FIRST THINGS FIRST
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Every Tuesday morning I send out a breakdown of the best combat sports action. In less than 10 minutes you'll learn how the top fighters win and anything else fighters, martial artists, and fight fans need to know.
This article is an overview of ground and pound and how it’s continuing to evolve. I’ll add to it as new defenses emerge, and those defenses are countered countered by new techniques, tactics, and strategies that facilitate ground and pound.
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Now let’s get into it.
What's In Today's Letter?
Ground And Pound 1.0: Punishing Guard Play
I’m writing this article 12 hours after Islam Makhachev took a close and kind of boring title defense over Ian Garry. Islam dropped Garry, managed to get on his back, and had some cool takedowns in between those moments but that’s basically all that happened.
Islam is credited with 7 takedowns and only 78 total strikes over 5 rounds.
But I don’t want to dwell in the past. We’re only 6 days away from Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez returning to the cage to fight Gregory Rodrigues.
You might be asking why this confluence matters. These men are in separate weight classes, don’t train together, and Islam will likely be retired before Fluffy even challenges for a divisional title.
Islam and Fluffy represent two ends of the MMA grappling continuum. Control at all costs vs position for the sake of punishment.
The last time Fluffy went 5 rounds he converted 10 of the 29 takedowns he attempted while landing 219 total strikes before finishing Michel Pereira in the final round. Fluffy might be the best representation of modern ground and pound and we’re going to explain how we got here from this:
Frye is trying to set over Bitetti’s leg to butterfly hook. Bitetti kicks him away to lock closed guard. Bitetti is holding Frye’s left forearm down to control his posture. Frye pummels his right arm over Bitetti’s arm and drops two elbows on his face.
Don Frye - Amaury Bitetti
Bitetti willingly held on to Frye because he is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt who was willing to play guard. The problem was Frye had gravity and weight on his side. All he had to do was shrug Bitetti off of his shoulders and he could posture up to hurt Bitetti from where the Brazilian thought he was safe.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu players saw this and fighters like Mark Coleman and Mark Kerr brutalize people from inside the guard. They lost interest in hanging out in closed guard to fight for submissions. They started opening their guards to scramble, sweep, and get to other spots.
Savvy wrestlers took note and sought out positions that allowed them to be on top and continue to strike. Fighters like Randy Couture took ground and pound further by layering fundamental Brazilian jiu-jitsu positioning on top of his wrestling to take positions for striking on the floor. Namely half guard.
Couture elbows Rizzo from closed guard and pops up to throw heavier punches. Rizzo opens his guard to kick Couture away. Couture bounces off and rushes back in to half guard. Couture can now sit on Rizzo’s leg and strike him while Rizzo has less control of his posture. Couture drops a couple shoulder strikes on Rizzo. Then he postures up to drop some punches and elbows across Rizzo’s face.
Randy Couture - Pedro Rizzo
With the wrestlers learning grappling positions, the martial arts were truly mixing to create a novel fighting system and sport. As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of all invention.
Ground And Pound 2.0: Wrist Riding And Fence Fighting
Using a traditional Brazilian jiu-jitsu guard in MMA is hard. There’s no gi to hold onto or increase friction, if you’re on your back in MMA the judges won’t rule in your favor, and, worst of all, you’re getting punched in the face!
These ideas forced fighters to figure out a new way to get up in MMA. Enter the wall walk.
Couture runs through Liddell’s inside leg kick for a huge double leg off of the cage. He lands in half guard. He’s ready to posture up for ground and pound but Liddell is already scooting back to the cage. Liddell digs a left under hook. He uses it to lift Couture so he can get his feet beneath his hips and wall walk.
Randy Couture - Chuck Liddell
The wall walk is powerful because it keeps your back safe while helping you get back to your feet. It became a necessary skill in MMA that shutdown many grappler’s games.
But wall walking forces you to post at least one hand on the floor to get back up. Arguably the most influential coach in MMA noticed this and built a style for his son centered around exploiting this technique.
Johnson is scooting to the fence to wall walk. Khabib moves with him and slides to mount. Johnson is on his side with his right arm posted so he can start wall walking. Khabib grabs Johnson’s right wrist, pulls it out, and sit on his thigh. Now Khabib can unload on Johnson with his free left hand.
Khabib Nurmagomedov - Michael Johnson
Khabib Nurmagomedov and his team revolutionized fighting on the floor with three important points:
They built on Couture’s idea of taking positions that limit your opponent’s mobility so they can’t play guard or stand up. Couture settled on half guard where Khabib would often sit on both of his opponent’s thighs as they turned away.
Khabib would grab his opponent’s wrist as they posted on the mat to build height. Doing this keeps your weight over your opponent while giving you control of their arm and shoulder.
They would do this near the fence to pin people against two surfaces.
Khabib and his team changed ground and pound from scoring in static spots to a dynamic means of doing damage.
Below you can see Featherweight Champion Alexander Volkanovski punish his opponent for trying to wall walk before camping out in half guard to continue doing damage.
Rodriguez is getting up on the fence. Volkanovski opens his hands to punch. He takes Rodriguez down with a kosoto hook. Volkanovski goes to Rodriguez’s half guard to sit on his hips and punch. Rodriguez turns to avoid punches but that gives Volkanovski an arm triangle choke opportunity. Rodriguez defends but Volkanovski has an under hook and chest to chest contact pressure making it easier for him to start passing.
Alexander Volkanovski vs Yair Rodriguez
Grappling added a new defensive layer in recent years. Fighters are not only playing guard and wall walking to get back to their feet. Now fighters are playing octopus, turtling, and simply turning over to stand up as quickly as possible.
Many people see this as the end of ground and pound. I’m here to say that ground and pound is simply evolving again.
Ground And Pound 3.0: Cracking The Turtle Shell
Defensive grappling best practices now argue that you need to be able to turn to your belly to get back to your feet. Doing this will generally have you move through two distinct positions that fighters are building defense from. Quad pod and turtle with one knee is up and one knee is down.
Let’s look at how these positions are being used and the problems they create for the person on top.
Shamil is trying for a key lock on Lewis. He doesn’t have Lewis’s near shoulder flat so Lewis turns into Shamil, turtles, and quad pods to return to his feet. Lewis returns to quad pod whenever Shamil tries to run him down. Lewis gets to the fence so he can turn in and dig for better position against Shamil.
Derrick Lewis - Shamil Abdurakhimov
Quad podding works because it makes your base wider while keeping you mobile. You don’t have your posture back, but it’s hard to be put back on the mat. You might be wondering, why doesn’t the top player just try to put hooks in when the bottom player turns over?
If the top player doesn’t have control of at least one of the bottom player’s shoulders, they’ll simply slip off.
Buchecha is in top half. Spann posts on his hip and swims his right arm across under Buchecha’s cross face to enter octopus guard. Buchecha swings a punch but Spann is already building height. Spann turtles. Buchecha tries to spin to the back. Buchecha tries to throw his left leg over and insert it as a far hook but there’s no weight on Spann so he just stands up and runs to the fence as Buchecha falls off.
Ryan Spann - Marcus “Buchecha” Almeida
If the top player does have tight torso control, the bottom player can use 1 knee up, 1 knee down turtle to shake their opponent off.
Usman switches his stance, jabs, and drops to a head outside single. Then he runs Hughes to turtle. Hughes stays tight to defend hooks. Then he pikes up and pulls Usman’s right hook out to misalign his hips. Usman falls off of Hughes’s back.
Usman Nurmagomedov - Paul Hughes II
This is the central struggle of modern ground and pound. The question we need to answer is, how can fighters respond to their opponent exposing their back in a way that allows them to do damage while advancing position?
If you want to exploit someone’s tendency to turn away and turtle you need to stay behind their shoulders. You can use a tight waist to maintain the superior angle.
Isbulaev holds a tight waist with his right hand while circling to stay behind Kaha. Isbulaev lifts Kaha and kicks his feet out as he stands from quad pod. Isbulaev uses a half nelson to keep Kaha down for punches. Kaha turtles. Isbulaev peels Kaha’s hands off the mat to slip in a rear naked choke. Kaha thrashes side to side before submitting.
Salamat Isbulaev - Jiayidaer Kaha
If the bottom player is trying to granby or use funky wrestling you can simply let go of your lock and leave your hips back to stay heavy on top.
Wells rolls back to separate and elevate Orolbai. Orolbai keeps his hips back. His weight sinks down instead of flying over Wells. Wells gets stuck reaching for an under hook while Orolbai is already wrist riding to move behind. Wells tries to wrap Orolbai’s thigh for an outside funk roll. Orolbai lets Wells go stay behind his hips. He gets a right tight waist so he can punch with his left.
Jeremiah Wells - Myktybek Orolbai
Orolbai has a tight waist with his right arm
Orolbai’s weight is on the right so Wells can only fall to the left, which would give Orolbai immediate opportunities to turn his tight waist into an arm triangle or seat belt to take the back
Orolbai is free to punch with his left hand
A strong offensive position to take on an opponent that turtles is a cross body ride. Riding cross body give you control of their near hip and far shoulder which limits their ability to rotate and escape.
Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez prioritizes getting cross body when he gets his opponents down.
Fremd starts standing up so Fluffy grabs a front head lock to slow him. Fluffy release it to shoot a double. Then he puts a hook in to ride cross body. Now he can wrist ride and punch Fremd relatively freely. When Fremd does try to get up Fluffy locks his hands to throw Fremd down with a cross face before going back to his cross body ride.
“Fluffy” Hernandez - Josh Fremd
Recently we saw Rei Tsuruya beat his opponent down while riding cross body.
Tsuruya pulls Gurule with a side seat belt until he can trap Gurule’s leg between his own. Then Tsuruya holds Gurule’s far shoulder. He’s riding cross body. Gurule tries to shake him off. Tsuruya locks his ankles with his knee over Gurule’s hip for a high ball ride. Tsuruya grabs Gurule’s far wrist to break him down and start hitting.
Rei Tsuruya - Luis Gurule
Tsuruya is turking Gurule’s leg with his right
Tsuruya’s is wrist riding with his left hand
Tsuruya is free to punch with his right
If someone turtles while you’re on their side or in front of them it’s a good idea to grab a cradle to slow things down and stay over them. After you take a cradle you can throw knees, go behind, or throw your opponent onto their back.
Fluffy opens his rear body lock to switch to a high crotch and lift Pereira. Pereira turtles. Fluffy immediately goes over his head and locks up a cradle. He throws Pereira onto his back against the cage. Fluffy steps into half guard before piking up and walking across Pereira’s legs. Then he postures up to ground and pound.
Anthony Hernandez - Michel Pereira
Fluffy has his left arm around Pereira’s neck
His right arm is grabbing his left behind Pereira’s right thigh
Fluffy is free to knee with his right, attack a choke, or throw Pereira back
If I was going to summarize ground and pound 3.0 with one idea it would be, don’t put hooks in too early.
If you put in hooks too soon you commit to being on your opponents back. That means they can shake you off or at least turn to put you underneath them. But if you get comfortable taking your hooks out to stand over your opponents you can move with them and hurt them. Below Orolbai does just that.
Orolbai mat returns Curtis. Curtis ends up turtled. Orolbai puts his hooks in and attacks a rear naked choke. Curtis spins and ends up facedown under Orolbai. Curtis continues spinning until he’s turtle again. Orolbai starts raining down punches. He stands above Curtis’s turtle to land hard shots.
Myktybek Orolbai - Chris Curtis
Ground and pound isn’t dead. It’s just evolving to solve the problems presented by today’s game. Much of that evolution is being driven by the man fighting this Satuday in Sacramento, Fluffy Hernandez.
I’m looking forward to seeing what new tricks he brings to the cage, and watching the sport continue to change.
ADCC Rookie Report Updates: +99KG
The ADCC World Championships are less than a month away so I added some more rookies to the +99 Rookie Report. We got Australian tank Tito John Carle as well as professional MMA fighter and former Beach Wrestling World Champion Pouya Rahmani.
Rahmani jabs and drops on a lightning quick head inside single. He circles around to get Williams hopping on one leg until he can pull the cross body and pop his head out. Then he has room to run through Williams and put him on his back.
Pouya Rahmani - Karl Williams
You can read about Rahmani and the rest of the rookies to the 99+ weight class here👇
More MMA Specific Ways To Hit, Hurt, And Ride
Fluffy is fighting this weekend so you should read this article on his MMA centric grappling style.
You can also read this article about how to fight along the fence.
THE MOST IMPORTANT NEWS (you might have missed)
UFC 330 gave us a ton of fight announcements. Sean Brady will fight Gabriel Bonfim at the Apex on November 7th, Raul Rosas Jr. will get his first main event against Raoni Barcelos, and UFC 333’s main card will have:
Alexander Volkanovski vs Movsar Evloev
Petr Yan vs Merab Dvalishvili
Lone’er Kavanagh vs Ramazan Temirov
Alexander Volkov vs Rizvan Kuniev
Arnold Allen vs Aaron Pico
Spaten Fight Night 3’s card has been finalized. Nicholas Meregali will take on Felipe Pena and Mauricio Shogun Rua will box Glover Texeira. The other matchups are on this flyer.
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