Join us as we break down the action at UFC 209, from a back-and-forth fight between Alistair Overeem and Mark Hunt to the shocking upsets of Lando Vannata and Mirsad Bektic.

Although a rematch for the Welterweight Championship between Tyron Woodley and Stephen Thompson headlined UFC 209, the co-main of Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson provided the main attraction for many MMA fans. With Conor McGregor out of action for the foreseeable future, it was the best fight to be made in the UFC lightweight division, and perhaps the best fight to be made in MMA. Unfortunately, it was not to be, as Khabib was hospitalized on the day before the event and the fight was called off, marking both the third time Khabib and Tony were scheduled to fight, and the third time fans were left disappointed.

Fortunately for UFC 209, the card still had an excellent main event. At least until we actually saw it. If the first fight was a closely contested, entertaining war, the rematch was a mere border skirmish with Woodley’s side exiting unscathed and Thompson’s men suffering nothing but minor casualties in the last 30 seconds of the battle.

In a fight that largely resembled their first encounter minus the interesting parts, both men remained painfully cognizant of the openings that had cost them in their first fight and resolved to close them. What resulted was a dull, tentative affair with both men feinting actively and engaging very occasionally.

Despite the lackluster main event, the rest of the card was excellent. Tyson Pedro and Cynthia Calvillo picked up impressive finishes, Iuri Alcantara put up a candidate for comeback of the year with a kneebar after being battered by Luke Sanders, and Darren Elkins subsequently blew that bid out of the water with one of the most shocking comebacks in MMA history over Mirsad Bektic.

Substance Over Style

David Teymur had something of a coming-out party, turning in an impressive win over a rising star in Lando Vannata. He was a tough matchup for Vannata on paper – a southpaw that operates at long distance and prefers circling to his open side.

Circling toward his open side takes him out of the path of Vannata’s spinning attacks, but Vannata’s bread and butter is covering distance with a punch and using its momentum to throw himself into a weave, leaving a left hook behind as he comes out of it. Teymur’s distance control forced him to make up more ground and his southpaw stance puts his shoulder in the way of Vannata’s left hook out of the weave.

The most impressive aspect of Teymur’s game is his proficiency with kicks. Each motion is smooth, powerful, quick, and mechanically sound. His setups are crafty and varied.

Instead of stepping into his low kicks and turning his foot out on the forward step, Teymur would either take a short hop-step back, or just step back into his stance and turn his lead foot out as he put it down. This disguises the kick as part of his normal pattern of footwork and allows him to kick straight from his stance, as his lead foot is already turned slightly out, requiring just a minor pivot to launch into the kick.

He would also hop into the pivot on his kicks, allowing him to kick directly from his stance without first adjusting his lead foot. Top UFC women’s bantamweight contender Valentina Shevchenko uses a similar hopping pivot to kick out of her stance while moving backward.

Here’s one of Anthony Pettis’ favorite kick setups. Teymur steps his lead foot toward the inside while throwing his head kick. Kicking from inside Vannata’s stance gives his hips more room to open up, and as a result, the kick comes in more from the front than the side, bypassing Vannata’s “answer the phone” block.

For Vannata’s part, he used his low-line side kicks well to stuff Teymur’s entries, targeting the hip, thigh, or knee when he stepped forward. These kicks played a role in forcing Teymur to vary his own kick setups, as Vannata would often stuff the knee when Teymur tried to step into his kicks. Teymur quickly adjusted and started countering them, however.

One thing that stands out about Teymur’s game when watching tape on him is his defensive soundness in response to kicks. He rarely allows an opponent’s kick to go unanswered, usually blocking, parrying, and then countering with his own.

Teymur subtly feints a forward step, drawing the side kick, before checking it. Vannata steps into a round kick, but Teymur takes it on his forearms and parries it to the side, countering with his own kick.

Teymur again feints a forward step to draw the side kick. This time he shifts stances with a hop as Vannata throws the side kick, letting the kick sail past his leg and putting him in perfect position to hit a takedown.

It wouldn’t be a Lando Vannata fight without some zany spinning attacks, and Lando did not disappoint.

He landed a ridiculous handstand kick at one point. Teymur initially had his hands high in position to defend, but a feint to the body from Vannata drew a parry from Teymur’s left hand, taking it out of position to defend the kick. The connection wasn’t clean, landing with his instep rather than the shin, but it was powerful enough to snap Teymur’s head back. Vannata later went back to the kick with the same feint to the body, but Teymur read it and kept himself in position to parry the kick down and counter it.

On a few occasions Vannata caught a kick and looked to throw it aside and launch into a wheel kick, but Teymur was able to create enough distance to avoid it.

It may have been a better idea going to the body with it, as Stevie Ray does here. Teymur was conscious of protecting his head from the spins – every time Vannata turned his back, Teymur would cover up and pull his head away, but he often left his body in range.

Teymur became more aggressive in the third round, which allowed Vannata to start landing his counters. Here he hits McGregor’s trademark inside angle straight, hop-stepping inside Teymur’s stance as he steps outside to throw the straight and squaring him up, before landing his own.

Lando Vannata has likely been told to keep his hands up hundreds of times. You won’t ever hear me criticizing a fighter just for keeping his hands low – though you may hear me point out mistakes in the context of Vannata’s defensive system, such as moving his head at the wrong ranges and taking himself out of position with his head movement. It is true however, that a fighter who bends over at the waist often in the pocket with his hands low is presenting openings for clinch entries.

Frames are an important part of preventing an opponent from grabbing hold of you. It’s a simple concept – if you don’t want your opponent chest to chest, just push him away. It can take the form of a forearm across the face, a hand on the shoulder, or merely palming his face.

Fernando Gonzalez demonstrates, using a crossface to prevent Karo Parisyan from clinching him before dropping him with an uppercut.

Without having his hands in place to frame, Vannata would duck down in the pocket and pop up right into Teymur’s clinch. His low hands lead nicely into an underhook as he pops up, but Teymur was able to completely shut his clinch game down.

Teymur wasn’t concerned with fighting for underhooks, instead, he would grab a collar tie with his left hand, cup Vannata’s tricep with his right, and angle his body off toward Vannata’s underhook.

This served a few purposes. First, it puts pressure on Vannata’s left underhook and makes it difficult for him to utilize it. Second, Teymur’s left forearm in Vannata’s collarbone creates distance, opening up knees and preventing Vannata from squaring up with him and securing the underhook on that side.

Vannata had to choose between fighting the collar tie and eating knees to the body, or staying in position and blocking his body, opening up knees to the head. Once Teymur had secured the position, he’d use his collar tie and tricep grip to pull Vannata into devastating knees.

Note how Teymur throws the first two knees with his hips square before stepping outside of Vannata’s stance and turning his lead leg in, giving him more room to open up his hips and land his knee to the head. Gorgeous stuff.

Teymur displayed some surprisingly skilled grappling throughout the fight as well, taking the former D1 wrestler down three times. Here he transitions to a crossface and lands a knee as Vannata gets back to his feet.

Georges St. Pierre spoke about his Kyokushin training being responsible for his impeccable timing on his shots, and something similar seems to be at play here. Teymur was able to hit reactive takedowns as Vannata came forward with the skill of a much more experienced wrestler. An interesting note is that, while Teymur strikes from southpaw, he seems more comfortable switching stances and shooting from orthodox.

It shouldn’t come as a shock if this fight ends up being looked back upon as a meeting of two high-level fighters early in their careers, similar to Michael Johnson’s victory over Tony Ferguson in 2012. Both men are sure to make large strides in their games from here, as each is still young and inexperienced. Teymur possesses a degree of skill on the feet all too rare in MMA, and his grappling seems to be developing as well. As for Vannata, he needs to refine and tighten up his game in order to compete with top 10-15 lightweights, but he shows a lot of promise.

Head and Shoulders, Knees and Elbows

Alistair Overeem and Mark Hunt put on an impressive show in a competitive fight that provided a rare technical heavyweight clinch battle. At one time, Overeem was a pressure fighter that looked to walk his opponents down and corner them. After walking forward got him knocked out one too many times, he’s altered his style to avoid the pocket at all costs and either stick his opponents at long range, or smother them in the clinch.

Overeem came out immediately maintaining distance and refusing to meet Hunt in the middle. He used sharp front kicks and oblique kicks to stifle Hunt’s forward movement and keep him on the outside.

Whenever Hunt started closing in on him, Overeem would show a level change or a straight to get Hunt ducking down and step into the clinch, getting inside control on Hunt’s biceps or cupping around his triceps. When Hunt tried to swim his arm out to create space to punch, Overeem would pull his head down to off-balance him or push away to create distance and step out.

Dominick Cruz pointed out on the broadcast that clinching is an important tool for an outfighter to avoid the pocket. Whenever Hunt tried to step in, he was met with a feint and a clinch entry, before finding himself right back at Overeem’s range. Overeem later used this same entry to get Hunt ducking into a knee to the body, similar to Werdum’s knockout of Hunt.

Hunt caught onto this midway through the second round. Overeem feints the level change but instead of ducking, Hunt fires an elbow over the top at Overeem’s open face as he steps in with outstretched arms.

Overeem’s best work came in the clinch when he had Hunt pressed against the cage. He used his right overhook and a head pin as a base of operations, alternating between underhooking, controlling the wrist, and posting on the bicep with his left arm. When he wanted to land a knee, he would control Hunt’s wrist and pin it against his body while pushing off to create space, ensuring Hunt wouldn’t be able to use the strike to advance position.

Here he momentarily gives up the overhook to pull Hunt into a knee.

Hunt was able to counter Overeem’s wrist control and land a couple elbows by bumping with his shoulder and turning his forearm up to create space.

The finish came from Overeem’s overhook and wrist control. He reaches his hand on his overhook side through to control Hunt’s right wrist, freeing up his left arm and leaving Hunt exposed for the elbow. The elbow pops Hunt’s head over and Overeem crossfaces, pulling him into a devastating knee that stands him upright for the double collar tie and yet another knee.

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Experience Trumps Athleticism

Mirsad Bektic was looking like an absolute world-beater in the first 10 minutes of his fight with Darren Elkins.

The day George St. Pierre retired, the level of ground and pound in MMA took a giant step backward. Most fighters seem to treat ground and pound as an afterthought, focusing on it only once they’ve attained a dominant position. St. Pierre – and now Mirsad Bektic – are among the few fighters to approach ground and pound as a science, treating the concept the way you would treat something like guard passing. Intelligent ground and pound can open up plenty of opportunities for positional advancement, which then opens up more opportunities to do damage.

Bektic spent the entire first round demonstrating all over Elkins’ face how ground and pound can be used to facilitate positional control, whether he was landing elbows to solidify a guard pass, stripping a grip with his knee and smashing Elkins in the face, smashing Elkins in the face while in the process of knee-cutting through his guard, or using punches to force Elkins to block and remove his post on Bektic’s hip in half guard.

This sequence illustrates the craft of Bektic’s ground and pound. He controls Elkins’ right bicep and pummels inside with his right hand. He uses the post on his right arm to keep Elkins’ shoulders squared up while he throws his left hand, and immediately after landing it he pins the shoulder with his left hand to uncork two brutal elbows around Elkins’ guard. After his second elbow lands, he slides his right arm directly back, pinning Elkins’ forearm to his chest while he slips his left arm out and uncorks an elbow on Elkins’ now unprotected face.

Although Bektic dominated the first couple rounds, his puzzling decision to force grappling exchanges with Darren Elkins eventually sapped his cardio. Elkins threatened a heel hook to get back to his feet and pin Bektic against the cage midway through the third round, before flurrying to a shocking knockout.

Bektic was lighting Elkins up on the feet and likely could have taken his foot off the gas and kickboxed to a decision victory in the third round, but his comfort in striking doesn’t seem to be there yet. Overall, this was an encouraging loss for Bektic’s development. He looked great early, but now has some clearly defined areas to work on. It’s common for a blue-chip prospect to struggle with their first experienced vet that they can’t just bulldoze, and Elkins’ incredible durability and heart allowed him to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

It’s impossible not to be disappointed at the loss of Nurmagomedov vs. Ferguson, but aside from the main event, UFC 209 delivered excitement from the first Fight Pass prelim all the way up to the co-main.