Join us as we break down the best fights from UFC Kansas City, from a dominant performance by the pound-for-pound king, Demetrious Johnson, to Robert Whittaker’s cracking knockout over Jacare Souza.

Wilson Reis was scheduled to challenge for Demetrious Johnson’s Flyweight title at UFC 201, but an injury forced Johnson to pull out and the fight was scrapped. Reis was then put on the prelims of UFC 208 to get another win over lanky flyweight Ulka Sasaki, before being re-booked against Johnson at UFC Kansas City, and the matchup made as little sense then as it does now. Reis received the title shot on the strength of wins over Dustin Ortiz and Hector

Reis received the initial title shot on the strength of wins over Dustin Ortiz and Scott Jorgensen, but had recently lost to the only top-five flyweight he fought in Jussier Formiga, while Formiga’s recent loss to Henry Cejudo excluded him from sharing the Octagon with Johnson.

Demetrious Johnson somehow had even less trouble than expected with a man he was expected to dominate, landing 108 significant strikes to Reis’ 16. As incredible as Johnson is, he’s already run out of legitimate contenders at flyweight and his impending title defenses seem like almost foregone conclusions.

There are multiple intersecting factors behind Johnson’s puzzling lack of popularity, such as the UFC’s abysmal promotion of the division and the fan’s reluctance to pay for the smaller fighters, but sticking one of the best fighters on earth against Wilson Reis and expecting fans to be interested in the matchup surely doesn’t help.

Fortunately, the UFC reinforced the headliner with perhaps the strongest supporting cast of any FOX card in recent memory. A new contender arose in both the middleweight and strawweight divisions, as Robert Whittaker and Rose Namajunas battered their foes en-route to brutal second round stoppages. UFC Kansas City also marked the debut of the highly-touted prospect, Tom Duquesnoy, who rallied after a shaky start to destroy his opponent with elbows and knees from the clinch.

Demetrious’ Dominance

The disparity in footwork between Demetrious Johnson and Wilson Reis was noticeable within the first 30 seconds of the fight. Reis needed to get Johnson to the cage in order to stand him still for the takedowns and punches, but his patchwork pressure footwork was no match for DJ’s constant angling and shifting. At

At range, Reis was at a severe disadvantage because his arsenal is designed for the pocket. Reis is used to being the shorter man and resorts to swarming and countering with hooks to close the distance. However, he couldn’t get close enough to DJ to land those short punches and he hasn’t yet developed the jab to pick at his man from the outside. DJ quickly picked up on Reis’ inability to pivot and began exploiting it right from the onset.

Pivots are so important because they allow you to change your angle while maintaining the integrity of your stance. Take a basic 45-degree pivot on the lead foot for example – you can achieve the same angle by first stepping out your rear foot and then adjusting your lead, but if you get hit in between those motions, you lack a strong stance with which to absorb punches. As soon as DJ noticed the awkwardness of Reis’ feet, he began circling to the inside of his lead foot. Instead of pivoting to keep DJ lined up, Reis would step across himself, momentarily compromising his stance. This problem was compounded by his inability to occupy the center, instead often chasing DJ head on.

Whenever Reis crossed his feet or took himself out of his stance, DJ would step his lead leg outside, shortening the path of his rear hand, and dart forward with a lightning fast straight.

DJ also made great use of the opposite inside angle. When Reis stepped his lead leg out to set up an attack, DJ would take a hop-step inside to square him up and land the straight across the plane of his body. A Conor McGregor favorite.

DJ didn’t need the straight to land for it to be effective. He’d use Reis’ slips in order to create openings to move off the cage or frame against his head to land knees. When Reis would weave under it, DJ would wait for his head to pop back up on the other side and hammer it there.

DJ displayed some improved distance striking in this fight. He was skewering Reis with a front kick repeatedly when the challenger stepped forward.

In the past, DJ has gotten into trouble throwing naked kicks, but here he would push off on the head, forearms, or shoulders of Reis whenever he connected with one. This momentarily throws Reis off balance and jams his hands, snuffing out his ability to counter the kicks. DJ began setting up punches off this push later in the fight as well.

As good as DJ is at, well, everything, the clinch is where the real depth of his game lies. Along with driving knees straight up the middle, he displays the kind of circular and diagonal knees rarely seen outside of Muay Thai, as well as the insane flexibility to land these on an opponent standing nearly straight up. This allows him to manipulate the guard of his opponent in the clinch even more effectively. Keep your hands tight to deny a route up the middle and he’ll arc a knee around your hands, keep them wide to deny that and he’ll drive one straight into your face or body.

Reis had some success timing DJ’s straight to get in on reactive takedowns, but DJ would immediately whizzer hard to put pressure on Reis’ shoulder and palm his head straight into knees.

This is a gorgeous setup. DJ hides a stance shift in motion, taking a step to the side and bouncing a few times. Reis takes this as an invitation to attack, but as soon as he steps forward, DJ is already in southpaw and he realizes he’s misjudged the distance. DJ times Reis’ forward step, meeting it with his own and occupying the hands while he flings out a devastating knee to the body.

After battering Reis on the ground for a good part of the third round, DJ finished with his trademark armbar just before the round ended. As always, the speed with which he goes from bashing your face in to yanking your arm off is incredible. Even more impressive is that Reis is a well-respected grappler.

DJ displayed some of his usual small openings in this fight, such as backing up in straight lines, getting his feet caught up, and shifting stances at inopportune times, but overall his footwork was much tighter than we’ve seen in the past and he was more diligent about angling out after he attacked. These small holes are closing fast, and it seems unlikely that a challenger currently exists at flyweight with the ability to exploit them.

That makes the UFC’s treatment of Kyogi Horiguchi all the more depressing. Thrust into a title shot far too early after only five years of professional competition and no top-five opponents or five round fights under his belt, Horiguchi never really had a chance to prepare for the challenge of the greatest fighter in the division’s history. With a few more years of development under his belt and some top-5 experience, Horiguchi could potentially give DJ a great fight, but it seems unlikely he’ll get that elite experience in Rizin.

At this point, there’s nothing left at flyweight for DJ, but he intends to stick around for at least one more fight in order to break Anderson Silva’s title defense record (though really he should need two more fights, as Silva wasn’t the one who missed weight against Travis Lutter). After that, there’s plenty of incredible matchups for DJ among the Bantamweights. Imagine DJ vs. Cody Garbrandt or TJ Dillashaw, or a rematch with Dominick Cruz.

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Whittaker’s Combinations

Coming into his fight with Jacare Souza, many analysts correctly pointed out that Robert Whittaker is a difficult stylistic matchup for Jacare. For a fighter whose entire game relies on putting his opponent’s back on the fence, Jacare lacks many tools to do so. He’ll pump out feints with his lead hand, throw one-off overhands with his rear, and occasionally stick his opponent with a front kick at range, but for the most part, he relies on his presence to convince opponents to back themselves up. Given Whittaker’s excellent circular footwork and sharp counterpunching, putting his back on the cage was always going to be a dangerous task for Jacare.

Initially, Jacare’s presence did most of the work in backing Whittaker up. He was notably hesitant committing to punches on the lead, likely due to Whittaker’s stellar counters, but was able to put Whittaker on the backfoot merely by pumping his lead hand and moving forward, his rear hand cocked and constantly threatening the overhand.

When his back hit the fence for the first time in the fight, Whittaker showed off the incredible grip fighting ability that allowed him to stay on the feet long enough to lay out Derek Brunson.

Jacare laces Whittaker’s leg with his own and drops to his hips to hit a double leg trip. Whittaker digs a short underhook right on the wrist, prying Jacare’s hand off his leg, and continues pushing it down while Jacare fights to get back to his double. Without the ability to connect his hands together, Jacare has no double leg here, but instead he sits out and takes Whittaker the other way. Whittaker’s grip on the wrist keeps Jacare from turning into him and coming up on top and as soon as Jacare recovers his base and puts himself in a position from which he can strip the grip, Whittaker bases out on his right hand and comes up with him. Jacare adjusts to this by sitting back and pulling Whittaker’s ankle into him to expose Whittaker’s back, but Whittaker keeps the grip on the wrist, preventing Jacare from going behind while he gets back to the cage and puts in an underhook.

Even when Jacare was able to take him down briefly, Whittaker displayed incredible composure and intelligence in getting back to his feet.

Jacare hits an inside trip and Whittaker turns into him and bases out. If he attempted to turtle or stand up right here, the fight very well could’ve been a repeat of Will Brooks’ loss to Charles Oliveira. Instead, Whittaker scoots back and collapses his right hip to the mat, preventing Jacare from sinking in his hooks. Whittaker uses a short knee shield with his left leg in order to create distance and build his base up. Scooting back and collapsing his hip served to bring him closer to the fence. Now when he bases up, he knows that Jacare is inevitably going to sink the hook in, but as soon as it happens Whittaker scoots toward the fence and glues his left hip to it. Next, Jacare tries to attack the neck and Whittaker brings his hand up to fight it off. As soon as Jacare works his other hook in, Whittaker brings his right leg back and circles it in to peel off Jacare’s right hook, before switching his hips to close off the opening. With his right hand inside the arm attacking his neck, it’s a simple matter of standing up and breaking the grip and Whittaker is free.

Now when he bases up, he knows that Jacare is inevitably going to sink the hook in, but as soon as it happens Whittaker scoots toward the fence and glues his left hip to it. Next, Jacare tries to attack the neck and Whittaker brings his hand up to fight it off. As soon as Jacare works his other hook in, Whittaker brings his right leg back and circles it in to peel off Jacare’s right hook, before switching his hips to close off the opening. With his right hand inside the arm attacking his neck, it’s a simple matter of standing up and breaking the grip and Whittaker is free.

That was the last time Whittaker’s back hit the fence. Once he got into his rhythm on the feet, he realized Jacare was providing no threat to back him up and he started going on the offensive, forcing Jacare back with running combinations. In a reversal of expectations, Jacare fell into the role of the counterpuncher as he attempted to time Whittaker’s advances, but his limited repertoire allowed Whittaker to land often and hard.

The only threat Jacare offered on the counter was his rear overhand, so Whittaker would end his combos by shifting out to the side with a lead hook, taking him out of the path of Jacare’s overhand. Early in the fight, the lead hook served mostly as a way to avoid the overhand, but once he found his distance and stopped lunging in as heavily, he began landing the hook on exit. The impact was compounded by Jacare’s habit of angling off to his right (directly into the hook) as he attempted his counter overhand.

Once Jacare abandoned his pressure and decided to fight on the counter, the fight was all Whittaker. One of the most impressive aspects of Whittaker’s performance was his ability to make quick reads and immediately adjust to take advantage of Jacare’s reactions, as well as his ability to make the same reads on his own reactions and close off any holes he left.

Whittaker leaps into a jab, which Jacare slips and counters with the overhand. Whittaker’s leap takes him too close to Jacare and his right leg swings too far on the pivot, taking him out of his stance. He’s able to pull back just enough to avoid the shot, but he had to sort of MacGyver a shaky defense, as his feet weren’t in sound position. Pulling his head back could’ve got him in trouble if Jacare stepped in on the overhand.

This sequence was repeated in the second round. This time, Whittaker maintains his distance on the jab and keeps his feet in sound position, allowing him to smoothly shoulder roll the overhand. He keeps his right hand tight to his chin, turns his shoulders, bringing his lead shoulder in front of his chin, and dips down to take his head out of the overhand’s trajectory. Future opponents should take note that a potential opening may not exist anymore the next time you try to exploit it.

Equally impressive was Whittaker’s ability to react to the changing openings Jacare was leaving.

Here he knocks Jacare down with a leaping jab followed by a straight. He goes to it again 10 seconds later, but Jacare has caught on and circles away from the straight while raising his forearm to his head.

A moment later, he plays off Jacare’s response to his previous combo. He takes a deep step to the inside of Jacare’s lead foot as he jabs, preventing him from cleanly stepping out in that direction. He turns his jab into a hand trap to pull down the rear hand and sends an uppercut through the middle. Expecting a straight coming outside, Jacare has his guard covering the outside of his head and dips right into the uppercut.

Whittaker leaps in with the straight and Jacare raises his forearm across his face to block it, before attempting to counter with an overhand. Notice how he drops his guard when he throws the overhand, Whittaker certainly notices. A second later, Whittaker feints the straight and throws up a head kick that catches Jacare as he lowers his block. Whittaker later finished the fight with the same combo.

This entire fight was a clinic on building logic into combinations and exploiting an opponent’s reactions. Whittaker was constantly showing double attacks and playing off threats established earlier. He would change levels and throw a jab, then repeat the motion only to come up with a lead hook. He established his front kick as a single strike early and began running in behind it with combos later.

A dominant win over a contender in Jacare guarantees Whittaker a place among the Middleweight elite and with it, the opportunity to fight some more middleweight contenders while the UFC books the champion in uncompelling “money fights” against undeserving challengers. Oh, what could’ve been of the division if only the fight between Whittaker and Michael Bisping came to fruition at UFC 193.

Rose Namajunas and Lateral Movement

It was only a short while ago that Rose Namajunas was leaping into the air with every attack, only to be taken down easily with double legs. Now she’s refined her style and developed a strong basic boxing and wrestling game.

As far as her boxing has come, Rose is still a relatively linear fighter. She controls distance back and forth well, but Waterson was jamming her front leg repeatedly with straight kicks.

Valentina Shevchenko demonstrated how to kill these kind of kicks against Waterson’s teammate, Holly Holm. Linear kicks occupy a straight line in front of the target. It helps to think of it as a pole stretching out lengthwise from the kick’s starting point to its destination. How do you move past a pole? You go around it. Linear kicks are perfect for impeding the advance of an opponent moving in on a straight line, but sidestep or pivot off that line and the kick sails harmlessly past.

Although Rose did show some smooth lateral movement at one point. Waterson picks her lead foot up and steps forward, and Rose immediately takes a short step out to the side to start her pivot. At this point, Waterson would’ve been better off stopping her attack and adjusting to Rose’s new position, or continuing her momentum with a spinning back kick. Instead, she remains committed to her attack, moving in a straight line toward Rose’s previous position as Rose pivots past her. Waterson’s stance gets so stretched out as she attacks that she needs to stop and bring her rear leg up. She thinks about throwing a defensive side kick to create distance, but hesitates as she realizes she’s too close and has almost turned her back to Rose, giving her a dominant angle. Rose pushes off and lands a clean head kick on exit.

One of the weaknesses of a bladed stance is that lateral movement is more difficult. It’s harder to pivot and maintain the integrity of your stance. This is why most fighters who use it prefer to use distance to keep themselves in a strong position relative to their opponent, because the small adjustment steps to improve your position in the pocket become more difficult.

Stephen Thompson likes to bait his opponents in and hop-step to an inside angle when they pivot past his lead foot, Conor McGregor will turn his foot out on the spot, adjusting to their new position, and throw his straight across the plane of his body. Waterson didn’t have any such answer and failed to adjust to Rose’s new position, which forced her to give up a dominant angle and resulted in her eating the kick flush.

The card was great overall, with exciting performances throughout the main card. Johnson continued running through the flyweight division, Whittaker elevated himself to the top of the middleweight division, and Rose Namajunas cemented her place as an elite strawweight with a dominant win over Michelle Waterson. If you missed the prelims, be sure to check out the insane, fast-paced scramble-fest between Tim Elliott and Louis Smolka.