Artwork by Gian Galang

Three years ago, I happened to catch a fight between two up-and-coming heavyweights named Phil De Fries and Stipe Miocic on the first UFC on Fuel TV card. Always happy to watch unfamiliar talent, and keen to see how heavyweight MMA was developing outside of the main carders, I eagerly anticipated the opening bell. They both charged out of the gate, as heavyweights are wont to do, and began swinging wildly at each other. First Miocic got wobbled, then De Fries got wobbled, and thirty seconds later Miocic was awarded the knockout.

The fight was as sloppy as it was short. 'This is the future of the heavyweight division?' thought I. Two men swinging wild, whoever lands well first wins? It seemed like heavyweight mixed martial arts outside of the top five was just as poor as ever. The Fedor and Nogueira had changed, but the gap was still ludicrous.

Fast forward to a few months ago, when Stipe Miocic fought Junior dos Santos. I remembered Miocic, I had seen him crush Fabio Maldonado—courageous to a fault but also remarkably hittable—with one punch a fight earlier, but I had also seen him get stopped by the uppercut of Stefan Struve. My enthusiasm was muted, at best I hoped for another quality Dos Santos knockout. What Miocic did in that bout, though a losing effort, expunged the bias that the fight with De Fries had instilled in me.

I went back and studied the tape and realized that my disinterest had kept me from seeing a terrific fighter. A heavyweight with a gas tank and a truly rounded skill set. The perfect embodiment of that old Bruce Lee saying: 'If you want to beat a martial artist of fifteen years, box and wrestle for one year.” What's more, to a reasonable degree, Miocic can follow a gameplan as well as any heavyweight today.

Against Roy Nelson he circled away from the right hand, ducked or jammed it with a stiff arm over the shoulder, and hammered Nelson with jabs and right straights. Against Dos Santos, Miocic took advantage of the Brazilian's terrible habit of fighting with his back foot grazing the bottom of the fence—driving in and busting up the supposedly better boxer with heavy blows. The ability to fight smart, particularly among the men who are big enough to not have to do so in the gym, is always the most valuable quality in a fighter.

Miocic fell just short at his most recent and most severe hurdle, but put the division on notice. At thirty-two, he is a young gun in a division of old men, with the potential to become something special. Yet his next challenge has the potential to kill the hype in its tracks. He fights the ever-improving veteran of the cage, and perhaps the most dangerous hitter in the heavyweight division, Mark Hunt.

Mark Hunt, an old man in the fight game, has become one of the most beloved fighters in the sport and it's not hard to understand why. We're ten years and a million miles away from the wild man who would stick his chin out against the heaviest hitters in kickboxing history in order to draw them into a brawl. Endowed with tremendous speed and power, even at an advanced age, Hunt has to be respected for realizing that those attributes alone weren't cutting it in MMA anymore and for making drastic changes in his training and his game.

Most would point to the improved grappling of Hunto—his excellent head-in, arms-out escapes from clinches and his improved takedown defense—but the revolution in his boxing game has been just as big for his career.

Stipe Miocic and Mark Hunt can both be counted among the better boxers of the heavyweight division, yet their approaches are markedly different.

Mark Hunt's limited height in a division of six footers might seem like a disadvantage but, as is the standard for small heavyweights, it is the speed with which he can get across the floor which makes all the difference. Against Stefan Struve, Hunt gave up something like a foot of reach to the gigantic Dutchman, but every time Struve jabbed, Hunt would parry it and be in on him like lightning.

The leaping left hook has been grabbing the headlines, but its truly effective forms are as a set up, a counter, or a follow up. As a set up, the left hook or a roundhouse slap onto the forearms—made to look like the left hook—turns the opponent by the guard in order to line up the right straight down the center. This simple set up delivered with speed famously dropped Bigfoot Silva, Cheick Kongo, and Fabricio Werdum.

As a counter, it was the retreating left hook that had Junior Dos Santos looking uncharacteristically pensive through much of that fantastic bout. It was also the counter left hook which sent Cheick Kongo stumbling across the octagon.

Finally the left hook serves as a follow up to Hunt's terrific cross counter—a right hand thrown across the top of the opponent's jab. Here he is wobbling Stefan Struve with the simple counter combination.

The same combination put Struve on Queer Street in the final seconds of the bout, before Hunt jumped in to finish him.

Countering over the top of the jab or after the jab returns is fairly commonplace. A rarer sight is countering with the right straight inside of the left hand. The left hand should be quicker to the target and that makes this sort of counter significantly harder.

That sage of boxing, Edwin Haislet, wrote of what he termed the Inside Right, calling it a “sucker punch.” Haislet's recommendation was that the right should drive in from underneath the opponent's jab, while the head was taken off line in a similar fashion to a cross counter. Roy Jones Jr. used to use these sort of right straights to end his combinations and get his head off line before pivoting or skipping out.

The problem with countering on the inside of a jab is that ordinarily, the jab itself will be in the way. No matter how hard you hit, punching through the path of another punch is normally going to lead to an ineffective blow—and with the jab traveling a shorter path, you're normally going to get beaten to the punch.

That is why Haislet recommends combining the slip to the inside with the punch coming from underneath. Haislet encourages boxers to hold the hands considerably lower than most today do. Punching from chest level means you begin the motion from a less “safe” position, but the angle on straight blows changes considerably. Think of Lyoto Machida's gyaku-zuki rear handed straight, or Gene Tunney's 1-2.

Stipe Miocic doesn't tend to use much head movement, he is a very upright fighter, almost in the Klitschko mold. Yet routinely lands with a right straight which the opponent's stance and guard should protect him against. A couple of common features between Miocic and the Klitschkos are the stepping with the right foot to a slight angle as the right straight is thrown on offence, and the use of the lead hand to cross parry the opponent's lead hand.

Miocic gets hit with right hands a fair bit, and that's largely because he uses his left hand to cross parry and trap so often. Watch any Stipe Miocic highlight reel and count the number of times his left hand pulls one of the opponent's arms out of the way.

Now watch Wladimir Klistchko apply the same ideas, obviously with a lot more polish. Jabs will turn into slaps which take his opponent's guarding left hand or countering right hand out of the picture as he shoots in the beautiful right straight.

Wladi has the better right straight of the two brothers but Vitali Klitchko's match with Shannon Briggs is a study in what a well-hidden right hand can do.

My litmus test for “are you a good striker?” at heavyweight is not if you can knock a load of guys out, but if you can avoid Roy Nelson's right hand until he gasses. Defence and ringcraft are sparse at heavyweight. Miocic did this masterfully by circling out, ducking, and using the extended left arm and raised left shoulder to guard against it.



What Haislet called “the leverage guard.”

He also threw punches, anticipated returns, and outworked Nelson in exchanges.

Not to mention his continual side stepping of Nelson's charges, directly followed by right hands Whenever you are hoping to explain the meaning of “angles” to a layman, you look for side steps like this, but they just don't happen in elite combat sports typically.

Miocic even uses an interesting little shift—similar to the one you see TJ Dillashaw use, or GSP's superman jab. Unlike those men, he has two hundred and forty or fifty pounds coming into motion behind it, and both times he landed it on Nelson, Miocic visibly hurt him.

I really like Miocic's angle back across Nelson on this one. Goofy looking but keeps Nelson guessing.

Hunt's own dismantling of Nelson, however, was one of the most beautiful striking performances I have seen in the octagon and ended with a devastating face-down knockout against the iron jawed American.

The amount that Miocic has improved since his first couple of fights in the UFC is almost unbelievable, and he came damn close to beating Junior dos Santos, the guy everyone considered to be the unquestioned number two heavyweight in the world. But he takes shots, and Mark Hunt gives them like no one else in the game. If Miocic beats Hunt, it's another name on his record and a step towards a title shot. If Hunt beats Miocic, he stays in contention and makes problems for UFC matchmakers in future.

Both men are well worth your time, so watch the fight and get back here on Monday for a full review of the best techniques and tactics from the event.

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

See more of the Gian Galang's amazing art on his website.

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