When MMA fans hear striking in the clinch it can evoke some powerful images: Anderson Silva using the Muay Thai style double collar ties to demolish Rich Franklin with knees to take the UFC Middleweight title, Wanderlei Silva using the same grips to deliver a knee strike that left Rampage Jackson hanging lifelessly from the ropes of the Pride FC ring, or members of Team Quest like Randy Couture pioneering the use of "dirty boxing" in Mixed Martial Arts.

These examples all have something in common, they are all drastically out of date. The dynamics of striking in the clinch have changed drastically in the last 8 years or so. The Bloody Elbow Technique Group is going to tackle this adjustment in the MMA game.

Taking part in this roundtable: Bloody Elbow technique writers T.P. Grant, Dallas Winston, Fraser Coffeen, James Stapleton, Ben Thapa and Connor Ruebusch. Also joining the discussion are Sherdog fight breakdown guru and professional-fighter scout Patrick Wyman, and Jack Slack striking breakdown guru of Fightland.

So let's get to the discussion, where have all the collar ties gone in MMA?

T.P. Grant: I think this is a product of the fact that the clinch is one of the most trained skill subsets in MMA. Nearly unlimited clinch fighting with strikes and clinch fighting against the cage are fairly unique to MMA, since referees are not normally too quick to break fighters apart, the athletes have to develop a technical answer to these sorts of positions.

As a result the clinch has become a far more fluid fight than it was even 5 years ago and dominant grips, such as a strong collar tie or double collar tie, can only be maintained for a short period of time. As a result, striking in the clinch has become more about creating a brief opening than it is about trapping an opponent with dominant grips.

Also, there is a much greater emphasis on transition, getting your position in clinch off of a takedown attempt, or landing an elbow as your opponent breaks out of the clinch.

Fighters are also much better at getting off the cage, positioning themselves and using angles while fighting in the clinch.

Dallas Winston: On one hand, I think the double and single collar ties are more alive and well than ever in MMA -- we just rarely see it used as a substantial difference-maker or with outright dominance like in Silva x Franklin. And that fight is really a suitable archetype for the collar tie because it might as well have been an infomercial for the brutal efficacy of clinch fighting and, in retrospect, somewhat highlighted the finite style vs. style tendencies between Muay Thai and "standard" kickboxing.

To the point, double and single collar ties are somewhat difficult to apply in a domineering manner, as most of the pinch points we generally see to secure the hold are only with the hands/wrists instead of also using the forearms/elbows to maximize control. In addition to the general level of awareness and technique being higher across the board, the single collar tie is fairly easy to counter (pummel the same-side arm inside or swim it outside and over). So instead of witnessing prolonged control with the collar tie, we typically see it applied quickly and as one of a vast number of options.

The double collar tie takes a bit longer to secure correctly but is also more dangerous and difficult/time-consuming to counter. The single collar tie is more of a "chess move" to quickly land a few strikes (especially on the clinch break and/or when a fighter circles off the fence with an underhook) or as a basic attack option to set up something else.

Oddly enough, though we see many more than we did a decade ago, Muay Thai elbows are still criminally under-utilized in MMA. The MMA clinch is a fairly complex fighting art in itself because it's the transition stage between the other two phases of combat (free-movement/striking and grappling), so it's ingredients include elements from both striking -- such as head movement, footwork, punches, knees, elbows and even low kicks (another under-used tactic in MMA) -- and grappling, such as level changes/various takedowns, body locks, rear waist cinches, submissions, the front headlock, wrist control, etc.

Random observations: the use of wrist control has emerged as a hugely pivotal technique in clinch fighting; certain chokes like standing arm-triangles, D'arces and Anacondas can be very conducive to the myriad hand/arm positions in the clinch (as opposed to sacrificing position by falling back for a guillotine); tight-range elbows (see: Matt Brown) can be particularly effective when inserted during the ever-changing tangle of hand/arm fighting in the clinch.

Fraser Coffeen: I agree with Grant here - fighters have, to a large degree, simply adapted to be able to avoid and escape the clinch with much more skill than previously.

To me, the future of this kind of clinch fighting can be found in the strikes of someone like Glory fighter Andy Ristie (and this dovetails nicely with Dallas's point about single vs. double collar tie). What Ristie does so well is execute the Muay Thai knee from the clinch, but he does it on the move, without actually locking up the clinch. Here's an example of what I am talking about (gif). It's fast and subtle, but note the way Ristie uses his right hand to push Kiria's head down and into his knee. That's the same idea behind the Silva/Franklin knees, but it's executed in a way that gives Ristie the benefit of the clinch - pulling the target into the knee - but does not require Ristie to first secure a clinch.

Of course, he's one of the best strikers on the planet, so this may not be a technique everyone can just execute. But it's one people should be emulating in order to adapt past these defensive

improvements.

James Stapleton: I agree that collar ties just aren't sustainable dominant positions. Clinch striking is very much transition based because it's extremely difficult to hold any one position. A truly dominant display of high-level clinching typically involves rapidly changing positions, where the controlling fighter is keeping the other off balance and not facing him properly. The actual grips are secondary to the fundamentals of breaking posture, disrupting balance and fighting for superior angles.

The first MMA example that comes to mind is Barnett vs Mir. Barnett absolutely mauled Mir, and he did it while fluidly switching positions and grips. He didn't hold on to any one thing too long. He was very flexible in his approach which was beautiful to watch.

I also think Fraser is really onto something with fighters snagging a quick clinch in the middle of exchanges. You see that a lot in high level Muay Thai and kickboxing fights. Machida will do something similar when he counter knees someone who's walking into him, and I believe Brandon Thatch knocked out his first UFC opponent with a step in knee to the body. I think there is a lot of potential for that kind of clinch striking, though the timing isn't easy. If you make a mistake trying to strike in the clinch you just give the other guy your hips, so there needs to be a lot of awareness and the ability to switch immediately to disengaging safely if the opponent forces the issue.

Jack Slack: I agree with T.P. and Fraser here, the double collar tie isn't new to anyone now. In Silva's first match with Rich Franklin, he stood in front of Rich, parried the punches and then reached with both hands for Rich's head. Compare that to the most recent middleweight title fight, and the last round was spent in the hand fight, as Machida and Weidman looked to get a collar tie but most often were denied and fought with hand traps and elbows.

In fact, that and stretches of Lawler vs Hendricks looked like guys neck wrestling in a training session more than they looked like the "striking range / grappling range" binary system we've been used to. I get the sense that many offensive dirty boxers (and really there aren't too many of them) nowadays prefer to use that single underhook against the fence, get their head under their opponent's face to stand them up and flatten them out, then free a hand to throw blind punches above their own head. Cain Velasquez did it for 40 minutes against Junior dos Santos, but even guys as knackered as Big Nog have had success with it.

It seems more advantageous to have someone standing upright along the fence, then break away with flurries and dive back into the clinch as Velasquez does, than it is to have a double collar tie on them and give up that control you worked s o hard for every time you want to land an elbow or flurry. I've seen a few guys get the DCT and freak out, not wanting to let go of it because it's supposed to be such a powerful position.

That being said, the double collar tie still seems like a great anti-wall 'n' stall method. Anderson Silva vs Yushin Okami was a while ago, but keeping his forearms in front of Okami's collar bones really kept Okami from hitting his usual clinch takedowns. More recently, Demetrious Johnson has shown to be brilliant at getting the double collar tie when his back is to the fence-he used it a little against John Dodson, but all night against Ali Bagautinov.

I'm hoping Coach Mike can set me straight, but I was under the impression that the double collar tie is illegal in amateur wrestling. Could that be why we don't see accomplished wrestlers creatively setting it up and flowing and out of it as they do with the rest of their well-practiced wrestling methods?

Coach Mike: To answer Slack's question, the double collar tie is legal in just about any form of wrestling, but it isn't a big part of American folkstyle because it has limited use, even at low levels.

If both of your hands are on an opponent's collar, then there's nothing else you can do. Generally speaking, nobody has the strength to force someones' head down very far who is anticipating getting his head pulled down, and if you reach up to someone's neck with both hands, then that person will most certainly anticipate getting his head pulled down, if that makes any sense.

There's a dude who wrestles for Penn State right now named Matt Brown who double collar ties people, but he does it purely to wear his opponent out, rather than to set up offense. Most wrestling takedowns are single legs, and, generally speaking, one hand sets up the single, and the other reaches for the leg. If both hands are collaring, no hand can reach for the leg.

A single collar tie, on the other hand, is just sort of a hold a wrestler naturally flows into while hand fighting and probing for openings.

Connor Ruebusch: I'm going to strike a different tack and mention some of the reasons why the Thai clinch--not just the double collar tie--is still effective.

Let's take a look at Matt Brown. Not since Anderson Silva has someone been such a feared presence in the clinch--he was even beating up Robbie Lawler with elbows and knees inside in his last fight, and Erick Silva will have nightmares about Brown's pointy bits for years to come. The first reason for Matt's effectiveness is his adaptability. Anderson used to dominate with skip knees from the double collar tie, but over time fighters have learned to deal with that. With Brown, it's a total pick-your-poison game in the clinch. Opponents who deny his knees usually end up walking right into positions for his elbows, short punches, and dumps.

This goes toward James' point that the double collar tie is not a sustainable offensive position. Like any position in striking, the double collar tie is transitional in nature. If the opportunity for it opens up--great! Land a few knees while you can. But chances are that the opponent knows how to regain his posture and fight your hands to get himself free. At that point, the offensive fighter must have the ability to adapt. The clinch must be as amorphous as any other phase of fighting.

The same applies to entries to the clinch. Another reason that Brown is such a killer in the Thai clinch is that he initiates the clinch even before he can touch his opponent. His mindset is built around the idea of using both defensive and offensive openings to close the distance and go to work. So when an opponent throws a lazy jab, Matt will parry it and connect with an elbow over the top, or scoop it out of the way and step into a knee, or counter with the long, reaching right hand he loves so much--all of which put him at clinch range whether they connect or not. Another example: though his is nowhere near as dangerous as Matt Brown's, Fabricio Werdum's clinch has been highly effective in the more shallow, less versatile heavyweight division. And yet, Werdum would never achieve his beloved double collar tie as often as he does without the threat of his long, crisp punches. A shifting 1-2 is his usual entry into the clinch, ending with a left-handed collar tie instead of the usual left hook. In this day and age, fighters simply cannot, as Jack pointed out, reach out and expect their opponents to walk right into the clinch.

For clinch lovers out there, there is no better reassurance of the continued relevance of this phase of fighting than actual Muay Thai. Watch any Muay Thai bout (get to the third round, especially), and you'll notice two things: 1) lots of clinching and 2) very few double collar ties. The clinch is alive and well in Muay Thai, and yet very few fighters can achieve and maintain a double collar tie on their opponents. As with all things in MMA, the clinch is fluid, and fighters' conceptions of it must evolve in kind.

Ben Thapa: I think there's also a dearth of truly massive disparities in strength and skill these days. We are at the level of incremental improvements in overall skill packages between the top three or so in each division (beyond the newer men's flyweight and women's bantamweight).

Carwin vs Mir is the last heavyweight clinch KO I really remember and that came about because Shane was dramatically stronger.

Patrick Wyman: I think the lack of extended control from the double- and single-collar ties has everything to do with the increase in average skill level and the lack of large height disparities. The reason I say this is because we still see long sequences of double-collar tie knees and basic, single-collar dirty boxing on the regional level: I can think of a half-dozen fights in smaller promotions in the last year where one fighter, usually a taller guy, secured the Thai clinch and held it for 10-15 seconds and put it to good use or took a round with the use of single-collar ties against the fence, much as we used to see with Anderson's early UFC fights or Shogun and Wanderlei in PRIDE. At the highest level, where skill and size disparities tend to be much smaller, those sequences have largely disappeared and been replaced by the kind of quick, transitional clinch work a number of people have mentioned in the thread.

Justin Gaethje is an excellent example of the newer style of fast transitions in the clinch. He'll work elbows and uppercuts from the single collar tie, switch to an underhook and head pressure, move to overhooks, and then bomb away with a couple of fast, vicious knees from the double-collar tie before snapping his opponent down to the front headlock. Overeem does similar things; from a technical perspective he's one of the finest clinch fighters in MMA history and has been for a long while. Even Shogun, who for all of his physical decline is still an outstanding in-fighter, makes much less use of the double-collar tie in extended sequences and more transitional work.

The clinch game is evolving quickly. I tend to think of it less as a transitional space between the mat and striking and more as its own distinct phase of the fight that deserves to be weighed alongside the others, and this is becoming more true as fighters grow more and more skilled in that aspect. Fights are increasingly being won and lost in the clinch, and we're seeing a greater diversity of technical applications from various sources, including hip tosses (from both Judo and wrestling), new styles of control (the underhook and head pressure Jack mentioned, for one), and more aggressive transitions. I'm seeing more fighters with a broader range of Muay Thai clinch work, too, of whom Matt Brown is only the most advanced representative.

It's a good time to be a fan of infighting, that's for sure.

Jack Slack: On the subject of Andy Ristie (who Fraser brought up) I watched him knock out Albert Krauss in Tokyo and a couple of things that night convinced me that knee strikes in MMA had plenty of room to evolve. Firstly Ristie's aforementioned use of a slapping hook straight into a knee-wherein the hook catches behind the head or guard and cups while the knee is raised, and secondly the success of Masaaki Noiri's tasty Kyokushin knees without grips.

I'm sure you guys have seen how weird Kyokushin competitions are, chest to chest body punching and flying kicks. Lots of stepping to the side and bringing a high knee up next to you, through the opponent's guard, and lots of pinning folks hands to their chests and arcing a jumping curve knee over the top. Noiiri was looking out of his depth against Liam Harrison, suddenly stepped off line, landed a knee strike with no grips, up the middle and opened a massive bleeder on Harrison's eyebrow which won him the fight.

I've not been able to find the fight since, which is a shame because it was the coolest thing I'd seen in ages. But I looked up Noiiri afterward and found out he's been doing it in all of his fights.

Zane Simon: At this point, I don't feel like I have that much to offer, excepting that one of the biggest things I've seen is that, by and large, Clinch striking and clinch control at a very high level is both difficult and counter-intuitive. It's not that hard to just do overs or unders or a plum and fire a few shots, or to defend overs or unders or the plum... So, as others have said before me, most guys have rounded out that part of their game by the time they reach the UFC and are good enough offensively and defensively to make it more of a transition space than anything else.

When I think of martial bases that actually emphasize the clinch, Muay Thai, Judo, Greco-Roman, really great clinch practitioners end up being people who aren't just athletically gifted, but who have developed incredibly technical games of off balancing, shifting, diverting, and constantly confusing opponents. It's a thinking part of the fight that requires a lot of work and intuition to get really really good at. So, while early on, we saw fighters overwhelming opponents with really basic clinch games (think Wandy) those games are no longer effective to nearly the same degree. Which isn't to say that having a great clinch game, guys like Matt Brown, Mighty Mouse, Ronda Rousey, and even Norman Parke are fighters who obviously work a lot at not just what to throw when they get into the clinch, but how to work on a whole system of offense.

It's a game that, over time is becoming more like what we've already seen happen with grappling. Where the mediocre, aggressive grapplers are getting less and less effective, because everyone can defend a rear naked choke or a knee bar these days, and the guys left winning with submissions are those who have worked on a whole system of grappling to get to their favorite submissions. The sort of work that takes a lot of patience, time and thought, more so than what the average MMA fighter is willing to give (and maybe at the expense of other skills.

That does it for us, let us know what you think in the comments below!