Japanese MMA has been in decline for a long while. Seven years ago, the UFC bought out and shut down PRIDE FC, the most spectacular MMA promotion on the planet. There were a lot of things wrong with PRIDE—the mismatches, the complete nonchalance to steroid use, rumours of yakuza involvement—but it packed 100,000 seat arenas and made celebrities out of men like Kazushi Sakuraba.

Since the death of PRIDE, no other promotion has been able to take its place, and in my trips to Tokyo since the PRIDE buyout the JMMA scene seemed to get quieter each time. The Suidobashi area used to have a buzzing MMA community—with shops devoted to memorabilia and training gear, and a couple of solid MMA gyms. Nowadays, that community seems to be dwindling: the shops have disappeared—or gone exclusively pro wrestling—and the gyms have moved out. The combat sports community certainly wasn't helped by the spiraling decline of K-1, the former premier kickboxing event in the world.

But that is why the occasional UFC or Glory event that is held in Japan is such a spectacle. All those old fans seem to crawl out of the woodwork, and new fans come along too. Old time favorites like Mark Hunt, Peter Aerts, and Jerome Le Banner can still draw enormous crowds—even if they can't always win the fights.

This Saturday, the UFC makes its home at Saitama Super Arena, and the card is headlined by the prospective slug-fest between Mark Hunt and Roy Nelson. There's plenty else going on that night though, so here's my thinking man's guide to enjoying UFC Fight Night: Hunt vs. Nelson like a fine wine.

Beards, Bellies and Bombs

Mark Hunt's career rebirth has been a true fairy tale in mixed martial arts. With just a handful of fights left in him, it would be wonderful to see the forty-year-old brawler go out on a winning streak. Roy Nelson, meanwhile, continues his fight up into the top five, knocking out everyone en route, then gassing out horrendously in a loss, before starting the whole thing over again.

All you need to know about Nelson is that his right hand is ferocious, and he's good at recognizing the opportunities for it. He will press and opponent to the fence, then move closer to the fence on his left side so that they are forced to run out to his right. When they do so, he swing in an overhand to catch them circling—creating a thunderous collision of forces and, normally, knocking them out cold.



1. Notice Nelson closing the gap. Placing his left side closer to the fence forces the opponent to circle out into his right hand.

2. As the opponent circles into the perceived opening, they add force to a collision with Nelson's right hand. Punching power is about creating collisions, not running after people and swinging.

And he's done it over, and over again. Is he a one trick pony, or a master of his craft?

While he lacks dexterity with his left, and doesn't really have a kicking game, Nelson has shown continued development with his right hand. Noticing Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira's attempts to counter him with a dipping jab—pretty much Nogueira's go to boxing method—Nelson timed a headache making uppercut to put Nogueira on wobbly legs in his last meeting.

Now here's the interesting part... Mark Hunt used to be that guy. He used to be known for his cracking right hand and his great chin, and not much else.

If he couldn't get a guy to stand in front of his right hand, he'd chase them around the ring with it.

But in recent years, Hunt has become a patient counter striker and combination puncher who can trouble the likes of Junior dos Santos with his boxing alone. Part of this is due to the discovery of the counter left hook.

The left hook is the king of counter punches—if you stand and trade blows with a man who has a better left hook, nine times out of ten you're going to hit the deck before he does. Chasing people is hard work, and Hunt—despite his incredible power—had real trouble catching the craftier kickboxers out there in his K-1 tenure. The watershed moment which told us that chasing wasn't working anymore was when Melvin Manhoef, now a middleweight, became the first man to knock Hunt out, and he did it while going backwards as Hunt ran in on him.

Learning to sit back changed Hunt as a fighter. In his return to Japan against Cheick Kongo, Hunt looked untouchable to the Frenchman. As Kongo lumbered in with punches (Kongo's hands have never been the strong point of his game), Hunt cracked him with a beautiful counter left hook which sent Kongo stumbling across the Octagon to the mat.

Mark Hunt versus Junior dos Santos—Hunt's last loss—was a brilliant back and forth exchange of wills and tactics. Hunt looked to land the left hook when Dos Santos moved in, Dos Santos looked to land the overhand as Hunt swung across at him. In the early going it looked like Hunt had the Brazilian former champion stumped.

Hunt also used feints to get Dos Santos to the fence, and had Dos Santos running into the money punch as he was about to circle out... hmm that sounds familiar.



A problem which has plagued Dos Santos through his career—he will start circling out when he hits the cage, not before.

But much of Dos Santos' game is getting people to reach across to hit him as he puts his head on their right side. Every time he dipped in to his left, he made Hunt reach to hit him, and he tried to time the overhand across the top.



BOOM!

And, if you're not one of those folks who still cries “lucky punch” about Dos Santos' win over Cain Velasquez—you may recognize he did exactly the same thing there. Velasquez was jabbing at Dos Santos each time Dos Santos ducked in. Velasquez ended up jabbing across himself, and Dos Santos lowered the boom. Yes, Velasquez should have been wrestling, but no—there was nothing lucky about that punch. It was set up and delivered exactly the same way on Velasquez as it was at least three times on Hunt.

So those are the go to strategies of both men... the usual procedure in fights is to see who is imposing their go-to techniques with the most success. In a fight which could turn as quickly as this one, I don't know how much that will help you, but I'll be surprised if it isn't a memorable scrap.

Odds and Ends

Elsewhere on the card, Kyoji Horiguchi, Japan's hope for the next generation of MMA, meets Jon Delos Reyes. Reyes is coming off a loss in his UFC debut, while Horiguchi has won 3 in the octagon on the trot and is on a seven fight win streak. Seems like a gimme match in front of a home crowd, but anything can happen in MMA after all.

Through much of his Shooto tenure he mainly swung the lead hook, like his mentor, Kid Yamamoto. Since then he's added some slick kicking to his game. His front snap kick to the abdomen noticeably changes his opponent's demeanour and is well worth looking out for.

Speaking of snap kicks to the abdomen, the king of them is on the card—Katsunori Kikuno. Kikuno is, at this point, a farcical fighter to watch and he espouses all the dangers of believing too much in “budo” and the way of the warrior. He might turn out to be the biggest waste of talent I have seen in mixed martial arts to date.

Kyokushin karate fighters are often too tough for their own good and Kikuno is a perfect example. Kikuno used to fight with his palms out in front of him—the mummy style, similar to George Foreman and Sandy Saddler. It looked weird, but he parried or stopped a lot of the punches that came at him, then he ploughed away with cross counters and brutal body kicks. He even had Eddie Alvarez in trouble.

Somewhere a few years back, he decided he'd drop his hands altogether. Now he fights square on with his hands at his thighs, trying to prove some kind of point about his warrior spirit, and all that happens is he gets beaten up, knocked out, and made to look a fool. It's tragic to watch, but it's more tragic to know that his coaches are letting him try it and his sparring partners are letting him do it in the gym. Watch for the possibility that his recent knockout loss has changed him back to his old style.

Elsewhere, Yoshihiro Akiyama returns to the UFC. Akiyama is fascinating because he is a documented cheater but people don't mind because he's handsome. During his international judo career, Akiyama was accused of having a slippery gi by some of his oppponents. In his MMA fight with Kazushi Sakuraba, Sakuraba repeatedly attempted to indicate to the referee that Akiyama was greasy. It was later revealed that Akiyama had applied lotion before the fight—he defended himself by saying it was for his dry skin and that he didn't know it was against the rules. Of course, that doesn't explain emptying six bottles of Olay onto yourself...



If that makes you angry—and it should—enjoy Kazuo Misaki's illegal soccer kick of justice.

Look out for his judo, it's pretty darn slick, but also for his gas tank—which has always been horrendous.

In the co-main event the undefeated Myles Jury fights Takanori Gomi. Gomi is an all time lightweight great—with more top ten ranked wins at that weight than even B.J. Penn—and even cleared out the entire top ten at one time in PRIDE. He's been past his best for years, but he might still be the heaviest hitter at lightweight, and his fights with Isaac Vallie-Flagg and Diego Sanchez showed Gomi trying to remember the great boxing which he introduced to the sport all those years ago, rather than just swinging wild.



Gomi's chin is ridiculous as well. Notice that he picks up the referee's pen while the referee is counting for him!

Myles Jury is an undefeated prospect who did the impossible in his most recent fight—actually won a decision over Diego Sanchez. Throughout the fight I was impressed by Jury's movement, counters, and kicking game. If there's a criticism of Gomi on the feet (actually there's quite a few), it's that he has a tendency to eat punches and low kicks which any regard for his safety. Those pile up over the course of fifteen minutes. Watch this fight because you'll either see Myles Jury continue his rise, or you might see a rare “Old Gomi” sighting...

UFC Fight Night: Hunt vs Nelson takes place this Saturday. Catch the fights, and then get back here Sunday morning for the post fight analysis.

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

Check out these related stories:

Fight Night Japan: Mark Hunt vs. Roy Nelson

Mark Hunt and the History of Broken Hands in the Pacific

Fightland Meets: Roy Nelson