Part Reptile: UFC, MMA and Me

by Dan Hardy

  As I write today, with Rousey not having fought since her startling defeat at the hands (and feet) of Holly Holm over a year ago, a brash Irishman with a red beard has assumed the mantle of the Octagon’s undisputed biggest star. The month after Rousey–Holm did 1.1 million PPVs, Conor McGregor versus Jose Aldo did 1.2 million. McGregor has headlined three cards since, attracting around 5 million PPV buys along the way. The Notorious is a different type of phenomenon, but no less impressive. His swagger and sharp tongue made him more famous and marketable by his third fight than legends like GSP or Silva were in their tenth. He also benefits from the Irish fans, surely the most vociferous in all of sport. Within MMA, the Brazilians are known to be extremely passionate, but only really when it is convenient for them to attend a show. In contrast, the Irish will go above and beyond to fly across an ocean in large numbers to fill an auditorium for a press conference. And when it comes to fight night, I have never experienced anything, in any arena, anywhere in the world like being cageside for a McGregor fight in Dublin. It has all allowed Conor to create the optimum persona to thrive within the modern-day business side of sport, although this money-obsessed alter-ego is beginning to grate within UFC circles. Beyond the hubris, however, there is no denying he is a special fighter. His understanding of range and timing is almost as good as his ability to get inside an opponent’s head. More than that, McGregor displays a thirst for knowledge within martial arts and appears to be on a constant quest to introduce new elements into the Octagon and diversify his already versatile attack. This cerebral approach has seen him gravitate towards some of the sharpest minds in the sport, which has evolved his game and greatly expanded his ability as a fighter. His left hand is now as consistent as it is devastating and is totally unique to him in the way he delivers it from a long southpaw stance. And with at least two or three years left at the top of his game, Conor has plenty of time to earn a place within the pantheon of all-time greats.

  • • •

  It is more than four years since I last fought, but I am a better fighter now than then. Four years of intently studying the sport can only improve the most important aspect of any elite mixed martial artist’s game: fighting intelligence. Before my enforced layoff, I would pick and choose what I wanted to watch. I looked to specific fighters, my opponents, others with a similar style to my own or one that I saw a benefit in emulating. I’d watch big historical bouts over and over again, and often just the main card of an event. I tended to ignore fighters I considered to be a level or two below me, partly due to a fear of somehow picking up some of their bad habits, integrating what I was seeing into my subconscious, and it having a negative impact on my overall game.

  Now, however, I watch absolutely everything, literally hundreds of fights per week. For the first time in my life I’m watching MMA to the point that I want to turn it off and do something else. I regularly find myself awake at 3am or 4am watching bouts that I’ve already studied and taken notes on earlier that day. I’ll fall asleep mid-round and wake a few hours later assuming I was taking nothing in as drowsiness enveloped me. Then, a day or two later in the gym, I’ll utilise a move or technique I didn’t know I had, one that had seeped quietly into my subconscious throughout a marathon session of scrutinising fight footage. Recently I was researching Jacaré Souza, a guy I consider to be in the top three in the UFC when it comes to the grappling arts. For hours I broke down the techniques he goes to repeatedly and effectively before, without thinking, I used the same transitions and submissions in the gym. Were it not for the fact I was commentating in an upcoming Souza fight, I would never have spent an evening analysing him. Therein lies the beauty of my current role: the broadening scope of what I watch has opened me up to techniques, movement patterns and game-plans that I’d not considered or used before.

  When I agreed to take the analyst job, Giff told me that in a year’s time I would be viewing the sport through different eyes. I wasn’t fully aware what he meant at the time, but I can now say that he was completely right. Today, I see so much more when I watch an MMA bout. I can see the influence that teammates have on one another, particularly the guys coming out of the huge American MMA factories where two or three coaches are working with forty fighters. They tend to have the same strengths and weaknesses and similar game-plans. I’ve noticed that guys lower down the card don’t necessarily make different mistakes to the headliners, it’s just that they make those same mistakes more often or at more costly junctures of a fight. It’s a little like watching the Nottingham Panthers play in the British ice hockey league and then a top match from the NHL. I see clear patterns forming, guys making the same moves or having the same reactions to what is happening in a fight. Tyron Woodley for example, standing in orthodox stance, feinting with his right hand, throwing a long jab to follow as a range-finder, then landing his bludgeoning overhand right. I watch fighters chronologically and in depth so I can see the development in their game over a career. I have just sat through the entire UFC back catalogue of Woodley’s upcoming opponent, Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson, three times, back to back. On his debut he knocked out Dan Stittgen with a beautiful head-kick after struggling to land a killer punch, whereas recently his right hand has been finishing most contests. Without having studied his debut, I might think he is all about the right hand and has no secondary option in that position, but I have seen that he uses the exact same footwork for both and so that deadly kick is always there in reserve for when the punches aren’t landing sweetly enough. I can see that the average fight IQ of UFC fighters is getting higher every year. When I first watched the UFC there wasn’t much strategy, but guys are now setting traps every minute of every round. The increased intelligence is necessary because fighters are so well prepared for one another and at the elite level the physical abilities are often very similar. It’s fascinating to find these traps being set on the ground in particular, with fighters punching opponents in a certain way to make them move into the position they want. Just like Nate Diaz did to McGregor in the second round of their first meeting. It is a much more cerebral approach in comparison to the early days of hitting anywhere and everywhere as hard and fast as possible.

  Having the opportunity to speak with top coaches like John Danaher has only reinforced my renewed education. I first met John properly when I travelled up to Tristar in Montreal to help GSP in his fight preparations for the Condit and Diaz fights. Our hotel room doors were opposite each other so I was fortunate enough to get a few minutes at the end of each day in conversation with him. I found him to be one of the most fascinating and compelling individuals I had ever met. He is a black belt under the legendary Renzo Gracie and is responsible for the development of some of the best combat athletes in the world. Clearly a very intelligent individual, he has turned his analytical and philosophical mind on the art of grappling. In GSP’s corner when we fought, he studied me ahead of the bout and was kind enough to impart some of his observations when we spoke. It forever changed the way I look at the sport of MMA. He and his students, under the banner of The Danaher Death Squad, are changing the sport of submission wrestling. The small but dedicated group of athletes that work with John every day are currently claiming all of the belts, medals and trophies that the grappling world has to offer. I am determined to study under him in the future, but for now I can sit back and watch as his brilliant mind is changing combat sports before my eyes.

  I can also see that the evolution of MMA has slowed in recent years. Brazilian jiu-jitsu, ground-and-pound, and sprawl-and-brawl all had their day, but we are now settling down in the middle of a more prolonged era of effective-striking domination. There was a time when guys learnt a bit of everything in order to be able to keep the fight in their preferred range, but modern-day champions are almost as proficient in jiu-jitsu as they are in wrestling and, in turn, striking. The globalisation of sport and the rise of social media has had an effect, with free and easy access to everything at our fingertips. I used to struggl
e for MMA footage, but now I can watch six shows from six countries in any given weekend. There are probably fewer surprises now, with geographical influences less pronounced. Where once upon a time the average Brazilian fighter was all about jiu-jitsu, the American was a wrestler first and foremost, the Asian fighters had either a more flamboyant and unpredictable or strictly traditional style of martial arts and the European was an ex-kickboxer who learnt gi grappling at the local Gracie Barra, a more integrated approach is now evident as kids have access to specialist MMA gyms from day one. I often wish I could go back in time and, rather than spend thousands of childhood hours marching up and down the village hall practising blocks and kicks and stances, could practise takedown defence, taking a back and sinking a rear-naked choke instead.

  As MMA has evolved over the years, it has shed a lot of superfluous techniques as fighters figure out what does and doesn’t work inside a cage. But I find it interesting that certain patterns that were once dismissed have later proved to be entirely effective in the right hands. Wonderboy standing side-on, or Conor and his exaggerated long stance, for example. Such positions were once frowned upon in the belief they restricted movement and left a fighter vulnerable to takedowns and low kicks, but Thompson and McGregor have found a way to make them work incredibly well. All you really need is an acute awareness of the dangers involved and a clear strategy for how you are going to handle them. With that in place, Wonderboy is free to knock guys out with spinning head-kicks, and Jon Jones can end opponents with spinning elbows and flying knees. Part of the reason why such moves, once regarded as too high risk, now work is because today’s elite fighter is so versatile and has such a deep and varied offence that opponents need to be wary of an almost infinite array of possible attacks. That has actually created a space and a freedom to be more adventurous still and is why Anderson Silva could suddenly pull a front kick to the face out of the bag and put Vitor Belfort to sleep.

  It is also a sign that the way forward is to actually look into the past for inspiration. Bruce Lee once said, ’I don’t believe in different ways of fighting now. I mean, unless human beings have three arms and three legs, then we will have a different way of fighting. But basically we all have two arms and two legs so that is why I believe there should be only one way of fighting and that is no way.’ As well as telling us that we must each strive to find our own optimum way of fighting, Lee was explaining that, somewhere in the long history of martial arts, everything we need to advance has already been done. The secret now is to try and put particular techniques together in a way that works inside the Octagon. I have a Lego analogy I like to use to explain my theory. A jab is your standard Lego brick and is effectively a base and fits with every other piece. But there are plenty of techniques that are much less homogenous. The Von Flue choke, where you force a shoulder into the throat of an opponent when he has made the mistake of holding onto a guillotine as his opponent passes to side control, is a fine example because it only works when the beaten fighter makes the fatal error, or isn’t aware of the danger, of failing to release the guillotine. The Von Flue choke isn’t one of your regular Lego bricks, but rather a specialist piece, a visor maybe that only connects to one particular helmet on a mini-figure.

  Fighters and coaches should now be delving into the martial arts archives in search of specialist Lego pieces and then figuring out how to integrate them into a 2017 MMA contest. My money is on a lot of flying and jumping techniques coming back into play as fighters’ timing in the Octagon continues to improve. I feel we will see a revolution in elbow strikes in the clinch in the next few years. It’s an obvious hole in the game that is being explored by few fighters in the modern day. Carlos Condit put on a beautiful display in the second round of his bout with Thiago Alves, and that really shows how devastating they can be. I also believe that there is a lot of room to enhance striking inside the Octagon. The high-level strikers competing in the striking-specific arts are still generally better than an MMA exponent, but as the bread-and-butter moves of MMA continue to be perfected and streamlined, UFC fighters will have more scope in the gym to focus on striking cleaner and harder and more accurately. Finally, as the transitions from one range to another become even more seamless, the more time fighters have in the cage to think and act. Those extra split seconds will be enough for the best of the best to take a chance with a risky or unorthodox attack and be in sufficient control to soon make it look run of the mill. There are movements and patterns that are an absolute given today that the guys at UFC 1 didn’t even know about. We will have watched UFC 207 by the end of the year, but imagine what levels will have been reached by UFC 300 or 400, when the top mixed martial artists will be closer to perfection than ever. And the beautiful thing about it all is that, as MMA is still so relatively young, we can watch all these evolutions transpire before our eyes.

  • • •

  I get excited watching it, but nothing can compare to doing it. I have my gumshield in my jacket pocket every time I commentate, but soon I hope to be packing my entire kit before I travel to a UFC event. It is true that the doctor testing me for that last bout with Matt Brown gave me a surgery-or-retire ultimatum, but that was just one opinion and I have always believed that another doctor on another day would see it differently. The UFC door has always been left ajar as far as I am concerned. My contract is still valid, and it states I have three more fights left. I love the sport of mixed martial arts infinitely more than I love my own career and I would never contemplate doing anything to risk the reputation of MMA, but I know I still haven’t shown my true capabilities in the Octagon. Far from it, in fact. I still get frustrated watching my younger self in action, often fighting in such a raw and amateurish manner. I could quite easily dissect every one of my fights and highlight all the mistakes I was making along the way. Perhaps one day I will, if only to allow others to learn from my errors and help improve the next generations of fighters.

  There was a time when I couldn’t think of anything outside my family that I cared about more than the martial arts. But with hindsight I now see that I was being blindly led by the ego of youth and what I actually cared about was myself and my own reputation within the world of martial arts. Today I know that no matter what role I play in the future of the sport, it is important as a martial artist to put the tradition of combat sports before any selfish agenda. It shouldn’t really be about being the best fighter in the world, although that is a hell of an achievement and I would have been truly honoured to have ever held that title. The reality of our existence is constantly in flux. As we rise and fall over the years, we have an impact on those around us that will echo through generations. Some, like champions or great musicians, artists and writers, will leave an imprint on millions of individuals around the world, while the influence of others may appear small in comparison. But it is the depth of each individual impact that matters. Although my grandad Derek reached relatively few people during his lifetime, the difference he made in their lives and the lasting impression he left behind is worth a thousand championship belts. To be a champion at life is so much easier than to be a champion at sport, and yet so many fail; even more never even bother to try. Worse still are the champions who are shitty people in real life, and they appear with depressing regularity.

  From my time with plant medicine, often in painful and trying circumstances or just plain beaten, I am now clear about what I am trying to achieve while I am on this Earth. I have spent years focused on being destructive, trying to master the art of breaking another person, and yet even within that environment I can see the positive influence I have had on the people that I have been fortunate enough to reach. I’m under no illusions, however, and am not so arrogant as to believe that I am the source of this good energy. Rather, I am simply the conduit for each and every person that has invested in me, just like the many amazing people before me that made efforts to better themselves and were my inspiration. I want to be the continuation of that good energy and
do what I can in this lifetime to keep it moving forward.

  As we move into a new era with the UFC, the sport of MMA will go from strength to strength. Before the emergence of mixed martial arts, combat systems around the world had become somewhat stagnant. They had been refined as individual styles by many ignorant purists and this led to an unrealistic perspective of real combat and its requirements. Now, within the testing ground that the UFC has established and with each and every MMA show out there providing a safe and fair environment for the new wave of young athletes coming through, we are seeing rapid progress again. The champions of today will be the teachers and examples for future generations.

  I truly believe that safe and regulated fighting arenas are a good thing for humankind. We need spaces within which likeminded individuals can explore their fighting skills and that animalistic, raw and quite beautiful side of our nature that connects us to our origin but has no place in modern society. An aggressive or competitive nature is a simple matter of energy, driven by hormones, difficult life experiences or a multitude of other sources, that needs a place to be expelled. When this energy is stifled and suppressed, that is when we see it manifest in a variety of unfavourable behaviours. But as humans, there was a substantial time during our evolution when our very survival depended upon these aggressive tendencies. The martial arts school should be a safe space to confront the struggles we all encounter in life and give us the tools to deal responsibly with the misdirected energy that builds inside us or comes our way from others.