Connor Ruebusch
Amanda Nunes, how good is the GOAT?
Connor Ruebusch breaks down the game of the GOAT of women's MMA, Amanda Nunes, ahead of her UFC 289 title fight.
Ryan Garcia: How not to beat a southpaw
Ryan Garcia had exactly the wrong game to beat a southpaw like Gervonta Davis.
What is wrong with Leon Edwards?
This Saturday, Leon Edwards takes on Kamaru Usman for the third time. Looking at this matchup, I was excited to finally revisit my old series, Gameplanning for Greatness, in which I prescribe strategies for championship fights. It would have been called something like, How Leon Edwards beats Kamaru Usman. Only one problem: that series was […]
Gameplanning for Greatness: How Israel Adesanya lost to Alex Pereira
What makes a good gameplan? Is it security? Should a fighter focus his attention on avoiding whatever it is that the opponent does best? Or should he resolve to stick to his own strengths, whether or not it affords the opponent some opportunities? Last weekend, at UFC 281, middleweight champion Israel Adesanya faced his own […]
UFC London technical breakdown: Cooking ribs with Chris Curtis
Chris Curtis was a veteran of 24 fights when he competed on season two of DWTNCS (that’s Dana White’s Dancing with the Contenders, for the uninitiated). A sharp boxer with solid defense and heavy hands, Curtis was what we in the horse-trading business call a finished product. He was good, and he was ready. Of […]
UFC 271 Judo Chop: Breaking down Bobby Green’s crowning moment
Bobby Green has been a very good fighter for a very long time. A veteran of 14 years and 42 professional fights, Green entered the cage last weekend having finally reached what appeared to be his fighting prime. The opponent was Nasrat Haqparast, a formerly hot prospect who, while stagnant, remains a durable and dangerous […]
Israel Adesanya vs. Robert Whittaker 2: Being true to yourself
There are certain matchups that just… deliver. When those matchups are made from a pairing of the two best fighters in a division, viewers can be forgiven for foaming at the mouth, just a little. Holloway and Volkanovski. Figueiredo and Moreno. Whether or not Colby Covington is actually the second best welterweight in the UFC […]
Nick Diaz: The first modern MMA fighter
16 years ago, Robbie Lawler was one of the most hyped young prospects in the UFC. In 2002, he hit Tiki Ghosn so hard, his memory short-circuited. “They stopped it because of a cut,” Ghosn famously recalled, moments after his cornermen managed to scrape his corpse off the canvas. Lawler was fast, powerful, and scary. […]
Gerald Meerschaert: Slow as molasses, still kicking asses
Gerald Meerschaert closed as the biggest underdog on last weekend’s UFC Vegas 35/TUF Finale card. Most sportsbooks had him at about four-to-one odds to beat the Money Team’s Makhmud Muradov, some as steep as six-to-one. And there was sound reasoning to back up those lines. Muradov was on a 14-fight win streak; Meerschart was 8-6 […]
Editorial: Sean Strickland versus the world
This weekend, Sean Strickland is slated to fight Uriah Hall in a contest that could see him elevated to contender, or relegated back to the ranks where he has spent the entirety of his 13-year MMA career. It’s a tantalizing thought, mostly because Strickland is such an exceptionally weird fighter. The way he stands, the […]
Leon Edwards vs Nate Diaz: When fighting safe isn’t safe
Leon Edwards has a problem. He is undeniably the most deserving contender in a division otherwise starved for fresh challengers. The last person to beat Edwards was the current champion, Kamaru Usman, and that was six years and nine (mostly) one-sided wins ago (plus a single one-sided no contest). It seems profoundly obvious that a […]
UFC 262 technique breakdown: How Charles Oliveira knocked out Michael Chandler
We all know the jab is the boxer’s most foundational weapon. It does almost everything, and everything it doesn’t do it helps to set up. But if we had to pick which punch really embodies what it means to box, I might select the humble left hook instead. Boxing (including the boxing we see in […]
Namajunas vs Zhang technique breakdown: Ain’t that a kick in the head
Usually, for the professional MMA geek, a flash knockout is the worst possible outcome. Just like a coach studying tape (but considerably lamer and a lot less useful), we analysts make most of our reads by picking out repeating patterns. And the larger your sample size, the more repetitions you get, the easier the patterns […]
Opinion: Tyron Woodley’s coaches cannot ask him to do the impossible
“I need you to reset, alright? Let’s start this over. Let’s start moving forward, get back on that jab. The low kick is there as well, alright? But we gotta start putting some combinations together. You gotta get him to open up, alright? Soon as he opens up the shots gonna be there for you, […]
UFC 259 technique breakdown: Aljamain Sterling can outstrike Petr Yan
Aljamain Sterling is a worthy contender. So worthy, his upcoming bout with bantamweight champion Petr Yan just may be the best fight the UFC could possibly make right now. It wasn’t always this way. While Yan’s path to the title was as straight as the right hand that got him there, Sterling hit more than […]
Ciryl Gane breakdown: Heavyweight’s best kicker?
Two heavyweights are about to fight, and both of them are good, skillful strikers. Before we move ahead with the rest of this article, I’d like you to pause and reconsider that first sentence. Because when, I ask you, is the last time we were able to say that? Sometimes, heavyweight MMA feels like a […]
Kamaru Usman vs Gilbert Burns breakdown: Clash of Classmates
At the start of 2015, Kamaru Usman and Gilbert Burns were both new to the UFC. Burns was 7-0, having just notched a couple of wins in the Octagon, and Usman, 5-1 with two exhibition wins on The Ultimate Fighter, was poised to earn his first. Both had already accomplished a great deal in other […]
Meathead Melee: Poirier vs McGregor 2 might not be as complicated as you think
This weekend at UFC 257, Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier will meet in the Octagon for the second time. Discussion in the leadup has focused on what may or may not have changed in the six and a half years since the first meeting between the two knockout artists. Both men are bigger, both men […]
Max Holloway vs Calvin Kattar: Sink, swim, or walk around
Max Holloway and Calvin Kattar have a lot in common, even aside from the fact that both men are scheduled to take part in this weekend’s UFC main event. They are within three years of one another in age. Both are 5’11”, tall for the featherweight division they share. Where Holloway has fought 27 times […]
Deiveson Figueiredo: Athleticism is Cheating part 2
UFC flyweight champion Deiveson FIgueiredo’s nickname is Deus da Guerra, which in English sounds a good deal less romantic and considerably more like something you’d find scrawled on an Affliction shirt in Olde English font: “God of War.” Kinda dull, I know. Yet no one dares groan. That’s because the moniker has so far proven […]
Derrick Lewis: The best of the worst
UPDATE: Blaydes vs. Lewis has been cancelled due to Blaydes testing positive for COVID-19, is is presumed Anthony Smith vs Devin Clark will be elevated from the Co-Main and become the new headliner for the event. First, there are a few things you need to know about Derrick Lewis. These are the characteristics that make […]
UFC 255: How Valentina Shevchenko stinks up the joint
Dominance is a double-sided coin. One face is undeniably appealing: who would balk at the chance to see the best in the world do their thing? The other is dull and tarnished: if this person is so much better than their competition why should I care to see them compete? True dominance draws legions of […]
‘The Next Anderson Silva’
This weekend, the world will witness something it has only seen once before. Two Anderson Silvas, fighting each other. More precisely, the world is about to witness Anderson Silva 1.0 (the actual Anderson Silva) versus Anderson Silva 4.0, otherwise known as Uriah Hall. Of course, Hall is no longer the preeminent “Next Anderson Silva,” having […]
UFC 254 breakdown – Justin Gaethje: Learning the hard way
This weekend, Justin Gaethje is set to challenge Khabib Nurmagomedov for the UFC lightweight throne. It was a long road to get here. When Gaethje made his UFC debut in early 2017, his all-action style had already made him the favored cult icon of some of the saddest people on earth: hardcore MMA fans. Casual […]
Kevin Holland: A hero for the crowdless age
“I told myself, I said: even if I got one and two, the last one was like a 10-8. So I was like… f*ck, it might be a draw—oh, my bad—I was like, dang, it might be a draw.” Such were the words of UFC middleweight Kevin Holland after his latest and, arguably, finest performance […]
UFC 248 Judo Chop: How Israel Adesanya and Yoel Romero read their opponents’ minds
In March of 2017, Israel Adesanya stepped into the kickboxing ring for the last time. The opponent was Alex Pereira, and Adesanya spent much of the first two rounds picking him apart. He was too fast, too fluid, too accurate—until he wasn’t. 42 seconds into round three, Adesanya left an opening. A small one. Countering […]
Judo Chop: How Tyson Fury beat Deontay Wilder
The first fight between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder was a close affair. Most of the rounds were Fury’s, some dominated but many merely controlled by him, each one a testament to the grace and agility that bely his Frankenstein frame. Two of the rounds were indisputably Wilder’s, with a knockdown in each, the second […]
UFC Sao Paulo Judo Chop: How Charles Oliveira knocked out Jared Gordon
UFC Sao Paulo happened last Saturday. In Sao Paulo, of all places. And it didn’t exactly deliver. For the latest in an impossibly long streak of UFC events, piling one on top of the other, weekend after weekend, UFC Sao Paulo simply came and went. It was never cut out to be card of the […]
UFC 244 Judo Chop: Stephen Thompson is good, actually
This Saturday, Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal will compete for the eminently meaningful ‘BMF’ belt in the main event of UFC 244. Everyone is talking about it, especially Jorge Masvidal. But no one seems to be talking about one of the more fascinating fights slated for the same card. Watch ‘UFC 244 – ‘MASVIDAL VS […]
UFC 243 Judo Chop: Robert Whittaker’s road to hell (Part 1)
Sometimes good intentions yield bad results. Sometimes, a sensible strategy yields to a better one. Both of these things happened at UFC 243, where Israel Adesanya exchanged his interim title for an undisputed one, and handed Robert Whittaker his first defeat in over five years in the process. At its end, Whittaker’s championship run consisted […]