Picking Up the Pieces: One Last Chance for Renan Barao

There have been plenty of falls from grace as harsh as Renan Barao's, but it's hard to think of an accomplished champion who was so readily forgotten so quickly. From 2005 to 2014, Barao was undefeated in over thirty professional fights. Sure a good number of them were against nobodies, but even if you fight thirty nobodies you should lose eventually. And when Barao was afforded the opportunity to fight the upper echelon of the division, he dealt with them just as easily. Brad Pickett, Scott Jorgensen, Urijah Faber, Michael McDonald, Eddie Wineland—a very respectable list of opponents made more impressive by Barao's finishing of the last three on that list.

Then it all caved in like a second rate soufflé. Shortly before Barao's title defense against T.J. Dillashaw I wrote a Killing the King article about the bantamweight champ, pointing to his habits and shortcomings but could never have seen them all being exploited to the letter by the improving but previously uninspiring striker, T.J. Dillashaw. Dillashaw's besting of Barao remains one of the finest meetings of fighter growth and opponent specific game planning in MMA and it saw Barao take a fearful beating before being brutally knocked out in the fifth and final round. Barao's tendency to bite on feints and swing wild, his inadvertent opening up when drawn into longer exchanges, and his loopy inaccurate right hand were all exploited perfectly.

But losing a title does not mark the end of a fighter and the norm is for these things to be marked off as just a waver in form, creating a chance to hype a rematch unless the fallen champ loses two in a row. Barao was set up for the return bout with Dillashaw on a three month turnaround, but famously injured himself while cutting weight. This saw Dillashaw fight Joe Soto and Barao was handed a clear tune up with Mitch Gagnon in December. Well, it was supposed to be a tune up, but again proper game planning gave Barao more trouble than the skills of his opponent on paper should have. Mitch Gagnon—who hasn't fought since—boxed Barao up with feints, takedown attempts, and level changes amid boxing combinations. Barao finally got the fight to the ground and submitted Gagnon entering the last ninety seconds of a fight he seemed to be losing.

The second match with Dillashaw saw Barao's same habits being exploited time and time again and the fight played out like another showcase for Dillashaw. The two clinics Dillashaw performed on Barao, Gagnon showing him up, Eddie Wineland making him look pretty limited before that, and the long lay off that Barao has since taken have all conspired to make Barao look like a fighter who has been 'sussed' or just won't ever get back to the top of the heap. So Barao made the decision to go up in weight to featherweight and that is where he will take on Jeremy Stephens at this weekend's UFC Fight Night card.

To Featherweight

Jeremy Stephens is known as maybe the biggest hitter in the featherweight division. He was a hellacious banger at lightweight but at featherweight his power is almost difficult to believe. This is the guy who turned the surging Anthony Pettis into a wrestler in their fight and who laid out the hard-nosed and otherwise unshakable Rafael dos Anjos. But Stephens' problem has always been in actually getting the payload to the target. He just doesn't have that many ways to set up his strikes.

Brutal right low kicks, a corking right uppercut and left hook—so far, so Justin Gaethje—but where Gaethje has his level changes and simple but thoughtful work to trick opponents into ducking onto his blows, Stephens shows nothing to mount his bombs on. The peculiar thing is that Stephens is in many ways very similar to Barao. Both have a habit of setting their feet and swinging a counter almost any time their opponent looks to be stepping in. Though for Barao it simply causes him to miss and tire himself out, exposing him to punishment through the wake of his counters over time. For Stephens, dropping his hands down by his hips to swing each time the opponent steps in often simply gets him lanced with a straight punch and he misses his own blind swing in the aftermath.

Stephens has always been the kind of fighter who could beat anyone in his division on any given night, it's just that he relies on a crapshoot to do it and more often than not doesn't pull it off. For every Denis Bermudez or Rafael dos Anjos who he catches with that one big punch or crazy flying knee, there are the Max Holloways, Cub Swansons and Yves Edwards who can force him to chase them and punish his herky jerky, telegraphed swings—getting them better of him with crisper work in the pocket and longer kicks against his wide swings.

There are Donald Cerrone's who can put him on the back foot and punish his slow-to-check lead leg and straight line of retreat. And there are the Charles Oliveiras who can control and out position him on the mat.

But while he has shortcomings in his technical game, Stephens remains a stern test for Barao at this new weight class. Barao is used to fighting smaller men than Stephens, who competed successfully as a lightweight—two weights above the class that Barao ruled. Strong wrestlers like Denis Bermudez have found themselves struggling with Stephens' strength even when he is in a disadvantageous position, pressed to the fence. Certainly Barao's takedown attempts have historically been woeful in their lack of set up and often come from a good few feet away—with Stephens constantly looking for the uppercut even against opponents who aren't diving straight onto it, any attempt to mix up the game plan and work the top game might lead Barao into troubled waters.

Ideal Gameplans

It might be a lot to ask of Jeremy Stephens to suddenly start using feints effectively but they have just proven so conclusively to be Barao's kryptonite. Everyone who has used them, from Wineland to Gagnon to Dillashaw, has made Barao miss wild swings, then take his finger off the trigger a little bit and become easier to hit.

Otherwise, for Stephens, it would be good to see him make use of his strength and his being used to competing against stronger men than Barao. Pushing Barao to the fence and making an ugly, clinching affair might work a treat. Stephens has the kind of power where he shouldn't need to load up to hurt opponents but he does because he wants that one punch knockout. Clip it into shorter elbows and punches out of the clinch and he could probably wilt Barao under his power along the fence over the course of a couple of rounds if all went well.

For Barao, one thing which has always been worth applauding about his game is his jab—which for a very long time was much better than his team mate, Jose Aldo's in this writer's opinion.

Any time Barao throws more than one punch in a row, his chin comes out, he leans forwards at the waist, and he does that Bethe Correia thing where it looks like he's trying to paddle a canoe.

But that jab on its own is so crisp, so well protected. The shoulder is always high, the body is always given in profile. He works expertly behind this and these are the sort of blows which can beat Stephens to the mark as he throws a lazy jab out and drops his rear hand to load up.

The high shoulder and perfect defense on Barao's jabs should serve to keep him safe as Stephens swings through after taking the blow. We can't expect Barao to be as smooth in the pocket as Yves Edwards was against Stephens, or simply stiff arm him off like the gigantic Donald Cerrone, but knowing how to land a good counter jab and hide behind his lead shoulder could be more than enough to cut Stephens right open and punish him every time he loads up to swing.

Stephens' lead leg also has a tendency to buckle when kicked if he is retreating or retracting his leg from an attack. Barao has one of the nicest right low kicks in any division and it is snapped out quickly. I would hope to see him use this technique to punish a Stephens rush once in a while, but relying on it too heavily—particularly without set up as Barao so often does—could result in eating an overhand and being bundled to the floor. Even if the punch didn't do the damage Stephens would hope, getting stuck underneath the first man you face when going up in weight is something you generally want to avoid.

Barao has had a rough go of it lately. If he can beat Jeremy Stephens as many seem to expect him to, talk will start of a new leaf being turned over at a weight which better suits him. But Stephens is one of the rougher tests I could think of for a guy whose greatest weakness has been getting drawn into brawls where he becomes so much more hittable than when he is just working counter jabs and long, quick low kicks from the outside. Knowing that both times Dillashaw downed Barao it was by drawing him into exchanges, and knowing Stephens' power when his opponents are just willing to stand in front of him long enough, this is doubtless a fight which will have you watching from the edge of you seat: a train wreck waiting to happen. Let us see if Barao's craft and ability in so many areas in which Stephens is rough around the edges can carry him through to the victory.