Robbie Lawler and Carlos Condit went to war on Saturday night at UFC 195.
The champion walked away with his belt—but not without controversy. Per Fightmetric, Condit outlanded Lawler by 84 significant strikes, the largest margin for a losing fighter in the history of the UFC. On the other hand, Lawler dropped some absolute bombs on the challenger, including a knockdown in the second round and a sustained flurry of violence in the fifth and final frame.
Other pieces have addressed the debate over scoring and its implications, so we won't do that here; instead, we'll take a look at some of the technical aspects of Condit's and Lawler's donnybrook. Several other bouts showcased high-level technique, especially the slick scrap between Lorenz Larkin and Albert Tumenov and the Fight Pass headliner that featured Dustin Poirier and Joseph Duffy.
Robbie Lawler vs. Carlos Condit
Both fighters came into this fight with distinct and identifiable game plans, both of which worked to some extent.
Lawler had clearly decided that he couldn't match Condit's insane work rate over the course of the fight; instead, he committed to a two-pronged strategy intended to minimize Condit's ability to impose his crushing pace and launch into crazy bursts of violence.
The first part of that strategy consisted of stalking and putting Condit's back against the fence. The challenger isn't terribly dangerous off his back foot: He offers little as a counterpuncher, and while he has a good sense of where he is in the cage, he relies more on big movements and misdirection than tight pivots and turns.
With little to fear from Condit in that position, Lawler could land a big, memorable flurry like the one that won him the third round on two judges' scorecards. To his credit, though, Condit did a good job of staying off the fence, and he mostly limited the effectiveness of Lawler's pressure.
The second piece of Lawler's strategy revolved around consistent movement, with tight pivots and lateral steps that kept him out of Condit's woodchipper-like wheelhouse of knees, elbows and punching flurries. Condit is lethal when he can put his opponent's back against the fence, and Lawler never let himself get pushed back that far. Yes, he ate a ton of kicks to the legs and body, but at no point was he in true danger.
When he deemed the time right as Condit attacked, Lawler stopped, planted his feet and exploded into a vicious counter combination. That's how he dropped the challenger in the second round with a right hook.
Condit's approach to the fight revolved around pace, offensive output and overloading his opponent with information.
The champion doesn't get enough credit for being a sharp counterpuncher. In fact, the incarnation of Lawler that has been so successful in the last several years is one of the most cerebral and therefore most dangerous in the sport today. Counterpunching relies on the ability to time your opponent, judge the distance and pick the right shot at the right time. That requires intelligence, experience and patience.
Think of a counterpuncher as a computer. He takes in information about distance, rhythm and timing, processes it and then spits out the correct answer in the form of the proper counter to whatever his opponent will throw next.
Condit engaged in the classic strategy for confusing a smart counterpuncher. His constant barrage of punches and kicks in odd combinations—he went from kicks to punches, punches to kicks and followed one kick with another—overloaded Lawler with information. The challenger's command of long range often left Lawler too far outside to land his preferred punches as well.
There were too many cues for the smart, observant Lawler to choose from, and so for long stretches of the fight, the champion did basically nothing while Condit hit him from too far away for Lawler to hit him back.
That consistent output of strikes not only confused Lawler and took away his dangerous counterpunches for long stretches of the fight, they also scored. In general, the fighter who consistently lands more strikes in every round tends to win them. Condit outlanded Lawler by a substantial margin in practically every round, even the second, when the champion scored a vicious knockdown.
The fact that Lawler still had enough left to launch one of the most devastating bursts of violence the sport has ever seen in the final frame is a testament to his durability. Most fighters would have wilted and seen their gas tanks drain long before the fifth round, and that's almost certainly what Condit and his coaches intended.
The debate over this fight's scoring is in large part a function of these game plans. Lawler was never going to outland Condit over five rounds, and even more so in this fight since he barely used the sharp, effective jab he'd shown in his last several fights. If he was going to win, it either needed to be by knockout or by producing moments big enough to outweigh Condit's consistent volume.
As it turned out, that was enough to convince two of the three judges, but not most of the media or a large number of fans.
Albert Tumenov vs. Lorenz Larkin
While it didn't turn into the violence-fest that many anticipated, Tumenov and Larkin did put on a heck of a technical striking matchup. It was close, and it showed the best versions of both fighters that we've seen in the Octagon.
The fight was a study in contrasting strike locations: Per Fightmetric, 47 of Larkin's 69 landed strikes were to the legs, while Tumenov attacked Larkin's body and head with 71 of his 76 landed strikes. The second round clearly went to the Russian, who flurried repeatedly with hard body shots, and the third went to Larkin's vicious assault on Tumenov's legs.
The first was the deciding round, and two of the three judges sided with Tumenov's sharp right hands to the head rather than Larkin's stinging low kicks.
Both fighters showcased high-level technique. The highlight of the fight for Larkin was the spinning heel kicks he landed to Tumenov's leg in the third round. The late K-1 champion Andy Hug made them famous in the 1990s, and only a few fighters have ever thrown them in MMA. They further damaged Tumenov's already welted leg and left him hobbling, though it was too little, too late.
Tumenov's highlights might not even stand out at first glance. He did an outstanding job of landing sharp counters throughout the fight, beginning with straight rights in response to Larkin's low kicks and continuing on to backstepping counters and combinations in the pocket as Larkin moved forward.
While Larkin kept kicking, he ate so many counters to his punches that it effectively shut down his ability to land shots to Tumenov's head. The statistics bear this out: Tumenov is normally somewhat hittable, but Larkin landed only 12 head shots the entire fight. The American had trouble committing to full-force shots knowing that something sharper would be coming right back.
Dustin Poirier vs. Joseph Duffy
The best Fight Pass preliminary bout ever turned into an excellent fight. Duffy had his moments and showed off some of his sharp striking, but the story of the fight was Poirier's cool under fire and ability to make the right decisions in the midst of the fight.
Experience and diversity won this fight for Poirier. A veteran of 14 fights in the UFC, Poirer has a full set of skills, and he switched things up either in response to what he saw from Duffy or by design, as part of his game plan.
Poirier came out throwing bombs on the feet, but Duffy laced him with jabs and sharp right hands from the opening bell. The Irishman's sharp footwork gave Poirier fits, particularly when Duffy was able to stick the American on the end of his longer straight punches. He also showcased a surprising ability in exchanges, landing combinations in the pocket and using tight footwork to avoid the return shots.
Where Poirier found his groove was in the clinch and on the mat. When he tied up with Duffy, the American was able to land hard short punches in the clinch. He alternated between right hooks over the top and right uppercuts up the middle, using a single collar tie with his left hand to hold Duffy's head in place.
The more salient part of Poirier's approach was his experience in working against the fence, an MMA-specific skill set that his camp at American Top Team teaches well. He excelled at cage wrestling, driving Duffy's hips against the fence, switching techniques and then sucking him away.
The Irishman wasn't able to get anything going off his back because his hips had nowhere to go, and Poirier ate up the second and third rounds from top position. Hard elbows and punches, many of them delivered in brutal fashion, cemented those two rounds to give Poirier a clean decision.
Patrick Wyman is the Senior MMA Analyst for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Heavy Hands Podcast, your source for the finer points of face-punching. He can be found on Twitter.
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