Best Footwork In MMA History

[JackSchtotll]

Who is it then?

Anderson Silva

 

[Fight Professor]

CoGar showed us why Dom's footwork is an illusion by applying solid boxing skills.

 

[HelloJapan]

For me, its GSP. In his prime he had a striking defense rate of like 78%. Dude was untouchable, and it wasn't because he was blocking shots.

No, it was fear of the TD and his reach advantage. His footwork was solid, nothing more.

 

[HelloJapan]

Anderson Silva

Andy had great footwork.

 

[LLD2008]

Anderson Silva

No Conor has better hands, Anderson has more variety like knees, kicks and elbows

 

[Boevik]

 

[xMaxPower]

Dom has a lot of volume in his footwork, but I think much of it is unnecessary and probably less effective than people think. His size does a lot of the work for him. He never has to get inside an opponent’s reach. I think Garbrandt’s footwork is better. It’s more subtle, but that’s because he actually knows how to box.

agreed, came here to say this.

more on what he said:
just because you move alot doesnt mean you have good footwork.
good footwork is your ability to be deceptive with your feet.

 

[pick999]

For me, its GSP. In his prime he had a striking defense rate of like 78%. Dude was untouchable, and it wasn't because he was blocking shots. He was always half an inch away from whatever was supposed to hit him.

Dom's footwork is overrated because it's flashy and weird looking.

 

[MacDiz]

Calib Starnes

 

[D'z]

MVP

 

[YOLOGOGOPLATA]

Lol GSP is so good that when you try to hate on him you had to post a pic of a fight he WON... good job convincing us GSP has terrible footwork (if you are on topic with the thread) or just sucks in general

 

[listrahtes]

I disagree that Dom is overrated. His footwork sets up everything he does in a fight. it is flashy I totally agree with that but he is so quick on the feet. He throws punches in stances that most guys would't even think about throwing, his balance allows him to strike at any moment. It

The hard part that separates a good stand up fighter is to generate power while moving. Thats what takes so many years of training. Fluid movement and punching with force. Even the so called "weak" punchers in boxing have this down to a t. Dom has no connection in his footwork to his upper body into his hands like Lomachenko, TJ.. or Garbrandt or any mildly talented amateur boxer, thats why he can enter in weird angles but just touches you slightly. Its much easier to run around like a spastic without fighting.

Its not fighting, its touch up. It works for him because he can win on points but really its a pathetic way to "fight" and from a technical point of view his footwork is very fast but because of that very unskilled regarding body mechanics like weight shifting / powerline...etc.

 

[YOLOGOGOPLATA]

The hard part that separates a good stand up fighter is to generate power while moving. Thats what takes so many years of training. Fluid movement and punching with force. Even the so called "weak" punchers in boxing have this down to a t. Dom has no connection in his footwork to his upper body into his hands like Lomachenko, TJ.. or Garbrandt or any mildly talented amateur boxer, thats why he can enter in weird angles but just touches you slightly. Its much easier to run around like a spastic without fighting.

Its not fighting, its touch up. It works for him because he can win on points but really its a pathetic way to "fight" and from a technical point of view his footwork is very fast but because of that very unskilled regarding body mechanics like weight shifting / powerline...etc.

Spot on. He is so concerned with getting hit that his entire game is designed to point fight and avoid as much damage as possible. Normally I’m not a fan or point fighters who don’t go for the KO, but I give an exception to Dom because i find his style unique and entertaining, and I also enjoy good defense when it’s executed properly - and in his prime not many fighters could avoid being hit as well as Cruz

 

[Ice Cold]

For me it clearly has to be Dom Cruz... I love his unorthodox style and all his success is based off of his ridiculous footwork. Who else is a great technical athlete, specific to footwork?

 

[listrahtes]

Spot on. He is so concerned with getting hit that his entire game is designed to point fight and avoid as much damage as possible. Normally I’m not a fan or point fighters who don’t go for the KO, but I give an exception to Dom because i find his style unique and entertaining, and I also enjoy good defense when it’s executed properly - and in his prime not many fighters could avoid being hit as well as Cruz

I give you that but if you build your defense by neglecting any meaningful offense in your game and in a way actively kill it because of your footwork this is not fighting for me anymore. But if you like that its all good. I just think from a technical point of view Dom is the worst example. Every coach would tear you a new one if you try to move like that because you cant build a solid foundation on top of it.

Just one example: escaping lateral in a fight when you are crowded with a pivot step and power shot (to the left with a jab) (Canelo style) . Its very hard to learn but if you only concentrate on escaping its easier with touching in a weird angle. In that way its a skill that in a real fight has not much benefit. Mostly you will just be overrun at some point.

 

[eseseses681]

Circling and shuffling = amazing footwork.
That's why I never bought the whole "Edgar and Cruz have the greatest footwork in history" rhetoric.
The fact that Eddie Alvarez and Gomi didn't even get a mention so far shows people have no idea what they're talking about. Gomi's fight with Jens Pulver (this was Pulver's prime, too, and between boxing, kickboxing and MMA he was on a 9-fight winning streak) was a showcase of boxing in shootfighting with Gomi coming out well ahead, and his stance-switching melding so well with his body-work to defeat a surging Pulver is what began Gomi's footwork mythos (him progressively phoning it in during training more and more after Pride folded, with the exception of a brief run between 2012 and 2013, muddled that though). Even by today's standards the boxing skills in that fight hold up.

I think Aldo probably has the best ever.

Spoiler

Footwork in MMA isn't just about striking, it's about grappling-- footwork is a gigantic part of wrestling-- and Aldo's footwork has been the skeleton key to his entire takedown defense game. He always makes sure his feet are in a good position to defend takedowns, and if you can do that it'll be way harder for your opponents to shoot on them effectively (and'll make it easier to pummel out). It's not some amazing sprawl that keeps him safe [his fights have all been in a cage, and the sprawl isn't really as effective in it; how are you supposed to sprawl your legs behind you when your back's to a cage?], or the fact that he has his hands at his waist; how many times did he have to sprawl on takedowns compared to Cro Cop?
His foot placement and movement with his striking is already established and that alone puts him in the discussion, but what he does with his feet with his wrestling is what puts him over the top.

Fedor is up there for the same exact reason.

Spoiler

Fedor looks sloppy to the untrained eye, but the fact that he is able to so smoothly shift between striking on the outside, entering into the clinch and shooting for takedowns-- which are all different and require different skillsets-- and great at all of them, and never got caught unbalanced during his prime against extremely good fighters is a testament to what he can do with his feet.

Enough's been written about Eddie Alvarez' footwork so I won't say anything. I got nothin' to add to it; there's a gif later in here that shows some of it, though.

You also can't forget about Bisping.

Spoiler

His knockdown of Anderson Silva in the second round is a prime example of foot-placement, positioning, movement, stance-shifting, and choice-of-strike-to-compliment-the-previous-four-most-effectively all rolled into one.

Miguel Torres also deserves credit during his prime for having extremely-elite footwork.

Spoiler

It was used in a different way than most fighters, so it gets overlooked in the footwork discussion, but his distancing and stance were gigantic parts of why his striking was so effective during his prime, and feet are tied integrally to that.

Notice how easy it is for Miguel to know what exact distance he needs to back away to. One of the things about Miguel's striking that nobody talks about was how he could benefit from a conventional kickboxing stance (which is superior for striking than the version you have to use in MMA is) while most fighters couldn't. If you watch his fights you'll notice how close together Miguel's feet are. That's normally discouraged because it opens you up for a takedown, despite the fact that it's better for striking (easier to land kicks, more control of balance), but because Miguel's guard's so great he had no fear of getting taken down at all. The high round-kick he landed against Chase Beebe is a great example of that.
Too bad there's not enough gifs of him using his jab. There're some nice moments of him deftly moving in and out and around with it.
He also knew where to put his feet when he was pressing his opponent against the cage; the Nick Pace fight had a bunch of those moments, but in the absence of those gifs here's one from his fight with Miz':

Throws a high knee, was sure to shift his posture to the side first; threw an elbow afterwards, went square against the hips; grabbed an underhook and shifted his posture to the side again. And again, he doesn't have to keep his legs wide to prepare to keep his opponent from wrapping their arms around his legs and clasp their hands together because he's fine with being beneath you (you should be worried about being on top of him). So his striking tools are opened up more.
He changed his striking style a lot after the Bowles fight and was fighting against too high-of-level guys to allow for room to really complete his adaptation to the new style, so his footwork ends up getting demoted a bit, but in his prime it was very high-level.

To highlight five more-obscure guys you may not be aware of, I don't think it's the best ever, but Aung La N Sang's footwork has been very impressive and if he keeps it up, he'll be in the discussion in a few years.

Spoiler

There may not be too many highly-ranked middleweights available to ONE (and unless they have a falling out, Aung's never gonna leave; they treat him way too well and nobody holds him in as much value as ONE does, and no other organization is gonna have events in Myanmar for at least a few years), but there's no shortage of highly-skilled strikers outside of the major organizations and that's a gigantic part of building a good footwork resume.
His angling in his last win was impressive. He was tired because it was a very difficult fight (it's a FOTY contender if you haven't watched it), so it's a little sloppy, but even without taking that into consideration it's impressive.

Lion Takeshi developed a pretty good footwork game later in his career.

Spoiler

You don't see fighters feint with their legs too much in this sport, much less be so effective with it. His knockout of Taiki Tsuchiya was really pretty, he got a knockout with the cobra punch that Eddie Alvarez uses (it has a lot of other names); too bad Shooto took all their non-official videos off the Internet or I'd put that up.
He had a natural ability to line up his body off of his legs into his right-hand that made it be delivered with way more power than you'd think the punch should give off.

That was early in his career and he was more raw, but I defy you to find a gif of a guy's body lining up from the bottom of his toes into a right-straight better than that in MMA. Lion's ability to do that was what made his game so dangerous.

Rambaa Somdet also helped to revolutionize the way Muay Thai is adapted to MMA. His highlight will make you feel like Aldo's Muay Thai is a poor cousin. His footwork is a giant part of that; that's like 90% of the reason kickboxers struggle to adapt to MMA.

Mamed Khalidov has very good footwork as well.

Spoiler

Adesanya and Whittaker might be the only guys in the middleweight division right now that are better than him, and that's might be. They could be just as good as his. I can't think of another middleweight who can move his weight so smoothly and balanced around the fight-surface while being able to shift his weight and push off his feet so perfectly-timed to deliver so much power. I think he comes from a Kyokushin background, so that's probably how he learned it. There's something to that traditional martial arts background, I think...

Kenji Osawa's footwork was great, too.

Spoiler

More in the positioning sense than anything else, but what Osawa could do in his fights was interesting. He was a striker with power in his hands, but he never really got knockouts and his style was more built around landing his punches consistently than landing one big shot, like guys today are all about. I've never seen a guy who was so good at making sure he was in just the right position to make sure his punch just lands and can do it so consistently that he can outstrike very skilled fighters. That's not what made him have such great footwork, though; it was that he's only 5'6 (closer to the 5'5 side than the 5'6 side, too) and he did it against guys who were taller and lengthier than him for his entire career. Outfighting taller and rangier strikers and winning shows how great your footwork is. Geje Eustaquio and Ryuichi Miki are the only other guys I can think of right now who're good at that (there're a few others, I just can't think of 'em), but what Osawa could do in his prime surpasses them. His wins over Lion Takeshi and Yoshiro Maeda showcase this part of his game extremely well, and he's the head coach out of the Hearts gym in Japan now and a lot of his students have pretty solid striking defenses because of it.
He was also the first guy to knock out Miz', and if you watch his stance while he throws the left hooks that won him the fight you'll have a good bit of reverence for his knowledge of this area.

I think TJ's only so highly-considered in the footwork discussion because he's a switch-hitter. If you can do that naturally you're automatically gonna be in the footwork discussion, but... I'm not sure that's so much a matter of skill as it is he's fighting people who can't handle switch-hitters that well. Any other switch-hitter who develops a good grappling game and fights guys who don't know how to handle constant stance-switching will be in the discussion automatically because of that, like Kyoji Horiguchi.
I haven't watched Demetrious' fights closely enough to say anything about him. I love the flyweight division-- probably know more about its history than 99.9% of English-speaking MMA fans, and that's being humble-- but there are guys I care about in the division more than Demetrious.

 

[Gregoire1]

Cruz
TJ
Wonderboy
Gus
Machida

 

[Ananth]

Wonderboy till the last 30 seconds of a fight.

Conor till he gasses midway through the second round.

TJ and Jon Jones have the best footwork overall I would say. I love how they switch stances at will and are comfortable in throwing a plethora of strikes with both stances.

I personally prefer TJ. He's the fighter the next generation should look up to.

 

[quantiqus]

Conor Mcgregor, he's the best boxer in mma

 

[fortheo]

Dom has a lot of volume in his footwork, but I think much of it is unnecessary and probably less effective than people think. His size does a lot of the work for him. He never has to get inside an opponent’s reach. I think Garbrandt’s footwork is better. It’s more subtle, but that’s because he actually knows how to box.

Nah, Dom makes reads based of how his opponents react to what you call "lots of unnecessary movement"

I'm not saying that he has the best footwork, and maybe he could get the same results with a less flashy style, but I'm saying that everything he does has its purpose in his current game.