even worse than he did to Dom. But then Cody was super hesitant. In previous fights he's done a very good job of moving forward slowly and setting up his right hand, but this time he was just waiting on TJ. Hanging back so much let TJ figure him out and set him up, then once he was hurt TJ could swoop in for the kill. I don't think anyone in the world predicted TJ to trade hooks with him and come out on top, but because Cody was so predictable with what he was doing TJ pulled it off.
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In the first round TJ was doing his best imitation of Cruz so Cody was able to take everything he used in that fight and do the same thing to TJ that he did to Cruz. In the 2nd round, TJ stopped screwing around with that stupid dancing footwork and Cody had no idea how to respond to it. He kept waiting for TJ to bounce in on an angle and get himself off-balance to land his counters but that never happened, TJ would inch straight in blast a kick or something while Cody was expecting him to bounce off to the side before attacking. It threw him for a loop and he couldn't figure out how to adjust to it.
 
Sano said:
GSP looked alright. I mean, he looked very good considering it's been 4 years since he retired. No small feat coming back to that stage after such a long break, quite amazing actually. Striking wise he looked a bit slower than his younger self, but most improve seemed to be his power. He has found a way to sit down a little more and with the added weight it has paid off. He was starting to fade a little bit though, so I think it's a good thing for him he caught Bisping with that hook (big surprise), or I could see Bisping overwhelming him. It's obvious he worked on the overhand specificly for Bisping. He's always had a pretty hard overhand right. Jab was nice and long, and spearing, as always. Was very cool to see Roach in the corner!

Cody never jabs and hardly throws straights. He's always a little open in the pocket and uses flurries as hooks. The thing is, he is so fast and powerful that he gets away with it. He's also an excellent counter puncher, not at least in the sense that he doesn't mind taking one to give one either. This time it just didn't work for him. That combination that ended it could have gone either way imo, it was pretty random that TJ landed and not he other way around. The headkicks though, TJ set them up well. Cody has his hands down most of the time and it's a weakness coming over the top with the kick, especially as TJ is good at setting it up and Cody is mostly boxing orientated.

Joanna vs Rose was a surprise I'd say. I mean, I knew Rose had her best chance in the first as she always starts strong and Joanna always starts slow, but never expected that KO. Rose was looking really good before that point though. She was a lot tighter than she usually is, she moved well, she read everything and she had a great rhythm going with manipulating her weight around constantly. I kept commenting on how good she looked up untill the stoppage.

Joanna has shown holes in her striking defense before, she tends to get tagged on the inside and she doesn't really protect her chin that well. It's just that her last fight she looked so damn good against Andrade and used her range and movement so well staying on the outside. This was a very different matchup though. Looked like she expected the jab or something as she was pawing with the rear hand and then bam. Huge upset.
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Its funny you mention the overhand right from GSP. It seems GSP worked specifically on countering the taller mans jab, I am wondering if thats what he brought Roach in for. Manny made an entire career out of countering the taller mans jab and it was interesting to see GSP do some very slick counter punching and secure the victory. He used the overhand to counter the jab as well as doing a great job of catching the jab with his rear hand and firing his own like GGG.
 
aerius said:
In the first round TJ was doing his best imitation of Cruz so Cody was able to take everything he used in that fight and do the same thing to TJ that he did to Cruz. In the 2nd round, TJ stopped screwing around with that stupid dancing footwork and Cody had no idea how to respond to it. He kept waiting for TJ to bounce in on an angle and get himself off-balance to land his counters but that never happened, TJ would inch straight in blast a kick or something while Cody was expecting him to bounce off to the side before attacking. It threw him for a loop and he couldn't figure out how to adjust to it.
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I don't think that's the case. Even in the exchange where Cody got dropped TJ did some stupid footwork. Tj was screwing around the whole fight, he was just doing a lot more kicking than Dom. And Cody had absolutely no trouble dealing with the kicks, until suddenly he did.
 
a guy said:
I don't think that's the case. Even in the exchange where Cody got dropped TJ did some stupid footwork. Tj was screwing around the whole fight, he was just doing a lot more kicking than Dom. And Cody had absolutely no trouble dealing with the kicks, until suddenly he did.
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I disagree. Up until the head kick knockdown in the 2nd, TJ did a lot less dancing around than in the 1st. It was only after the knockdown that he went back to the more active footwork he was using earlier. Also, setups. Up until the knockdown kick, TJ would step from southpaw to orthodox and then throw the left kick or throw the left kick straight from the southpaw stance, that was TJ's pattern for the entire fight up to that point. On the knockdown kick, TJ snuck his right foot forward and landed a left switch kick instead of stepping through to southpaw and then throwing the left. Cody didn't see that in time and got whacked, he likely thought TJ would complete the stance switch and then throw the kick which would give him enough time to defend but it ended up being a switch kick that arrived much sooner than he expected.

TJ had set a pattern on his kicks that Cody had picked up on and was defending well. When TJ suddenly broke that pattern Cody got whacked. TJ effectively trained him to react a certain way to kicks then used it against him.
 
Cody/tj was a fight that lived up to the hype. I just wish it went a little longer
 
aerius said:
I disagree. Up until the head kick knockdown in the 2nd, TJ did a lot less dancing around than in the 1st. It was only after the knockdown that he went back to the more active footwork he was using earlier. Also, setups. Up until the knockdown kick, TJ would step from southpaw to orthodox and then throw the left kick or throw the left kick straight from the southpaw stance, that was TJ's pattern for the entire fight up to that point. On the knockdown kick, TJ snuck his right foot forward and landed a left switch kick instead of stepping through to southpaw and then throwing the left. Cody didn't see that in time and got whacked, he likely thought TJ would complete the stance switch and then throw the kick which would give him enough time to defend but it ended up being a switch kick that arrived much sooner than he expected.

TJ had set a pattern on his kicks that Cody had picked up on and was defending well. When TJ suddenly broke that pattern Cody got whacked. TJ effectively trained him to react a certain way to kicks then used it against him.
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He didn't. He started the round off doing a ton of dancing, and he did a lot of fancy footwork moves. He was even trying superman punches, spinning backfists off kicks and all kinds of flash in minute and a half before that head kick that landed:



That's a ton of dancing for only 90 seconds. And he continued to dance after the head kick, even up until the finishing sequence. It's definitely not fair to say he stopped screwing around with that dancing footwork. He was using it to look for angles, to reset, to set up punches, kicks and even a takedown attempt as shown in my gif. Also, he tried nearly the exact same switch kick in the first round:



So it's incorrect to say Cody got caught because he expected the kick to come slower. The difference was in how he reacted with his feet. On the first kick, he used good footwork to move away while maintaining his stance. In the second, he shot his hips back first and pulled his lead leg back, stepping out of stance to leave him off balance and with hands out of position. It looked like Cody was expecting a body kick, hence him scooting his hips back and reaching his lead arm down. It wasn't about thinking he had more time, it was about him thinking the kick was going low, and if you look at the kick just before it snaps up high the chamber could easily have been for a body kick:



If there was a pattern it was TJ kicking low and to the body, then kicking high, that got Cody. It wasn't about how fast Cody reacted, it was about him reacting incorrectly.
 
Feint overload from TJ. He mixes up his striking very well. Something that really hypnotized Cody and something Cody didn’t really do very well at all.
 
aerius said:
Joanna vs. Rose, IMO, was a process failure and impatience on the part of Joanna and good pattern recognition, distance control, and timing by Rose.

Joanna failed to find the range with her jab and use the low kicks to slow Rose down a bit before unloading with power strikes. She threw maybe 1 or 2 rangefinder jabs that weren't close to landing and went straight to throwing hard 1-2 combos and kicks without setting them up. If you look at her other fights, she doesn't open up with her power strikes until her jab is landing consistently and she's got the range down. Her usual sequence is establish her jab and get it to land, add low kicks, then evaluate what the openings are and attack them accordingly. In this fight she went straight to "take Rose's head off" before she'd even established her jab and figured out the range.

On Rose's part, she had a good sense of distance and stayed outside the range of Joanna's jab to keep her from figuring out the distance of the fight. When Joanna got impatient and started throwing hard & missing, she was able to see the patterns in her strikes along with the openings which were available, then file it away for use when she saw the same setups again. When the same strike/combo was thrown at her again, Rose was quickly able to pick it up and hit the opening with a clean, well-timed strike. That's how she got the knockdown off the kick, a counter left hook when Joanna missed on a 1-2, and the finishing left hook that got her near the cage.
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Joanna got overconfident and impatient. They say pride comes before a fall - exactly what happened here. I believe JJ can get her shit together and recover her belt.
 
aerius said:
Joanna vs. Rose, IMO, was a process failure and impatience on the part of Joanna and good pattern recognition, distance control, and timing by Rose.

Joanna failed to find the range with her jab and use the low kicks to slow Rose down a bit before unloading with power strikes. She threw maybe 1 or 2 rangefinder jabs that weren't close to landing and went straight to throwing hard 1-2 combos and kicks without setting them up. If you look at her other fights, she doesn't open up with her power strikes until her jab is landing consistently and she's got the range down. Her usual sequence is establish her jab and get it to land, add low kicks, then evaluate what the openings are and attack them accordingly. In this fight she went straight to "take Rose's head off" before she'd even established her jab and figured out the range.

On Rose's part, she had a good sense of distance and stayed outside the range of Joanna's jab to keep her from figuring out the distance of the fight. When Joanna got impatient and started throwing hard & missing, she was able to see the patterns in her strikes along with the openings which were available, then file it away for use when she saw the same setups again. When the same strike/combo was thrown at her again, Rose was quickly able to pick it up and hit the opening with a clean, well-timed strike. That's how she got the knockdown off the kick, a counter left hook when Joanna missed on a 1-2, and the finishing left hook that got her near the cage.
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I don't know that it was impatience on Joanna's part so much as a weakness in her style (that, incidentally, seems to be something that developed only after her championship reign started): she needs people to come forward and put themselves in striking range. Joanna is best when people come forward and she can angle off and counter in combination. She really didn't have an answer for Rose's feints, she bit on so many of them without ever really starting to pressure forward herself. I think if she had walked Rose down a little more she would have been fine, Rose defends single strikes well but Joanna would have eaten her up with combos in the pocket if she had committed to forcing that range.

I do think you're right Joanna's combos were a little pat and that made it fairly easy for Rose to pick up on the rhythm and counter effectively. While I like Dutch style kickboxing a lot for MMA, I do find that the highly repetitive pattern striking you tend to see in that style can make it susceptible to quick reads and counters.
 
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