November 1st was, unlike most Saturdays, a UFC-less evening, perhaps to give poor, haggard hardcore fans of MMA a chance to rest up before yet another UFC double-header next weekend. But, for those depraved souls who simply cannot enjoy a weekend bereft of martial arts action, there was Invicta FC, the world’s foremost fight promotion dedicated only to women’s mixed martial arts.
Unfortunately the event, Invicta’s ninth, was not altogether easy to watch, likely because of the UFC’s own foray into women’s MMA, which has tapped female fighting of its best talent. Still, there were some gems in this long night of fighting. In particular, there were Mizuki Inoue and Karolina Kowalkiewicz, a pair of strawweight warriors fit to soothe any jittery fight fans withdrawal symptoms.
Inoue is probably the most hyped strawweight not to have made the cut for the Ultimate Fighter 20, while Kowalkiewicz is a talented prospect out of Poland’s KSW promotion.
Inoue, as she usually is these days, was favored to win fairly heavily, but that expectation always comes with a caveat. Inoue is that eternally frustrating breed of fighter who, despite being well-rounded in most facets of MMA, struggles to transition from one to the other. Ultimately, that inability to transition sealed Inoue’s fate, as she dropped a split decision to Kowalkiewicz after three hard-fought, but not necessarily smart-fought rounds.
You see, it’s not just phase-to-phase transitions that Inoue struggles with. Certainly, she might have fared better against Kowalkiewicz if she possessed a more reliable, systematic way of getting the fight to the ground, where her chances seemed to be best. Even if we isolate our analysis to the standup portion of the bout, however, Inoue’s game displays a troubling lack of transitions, namely, those between defense and offense.
I’ve been asked a few times over the past few months to analyze Mizuki. Most of those soliciting the analysis have been primarily interested in Inoue’s use of the high guard, a defensive posture wherein she uses her hands and forearms to block and deflect punches. To understand this interest, we must first
THE DOGMA OF DEFENSE
Mixed martial arts, ironically, has for a long time been a sport that actively condemns new ideas. Quite contrary to the idea of mixing the best aspects of the best martial arts, fighters have for decades now been sticking to the same, tried and true formula: Muay Thai for striking, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for submission grappling, Wrestling for takedowns. All else is untested, and therefore not worth trying.
One of the most telling products of this dogma is MMA’s outright ban on head movement. Recently this has begun to change, but in some circles the idea still stands: “bobbing and weaving” is a surefire way to get knocked out by a kick or a knee. Scroll through any forum discussion about head movement in MMA and you will discover at least one poster whose only insight is “lol this isnt boxing.” That’s the basis for the belief, of course. Sure, in boxing you can slip, dip, roll, pull, and whatever else, but this isn’t boxing! If you move your head, this will happen!
Which . . . yeah. That might actually happen. Nothing, not even standing still and covering up, can be done without risk in a full contact fighting sport, which brings up the essential absurdity of the argument that head movement is inordinately risky: boxers already deal with a wide variety of punches expressly designed to counter and punish head movement. Combat sports are not about avoiding risk at all costs, but rather mitigating it, and at the same time creating and capitalizing on opportunities.
So now we come to the meat of the matter–the reason this article about Mizuki Inoue has digressed into a discussion of defense in MMA. You see, every time this discussion of head movement arises, some hopeful soul will try to strike a happy medium between MMA and the sweet science.
“It doesn’t have to be just like boxing,” this person will say (only trying to help, of course), “But you can still move your head. In fact, you can keep your hands up high and tight and move your head at the same time!”
Which doesn’t sound like such a bad suggestion at first. The idea is that one can utilize many layers of defense–multiple prescriptive reactions to the same threat, so as to minimize the chances of being caught in a trap. So just in case you slip Cro Cop’s straight left and end up leaning into a head kick, your hands are still glued to your eyebrows to help you sustain the blow.
If we follow this train of thought to its logical conclusion, however, the cracks start to show. But rather than prattle on any further, I’ll let Mizuki herself demonstrate that to you.
(Click to enlarge)
1. Inoue and Kowalkiewicz square off.
2. Kowalkiewicz leads with a jab, and Inoue raises both hands to block it.
3. As Kowalkiewicz sits down and loads up a cross, Mizuki covers up with both hands.
4. Now the punch extends, and Inoue steps back, slides her left arm up to block the blow, and changes levels.
5. Kowalkiewicz, lacking a good left hook, follows with another cross, and Inoue slips this as well, both hands still glued to her head, as she steps back once more.
6. And the fighters find themselves once more in a neutral position.
Looking at that sequence you may be asking, “What’s the problem?” After all, Kowalkiewicz had plenty of trouble hitting Inoue cleanly, both in this exchange and throughout the fight as a whole.
The problem is that playing it safe doesn’t win fights. As much as I love great defensive fighters–I count Wilfred Benitez, Nicolino Locche, and Willie Pep among my all-time favorite fighters–defense is worthless in combat sports unless the offensive opportunities it creates are used. Yes, the sequence above is just one short example, but it is indicative of Inoue’s attitude throughout the contest. She spent far too much time waiting on Kowalkiewicz, blocking, slipping, moving, and trying to pick off her opponent’s shots rather than landing ones of her own.
In other words, yes–Inoue’s method is, for the most part, very safe. And utilizing her many-layered defense, she patiently and safely rode her way to a decision loss.
SAFETY FIRST
There is a deep conceptual flaw in the practice of keeping a tight guard at all times. If every movement is accompanied by a high, tight guard–“just in case”–then every movement becomes utterly defensive. Soon, the fighter begins to fear letting his or her hands go, because “what if I get hit?” The moment Inoue feels like she needs her hands for defense, she is effectively handcuffing herself. It’s a tacit agreement not to hit back.
Boxing isn’t a sport rife with defensive wizards. This same problem–that of the overly defensive mindset–exists in boxing too. Winky Wright is an excellent example of the drawbacks of the high guard, with which he is usually associated more heavily than any other boxer. Check out this exchange against Jermain Taylor.
Wright, in the white gloves, starts well, cornering Taylor and slipping a variety of strikes around and through his guard. His offense is pretty great, in fact. And then . . . he just stops. And backs up. And waits.
And waits.
There Jermain Taylor is, sitting in the corner, himself on the defensive and, by all appearances, unable or unwilling to make an escape to center ring. And yet Wright steps back, holds his gloves up to his eyebrows, and simply hangs out until Taylor works up the courage to come back at him. “Your turn,” Wright’s body language says.
The “just in case” defensive mentality creates an artificial distinction between offense and defense. When a fighter needs those gloves to block punches–or feels that he does–then he’s either attacking, or defending. Never both.
Ultimately, Inoue found herself falling into a pattern of defense, offense, defense, offense, rather than utilizing both concepts simultaneously, with one enhancing the other. In most fights her offensive boxing, which is quite good, is given a chance to shine, but that only happens against fighters who go on the defensive like she does. Kowalkiewicz simply didn’t care about Mizuki’s offense. When Inoue covered up, she threw. When Inoue threw, she threw right back. It wasn’t always pretty, but the Pole’s consistent volume kept Inoue from ever approaching the kind of offensive momentum she needed to pull ahead.
Mizuki Inoue is still a hot prospect, and fighters often need years of experience to grow out of the either/or mentality when it comes to offensive and defensive fighting. By placing so much importance on keeping a tight, high guard at all times, however, Inoue is likely stunting her ability to grow into a more varied, adaptable fighter. Oddly enough, Inoue’s transitional fighting was better in her Shootboxing days–
–so maybe she’s bought into the MMA defensive dogma after all. Who knows? The only certain thing is that, as Mizuki is now, fighters like Karolina Kowalkiewicz will beat her every time.
For more analysis, check out Heavy Hands, the only podcast dedicated to the finer points of face-punching. Our latest episode features BE’s own Coach Mike Riordan, who discusses his background in wrestling, and how this underappreciated art is fundamental to mixed martial arts.