Photo by Mike Roach/Zuffa LLC

UFC 189 has caught a lot of flak over its all out promotion of Jose Aldo versus Conor McGregor and seeming to undersell everything else about the card. I know it has, because I've been hurling said criticism. But what UFC 189 has right is a main card stacked legitimate, meaningful matches between respectably ranked fighters and, most crucially, a few fantastic prospects. There is no one on the main card just for their name power—no Shogun Rua, no Nogueira, no Dan Henderson. UFC 189 is a night of new blood. Everyone there has the real potential to move on and do great things—there is no one on this card just trying for 'one last knockout'.

Brandon Thatch and Gunnar Nelson have both stumbled in their most recent performances, but each has the look of a stone cold killer when they're on their game. Nelson was broken by the hard-nosed wrestler who he couldn't get to the mat in Rick Story. Thatch was worn out by the pace and savvy of the tremendously experienced but significantly smaller, Benson Henderson. Honestly, I don't think it tells us a lot about a fighter if they never face any adversity in the ring. But both Thatch and Nelson have the chance to show that the knock to their confidence, and the hint at a flaw in their game, was the best thing which ever happened to them.

Gunnar Nelson – The Points Karate – Jiu Jitsu Savant

Gunnar Nelson competes in a point-fighting, karate-like style, though nowhere near as effectively as the great Lyoto Machida. But what Nelson does do terrifically is sit on his hands. The most important thing in that ikken hisatsu—one hit, certain death style of fighting is inactivity. Sounds weird, right? But I mentioned this recently when I was explaining Ryan Jimmo's difficulty in effectively implimenting this style. If you want men to run onto your hard gyaku-zuki 'reverse punch' counters, as almost every karateka does, you have to frustrate them.

Pretty much the only things stopping Jimmo from implimenting the distance karate countering style well in his fights is that he keeps throwing out kicks and triple jabs when nothing is happening. For that distance karate, a fighter must embrace his opponent's frustration. Ironically, Jimmo being more active dissuades his opponent from chasing, and gets him into more clinches—leading to fights which are much more boring than the less active but more effective Machida.

I had heard a lot of talk about Nelson, and put him on my “look out for” list from the moment he entered the UFC in 2012, but it was his 2014 performance against Omari Akhmedov, which I was fortunate enough to attend, that convinced me Nelson had the potential to become a truly top flight fighter. Against an opponent who hadn't been beaten since 2010, Nelson circled the cage, backing away each time Akhmedov attacked, before unleashing his first real punch, a lightning fast straight. Nelson moved in to clinch so quickly that he was able to bundle Akhmedov to the floor off of the punch and immediately moved to knee on belly, and straight into mount.

The stand up impressed me, but the fight IQ to come impressed me more. Nelson held the mount and pounded away with elbows, brutalizing Akhmedov but never giving an inch or getting wild. With thirty seconds left on the clock, Nelson recovered from Akhmedov pushing him back to guard, quickly passing to the knee on belly. As Akhmedov tried to come up on the leg, Nelson caught underneath his chin and fell to his back for a guillotine.

Risking this kind of technique with a two or three minutes left is idiotic—if the opponent escapes you're on the bottom and all they need do is hold you down to win the round. But in the final thirty seconds, Nelson moved from a grinding, bludgeoning game, into a more open one to set the trap and catch the submission. Absolutely beautiful.

Brandon Thatch – The Gut Munching Knee Striker

Brandon Thatch, who meets Nelson at UFC 189, has some of the gnarliest knee strikes in the business. An enormous welterweight by any standard, Thatch's lack of a wrestling pedigree isn't altogether obvious when he fights. This is just as well because the number of knees he throws to the body puts him at constant risk of being clinched or taken down.

What's to love about Thatch? He's another one of that superb breed of martial artist, the switch hitter. He's so comfortable with his knees and his round kicks that he doesn't care which leg he has forwards. Often he will change between the two stances in back-to-back combinations, giving his opponent little hope of keeping up.

Against Paulo Thiago, Thatch threw a hard kick against Thiago's guard from an orthodox stance, before landing in a southpaw stance and leaping in with a lead right hook into a left straight knee. The hook is not always a punch, it serves just as well as a turning instrument. You will see fighters use the left hook against the guard to hold the opponent in place as they step to get their right shoulder perfectly lined up with the gap in the opponent's guard. Lead hooks, with correct lateral movement, wonderfully shorten the path of straight, rear sided attacks.

The terrific hopping pivot on Thatch's kicks also allows him to throw round kicks mid exchange and catch opponents swinging, as in his terrific UFC debut.

Thatch's great flaw against Henderson was not being able to keep pace with the lightweight dynamo. Thatch wilted in the fourth round against Henderson, and this bout is only scheduled for three, so I doubt we'll be able to judge Thatch's cardio improvements too seriously. This bout should come down to whether Nelson can get Thatch down without being minced by knees, Thatch's low kicks should also play a role for him on the feet, as they are the perfect foil to the retreating karateka who leaves his lead leg trailing as he leaves striking range.

Thomas Almeida – The Muay Thai Brawler

If you follow mixed martial arts even semi-seriously, you'll have heard people talking about Thomas Almeida. He's the new hotness. The expectations on Almeida are as high as they could ever be on such a young fighter with so little UFC experience. But there's good reason for that, Thomas Almeida is as dangerous as they come on the feet.

What makes me tout Almeida so highly? He's just a dream-like patchwork of all the things you ever hear a coach despairing that his fighter doesn't do. He goes to the body as well as anyone in the game, the left hook to the body being considered his money punch. He grapples excellently and every time he leaves the clinch, he throws out an elbow (the discovery of this method alone turned Carlos Condit into the biggest elbow fetishist at welterweight).

And he has a near perfect sense of appropriate range. Not in terms of getting away from punches—he's pretty hittable—but in terms of bringing the right tool for the job. He doesn't waste his time throwing easily deflected or missing hooks when he can be dropping elbows, any time his opponent's head dips for a moment he's throwing up a knee. I enjoy watching his flurries far too much.

He'll even step in and throw the right elbow as a sort of inside right as he slips to the inside of a jab.

The event is on the way so I don't have time to sit down and type all the things he's done which I am one hundred percent in to, but this highlight should show some interesting stuff. Look out for the head kick counter mid exchange—as Thatch did earlier. And for the counter elbows. And for the cross counter over the jab. And for the liver shot and the knees.

Of course, he's up against the veteran Brad Pickett, who is no slouch. Indeed, I thought that Yves Jabouin was doing an excellent job in Almeida's last match, before he ate Almeida's terrific power. Almeida could taste the first loss of his career. But he's 23 years-old and he's already starching quality fighters in the UFC. If he's still a rough diamond, I can't wait to see the polished product.

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