Badly Utilized Weapons in MMA

To go with my article last week, I’m going to discuss techniques that I think are drastically overused (and often performed badly) in MMA. Seeing these techniques used badly will often throw me into a fit of rage, and I’ll ground and pound the floor until my elbows are scraped and my fists are bloody.
Alright, I’m exaggerating. But seriously, it annoys me every time I see a fighters execute these techniques without any sense of timing or form. Unfortunately, it’s rather hard to find gifs of failed techniques, so instead I’ll give examples of appropriate usage of a technique.

Overhand Right

I see this punch thrown entirely too much. Especially lower down on the UFC card, when you have two guys who are terrible at striking but just want to ‘put on a show’ for the fans. Too many times in my life have I seen a guy throw this punch and miss it by a foot. What’s even more irritating is that fighters persist in throwing in, as if over the course of the fight their arms will magically elongate because they sacrificed a couple of goats to Chuck Liddell’s spirit the night before. Chuck’s not dead, and sacrificing things in his honour will NOT help you fight like him.

I understand that if you ‘cover up’ in boxing gloves, you’re more or less safe from the overhand right, but the same is not true in MMA gloves – and thus the overhand right is more effective in MMA than in boxing, and thus should be used more. It’s definitely an effective weapon in MMA. Nevertheless, fighters who don’t know how to set it up or when to throw it should just stop using it. I’m sick and tired of seeing guys take turns winging overhands at each other and both totally missing.

Here’s what an overhand right should look like. It’s not perfect, but it lands and KOs the other guy, so it’s not like I can complain.

Head kicks

Another oft sloppily used technique that too many fighters use far too frequently. The head kicks that annoy me the most are when they land flush, but the other guy isn’t dazed. If you’re a professional mixed martial arts fighter, and you land a head kick, and the other guy isn’t asleep on the floor – you need to stop throwing head kicks, because you’re doing it WRONG. Also, when you throw a head kick, if the other guy doesn’t fall over, you definitely shouldn’t be falling over.

A well executed head kick is a thing of beauty. It’s often unpredictable, thrown after the opponent as lulled you into a false sense of security with a steady diet of leg kicks and 1-2s. Then suddenly, the 1-2 comes, but a headkick follows. It’s supposed to be a surprise, a wildcard to keep you honest about keeping your hands up. But, alas, some fighters like to throw it far too often, with no regard to setting it up or doing it right.

Here’s the Crocop of old, showing us all how to do it properly.

Kimura

This one annoys me the most. Yes, Dan Hardy, I’m talking to you. This section is written especially for you. The Kimura is not easy to submit guys with in the first place. From top, it’s easy to defend, and even if the other guys gets it, sometimes you can just sort of straighten your arm to get out.

Still, it’s a good way to keep the guy on top from punching you in the face too much, and maybe you’ll pull it off, or get a sweep of it. That’s what you’d be thinking the first time you try for it.
So you try it, and it turns out the guy is too strong, or the arm is too sweaty. It’s just not working out. If you’re a regular person, you give up on it, and try and get up or work a different sweep/submission. If you’re Dan Hardy, you keep going for it over and over again until you lose the fight an all your fans. Einstein says "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." In this case, I’d probably replace Insane with stupid.

It’s not just Hardy either. I see this pretty often from fighters who think their bottom game jujitsu is better than it actually is. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re name isn’t Shinya Aoki or Demian Maia, your main priority from bottom should not be getting submissions, be it the failed kimura, half hearted guillotine attempt, or the flailing dance of the legs that people can only suspect are triangle or armbar attempts. Your main priority should be to sweep or get up. Try it once, and if it doesn’t work, for god’s sake, try something else.

‘Cage Control’

Whilst we’re all MMA fans here, I’m sure that we can all admit that oftentimes, MMA does not look all that… what’s the word. Heterosexual? Yes, we all know that sometimes MMA can look gay, and we accept it as part of the sport – proper fighting necessarily involves aspects of grappling, and their shirtless, and there’s Vaseline, so it can get wild. We all get that. However, when one guy is just pressing another guy up against the cage and not trying to do damage, with no punches, no knees, maybe a weak elbow every thirty seconds to stop the ref from breaking it up. Well, then you’re not fighting anymore. You’re just some guy pressing another shirtless guy against a cage.

You might be wondering what I’m talking about with this. I’m talking about that god-awful fight between Ryan Jimmo and Zak Cummings, on the MFC card last weekend. That fight was so awful; I literally turned it off in the middle of the round and chose to do nothing instead. I had nothing else to do – but this fight was more boring than doing nothing.

As far as I’m concerned, cage control is all fine and dandy – please, just remember it’s a fight and not some sort of weird pushing contest. Do it Shane Carwin style, or Randy Couture style. Throw some punches, throw some knees. Don’t just press against the other man’s body. I mean, I don’t have a problem with that sort of thing; I’m just against PDA in general.

EDIT: Somebody suggested I take out 'over' utilised. While I think Overhand rights and Kimuras are somewhat overused, I guess head kicks aren't. For sure, all these techniques are used sloppily, so I guess it makes more sense.

- See more of my writing at Total-MMA. The site is updated dailly, and I write every Thursday.