Well, it happened just as I predicted on Twitter. On Saturday Cub Swanson (19-5) clashed with Dustin Poirier (13-3) for the co-main event of the UFC’s seventh stint on Fuel and walked away victorious. Okay, okay, I’ll admit: the win may not have come exactly as I guessed. I put out the notion that Cub would knock his opponent out, and instead he snagged a unanimous decision. But still, my prediction was correct enough for my taste, and thus correct enough to warrant me writing the rest of this breakdown wearing a smug little smirk. Let’s dive in.
The story of this fight’s standup portion was one of stance. More precisely, one of sound striking defense vs. poor striking defense. Cub Swanson, though not an incredible striker by any means, possesses an attribute overlooked by the majority of modern standup artists, even some of the world’s most dominant boxers and kickboxers. And that attribute or, depending on how you look at it, skill, is posture.
Take a look at the way Cub stands compared to Dustin.
Cub’s back is more or less straight, his head off center, and his weight oriented over his back foot. This is good striking posture. Yes, he holds his chin a bit high at times. And his back does occasionally curl. But the small missteps in his stance are nothing compared to the many holes that Poirier’s presents. Dustin has his chest down and his chin up. No matter how high Cub carries his chin, his shoulders are naturally in a position to protect it. Not so for Diamond Dustin. Not only is his weight too far forward, but Poirier also has his head directly over his lead foot, just waiting for one of Cub’s vicious right hands to rip it off his shoulders.
Cub has caught some flak from commentary teams and fans about where he carries his hands. But the fact of the matter is that Cub’s defense is better than Poirier’s from the get-go, despite the fact that the Louisiana prodigy often carries his hands very high. Defense is not about hand placement, or at least it shouldn’t be–especially in MMA. It’s folly to count on 4 oz. gloves to protect you from strikes. Defense comes from stance. And one aspect of that is posture. Cub might hold his hands low, but guess who else did?
That’s Gentleman Jim Corbett, heavyweight boxing champion, genuine badass, and famed Kenny Florian lookalike. With his “scientific” approach to boxing, he unseated the great heavyweight champ John L. Sullivan and befuddled many larger, stronger opponents with his quick feet and clever defensive style. His stance and hand positioning flies in the face of what modern striking coaches teach their fighters, but Corbett is often credited with being the man who turned the sport of boxing from slugfest to art. And he and the many generations of knowledgeable old-schoolers that came into the sport for generations after him proved that defense has much less to do with hand positioning than it does with posture, footwork, and positioning.
And on Saturday it was shown once again. Cub was successful in his defense every time he would retract into this straight-backed defensive stance, pulling his chin down and his chest up to protect himself from Poirier’s punches. As a result, the only thing that Poirier was able to land convincingly in this fight were kicks to the legs.
In contrast, take a look at Poirier’s usual defensive reaction:
He hunches his shoulders, curls his spine (counterintuitively bringing his head closer to his opponent), and covers up high with both hands. Worse, he takes his eyes off his opponent. Were Cub a better combination puncher, he could have really put a hurtin’ on Poirier every time he did this, taking angles and landing punches and kicks at will. As it was, he still managed to outwork and hurt Poirier.
And there are other problems with the stance. Though a front-foot heavy stance can facilitate kicking, which was obviously Poirier’s entire gameplan on the feet, it also opens the front leg up to counter kicks. As the second round opened, Cub faked a left hook into a left kick that shuddered into Poirier’s thigh like an axe into a very top-heavy tree, sending him stumbling off balance. He went on to land uppercuts and crushing body shots as the round progressed, all easily finding their way through Dustin’s porous defense. And Cub’s corner astutely pointed out every opening that Dustin was presenting. Even Kenny Florian was directing Swanson to throw uppercuts from the commentary table at ringside, but I don’t think Cub heard him. And we’d have known if Cub was paying attention to the Fuel commentary team; he would’ve dozed off mid-fight at the sound of Jon Anik’s nap-inducing drivel. (Joe and Mike, we never appreciated you…)
Many predicted that, though Swanson could land the more punishing blows on the feet, Poirier would quickly take him down and submit him. Poirier has a dangerous ground game, it’s true, but I suspected from the start that he would struggle with Swanson’s creativity and relentless workrate on the ground. Throughout the fight Cub displayed spectacular takedown defense, but when Poirier did manage to take him down, he thwarted his opponent with a relentless submission attack and consistent ability to get back to his feet.
When Cub whiffed on a flailing spinning backfist in the second half of round two, he got hit with a beautiful double leg. Unfortunately for the Diamond, Cub was thinking “attack” the moment he hit the canvas. Check this out; Dustin hits Cub with a powerful double leg:
Cub lands and immediately pops up onto one hip in an active, attacking posture:
And… boom. Omoplata:
Poirier’s shoulders proved freakishly flexible, but Swanson was able to use the omoplata very cleverly to stand up and go back to his boxing.
It wasn’t until the third that Cub began to look a little vulnerable on the feet, probably as a result of his wild, lunging punching style gassing him out. And still, it all came down to stance, as Poirier was only able to land solidly on Cub when the better boxer took his eyes off his opponent. A solid jab would have served the Jackson’s MMA representative well here; though he was able to land with lead rights and left hooks throughout the fight by constantly flirting with the line of attack instead of using the typical jab set ups, a stiff left hand would have made a nice deterrent to keep Poirier from stalking him down in the final frame.
Regardless, the fight finished with a series of Poirier’s befuddled attempts to match Swanson’s pace on the ground after the So Cal native put him on his back with a beautifully executed takedown and stayed tight to him through every attempted escape and transition. Swanson was reading Poirier’s moves like Roy Nelson reads a value menu.
The bell rang (horn blasted?) just after Poirier squeaked out of a triangle/arm bar/kimura triple-threat and engaged the buttscooting Swanson in a final wild exchange Sakuraba-style, but all for naught. It wasn’t the knockout I was expecting, but Cub took this fight with relative ease. And I was pleased to see him prove that he’s a far better fighter than his long layoff and UFC debut loss had a lot of people believing.
So that’s that. If you want more fight breakdowns with loads more canned jokes, hit me up and let me know. I’m looking to analyze whatever you all want, provided that it’s a fight and not a worrying mole you discovered in the shower. Seriously, send me a message, find me on Twitter, or comment on this very page. If you’ve got a request or suggestion of any kind, I’m all cauliflower ears.
Seeya Friday, folks.
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