Building the Perfect MMA Fighter

What makes for the perfect MMA fighter?

One approach to this question, historically, has been to stitch together a combination of traits from different fighters. A fighter with Jon Jones' elbows, Dan Henderson's right hand, Jose Aldo's legs, Nick Diaz's chin and the utter self-belief of Anderson Silva certainly looks appealing on paper. 

The problem with this approach is that fighters aren't random collections of unconnected and amorphous traits. Jones's elbows are effective because of his height, reach, incredible creativity and extreme calm under pressure.

Diaz's adamantium chin is only partially a physical characteristic: it's just as much a product of his confidence and the incredible, off-the-charts cardio that helps him recover when hurt.

Jose Aldo's kicking effectiveness is a product of multiple factors. He's exceptionally explosive, which allows him to cover distance, and the threat of his hands and his facility at taking angles opens up opportunities to land them.

On the downside, the patience that makes his strikes so devastating slows his pace, and his explosiveness limits his gas tank.

Dan Henderson's right hand, and his power punching in general, shows us these limitations and drawbacks more clearly than any other characteristic. Henderson generates his incredible force by throwing his bodyweight into his shots, leaving him unable to follow up with another shot and often making him perfectly predictable. 

Even the great Fedor Emelianenko's outsized power came with a price: repeated hand injuries that kept him out of action for long periods of time that possibly shortened his career.

The point of these examples is that the best fighters represent a unique blend of traits that come together to form a complete package. Attempts to combine random facets into the perfect fighter—as fun as that might be as a thought experiment—misses something fundamental about what makes great fighters, great.

The best fighters build their skill sets around their attitudes, personalities and physical characteristics. They evolve over the course of their careers, learning from their mistakes and missteps and evolving as they attempt to shift their approach to make up for aging and physical decline.

In other words, the perfect 22-year-old up-and-comer would be different in meaningful ways than the perfect 28-year-old version of that same fighter.

Take Jose Aldo as an example.

He was a wild man in his early WEC career—a technical but devastating combination of off-the-charts explosiveness and aggression. The first strike he threw against Cub Swanson was a double flying knee, and he piled up a whopping 38 significant strikes against Mike Brown in just over six minutes to win the title.

Compare that version of Aldo to the calm and measured battle-scarred 27-year-old fighter who took a clean five-round decision from Ricardo Lamas, and the difference is clear: The older Aldo adopted a slower paced and more defensively-sound style as the years wore on. He featured unmatched head movement and command of angles.

Both versions were essentially perfect from a technical perspective. The younger fighter was an offensive juggernaut, and the older version was perhaps the soundest defensive fighter in the history of MMA.

Georges St-Pierre is another example of evolving perfection.

He burst onto the scene as an athletic marvel unmatched in the brief history of MMA, blowing through solid fighters like Karo Parisyan, Jay Hieron, Jason Miller and Sean Sherk with a combination of physical gifts and surprising technical skill in the transitions.

As he became a long-reigning champion, however, St-Pierre had to adjust his game. His physical advantage was less pronounced against fighters like Thiago Alves and Josh Koscheck, not to mention, Johny Hendricks.

Instead of spinning strikes and laser right hands, we saw an increased use of the jab and ever-improving takedowns. His suffocating and damaging top game became the center of his approach.

Like an aging NBA player, St-Pierre mastered the MMA equivalent of the low-post game and turnaround jumper as he replaced athletic dominance with exceptional depth of skill and experience.

The willingness to make those changes is what extended his career as a champion in the deepest and most difficult division in the sport. It allowed him to defeat three full generations of challengers—from Matt Hughes to Hendricks.

Aldo and St-Pierre are two of the most physically gifted athletes in the sport.

What about fighters who haven't been blessed with incredible speed and explosiveness? What about fighters who perhaps didn't start fighting in their late teens and can't simply adjust their skill sets to make up for declining athleticism with skill-born decades of experience?

Let's use Nick Diaz as an example.

In terms of speed and explosiveness, he's nowhere close to a GSP or Aldo. He can't hit superman punches into double legs like a 21-year-old GSP, or go from a liver shot to a low kick like Aldo—it would be a waste of time for him to try.

What Diaz does have is unmatched cardio, an iron chin, an aggressive streak a mile wide and great instincts for swarming with punching combinations.

The perfect version of Diaz was the fighter who weathered Paul Daley's and BJ Penn's early storms and overwhelmed them with pressure and volume as the fights wore on. He too evolved over the course of his career, embracing those positive characteristics and maximizing their effectiveness.

Michael Bisping has never, and at this point, probably never will hold a UFC title, but it's hard to argue that he hasn't maximized his talents and become the best possible version of himself.

Bisping is a decent athlete, but he won't blow anyone away with his speed or punching power. On the other hand, he has incredible cardio and great talent for adjusting in the middle of his fights.

As his career has gone on, Bisping has evolved his game to accentuate those things. He's well rounded and knows when to shoot for takedowns. He picks his spots to exchange, and he's always working, always piling up volume and landing shots.

Whether he can get the finish or not, Bisping is always scoring with an eye on the decision. Since losing to Tim Kennedy two years ago, Bisping has been the perfect version of himself.

Those characteristics are at the core of what makes for a perfect fighter: self-awareness and self-knowledge. It does no good for an explosive athlete with a limited gas tank to try to match the extreme volume of a Bisping or Diaz, just as a cardio freak without much power or speed would be foolish to pattern his or her game after Aldo or St-Pierre.

Personality matters just as much as physical characteristics. 

Fighters who understand what drives them and what builds their game tend to be the most successful. A pathologically aggressive fighter, like the young Justin Gaethje, would go nuts trying to sit back and counter like a 40-year-old Anderson Silva.

As Gaethje put it in an interview with Sherdog.com back in 2015, "That's just the way I am, you know?"

Coaches who know their fighters and can adapt to changing circumstances are essential. Experienced trainer Firas Zahabi, for example, looks at multiple factors: "I would say that, one, it’s body type—always material first—and, second, temperament," he said in a 2014 interview with Sherdog.com. Those characteristics change over time, and both coaches and fighters have to adjust. 

There is no perfect fighter in a Platonic, idealized sense. There are, however, potentially perfect versions of particular fighters at a given time and stage of their careers. It takes self-knowledge and coaches who know the fighter to make the necessary changes and adjustments.

"Perfect" is an imprecise term, particularly when discussing something as complex and messy as the process of building a fighter. Perhaps there really is no such thing as a perfect fighter. Alternatively, perfection may last only for a single fight, or even a single round or minute.

That meeting between personality, physical gifts, skills and coaching is a special thing when it happens.

 

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 and Facebook.

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