Fight Study 54: UFC 246 (transcript) (Patreon)

UFC 246 was the promotion’s first PPV for 2020, and even though they skimped on building up the rest of the card, they were banking on the main event of Conor McGregor and Donald Cerrone being more than enough for the casual fan to purchase the event. All throughout fight week, much was made of McGregor’s new outlook on the fight promotion game. Gone were the brash insults, the outrageous outfits, and instead we got handshakes and mutual admiration for fashionable jackets. Perhaps this was to take the heat off the negative press that McGregor is experiencing back home, or maybe the lack of wins inside the fight game has humbled him. Either way, we usually don’t see this side of McGregor until post-fight after the match has been called off and Bruce Buffer announces the winner. There was a lot riding on the line for McGregor, and a loss would have been disastrous. Luckily for him, he still has some pull with the UFC brass and was able to dictate his next opponent and weight class without much pushback. Despite having success at featherweight and lightweight, he got matched up with Cerrone at welterweight. From a ranking’s standpoint, this makes no sense. McGregor last fought as a lightweight and is 1-1 as a welterweight. Even with a victory, who’s he going to call out, Kamaru Usman? Oh wait, who was that guy that most recently defeated Nate Diaz and won a completely made up title? Jorge Masvidal? Does he have another fight lined up? Oh, he doesn’t? Well, isn’t that interesting…

To the surprise of no one, Gamebred himself was present at the fight, channeling his inner Ric Flair and showing up in a Versace bathrobe. He was undoubtedly interested in how McGregor does since he already has a win over Cerrone. In a moment of honesty, he confessed to Megan Olivi that if the contract amount for facing Usman and McGregor were the same, he’d take Usman because he doesn’t like him. The reality is that facing McGregor can net him a bigger payday, so of course he would opt to face him instead. Masvidal also gave an accurate prediction on how the fight would go. When Olivi asked how he sees this fight ending, he simply said, “Violently.” Son of a bitch, he was right.

If you’re a fight fan, or even a casual viewer of MMA, there’s a good chance you already know how the match-up went. McGregor finished Cerrone by TKO, 40 seconds into the first round. It’s hard to do a prolonged analysis on a fight that’s so short, but there is a bit to unpack (and not to mention a greater narrative to be told). Let’s start with a quick play by play in case you missed it.

The moment Herb Dean starts the fight, McGregor meets Cerrone in the center of the Octagon and swings a left hand immediately. Being so early in the fight, in fact the clock wasn’t even visible in the corner of the screen, Cerrone dipped his head out of the way and clinched up immediately. No surprise so far, we all knew that Cerrone could time the left hand initiate a grappling exchange. However, if you look closely, you see that McGregor immediately secures an overhook with his right arm and has grabbed inside of the crook of Cerrone’s elbow with his left hand. From this position, he started throwing shoulders to the nose of Cerrone, a favorite technique among heavyweight wrestlers like Randy Couture, Josh Barnett, and Daniel Cormier. The difference was that McGregor changed levels and dipped his hips lower, changed levels, and then sprung his entire body upwards, giving the shoulder strike much more power behind it. Also, by wrapping Cerrone’s left arm with his overhook, McGregor was able to braces his forearm against the body of Cerrone, preventing him from moving forward and unleashing knees in the clinch. In addition, take a close look at where McGregor’s head placement is: his forehead is right at jawline of Cerrone, obscuring his vision and keeping his head in place. This is something we saw a lot of in Daniel Cormier’s game in his early heavyweight days back in Strikeforce.

Sensing that Cerrone is starting to disengage, McGregor finishes with a knee to the side of Cerrone’s head and lets go. From there, they both exchange punches and McGregor backs up slowly, only to creep forward, pressuring Cerrone to the fence. This is the same kind of footwork we see McGregor use against the likes of Eddie Alvarez, Chad Mendes, and moments during his fight with Nurmagomedov. Cerrone senses his real estate getting smaller, so he throws a right high kick to keep McGregor at a distance. McGregor simply takes it on the forearm and presses onward, not fazed at all by the attack. Showing that he too has a kicking game, McGregor throws his own high kick from the left side and catches Cerrone clean on the chin. This absolutely rocks Cerrone and he wobbles down, and McGregor smells the blood. He swarms Cerrone with vicious hooks and some ground and pound, and the only thing Cerrone can do is cover up. The fight is waved off at 40 seconds of the first round, and McGregor is able to secure his first win in nearly 4 years.

Paul Felder was one of the commenters for this fight, and although he’s normally pretty good, he was off on his analysis regarding McGregor’s left high kick. It wasn’t sailing over Cerrone’s guard, Cerrone was actually in the midst of trying to parry what he thought was a left straight down the center. Even in slow motion, you can see that McGregor is starting to throw what appeared to be a left straight, only to finish with a kick instead. This kind of striking was made famous by none other that Mirko Cro-Cop, who had one of the fastest left straights and left high kicks in the game. Since both attacks had a similar starting motion and came from the same side, opponents had a difficult time discerning which attack to prepare for since they required entirely different defenses. A left straight would mean they either need to parry the punch or move their head off center. If a left high kick was coming, then they would bring their rear hand high to block and absorb the strike. Cro-Cop also added some vicious kicks to the body, adding a third painful option that his opponents would have to be aware of. By throwing either his left straight or his left kick repeatedly (and at different times), Cro-Cop was able to catch a lot of his opponents and finish them with strikes. We see this now with Dominick Reyes, and there’s a reason why it’s still so effective: same side attacks give the opponent multiple things to worry about, and they can’t possibly defend everything at once. In the fight preview, I mentioned how McGregor shouldn’t be afraid to kick with Cerrone, since there’s often no better way to keep a kicker from advancing than throwing kicks of your own to back him and keep him occupied. Justin Gaethje and Tony Ferguson used similar strategies, and if a path to victory is already laid out for you, why not take it?

With this win, McGregor now has some breathing room and different options to choose from when it comes to future match-ups. Will he try to avenge his previous loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov after his tussle with Tony Ferguson? Is Nate Diaz interested in a trilogy fight? Or perhaps the man in the Versace robe might feel like he deserves the payday more than anyone else. I mean, why else would this fight be taking place at welterweight? Given that the UFC loves putting spectacles’ together, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if they decided to make the McGregor vs. Masvidal fight, it would do huge numbers and the build-up would be fun to watch.     

For Cerrone, this fight was a stylistic nightmare but he chose to accept it anyways. He doesn’t do well against pressure fighters and seems to be troubled by southpaws. Look back at his fights against the likes of Darren Till and Rafael dos Anjos and it’s clear that Cerrone is a fighter that’s more or less a complete product. A lot is made about his long career and experience, but that’s also a problem. Despite people telling you all the time that experience matters, nothing beats experience, blah blah blah, I’m here to tell you that often times, experience is overrated. What good is experience if you make the same mistakes over and over again? An athlete can have over a hundred matches, but if they kept losing in the same manner, what good does it do against someone who can beat them in the same ways they lost previously? Most of the time, a good strategy and/or a bad style match up negates experience. Cerrone has more UFC fights than McGregor has MMA fights. Anthony Pettis has as many UFC fights as Carlos Diego Ferreira (Fay-hey-rah) has MMA wins. How did experience work out for both Cerrone and Pettis? This is not to say that experience doesn’t matter at all, it absolutely does. However, one should consider what KIND of experience a fighter has, and if it’s the kind that has helped them grow, adapt, and improve, or if it’s the kind that simply lets them cash in on their name value so they can keep fighting on the main card of a UFC event. Justin Gaethje looked like a one dimensional striker until he started moving his head and becoming more of a counter striker. Tony Ferguson continues to mystify opponents and slice and dice his way to a 12 fight win streak. Nurmagomedov went from getting outstruck by Gleison Tibau to dropping McGregor with an overhand right. And these are just examples from the lightweights. My point is, experience is nice, but what you do with it matters more. As far as Cowboy goes, he can pick up a few more wins against some decent welterweights and alternate between wins and losses. It might not make for the best career, but if that’s what he wants, it is what it is.

Speaking of experience, we have to give props to Maycee Barber vs Roxanne Modafferi for being the only other exciting fight of the night. This was the last fight on the ESPN preliminary card, and it was meant to build up Barber as the “future” of the flyweight division. Despite being just 8-0 and 3 fights into the promotion, Barber seemed prime to become a future star with the UFC all too willing to accommodate her. Even though she had youth on her side, a solid fight camp, and some vicious elbows, there was always something missing. At Southpaw, we look at the meta of the fight game and aren’t interested in surface level observations. Any decent MMA analyst could have told you that Barber’s defensive flaws leave her vulnerable to straight punches, and this is something a savvy veteran can take advantage of. As a matter of fact, during the Dominick Reyes vs Chris Weidman fight study episode, we covered Barber’s fight against Gillian Robertson and said this very same thing. I’m not claiming that Roxanne Modafferi or her coaches listened to it and were taking notes, but it’s clear that they saw the same things we did.

I said earlier that experience is overrated, but I did start that phrase off by adding the caveat “often times.” Modafferi is a veteran of the fight game and has been involved in MMA since 2003. That means when Modafferi was lacing up for her first pro fight, Barber was in high school somewhere, trying to find her way to Geometry class, probably. I have no idea what level of math she took at that age, but I assume it’s higher than Algebra 1. Anyways, the fight itself was a great display of veteran savvy against the speed of youth. Modafferi showed a much-improved jab, throwing it out there with a piston-like motion, quickly and repeatedly. Modafferi kept moving in and out, not giving Barber a chance to sit down on her punches and land her hooks and elbows. Barber opted to try and check Modafferi’s lead hand from the southpaw position, but ate a lot of jabs and right hands for her troubles. Modafferi is able to get Barber to the ground, tiring out Barber and keeping the younger fighter grounded for most of the first round. In the second round, that jab comes out firing and drops Barber, and once the fight goes to the ground Modafferi has the clear advantage. Despite scoring some reversals and some cool elbows from the bottom, Modafferi is too much for Barber. Round 3 is more or less the same as round 2, with Modafferi dropping Barber again and working her on the ground. It’s entirely possible that the limited mobility of Barber’s left knee was the determining factor in her loss. Not to get too sidetracked, but Sam mentioned in a tweet how baffled the commentators seemed to be when the doctor checked in on Barber’s knee before the start of round 3. Were they not aware that it’s the doctors job to check on the health of the fighters? Maybe they didn’t know this. Even without the busted knee, it was clear that the straight punching and feints of Modafferi was giving Barber a lot of problems. Even though Barber had some great reversals, the grappling of Modafferi was clearly on a level above. Sometimes, it pays to have been around the block and know when you’re in danger and when you’re in the lead. Modafferi looked cool and collected during both the striking and grappling phases of the fight, and it showed that the fight game isn’t all about speed and power.

Modafferi still seems to have some room left on her ceiling, and the weight class does seem to have some more game opponents for her. She’s alternated between wins and losses, but let’s keep in mind that her last two losses were against fighters who both missed weight and the fight took place at a catchweight. Both Sijara Eubanks and Jennifer Maia aren’t on the smaller side of flyweight, and some credit should be given to Modafferi for accepting the fights despite being at a disadvantage. With a win over Barber, Modafferi could try for someone in the top five, like Viviane Araujo (ah-roo-ho) who currently doesn’t have a fight scheduled.

For Barber, she still has time to develop, after all she’s the youngest female fighter on the UFC roster. Hopefully her camp can address some striking deficiencies and use this fight as a learning experience. Alexis Davis doesn’t have a fight lined up at the moment, and neither does Antonina Shevchenko. Perhaps a fight against either of them in the near future makes sense.