Fight Study 67 – Poirier vs. Hooker (transcript) (Patreon)

For the fifth time in a row, the UFC again returned to the APEX center to put on another ESPN card. You’ll be forgiven if you didn’t recognize most of the names, and in the middle of a pandemic, it’s hard to ask for top tier talent to fight for pennies without a guarantee on their health and safety. Even the most ardent critics are hard pressed to find anything bad to say about the main event. As soon as the match-up was announced, it was clear that the fight had future title implications. Poirier is a former interim champ that’s clearly established as one of the division’s elite, and Hooker has really filled out his lightweight frame to become a serious contender. In another lightweight classic, Dustin Poirier beat Dan Hooker by unanimous decision. Even though the scorecards clearly indicated that Poirier had beaten Hooker three rounds to two, the fight was very close heading into the fifth round. Instead of doing a simple play by play, which honestly, wouldn’t do the fight justice, let’s take a closer look at the little details that made the differences in the fight.

Early on, it was clear that Hooker had done his homework on the former champion.  Just like in his fight against Paul Felder and Al Iaquinta, Hooker made sure to dictate the range and the pace that they would be fighting at. Both Poirier and Hooker are adept at feinting, and in the first few rounds it was Hooker who was able to get Poirier to swing and miss first. Looking at their frames, it’s hard to believe that both guys were featherweights, especially Hooker. This is a guy that’s 6 feet tall with a 75” reach. At lightweight, only Tony Ferguson has a longer reach at 76.5”. If you’re wondering what made Hooker so successful, look carefully at how Hooker set up his jab.   

As talked about countless times on this podcast, the jab is one of the most effective striking tools a fighter can have in their arsenal. Some may argue that it is THE most important striking tool you can have. Divisions across both genders and all weight classes have examples of fighters that have built amazing careers on top of a great jabbing game. Rose Namajunas dethroned Joanna Jędrzejczyk by using her feints and constant jabs to get Joanna to overreact and throw off her timing, setting her up for her own right straight. A large part of Stipe Miocic’s strategy in beating Francis Ngannou was to constantly jab and mix in convincing feints so Ngannou would start swinging, only for Miocic to dip under and get on his hips.

Hooker’s jab came mostly from the arm, without turning his hips often and could do this on the retreat. It might not seem like much, or powerful, but they were thrown with very little tell. Coming off the longest layoff of his career, it was hard for Poirier to try and time the jabs, and Hooker mixed up his levels by throwing plenty of inside low kicks whenever he squared up. Compounding this issue for Poirier was Hooker’s ability to throw hooks off the jab to the head and body and landing straights to the midsection, sapping his energy levels and badly limiting his mobility. If things weren’t dangerous enough, Hooker had no problem throwing the right knee whenever Poirier got close enough to throw his southpaw straight, a clear and present danger that fighters like Ross Pearson and Jim Miller found out about the hard way. It was clear that Hooker wanted to establish himself as the superior striker, and he showed that has the tools to do so.

A neat trick that Hooker displayed from time to time that caught Poirier more than once was the darting jab. Hooker would start stepping towards his left, push off his lead foot to dart to the other side, and hit Poirier with the jab as he did so to keep him from countering. This was a favorite of Eddie Alvarez and was used beautifully by Miguel Cotto in his rematch against Antonio Magarito.

One of Poirier’s bad habits is still stance switching while attacking, and this has proven to be the bane of many who utilize this style. Dominick Cruz, TJ Dillashaw, and Demetrius Johnson have all been dropped while moving forward and stance switching. Hooker had a lot of success and caught Poirier clean during the moments where Poirier swung hard with his left without minding his footwork.

When Poirier did chase and come forward, Hooker was comfortable exchanging combinations at close range. Even though he wasn’t fighting at his optimal distance, Hooker was able to hurt Poirier whenever he was moving back since Poirier would collide with his strikes, creating more impact. Hooker might not be the knockout artist that Justin Gaethje is, but he has plenty of firepower to do damage on the feet.

In addition to all this, we were also treated to some improved grappling by Hooker as he took a page out of Pettis and Khabib’s playbook and shot in for takedowns to score points and keep Poirier guessing while on his feet. He landed the takedown several times and Poirier didn’t seem to mind it at first.

At this point, you might be thinking to yourself, “If Hooker did all these things so well, how was it possible that he lost?” Simply put, the answer is because Poirier is an elite fighter that can make adjustments as the fight goes on, and even in moments where he was getting beat, he was also putting in damage against Hooker that would pay dividends as the fight entered the later rounds.

Those watching the fight could reasonably conclude that at the end of round two that Poirier had to turn things around, but the outcome looked bleak. He took a ton of damage on his lead leg, was getting cracked with the left hook over and over again, and that final swarm of punches by Hooker at end of the second round could have finished him if there was just 30 more seconds on the clock. But Poirier has been in these uncomfortable situations before.

As talked about in the preview, Poirier’s resurgence is tied directly to his improved commitment to the jab, but it hasn’t always been perfect. It’s not entirely Poirier’s fault, his commitment to the stone wall guard meant that he doesn’t always do the best job of defending strikes to the body and legs. George Foreman used this style of defense heavily in the latter stages of his career, but keep in mind he was a gigantic heavyweight with knockout power that didn’t have to worry about protecting his lower extremities from strikes. For all its usefulness, the stone wall defense still has its limitations.

The downside of relying on an effective jabbing game in MMA, regardless if you use it for feints, power strikes, or volume, is that the position itself leaves you wide open for leg kicks. Think of all the prolific jabbers in the sport and you’ll also come up with times that they’ve been low kicked repeatedly. Nate Diaz famously boxed up Donald Cerrone on the inside, but took so many leg kicks that it dropped him multiple times in the fight. Calvin Kattar over in the featherweight division is showing the rest of the featherweights what you can do with a great 1-2, but his biggest problems have across fighters that can punt his lead leg and get him worried about possible takedowns. All this is to say that yes, Poirier did take damage from Hooker, but it has just as much to do with his style and not just his shortcomings as a fighter.

Neither of these guys are Gary Russell Jr when it comes to hand speed, but both rely on timing to do most of their damage. Ideally, when you throw a strike, both Poirier and Hooker like throwing punches or kicks over/under your own attack to maximize their offense. Poirier’s success had a lot in common with Hands of Stone himself, Roberto Duran. Even though Duran is currently in the hospital battling COVID-19, his spirit was in the fight, and Poirier showed glimpses of Duran’s famous jabs and setups.

Hooker might have been landing a lot of blows, but Poirier was still having success flicking out his jabs and getting Poirier to react, even if it was with a feint or a movement of his feet. If Hooker reacted to the jab with a jab of his own, Poirier would step in to land a straight to the head or kick him to the body. It’s often the simple things done extremely well that makes fighters elite, and Hooker’s 1-2 had a lot in common with Duran (or Nate Diaz if you want an MMA example). Since the jabs are thrown at such volume and without a threat of a knockout, fighters become complacent in keeping up their defense simply to block an arm punch. Whenever Hooker thought that Poirier’s jab was slow enough for him to counter with a jab of his own, Poirier slipped in and blasted him with a stiff jab-straight combo. Duran caught the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, and Iran Barkley with this setup multiple times.

While we’re on the subject of boxing, Poirier’s use of the leverage guard to keep Hooker from advancing was excellent, and outside of Daniel Cormier I haven’t seen it used much as of late at a high level. Using the leverage guard set up the left hand nicely.

Speaking of the straight, it was fascinating to see Poirier have success with the left hand lead. Throwing your rear hand first isn’t without precedent, and a great number of fighters have had success with it. Fedor Emilianenko, Henry Cejudo, and of course Muhammad Ali are all examples of fighters who do this move well, but Poirier was able to do it from southpaw while being exhausted and hurt. In that same vein, Cejudo was also badly damaged from the strikes of Marlon Moraes, but once he started hammering in right hand leads, Moraes stumbled back and this is where the tables turned.

During this fight, Poirier didn’t do nearly as good of a job setting up his kicks, especially to the body, but they were effective in slowing down Hooker and as the fight wore on, it paid off quite handsomely. Now, it’s hard to say whether it was the kicks themselves that caused Hooker to gas out, but it definitely didn’t help him. Poirier’s jabs might not have been stunning blows, but they landed quite a bit on Hooker’s open mouth, causing his breathing to become more labored and keeping him from recovering. Then again, Hooker just might be prone to gassing out as the fight goes on past the third round. He had a similar issue come up in his Felder fight, only this time his opponent was able to make enough adjustments to hurt him.

Poirier’s takedown defense isn’t the best, but quite frankly he should’ve been able to stop most of Hooker’s. As the fight wore on, instead of attempting his arm in guillotine, Poirier wisely decided to push down Hooker’s neck while rotating his hips to one side and start escaping. It would’ve been one thing if his guillotines were super close to ending the fight, but for the most part Hooker seemed to be able to defend the submission well and had no problem with repeating this over and over.

Poirier’s teammate and training partner, Jorge Masvidal, actually has a similar approach when it comes to utilizing submissions as a takedown defense. Masvidal loves threatening opponents with a D’Arce choke whenever they go low for a single or double leg, and he’s gotten close enough that many opponents bail on future attempts at takedowns since they don’t want to risk getting choked out. The biggest difference is that Masvidal’s attempt at least puts him in a decent position to scramble back up to his feet, whereas Poirier’s guillotine attempts puts him on his back. Once he started to defend the takedowns and do his best to reverse or sweep, Poirier had a lot more success and Hooker’s takedowns became more desperate and telegraphed.

As a testament to his improvement from fight to fight, watching Poirier trap Hooker’s legs with a triangle while advancing position and controlling Hooker’s wrist to keep him from framing back up showed that although he lost his fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov, he defintely learned a thing or two.

The overall arc of the fight was clear: Hooker started off strong, displaying the type of striking game that defintely caught the attention of every lightweight in the top ten. Poirier knew he was down on the scorecards and had to turn it around, and after making some changes he was able to roar back in the last 3 rounds. Great fights are essentially stories in action with no words. Even on mute, Poirier vs Hooker showed you an entire hero’s journey. Ok, Poirier didn’t come back with powers to share with his teammates at American Top Team, but even in victory he acknowledged that he had a lot of things to work on. If this was him after a long layoff and against top competition, I am excited at prospect of seeing him even better. A possible rematch against McGregor is something that Poirier has called for repeatedly, and now might be a great time to set it up. McGregor is in his….3rd retirement? 4th? Whichever it is, I’m sure he saw this fight and is already calculating different setups that he thinks will be successful. Plus, a win by either guy can catapult them into the next contender for the belt.

Things are a bit different for Hooker. He doesn’t get the respect he deserves, but keep in mind this is the same guy that knocked out Gilbert Burns and sent him up to welterweight, and he could very well become the UFC welterweight champion. Hooker’s own jabbing game is respectable and works best on the counters, and he’s got one of the most active kicking game at lightweight. He’s a dangerous match-up against a lot of fighters in the division, but after a war like that he should take a break. When he returns, a fight against Tony Ferguson or Charlies Oliveira would be exciting and can give a better indication of where he stands in the division. If the UFC decides to take more of a re-building approach, Diego Ferreira or Islam Makhachev are also good options. Both fighters are on six fight win streaks and occupy spots on the lower end of the top 15 ranking. If Hooker can put them away, it’ll show that he still belongs among the best in the weight class, but if either Ferreira or Makhachev can score a victory, it’ll prove that perhaps he has more growing to do.

The lightweights were once the marquee division of the UFC when it comes to action, and although bantamweight and featherweights have stolen a bit of their thunder, it’s nice to have a main event like this that shows what the 155 pounders can do.