The special treatment Paige Vanzant had been getting had fans everywhere hoping to see her fall, and fall she did. Against the late replacement, Rose Namajunas, Vanzant was out maneuvered, out struck, out grappled, and submitted in the fifth round. But there are some important lessons in here for fans and Vanzant alike.
Rose Namajunas looked fabulous in her victory and seemed to be a completely different person to the one who lost in a title fight against Carla Esparza. Against Esparza she had looked erratic, bouncing around and leaping in with poorly chosen kicks. Flying kicks and low kicks gave Esparza easy takedowns and Namajunas was so keen to flurry with her hands, and so reluctant to give a thought for defense, that she was tagged with hard punches by Esparza who has almost no stand up skills to speak of and almost always works at a Sean Sherk like reach and height disadvantage.
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Against Vanzant however, Namajunas was always over her feet. Working in those small, phasic movements we discuss whenever we heap praise on Joanna Champion. In and out, seamless in transition from offence to defense.
For Vanzant, it was the usual running forward with Dan Henderson-esque low kicks and pointless side kicks. Every time the low kick, she ate a punch up the bracket while on one foot. Every time she side kicked and got hit with a one-two just the same.
Namajunas was the first to initiate a clinch and quickly took Vanzant down. Vanzant, who likes to set the pace and work from the top, looked completely out of sorts underneath Namajunas and the latter easily passed to side control and knee on belly. Elbows and hammerfists cut Vanzant open within the opening two minutes before the two returned to the feet.
When Vanzant got the clinch on her own terms she went for her usual head and arm throws, and they failed every single time. Head and arm throws are great if you can land them, you wind up in a scarf hold with the opponent’s near arm expose and your full weight on their ribs. You might even wind them on the way down. Unfortunately, in going for a head and arm throw a fighter can expose their back fairly easily. Every time Vanzant went for a head and arm throw, Namajunas sat down and allowed Vanzant to fall with Namajunas on her back.
Without the set ups and subtleties, it’s simply such a dangerous game to play. Even Ronda Rousey, who has spent a lifetime setting up and hitting these throws, gave up her back to Liz Carmouche.
A nice wrinkle which Namajunas was showing was the dropping of her head after her punches. This made it more difficult for Namajunas to close the gap and clinch when she seemed close enough. It’s an interesting knife edge, one risks exposing the double collar tie or becoming a target for an uppercut, but placing the head between oneself and the opponent can effectively neutralize a move to a chest to chest clinch. And as Evander Holyfield would attest, if they run their face onto the top of your head it’s a bonus.
After four rounds that seemed to go by too fast, Namajunas locked in the rear naked choke in the fifth and finished. At no point was Vanzant anything but game, walking onto the blows, struggling out of the submission attempts, and bleeding all over the mat in the process but the Internet is already insisting she was ‘exposed’. As what, a fighter with holes in her game? Great, she can join the queue with every other fighter in the world.
Her sloppy footwork—essentially walking across the ring into blows—her clumsy kicks and lack of a boxing game, her head and arm throws, her constant giving up bad positions and relying on activity and tenacity to save her, all huge issues. But equally, all stuff that can be fixed. You’d have to be an idiot to think she’s been somehow exposed as a bad fighter. Almost a year ago to the day, Namajunas was in exactly the same position having been trumped by Esparza.
Namajunas on the other end of a poorly planned jumping kick.
Namajunas went away, she got disciplined, and she’s come back better than ever. This is a sport where things are learned the hard way or not at all, and it is far easier to make alterations based on “I don’t want that to ever happen again” than “just in case”.
Sage Northcutt, the other UFC golden child, won his bout last night but drew even more ire from UFC fans. I didn’t write anything about Northcutt’s last bout, where his opponent literally fell over himself to initiate the finish, but last night’s affair had a couple of interesting points. The first is that Northcutt will just throw that side kick whenever, even if it really isn’t smart. Pfister did the smart thing and started pressuring Northcutt quickly (doubly smart in the smaller cage), and Northcutt threw the kick up twice. Second time it was parried and Northcutt was defending a takedown with his legs across himself, just as Jon Jones had to when Alexander Gustafsson parried an oblique kick and stepped in on him.
After the takedown, Pfister set to work with some nice attempts at the Tozi pass. Sometimes called the Sao Paulo pass or the Reis pass, this is one of the few methods of breaking and passing the closed guard while in low posture. It works by taking an underhook and walking the hips back to unclasp the opponent’s ankles. It was pretty cool to see Pfister going for it with reasonable success:
Certainly not as attractive as Wilson Reis’ use of the pass, but then it’s named after Reis (sometimes) so you’d expect that. The pass isn’t used by many grapplers with frequency because of the threat of the triangle, but when you see it work it’s a breath of fresh air.
With the aid of a questionable stand up from the referee, Northcutt was returned to his feet whereupon he hit a beautiful takedown and spent the rest of the round on top of Pfister. As Pfister shot in at the beginning of the second round, Northcutt guillotined him. Fans are abuzz about how bad Northcutt looked on the bottom, but then he’s only nineteen years old and he’s got time to learn the game.
Hand picking his opponents, making an entire reality show on Fight Pass just to hype his debut, name dropping him in interviews—it seems at this point that the best thing for Sage Northcutt’s fan appeal would be if UFC brass would just stop talking about him. He’s an exciting fighter, he’s young, and at the risk of sounding like Steve Austin “he’s got a great body”. He has all the tools to be a star on his own—if he needs the UFC to flog him like a dead horse and cherry pick his opponents, he’ll just end up being resented for it. And heels only move merchandise if they can talk, Northcutt doesn’t seem like he has anything divisive to say about anything. Give him a fight that represents what you think he can do, not someone who is clearly supposed to get steam rolled.
Both Vanzant and Northcutt have suffered because the UFC have been so transparent about their desire to see Northcutt and Vanzant succeed. It’s an interesting question—whether special steps should be taken to develop prospects in MMA as in boxing. MMA has lost a lot of interesting match ups because contenders knock each other back at every stage on the ladder but that cut throat contender vs contender matchmaking makes for fantastic, competitive fights on every level of the card. After the UFC’s successful marketing of Conor McGregor, and its attempts with Paige & Sage, it will be interesting to see whether it continues this experiment in 2016.
