Dos Anjos vs Alvarez: Side-Stepping a Buzzsaw

The fight world is still coming to grips with just what has happened to Rafael dos Anjos. At some point, the Brazilian also-ran became the most menacing pressure fighter in the game and has since run through four of the best lightweights in the sport, back-to-back. Some boarded the bandwagon as he beat Benson Henderson, but many thought the stoppage too soon. Others were won over after he trounced Nate Diaz, but the narrative focused on Diaz's mindset and fight readiness. It was when Dos Anjos put the lightweight champion, Anthony Pettis through the meat grinder that most fans were able to admit that this man had made radical changes and transformed himself into a nightmare opponent for almost anyone in the game.

Dos Anjos sharpened his Muay Thai with the many great champions over at the Evolve gym in Singapore, and learned confidence and in your face aggression from that great teacher of Brazilian bangers Rafael Cordeiro, but Dos Anjos is something all of his own. Many of the best fighters you will see are counter fighters, men who wait for their opponent to lead the dance and to make the meter. Dos Anjos is one of the few in the modern era of mixed martial arts who has barged his way to the top through pure aggression. An all out antagonist. There is something about it that is brilliant to behold. To watch a great counter fighter wait for his openings and snatch them is impressive, but to see a man simply walk forward and wilt an opponent with his will is something that shoots to the most primal and violent part of the mind. It is uniquely pleasing.

We find Dos Anjos at the point where the fight world is ready to proclaim him a perfectly rounded fighter. "No holes in his game!" But you will remember fans and pundits saying that about Luke Rockhold until his lunging, awkward offensive boxing got him caught by Michael Bisping the other month. In fact you will remember it being said about any fighter who goes on an impressive run and manages at least one title defense. And so a few days out from the title fight, Dos Anjos' opponent Eddie Alvarez is being largely overlooked and undersold. It's understandable: Alvarez's UFC debut saw him suffer a brutal loss to Donald Cerrone, and his two fights since then have been largely indecisive affairs, but styles make fights after all and there are some quirks of Alvarez's game which make him an intriguing match up for the lightweight champ.

Dos Anjos 101

It is probably possible to count the number of true pressure fighters in MMA on your fingers and toes. Sure, there are plenty of overwhelmingly aggressive fighters who drive a high pace, but without wanting to sound like a university student who just got into jazz: pressure is more about the punches that aren't thrown than the ones that are. Pressure is the threat of punches. It is the difference between showing a bank full of people that you have a loaded gun and going into the bank, emptying all your shots into the ceiling, pulling the trigger a few more times to make that clear, and then announcing that you plan to rob the place. Pressure is the act of always being in front of your man, using your presence and the threat of punches to force him into tight spaces where he isn't comfortable and uncorking the real punches when it is advantageous. Watch a top pressure fighter in boxing like Jeff Fenech: the body punches he put in were good and did the hurting, but his opponents tired themselves out just as much by trying to stay away from him.

In the constant battle between aggressive fighter and out fighter, the reason that so many aggressors fail is because they lock their gaze on landing the big shots to the head. Watch anyone fighting Stephen Thompson or Dominick Cruz to see this. The more punches they miss, the more they convince themselves that they need to swing hard for the head to make sure that the one that eventually does land really counts. Dos Anjos is better than that, he'll throw the swings at the opponent's head but he does his best work in digging his wide left and left round kick in to the body. When a fighter is between the cage and Dos Anjos he can still move his head and that is going to be the first thing to leave range or duck out of the way. His body cannot bob and weave, it can only move in the space between the cage and Dos Anjos. It is always there to chuck blows against.

The other thing to note is that unlike a fighter like Justin Gaethje—a top lightweight who also exhausts opponents with constant aggression—Rafael dos Anjos is defensively savvy even while moving forwards. Compare this to his teammate Fabricio Werdum when he's moving forwards and the two are worlds apart. Dos Anjos will stiff arm, roll his shoulders, move his head and return fire once he initiates against the cage. If you're a pressure fighter this is what you want. Beating on a shelled up opponent makes finding targets more complicated and you can never afford to stop watching out for a return anyway. When the opponent is willingly punching back with his back to the fence his stance is compressed, he's generating less power, and he is opening his ribs and hips up to blows and takedown attempts every time his elbow leaves his side. It is also worth noting that Dos Anjos' opponent is always the one feeling the urgency. Often you see guys trying to apply pressure but being afraid to take a step back and let their man swing at air, Dos Anjos is happy to do that and will get right back to work afterwards.

Mitigating Pressure

As much as Eddie Alvarez has been playing the aggressor more recently—sticking to Anthony Pettis like glue in a dull clinching bout and being forced to close the huge range gap against Donald Cerrone—he is much more suited to a mobile outfight against an opponent of a similar size where his movement and level changes can be used to full effect. His performance against Patricky Freire, for instance, was clinic in his preferred strategy. Darting right hands and level changes to body shots. A long time training partner of Frankie Edgar when the latter was UFC lightweight champion, Alvarez uses level changes just as Edgar does to set up blows upstairs. Though Edgar prefers to level change to threaten takedowns while Alvarez prefers to level change for right hands to the body.

One of the difficulties Alvarez has had since coming to the UFC is dealing with taller opponents and particularly with gifted kickers. While being the shorter man gives a fighter a speed advantage on his level change, it also puts him within a hair's breadth of being kneed if he lets his foe know what he plans to do ahead of time.

Yet some of Alvarez's best performances have been when his opponent is coming to him. His second bout with Michael Chandler came down to a split decision but Alvarez deflected the aggression of Chandler beautifully. The most notable part of that bout was Eddie Alvarez's direction changing along the fence. A lot of fighters don't even know this, others forget it in the moment, but Alvarez demonstrated it perfectly. When you are getting near to the fence, direction changes will get you out. Running out in one direction can see you clotheslined by a Roy Nelson right hand—in fact convincing you to run out that way is Nelson's whole game.

The key to escaping pressure is to create a kind of pressure of your own. That's tough to do because you are in a position of complete disadvantage. But aggressive fighters are keen to get to work—by showing them that you plan to move one way you can draw a punch from that direction, that is standard ring cutting procedure after all. If you change direction at the right time you can escape out of the other side—not always unharmed but at least not between the fence and a combination of punches.

In that second bout with Chandler, Alvarez's jab was also the most active it has ever been. It's easy to forget that Alvarez came to prominence in the DREAM lightweight grand prix and was known for his terrific hitting power and lacking technique. The fact that he became known as one of the better boxers in MMA in such a short length of time says a great deal about his aptitude and work ethic. The Chandler rematch seemed to be Alvarez at the peak of his craft. But in recent bouts Alvarez's striking has become a little right hand heavy and the level change right hand comes so frequently that opponents have been able to avoid it most of the time. Though there was a nice southpaw right hook he showed a couple of times against Pettis which the latter was flummoxed by.

A focus on a more balanced, two handed performance would aid Alvarez enormously in his next bout.

Hypothetical Gameplans

From Dos Anjos I would like to see his usual pressure but also a focus on low kicking when possible. Fighters with feet as active as Alvarez's are in position to check less often—or they set their weight as they start to expect low kicks and sacrifice some of that mobility to do so. Pettis and Cerrone were able to hammer Alvarez with low kicks which were their most damaging strikes against him. With how tired Alvarez looked after two rounds of trying to take Pettis down it would be well worth Dos Anjos' time to use those well timed shots along the fence to avoid a struggle on the way down and make Alvarez expend some energy in getting back up.

It is uncertain how well the body kicks will work against a shorter, stockier fighter like Alvarez who fights from a deeper stance, but throwing them up often will provide the threat of a kick to the head if Alvarez persists with his usual active head movement. Ross Pearson has some of the best head movement in MMA but becomes a completely different fighter after he's had a couple of kicks thrown at him while he's ducking—he starts standing upright and isn't half as defensively sharp.

Additional tactics which Dos Anjos does not show too often but which might have been a good investment through this camp would be use of the double collar tie along the fence and the uppercut as he enters because Alvarez has a tendency to duck in on opponents when they step in.

For Alvarez I would want to see plenty of direction changes and movement around the outside of the cage to prevent the slogs along the fence. Taking a round or two just to stay off of the fence and see if Dos Anjos loses patience would be well worth Alvarez's time in this five round fight. Out in the open Alvarez's favourite darting right could be an excellent weapon against the southpaw and could even set up a nice high kick or body kick.

In the moments when the pressure lets up it would be good to get to work with low kicks. Alvarez, similar to the great Fedor Emelianenko, has proven to have hard and deceptively fast low kicks which can change the complexion of a fight but only when he actually opts to use them. It was good to see them return against Anthony Pettis because everyone knows that Alvarez wants to get in on them and punch them in the head. The problem is that when he starts kicking them in the legs they must do something about it, and that often opens up the opportunity to step in with punches.

Another strategy worth considering whenever a fighter faces any aggressive opponent is the use of intercepting elbows. Sticking a large shard of bone in the path of the opponent's face is never a bad idea. With Dos Anjos' tendency to drop his left hand before throwing his long wide left to the body and his less than speedy recovery to guard, right elbows could be tremendously useful even if he's too fast to counter with a good right hook.

Alvarez himself fell victim to a couple of very nice intercepting elbows from Gilbert Melendez.

Simply placing the elbow out in Dos Anjos' path would pretty much guarantee a cut over a few rounds, but if Alvarez can begin to time full elbow strikes or short right hands inside of Dos Anjos' reliable wide left (which could be drawn fairly reliably by circling towards it) he could perhaps begin to put the hurt on the champ.

A final thought for a method which I expect to be picked up on by more Dos Anjos opponents in future. Linear kicks are a pain in the neck for aggressive fighters. Donald Cerrone hurt Dos Anjos several times with snap kicks to the gut in their first fight because of Dos Anjos' square stance and reliance on his presence and pressure at the expense of elusive lateral mobility.

Linear kicks can, of course, be parried or caught as Buakaw and Saenchai so regularly demonstrate. However low line linear kicks—the oblique kick and side kick to the front of the thigh, knee and shin—are exceptionally tricky to catch. They are perfect for use against forward moving fighters because they either break the opponent's posture and leave him stooped for a moment as you move away, or the opponent is forced to check or retract the leg. Neither of those options is conducive to keeping up the pressure. But more of that on Monday when we talk about Jon Jones versus Daniel Cormier…

Pick up Jack's new kindle book, Finding the Art, or find him at his blog, Fights Gone By.