Last night Melvin Guillard fans saw something they had never seen before. Instead of a dynamic and aggressive performance, Melvin danced in and out, only occasionally throwing a punch at Jeremy Stephens and almost never throwing more than two at any one time. It was an atypical performance from Guillard. For a Greg Jackson trained fighter, however, it was all too recognizable.
Guillard has joined Jackson’s team in New Mexico. Even if the move hadn’t been trumpeted to the heavens in the MMA media, you could see it in his performance. He barely executed, throwing arm punches and pawing jabs while running in and out. That’s fine with someone who can’t adjust to your speed like Stephens, but I think he’s sending Guillard in the wrong direction. He’s trying to get him to fight safer and its like trying to take a lion for a walk down a city street. You could see his gameplan was counter to his attitude.
For Jackson, it hardly matters. With his fighters the gameplan always comes down to one thing – minimizing risk. He definitely encourages a safety first mentality even when a guy has the ability to overwhelm. And that is a frustrating thing. But it’s also a winning approach. In a sport filled to the brim with mediocre trainers, Jackson is one of the best. He’s like MMA’s Emanuel Steward, winning at the cost of entertainment, fighters destined to be respected but never loved.
Steward is the legendary boxing trainer, famous for molding Tommy Hearns, Wladimir Klitschko and Lennox Lewis into champions. Like Jackson, Steward first made his name with a fighter who featured a wild, attacking style. In Jackson’s case it was Diego Sanchez. For Steward it was Hearns. But later, when working with the transcendent talents of Klitschko, Lewis and Georges St-Pierre, both men found their true colors.
Steward looked at their limitations as fighters and crafted new in ring personalities for them. Klitschko was an aggressive knockout machine with a glass jaw. So how does he dominate? Don’t get hit. Tie up when guys get inside. Don’t exchange. Ever. Steward did the same thing with Lewis too. It was not pretty, but they were winning strategies.
Jackson does the same thing within an MMA context. He took St-Pierre, a bundle of raw talent and skill and crafted a fighter who seems capable of grinding out wins from now until eternity. As dull as many fans considered St-Pierre’s recent title defenses, to Jackson they actually weren’t conservative enough. He wanted more control, less submission attempts, less chances to mess things up.
Perhaps the Jackson style is detrimental to interest. But it’s excellent at creating winners. And no, he’s no miracle worker. Like Steward failed with Andy Lee and to a lesser extent with Jermaine Taylor, Jackson will have his busts too. In the end Jackson is like anyone. He’s limited by the canvas in his ability to paint. But when he has a super talent like St-Pierre or Melvin Guillard he will do his best work, winning work, whether fans like it or not.