Fight Study 157: UFC 300 (Plus Transcript) (Patreon)

• If you’re new to LMA, start with our table of contents

Sam here to discuss UFC 300. This card was meant to be the greatest in the company's history, and it did not disappoint. Since so many fights were bangers starting from the early prelims, rather than working our way backward from the main event, let's start with the first fight that stuck out for me. And by "stuck out," I mean what had interesting moments that I could draw attention to that viewers, commentators, and social media might have missed.

In the night's first fight, we saw Deiveson Figueiredo defeating Cody Garbrandt by rear strangle.

Both fighters have similar striking habits. They like to close and open space, a behavior seen in point karate and taekwondo. This means they like to hop in close to each other and then hop away.

This is how Garbrandt fought, but Figueiredo adapted his behavior to counter this style because he knew it so well.

Right away, Figueiredo tried to time Garbrandt's closure rate to wrap him up for a takedown. Of course, if this is your first time trying to time something, you will be a bit off. This is why Figueiredo got hit a few times and fell over when Garbrandt collided with him, and at one point, they even collided heads.

Figueiredo needed more space to time Garbrandt so he began to back up to draw Garbrandt in. That gave Figueiredo the extra time to time Garbrandt and take him down at the end of round one.

Since getting knocked out a bunch of times, Garbrandt has changed his behavior by adding in kicks where he's effectively a grounded fighter. This allows him to kick without getting countered. Mix that in with calf kicks and speed, and this is how Garbrandt tries to win from the outside on points if he's afraid to close space.

If Figueiredo shows too much power, Garbrandt will play more from the outside and kick. If Garbrandt doesn't have confidence, he won't close space. Figueiredo can't scare him away. To keep Garbrandt coming in, Figueiredo has to be somewhat passive. Whether that's intentional or because he couldn't avoid those calf kicks and land his punches, Garbrandt got confident—especially since Figueiredo was backing up.

In round two, Garbrandt felt himself and charged in, getting wrapped up and taken down. The end was academic. I don't know if Figueiredo knew before the fight that he would be so much better than Garbrandt on the ground, but if he didn't know, once they hit the ground, he knew right away. Since grappling is so haptic, you get a quick sense of their ability once you feel someone on the ground. That does a lot to conserve energy and for moving without hesitation, making you even better on the ground.

Speaking of differences on the ground, with Jessica Andrade and Marina Rodriguez, Andrade was clearly better on the ground. One of the things you do when you're not proficient on the ground is not to move as one whole unit but as segments. Rodriguez fought on the ground with her arms rather than her body, which, in my opinion, is why she got so arm-weary and couldn't sustain her comeback. Even before Andrade landed anything significant on the feet, Rodriguez began to grab a clinch. Why would she do that? Because her arms were tired and she needed to rest.

She lost by split decision, and it was a close fight, and it would have been perfectly acceptable if the decision had gone the other way. Being better in one phase of MMA gives you a lot of confidence, which is why Andrade can take the damage she took.

Rodriguez, even without better wrestling, could have performed much better if she hadn't seized every offensive opportunity that she saw. Just because you can hit someone, does that mean you should? Every shot exerts energy. Rodriguez didn't seem like she was pacing herself for a decision or even a knockout. She saw an opportunity, and she took the opportunity, which works fine when she's only striking, but it's different when she used her arms up in a different phase of the game.

Part of energy conservation and pace is using feints or what I call empty cues. They cost almost nothing but make the opponent react. There's also how you throw your shots. Rather than using strength, you can use momentum from your kinetic chain and the weight of your hands or shins. Another way to think about momentum is coasting. Strength is like using gas going downhill when you can get the same result coasting. Coasting is about letting inertia and momentum do most of the work. Spark a little inertia and coast. Coaches sometimes call this flicking. Propel your hand or foot and let the force of mass do the rest. If none of this makes sense, you can also just throw lighter shots. These are things to consider when we discuss Weili Zhang, Aleksandar Rakic, and Arman Tsarukyan later.

In the first fight of the regular prelims, Diego Lopes knocked Sodiq Yusuff out in the first round.

Some fighters are big, some fighters are fast, but Diego Lopes is both big and fast. You can't bully him like you can other fast fighters who happen to be small and fast. You're not going to be faster than him as you would be against other bigger fighters. Your opportunities are limited. He also has shown an incredible gas tank, which limits your windows of opportunity even further.

Now, by fast, what do I mean? In the context of this fight, I mean two things. Lopes has the speed to seize opportunities before they close. He also has the speed to find opportunities as they appear. And unlike Rodriguez, he has the power to end fights with one opportunity.

Yusuff likes to grab double-collar ties when he's in close. However, he grabs it like a wrestler, bent over, rather than like a Thai-boxer, with hips in. This left his head exposed. Once he grabbed Lopes, Lopes punched him several times to the body until he found the opening for the uppercut. His speed gave him the time to try a bunch of attacks until he found the one that worked.

That rocked Yusuff. Yusuff seemed to recover and grabbed the double-collar tie again, but in exactly the same way, with his head down. This time, Lopes seized the opportunity immediately, which led to the ending sequence.

Speaking of things people miss or misunderstand, I think Holly Holm vs. Kayla Harrison is going to be really misunderstood.

People will see this fight as Holm making mistakes and playing right into Harrison. But Holm didn't necessarily do anything wrong. She was trying to fight the perfect fight, and when that's your only path to victory, your window for victory is really narrow. Holm is smaller, weaker, slower, more shopworn, and older. There's also a huge gap in the ground abilities between her and Harrison.

For Holm to win, she has to hit and stay away from Harrison and away from the cage. That's already a lot of conditions to overcome to win this fight.

Harrison used stance switches and heavy shots to push Holm back toward the fence. It's something Michael Chandler does to set up his power shots. For Harrison, it's to set up her takedowns.

When Holm got near the fence, she circled away from Harrison's power side. Harrison threw a right high kick. Holm had to stop to defend the kick. That's when Harrison initiated the clinch. It wasn't Holm who initiated it, it's just that the first high kick attempt to clinch was clumsy and Holm had an opportunity to get into a better position and reverse Harrison when it went to the ground.

In round two, the same sequence happened, but this time, the kick to takedown was much smoother, and with enough time on the clock, Harrison finished the fight.

I don't know if Holm, at this stage in her career, could have done anything to eventually avoid getting grabbed by Harrison. In my opinion, she did the best she could. That was the perfect execution of the game plan, but it still didn't matter because it was a mismatch.

Aljamain Sterling moved up to featherweight to defeat a game Calvin Kattar. Psychologically, Kattar had a lot going against him, as he's only won once in his last four. Lack of confidence and pressure hurts performance.

Then there's Sterling, who's very sticky. Sterling's fighting behavior is themed around contact. He throws shots like he's casting a net; it's wide, so he will not only touch his opponent with his fists or foot but also his arms and legs.

Having advanced cues on his movements counterintuitively works to his advantage. When his opponents see his shots coming, they block or charge in. Now he can grab you. He throws spam and throwaway shots, moving forward and backward in either stances because he wants his opponents to engage.

He's almost making his grabs into strikes. If you don't engage with him, he'll win on points. If you do, he'll stick to you like an octopus. If you see what's coming, he'll grab you. If you don't see what's coming, he'll hit you or grab you.

Kattar fell into a typical Sterling fight. Get outpointed and then wrapped up. Sterling has a really effective and unusual style of MMA that's really hard to beat. If you're a grappler interested in MMA, emulate it.

Jiri Prochazka knocked Aleksandar Rakic out in the last fight of the regular prelims, continuing his streak of finishes, whether he finishes his opponent or he's the one being finished.

This happens because either you hurt and finish him, which is pretty rare, the finish part that is, or he counters you. This is all predicated on Prochazka leaving himself open. He's been hurt plenty of times, but he's really hard to finish.

Prochazka's head is the bait. His first line of defense isn't blocking but dodging or rolling with punches. Even when he gets hit, he's often rolling with the shot. Rolling with a shot doesn't mean he's not taking any damage, just less damage. He's also not always rolling with shots; sometimes, he just eats it. So, backing all of this up is an iron chin.

Prochazka seems to have incredible cardio and durability, but I suspect a lot of that comes from barely throwing shots, so he doesn't expend a lot of energy. When you're not tired, you can take better shots. When you're not tired, you can also burst into action when your opponent is hurt or tired.

Striking, like grappling, is also haptic, especially since the gloves are open fingers. It's just not as haptic as grappling. So, with MMA gloves, fighters feel when they make contact. Since Prochazka rolled with shots, every time Rakic made contact, he felt it and gained confidence. It makes fighters attack Prochazka to the head even more, which can make you tired, as we saw with Marina Rodriguez.

Like Harrison, Prochazka built off the high kick, but this time, it was the left high kick. Two patterns were emerging. Rakic tended to dip to his right against punches. Secondly, Prochazka changed height before throwing a right punch.

In the first round, after eating numerous punches, Prochazka changed height, Rakic dipped to his right, and Prochazka caught him with a left high kick. Rakic was rocked; he fired a blind left hook and ate a one-two but was able to survive.

Despite what analysts tell you, fighting's not rocket science. In round one, something worked. Harrison saw that with Holm, and she went for it again in round two, and it worked like butter. Prochazka did the same.

In round two, Prochazka changed height and threw the left high kick. Rakic was rocked and threw the left hook. Prochazka answered with the one-two. Rakic, on wobbly legs trying to survive, found some space. Prochazka changed height again and threw a left high kick. Rakic ate it again and threw a left hook, and Prochazka fired a one-two.

Prochazka threw more punches, Rakic fell over, and Prochazka pounded him out.

There were lots of things Rakic also read and landed on Prochazka. The difference was that Prochazka ate them and kept coming. Rakic got hurt. If this was boxing or kickboxing, this would really not be fair. But this is MMA, so there are other paths to victory. Rakic has excellent wrestling, which we didn't get to see.

Prochazka, like Figueiredo, showed how confidence can work against fighters.

Arman Tsarukyan defeated Charles Oliveira by split decision on the main card.

One difference between Tsarukyan and Islam Makhachev is how Makhachev uses the takedown threat to win on the feet. Tsarukyan doesn't have that same composure and tends to rush for takedowns and finishes. Even his kick where he fell in round one, he tried to throw that kick so hard that he was already off balance, which made it easy for Oliveira to kick his supporting leg out from under him.

I also want to mention how slippery the mats were. Fighters were slipping all night. That could have also played into the fall. Even at the end of round three, Tsarukyan was on top and posted his leg out, and then his foot slipped, and he fell over.

Oliveira fought arguably the two best wrestlers in the division and lost. He's only ever won by decision three times. He goes for the finish every fight, which makes him dangerous and exciting to watch, but like Prochazka, that limits his abilities to win a fight. But also like Prochazka, he's able to finish fighters because they're trying to finish him. But in this fight, if neither can finish the other, and one is the superior wrestler, usually the wrestler wins.

Now let's talk about the BMF (Baddest Mother Fucker) title fight, which may be one of the greatest MMA fights of all time and probably the best finish of all time. You have to think about the context; this is for the BMF title at the biggest MMA event in history; Max Holloway is the underdog; he's fighting BMF champion Justin Gaethje, who's trying to get another title shot. Gaethje had just beaten Dustin Poirer for the BMF title. Poirier not only beat Holloway twice, but the last time was at 155. Then Holloway looked better than ever, looked more powerful than he ever has, and with one second left in the final round, finished Gaethje with a one punch walk away knock out after challenging him to stand in the middle of the octagon, giving Gaethje his best chance to win the fight, to see who the baddest mother fucker is. It was Holloway's best KO of his career against the biggest and hardest puncher of his career.

It's not about the performance in isolation but all that context that made this fight and its ending incredible. If you stop thinking about GOAT status purely on undefeated records and think about accomplishments, divisional depth, and strength of schedule, Holloway is up there. He's still one of the youngest fighters on the roster, and he's already a legend.

A bigger and stronger Holloway with the same hand speed and vision ended up being too much for Gaethje. But more than that, surprisingly, Holloway's back kick became a difference-maker in this fight. I don't know if I've ever seen that happen in the UFC before. I've seen a back kick hurt someone or swing the momentum, but to see it as such a consistent tool was refreshing. Holloway never missed with that kick.

Gaethje tended to crouch when space was closed, which fed perfectly into Holloway's back kick. Then, you got the added size, and Holloway's punches just landed differently.

When there were around 10 seconds left in the fight, and Holloway challenged Gaethje to stand and trade with him, that really played into Gaethje's game because that's where he shines on paper. Secondly, since Gaethje was losing, a knockout was his only chance to win.

Here, you really saw the difference in hand speed and behavior. Gaethje crouched, dropped his head, and threw blind punches. Holloway looked, rolled, and picked his shots.

Since Gaethje was ducking, Holloway threw to the body and threw uppercuts. Holloway ducked under a wild and blind hook and threw to the body. Gaethje grabbed Holloway's neck, think Yusuff. Holloway threw an uppercut and lifted Gaethje's head right into a right hook. Think Lopes.

The chaining of Holloway's punches and kinetic linking was flawless. Could Holloway normally flatten Gaethje like that? I don't know. But the kinetic power is different if you're already creating a lot of momentum with hooks to the body, but also lifting the head with an uppercut and then landing a right hook on the button when Gaethje had his mouth open. Talk about seizing an opportunity.

There are physical attributes that whisper, and Holloway has them. Rather than brute strength, which most people notice, Holloway has vision, durability, and game sense.

With one second left, Holloway face-planted Gaethje and walked away because he knew Gaethje was out. Think about the game sense of Jalin Turner, who thought he had Renato Moicano out with a one-punch knockout when Moicano was clearly not out.

Holloway had so much preparation for this fight by fighting Alexander Volkanovski three times, and Volkanovski is a smaller but better version of Gaethje. Holloway also didn't have to worry about takedowns. People thought Holloway didn't have a chance, but really, what chance did Gaethje have? Knocking Holloway out without a takedown threat?

Holloway is now deservedly the BMF champion. In hindsight, of course he is.

Now we're at the co-main event. We had all these fights, and we still had more. It was the first time the octagon had two Chinese fighters fighting for a UFC title, and the two fighters not only carried themselves well but also showed up for this fight. There were Chinese flags in the audience, and after the fight, champion Weili Zhang invited fans to visit China.

Weili Zhang defeated Xiaonan Yan by decision, but really, it could have ended after round one as a submission victory. It's a tricky one because Yan was in the choke and not tapping and seemingly not out, but when Zhang let go, she was out. That can happen when you let go of a choke where the sudden release of a choke and the rush of blood puts you out. That's probably what the referee was thinking, and though she was out, she was not out during the choke, so he let the fight continue. It was a subjective call and going either way makes sense to me as someone who has grappled for decades. The referee, Jason Herzog, is also a long-time grappler and BJJ black belt. He's also been refereeing for a long time. I used to see him in local shows in LA as a referee decades ago when I was still cornering MMA fights.

Zhang was exhausted at one point, but she recovered well. Zhang had been in there with the division's best strikers, but Yan seemed special. It seemed to be vision, composure, and anticipation. Yan can throw a side kick without having to turn sideways. She could also anticipate when Zhang was coming in.

She could land a left hook while stepping out, having Zhang throwing at air for the counter and losing track of her. When Zhang became too predictable with kicks, Yan stepped out to meet the kick and landed a right straight to drop Zhang, who thought her head was out of the way for a counter.

Yan is already in her thirties, but she's still getting better. However, her deficit in grappling was the difference. She definitely showed improvements there and surprised Zhang even on the ground, but it was not sustained long enough to win enough of the rounds.

Going back to pace, like Tsarukyan, Zhang rushed a bit and didn't use the takedown as a threat enough to conserve energy. Energy conservation is such a critical element of fighting for the title since it's paced over five rounds.

Now, let's talk about the main event for the light heavyweight title between champion Alex Pereira and former champion Jamahal Hill. The fight didn't even last a round, which was the perfect main event after so many excellent fights and the card being so long.

I talked a lot about vision already in this Fight Study, and who illustrated that better than Pereira.

There was a moment where Pereira got kicked to the groin, but his eyes never veered from Hill, and with Hill as his anchor point, he used his peripheral vision to see Herb Dean walking over to pause the fight, and he actually touched his hand, still using his peripheral vision, to tell him to keep the fight going, in which case Dean backed off. During this time, Hill apologized to Pereira, gave him a thumbs up, and nodded to continue. Pereira acknowledged him while touching Dean's hand. Then, when Dean backed off, he touched Hill's hand to say let's continue.

Pace, composure, conservation of energy, and vision are all reflected by Pereira in this very short fight.

Despite the ending, Hill actually fought well. He landed a lot of shots before the end. He kept moving to get the outside foot position since he was standing right foot forward, and Pereira was standing left foot forward. Hill also stepped back to draw Pereira in for the left straight. These are all tried-and-true southpaw counters, and they all had degrees of success.

However, you don't need an outside foot position to hit someone who's in the opposite stance, and you don't only need to throw with the rear limbs. It's still a fight, and there's lots of movement freedom. Pereira also has the power where it doesn't have to land flush to hurt his opponent, it just needs to land.

Hill landed a lot of left straights to the body, left body kicks, outside calf kicks, and even some right hooks. Pereira also landed, but he mostly attacked with his lead limbs.

Hill drew him in to get outside foot position for a left straight. But when you do that, you also rotate your head from the back to the front. Pereira countered with a left hook as he stepped in. He initially stepped on Hill's foot, but then his foot happened to fall to the outside.

This is all to say: Hill was thinking about foot position, and Pereira was just looking at his target and throwing when he saw an opening. He didn't worry about the feet; he worried about what he saw.

Pereira's left hook was closer to the target than Hill's left straight. Hill's face rotated to Pereira's fist, and Pereira's fist rotated to Hill's face. Once it hit the ground, Pereira finished Hill with punches.

Fighting, like any other physical activity, is not something you can intellectualize. Your body doesn't care about words, it cares about feel. How things feel to your senses, including your eyes.

That's how I approach my analysis; I think about the senses and context. That's also my approach to teaching martial arts.

On a final note, it was a night for Indigenous fighters wearing native-inspired shorts. Both Pereira and Holloway win for shorts of the night.