

Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

There's a reason I call Rick Story the king of the spoilers. Last night he was at the height of his powers.

A spoiler is a middle of the pack competitor who can make very good guys look very average. Maybe he never breaks the top five, but no matter who he's in with, there's a good chance they won't look as good as they have before. Last night, Rick Story met Icelandic hot prospect, Gunnar Nelson in a five round tilt. In one of the best attrition performances I've seen in MMA Story wiped the floor with him. By the middle of the fourth round, it was all Story and only three people in the arena still believed in Nelson at all—unfortunately one was a judge and the other two were commentators.

Elsewhere, Rory MacDonald was able to stop Tarec Saffiedine with strikes. Also, Max Holloway put away Akira Corrasani with little trouble. And a couple of other lovely knockouts took place which we'll talk about imminently.

King of the Spoilers

It is one thing finding a gameplan to beat a fighter but it is quite another to convince your man, a ball of emotions, to actually stick to it. Rick Story has one of the finest work ethics I have seen in mixed martial arts competition. He takes the blows, he never gets upset, and he keeps doing exactly what he's been told. On this occasion he had been told to kick Gunnar Nelson's legs out, wind him with the trademark Story body shots, and keep it up for twenty-five minutes.

One of the paramount rules of mixed martial arts and striking arts in general is that movement based styles are always, always, always vulnerable to low kicks. If it's a style of lateral movement—a la Dominick Cruz, Demetrious Johnson and T.J. Dillashaw—you chop the trailing leg during their sidesteps. Against a point karate style, in and out fighter—such as Lyoto Machida, Gunnar Nelson, Stephen Thompson—you chop the trailing leg as they move back. If they eat the kicks, they'll slow down. If they check the kicks, they'll have to stop moving to do it.

If there is movement, there is a leg left behind. The problem with a karate style counter striker is that if you just run in after low kicks you'll run onto a straight and it'll be lights out. This is where feinting is important, or at least showing punches often enough that the opponent will move. These type of fighters are minimalists, they don't like showing their counters on thin air. Fake them out enough and their willingness to throw the counters will disappear.

Between low kicks and powerful rear straights and hooks to the body, Story slowed Nelson down severely round by round. To move in and out quickly, you need a leg in front of your centre of gravity, and a leg behind it so that you can push off in both directions. Pushing away from rather than dragging yourself towards a direction is the secret to quick movement.

The more of a shellacking Nelson's body and legs took, the less his stance was for moving, and the more it was for holding him up. The closer his feet came underneath his center of gravity, the slower his movement, and his punching power disappeared by the fourth round of the fight.



Nelson in the first round, fast on his feet.



Nelson in the fourth round—struggling to survive.

As huge an advocate of the karate style as I am, I do not believe that it is a style which holds up to attrition, and it is certainly not as effective in the fourth and fifth round as it is in the first and second.

Conversely, the attrition low kicking and body punching game is not nearlyso effective in rounds one through three as it is in the fourth and fifth. Many fight fans don't realize it, but a five round fight is so far removed from a three round fight that they might as well be different sports.

By the last seconds of the third round, Gunnar Nelson was finally slowing down after the effective attrition work of Story—but most fights would have ended there and Nelson might have won. But as it was, he had ten more minutes to fight and his legs were gone.

The other problem with Nelson's style is that it is one strike at a time. In the early going he would hit Story in the face, clinch, and Story would land a few good body shots.

But by the late going, Nelson's one shot at a time style had none of the elusiveness to make up for its holes. When he lunged in, he was left standing there and ready to hit.

A final strong note from this bout is Story's shot selection on the low kicks. If you throw inside kicks against a fighter in a long stance, they are a slight movement away from taking it on their shin. Max Holloway kicked Conor McGregor in the shin three times, then seemingly gave up on low kicks altogether.

If you throw to the outside of their lead leg, they have to pick it up, square their hips and point their shin outward to deal with it. A bigger motion is required, which is always a good thing when fighting someone who is relying on their reactions as a defence. Against the Diaz brothers, B.J. Penn, Conor McGregor and plenty of other long-stanced fighters I have watched fighters kick shin to shin on the inside four or five times and then give up on them altogether.

By ensuring that he was often working to the outside of Nelson's lead leg, no matter which stance he was presented with, Story was able to break Nelson's balance and take away his movement.

Story picked up a split decision—what that other judge was watching I have no idea—which didn't reflect the dominance of his performance. The best I've seen him look to date, and I look forward to more from this thoughtful, grinding Rick Story.

Though this is a severe road bump for Gunnar Nelson, I suspect Nelson will get back on track quickly—partly because he is so talented, and partly because so few fighters seem to realize how much low kicks and body shots matter to movement fighters. And again, if he goes back to a three round fight this kind of attrition won't even have time to take effect.

Odds and Ends

On the UFC's other Fight Night card last night, Rory MacDonald was able to knock out Tarec Saffiedine with a beautiful C-cut combination. That is the overhand right ducking the opponent's head into a lead uppercut. It is one of the few consistently effective applications of a lead uppercut as a knockout blow. Here is the great Matthew Saad Muhammad showing it off.

Rory's wasn't as pretty, but it got the job done.

Something which should be mentioned, as MacDonald loves lunging in with the front snap kick to the face, is the terrible drubbing received by Niklas Backstrom off of a missed kick.

When you miss a front kick and it goes across the opponent's body like that, you are essentially giving them a dominant angle for free. The great Buakaw has knocked down so, so many good fighters off of moving to the side of front kicks—most notably Yoshihiro Sato. Front kicking is a great distance game, but dangerous if you start throwing your weight past your opponent.

Finally, Max Holloway showed a level of class on the feet well above Akira Corassani in a fantastic knockout win. Corassani routinely wings his right hand, then recovers his hips very slowly. We talk a lot about “closing the door” with the left hook so as to not leave oneself open to right hands after throwing one's own. This is a perfect example of why I mention it so often.

Both of the knockdowns came as Corassani threw his right, then slowly recovered his weight and ate a tight straight right in the process. It's a bad habit, but you will be surprised how high in the ranks of MMA it creeps. Gilbert Melendez has been failing to recover from his right for years, and finally got dropped by Diego Sanchez of all people as a result.

A quality night of fights, now it is just a short wait until Aldo versus Mendes II.

Pick up Jack Slack's ebook, Fighting Karate at his blog Fights Gone By. Jack can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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