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In Renato Moicano’s run at Featherweight, he was known as a capable outfighter, with a versatile jab and a slick kicking skillset. Since moving up to Lightweight, however, his striking has looked insecure and perilous without the comfortable reach advantage he enjoyed at 145lbs, but his grappling skillset has taken the forefront.
It was that grappling skillset that got him the win over Benoît Saint Denis at UFC Fight Night 243, as he spent the first round on top of Saint Denis, bloodying his face and closing up his eye with devastating ground and pound.
The first thing Moicano did in the fight was effectively take away Saint Denis’s main weapon, his open side body kick. As soon as Saint Denis looked to establish the kick, Moicano parried it across his body and immediately secured a bodylock takedown.
Parrying the kick aside after it lands is a common counter in combat sports, but it’s usually done to set up strikes, like so:
Adrian Yañez sweeps the kicking leg aside, crossing up his opponent’s feet and leaving him out of position, while he drops the leg and springs into a lead hook.
When fighters use the parry to enter into a shot, they’ll often perform it the same way, by dropping the leg before their entry or sweeping it by. But while that opens a big enough window to get off a strike or two as the opponent recovers their positioning, it’s less reliable for securing a takedown, giving them a chance to get back on two feet or downblock and meet the entry in better position.
What I really liked about Moicano’s parry is that he didn’t let go of the leg until he’d already filled the space between himself and Saint Denis:
Moicano parries the kicking leg outside, but he doesn’t fling it past or drop it, instead holding onto the heel and keeping it just outside his hip. Keeping the heel holds Saint Denis at an angle that exposes his back. Moicano doesn’t let go of the leg until his right leg steps forward and his arm wraps around the waist, filling all that space so Saint Denis has no room to turn and secure strong grips in the clinch. Saint Denis ends up having to sell out on reaching back for a whizzer from a bad position, throwing himself upright and giving Moicano leverage to settle into a trip as he spins.
But by far the most impressive part of Moicano’s performance came once he achieved top position. Throughout his UFC run, Saint Denis has done an excellent job of using butterfly hooks to quickly escape bottom position.
Here’s a great example - Saint Denis breaks Matt Frevola’s posture with a head & arm grip and as soon as Frevola pulls out, he looks to step over the leg and begin passing. But Saint Denis quickly digs an underhook, grapevines Frevola’s far leg to block it from posting, and uses the underhook’s leverage to power a butterfly sweep, scissoring out the far leg as he tips Frevola over. Note also how Saint Denis times his underhook right as Frevola reaches his right arm up to the head, looking for a punch or elbow. By timing it right as Frevola shifts his weight into the blow, he’s able to stick Frevola’s weight past its center of gravity, allowing him to quickly hit the sweep.
Saint Denis’ butterfly guard posed a major threat to Moicano, whose likely path to victory involved getting on top and staying there. But Moicano was more than prepared to deal with it, using strong positioning and distance management to deny Saint Denis the posture to break his balance and the connection necessary to maximize the leverage of his butterfly hooks.
Two important concepts for butterfly guard use are posture and hook connection. It’s not always possible in MMA to enter with perfect posture due to the nature of grappling with strikes - seated guards aren’t seen very often, and the bottom player will generally be building up from a worse position off their back. But Saint Denis has proven proficient digging underhooks and using them to shift his opponent’s weight off him while he improves his posture to tip them over with his butterfly hook.
It’s also important to maintain the connection of the butterfly hooks to the inside of the opponent’s thigh. If that connection is lost, it becomes much more difficult to manipulate the top player’s weight, and much easier for them to switch their hips and improve their positioning.
Let’s look at another example where Saint Denis has to work a bit harder to get his back off the mat:
Saint Denis digs his underhook and looks to create distance with his hooks. Thiago Moises elevates his hips, breaking the connection of the hooks to his inner thigh, and drives in with his head to prevent Saint Denis from posturing up. Driving his head directly into Saint Denis’ chin gives him lots of leverage to force Saint Denis down, but it also opens up some space. Saint Denis gives a slight push with his hooks again, drawing Moises into elevating his hips and driving with his head, then Saint Denis uses that space to pummel a second underhook. As Moises drives him flat, Saint Denis uses the momentum to rock back and get underneath him enough to kick him off to the side, using his new underhook to keep Moises’ weight from settling back on top of him while he stands up.
Here we see that when the top player can kill Saint Denis’ hook connection while preventing him from posturing up enough to stand, he’ll need to retreat to his back and regroup. But as long as he keeps his underhook in strong position, he can work back up and take another shot at it.
Moicano did a brilliant job killing Saint Denis’s posture and hook connection without giving him a chance to regroup and improve his positioning. Friend of the site, Open Note Grappling pointed out that Moicano would move his head to Saint Denis’ underhooking shoulder when he dug his underhook. With his head on the opposite side of his own underhook, Moicano can distribute his weight more evenly across Saint Denis’ body and put weight on Saint Denis’ underhook, keeping his posture down and his shoulders on the mat.
This is conceptually similar to our discussion of underhook positioning in Rahman Amouzad & The Iranian Underhook, where Iran’s far-side head positioning allows their underhook to better control both sides of their opponent’s body, but leaves them more vulnerable to being stalled out and having weight dropped on the underhook. But in this case, the weight distribution is entirely working against Saint Denis, since he’s on the bottom.
Moicano would flatten Saint Denis out by keeping weight over his underhook, pinning his shoulder to the mat. But when Saint Denis was able to leverage the underhook and start getting some elevation, Moicano would quickly raise his hips, plant his feet on the mat, and execute a quick hip switch to break the hook connection. With the hook connection broken, Saint Denis could no longer elevate Moicano and had to either force his way up with the underhook, or rock back to regain the connection like he did to Moises. But Moicano used the space created by Saint Denis’ attempts to elevate him to quickly pummel his own underhook and flatten Saint Denis out before he could posture up enough to escape.
After fruitlessly trying to elevate Moicano a couple times, Saint Denis realized that he wasn’t going to succeed in getting underneath him. Instead, he started using his butterfly hooks to create enough space to get his feet on the hips and kick off. It was a good idea in theory, as creating space is always useful for guard players in MMA, but Moicano once again had him beat on the small details.
The first time Saint Denis tried to kick him away, Moicano just backed out and controlled his foot. Without the ability to plant his foot on the mat, Saint Denis couldn’t use the space created to stand up quickly, and his only option was to sit up into Moicano, which allowed him to threaten a back take and settle into half guard. The more Saint Denis tried, the worse it got for him. The next time, Moicano monitored his feet as he kicked wildly, stepping outside his hips and stacking him into a back take. He tried it once more and Moicano read it so well that he just shifted his hip out of the way, let the kick sail past, and took his back again.
I think one of the main things that went wrong for Saint Denis was a lack of patience. As soon as he found enough space to extract his butterfly hooks, he would rush the escape and try to kick away immediately. But one of the most important parts of that feet on hips dynamic is manipulating tension. If you can get the opponent feeling tension in your feet, they’ll often respond by pushing back into you, giving you a much better anchor to kick them off.
It works the other way too - if you’re on top with a fighter pushing his feet into your hips, giving a slight push and then backing out to remove the tension can draw him into kicking at air, giving you a moment to respond while he’s out of position. And that’s what Moicano did whenever Saint Denis kicked off, creating enough distance to remove his leverage while staying close enough to follow him back in and control the legs before he stood up.
Let’s take a look at a successful feet-on-hips escape for comparison:
It was that grappling skillset that got him the win over Benoît Saint Denis at UFC Fight Night 243, as he spent the first round on top of Saint Denis, bloodying his face and closing up his eye with devastating ground and pound.
The first thing Moicano did in the fight was effectively take away Saint Denis’s main weapon, his open side body kick. As soon as Saint Denis looked to establish the kick, Moicano parried it across his body and immediately secured a bodylock takedown.
Parrying the kick aside after it lands is a common counter in combat sports, but it’s usually done to set up strikes, like so:
Adrian Yañez sweeps the kicking leg aside, crossing up his opponent’s feet and leaving him out of position, while he drops the leg and springs into a lead hook.
When fighters use the parry to enter into a shot, they’ll often perform it the same way, by dropping the leg before their entry or sweeping it by. But while that opens a big enough window to get off a strike or two as the opponent recovers their positioning, it’s less reliable for securing a takedown, giving them a chance to get back on two feet or downblock and meet the entry in better position.
What I really liked about Moicano’s parry is that he didn’t let go of the leg until he’d already filled the space between himself and Saint Denis:
Moicano parries the kicking leg outside, but he doesn’t fling it past or drop it, instead holding onto the heel and keeping it just outside his hip. Keeping the heel holds Saint Denis at an angle that exposes his back. Moicano doesn’t let go of the leg until his right leg steps forward and his arm wraps around the waist, filling all that space so Saint Denis has no room to turn and secure strong grips in the clinch. Saint Denis ends up having to sell out on reaching back for a whizzer from a bad position, throwing himself upright and giving Moicano leverage to settle into a trip as he spins.
But by far the most impressive part of Moicano’s performance came once he achieved top position. Throughout his UFC run, Saint Denis has done an excellent job of using butterfly hooks to quickly escape bottom position.
Here’s a great example - Saint Denis breaks Matt Frevola’s posture with a head & arm grip and as soon as Frevola pulls out, he looks to step over the leg and begin passing. But Saint Denis quickly digs an underhook, grapevines Frevola’s far leg to block it from posting, and uses the underhook’s leverage to power a butterfly sweep, scissoring out the far leg as he tips Frevola over. Note also how Saint Denis times his underhook right as Frevola reaches his right arm up to the head, looking for a punch or elbow. By timing it right as Frevola shifts his weight into the blow, he’s able to stick Frevola’s weight past its center of gravity, allowing him to quickly hit the sweep.
Saint Denis’ butterfly guard posed a major threat to Moicano, whose likely path to victory involved getting on top and staying there. But Moicano was more than prepared to deal with it, using strong positioning and distance management to deny Saint Denis the posture to break his balance and the connection necessary to maximize the leverage of his butterfly hooks.
Two important concepts for butterfly guard use are posture and hook connection. It’s not always possible in MMA to enter with perfect posture due to the nature of grappling with strikes - seated guards aren’t seen very often, and the bottom player will generally be building up from a worse position off their back. But Saint Denis has proven proficient digging underhooks and using them to shift his opponent’s weight off him while he improves his posture to tip them over with his butterfly hook.
It’s also important to maintain the connection of the butterfly hooks to the inside of the opponent’s thigh. If that connection is lost, it becomes much more difficult to manipulate the top player’s weight, and much easier for them to switch their hips and improve their positioning.
Let’s look at another example where Saint Denis has to work a bit harder to get his back off the mat:
Saint Denis digs his underhook and looks to create distance with his hooks. Thiago Moises elevates his hips, breaking the connection of the hooks to his inner thigh, and drives in with his head to prevent Saint Denis from posturing up. Driving his head directly into Saint Denis’ chin gives him lots of leverage to force Saint Denis down, but it also opens up some space. Saint Denis gives a slight push with his hooks again, drawing Moises into elevating his hips and driving with his head, then Saint Denis uses that space to pummel a second underhook. As Moises drives him flat, Saint Denis uses the momentum to rock back and get underneath him enough to kick him off to the side, using his new underhook to keep Moises’ weight from settling back on top of him while he stands up.
Here we see that when the top player can kill Saint Denis’ hook connection while preventing him from posturing up enough to stand, he’ll need to retreat to his back and regroup. But as long as he keeps his underhook in strong position, he can work back up and take another shot at it.
Moicano did a brilliant job killing Saint Denis’s posture and hook connection without giving him a chance to regroup and improve his positioning. Friend of the site, Open Note Grappling pointed out that Moicano would move his head to Saint Denis’ underhooking shoulder when he dug his underhook. With his head on the opposite side of his own underhook, Moicano can distribute his weight more evenly across Saint Denis’ body and put weight on Saint Denis’ underhook, keeping his posture down and his shoulders on the mat.
This is conceptually similar to our discussion of underhook positioning in Rahman Amouzad & The Iranian Underhook, where Iran’s far-side head positioning allows their underhook to better control both sides of their opponent’s body, but leaves them more vulnerable to being stalled out and having weight dropped on the underhook. But in this case, the weight distribution is entirely working against Saint Denis, since he’s on the bottom.
Moicano would flatten Saint Denis out by keeping weight over his underhook, pinning his shoulder to the mat. But when Saint Denis was able to leverage the underhook and start getting some elevation, Moicano would quickly raise his hips, plant his feet on the mat, and execute a quick hip switch to break the hook connection. With the hook connection broken, Saint Denis could no longer elevate Moicano and had to either force his way up with the underhook, or rock back to regain the connection like he did to Moises. But Moicano used the space created by Saint Denis’ attempts to elevate him to quickly pummel his own underhook and flatten Saint Denis out before he could posture up enough to escape.
After fruitlessly trying to elevate Moicano a couple times, Saint Denis realized that he wasn’t going to succeed in getting underneath him. Instead, he started using his butterfly hooks to create enough space to get his feet on the hips and kick off. It was a good idea in theory, as creating space is always useful for guard players in MMA, but Moicano once again had him beat on the small details.
The first time Saint Denis tried to kick him away, Moicano just backed out and controlled his foot. Without the ability to plant his foot on the mat, Saint Denis couldn’t use the space created to stand up quickly, and his only option was to sit up into Moicano, which allowed him to threaten a back take and settle into half guard. The more Saint Denis tried, the worse it got for him. The next time, Moicano monitored his feet as he kicked wildly, stepping outside his hips and stacking him into a back take. He tried it once more and Moicano read it so well that he just shifted his hip out of the way, let the kick sail past, and took his back again.
I think one of the main things that went wrong for Saint Denis was a lack of patience. As soon as he found enough space to extract his butterfly hooks, he would rush the escape and try to kick away immediately. But one of the most important parts of that feet on hips dynamic is manipulating tension. If you can get the opponent feeling tension in your feet, they’ll often respond by pushing back into you, giving you a much better anchor to kick them off.
It works the other way too - if you’re on top with a fighter pushing his feet into your hips, giving a slight push and then backing out to remove the tension can draw him into kicking at air, giving you a moment to respond while he’s out of position. And that’s what Moicano did whenever Saint Denis kicked off, creating enough distance to remove his leverage while staying close enough to follow him back in and control the legs before he stood up.
Let’s take a look at a successful feet-on-hips escape for comparison:
