BTG 108 - Tactics over Techniques

[Music] hello and welcome to Breaking the guard on today's episode I'm going to talk about the UFC fight night that just passed UFC Vegas 98 but in particular there's one Motif that I'm going to focus on which is strategy right now I'm going to start with the main event and again spoil so if you haven't watched it and you want to watch it tune in later otherwise uh the main event was Brandon Royal versus tatsuro Tyra this was a highly anticipated fight between two of the top contenders in that division you have the number one and royval who recently fought for the title and then TSU Tyro who was 16 and0 U big Prospect from Japan uh that they were looking to see if you know they could build I'm sure the UFC really wanted him to win just so they can capture another demographic which makes sense this was an interesting style matchup although both of them are known as Grapplers like they have good ground skills I believe tatsuyo was like well at least a couple levels above Brandon I would say Brandon's more of like an MMA Grappler Tyra looks solid as a Grappler you know even just doing a pure grappling competition right that said I think there was a bigger disparity in the Striking with uh Roy wall having a more polished game and as far as knowns royval has been known to have a crazy gas tank and Tyra never really been pushed that far so I don't and I also don't think he's ever had a five round fight this would be his first all that said the fight played out quite like you would expect where uh Brandon was trying to impose a lot of his boxing and doing fairly well whereas Tyro was trying to bring the fight to the ground the first round no nothing too major although I I felt Brandon won the first round but not like a you know any knockdowns or anything super big really happening uh second round is where things got interesting Tyro was able to secure a quick Tak down get right to the Back Body triangle and just keep Brandon on his back the whole time now he didn't really seem to go heavy on the chokes right uh which would be a critique of mine if you're playing a grappling game plan against a guy who's a heavy Striker with a crazy gas tank then you really need to press the advantage when you have it and when you're able to secure a body triangle within the first 30 seconds of the match in a round you really really need to get a finish right like I mean don't mean don't gas out right away but at the same time you do have to press and really crank those chokes he seemed more focused on just keeping control and like holding didn't do a lot of physical damage so again strategically it seemed odd when they moov to the third round Brandon once again pushed hard and made a mistake again which is that he scored a A big knockdown and because he was lighting him up just teeing off on him and uh at one point dropped them and then tried to take this guy's back and then went for an armar very low control right he just went into it lost position and then ended up being on his back and then tatuu got his back again and uh it was like man what a reversal now it wasn't enough obviously to lose the round but he made a bad strategic call which is every time you got on the ground with Tyra it was a nightmare for Brandon so it's like why would you willingly go there just especially since you rocked him on his feet cuz he was hitting him like a t-ball pretty much just just at will and clearly he was rocked and he I don't think Tyro was tired from like lack of cardio is just that when you get your head rocked in you know you are going to experience fatigue right it's just what comes with it um so he should have really kept it on his feet and just try to knock him out standing because the ground was clearly uh Tyra's domain they go into the fourth round and once again takes him down really quickly gets to the back and now it's looking really bad for Brandon and the weird part again now between rounds Tyra looked like he recovered very well like I said it was I don't think it was like he didn't have the gas tank it's just that he took so much damage to his head that you're going to experience what looks like fatigue uh so when you went into the fourth round it looked pretty good and I once again floored Brandon the entire time for most of the round I believe I think Brandon got out towards the end but he had at one point body triangle arm trapped under the body triangle only one hand defending and tatsuo had the bottom arm threaded in but he was still working on risk control and I'm like what are you waiting for whenever you get this arm pined on the choking side that's a game over you just choke even if you don't got a clean choke face crank something he never really went for it like he kept fiddling trying to get some type of perfect grip which made zero sense to me right like at at least from everybody I've seen that's a great choker you get that arm trapped it's a wrap and mind you tatsuo's control the body triangles from phenomenal right like Brendan was rolling around everywhere trying to escape and he was glued to his back so he's a much better controller of the back than I am but regarding choking it's like he barely went for it and like when you have that arm trapped in the body triangle so basically he's defending with one hand especially when you have the choke working on this side this is a weak pull here right like if you're trying to choke on this side yeah this hand could be a a gamest stopper but when you're choking on the far side this hand's useless I could have my hand fully in there and it's not going to do anything you'll still choke me right so puzzling uh decision there by Tyra I don't know if maybe he was rocked and just couldn't think straight but like there should have been just choke even if you don't have a clean choke you got the arm trapped you got to freaking rip it you know and he never really ripped it like you never see a moment where he starts trying to put the squeeze in and now I say rip it but if you guys seen me talk about chokes obviously you don't rip chokes you kind of ease into the pressure like Anaconda but he never did that right he never went into the choking phase right he just kept like grip fighting I don't know if he was expecting to get like a perfect arm under the throat like that's not going to happen you know not like it's a tough guy you're going to have to go chin first and then through the chin pressure he'll open up and then you'll catch the neck or even if you don't you'll still finish so I felt that he really dropped that ball in the fourth round he still won the round by control but goes into the fifth round and now the great thing that the coaches told Brandon was don't give up your back if you get taken down go to your guard you'll work off your guard Sage advice because sure enough he did get taken he he did some good damage from his feet again enough in my opinion to win uh the Striking battle from the feet got taken down went to his guard and was able to work his way back up to his feet and at one point he actually reversed and and was able to get on top of tatsuo and then did the smart thing which was he backed away so although he made a terrible strategic blunder in the third He adjusted list listened to the coach's advice and was able not to repeat those mistakes that's great right uh so I liked that he listened to the coaching and was able to make the adjustment it looked like he wanted to stay on top if I'm being honest but he believed in his coaches enough to follow their advice because you hear him saying stand up when you want to back up when you want to and then he's said okay and then he backed up because I I know if you're a fighter you probably think you can just fight everywhere right so if I got on top of a guy or even if I was like he tried to jump the body triangle himself but almost lost the position I think he realized then like n this is there's too much to lose here right and uh he was able to back away and win the fight by a decision Split Decision which was odd because one of the judges gave the first round to Tyra which I I thought was a pretty easy round to give to Brandon uh so but in either case he ended up winning uh so from a strategy standpoint Tyra really needed to press the advantage on the choke if he thought he was going to wear out Brandon by the domination on the ground he obviously miscalculated greatly which I would think you wouldn't since apparently they trained with each other before not even that far like six months ago if I heard the commentary correctly so you have to know like this guy's a freaking cardio machine and even when he's put in really terrible spots the guy just doesn't relent like he's moving so you're not going to beat him by cardio you have to beat them by technique right so when you have the positions like the ground Back Body triangle arm track you really have to press and push for the Finish there because the guy can get Saved by the Bell and then you're going to lose everything you work for so again from that point I felt like as a pure Grappler going against a now if he was fighting a guy that wasn't renowned for cardio and perhaps could be broken then yeah I can just work back control the whole time and then I know going into the next round he's going to fade because he got so stressed on that bottom position but Brendan's clearly not that guy he's not going to break he's not going to fatigue so you need to finish the match um on Brendan's side obviously mistake there of trying to pursue the ground game on a wounded opponent you hurt him on the feet keep him on the feet right this guy wasn't really offering that much resistance on the feet he landed some shots that looked like you know they were clean but I don't think he's clean enough Striker to hurt Brandon so like even as a wounded lion I would rather that guy on his feet than on his on the ground because even wounded on the ground he was flowing smoothly and taking the back so that's you you can't play with a dangerous grapple in the ground if you're not at that level and even though he's a good Grappler you have to be able to recognize where is my greatest Advantage right is it on the feet or on the ground because if it's on the feet the fight should be on the feet the entire time there's no reason to engage in the ground right so um that would be my advice there but like I said he did adjust uh between rounds fourth and fifth and learned the mistake and overcame it so kudos to him on that that's not easy to do right it can be tough uh so that shows me he listens and he trusts his coach which is probably why he's doing so well so congrats on that win um the other side of things later or earlier in the card I could should say there was Jared Gooden and chitty I can't say that name I know they call him Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a fight name right uh so Chey was well Tall long Striker explosive fast solid build right like and plays the part Gooden came in looking more like the grappler and the idea seemed to be to work the fight to the ground and this is another one where I don't understand where the strategy went chaty seemed like he wanted to strike from a distance but Gooden was good at closing the distance and getting to the clinch what he was not good at was securing a taked down he would just get into the clinch put uh chy on the fence and just hold him there and chy not wanting to be held on the fence would turn him almost immediately and then keep uh Gooding on the fence the entire round and he pretty much did this for the first two rounds so it was surprising to me because not only did he hold him on the fence as a striker but he was kneeing the this body and getting short tight elbows continuously and Gooden didn't really seem to do anything about it he like kind of left himself stay there you know it's funny because I think Dominick Cruz one of the commentators had the right assessment because Michael Bisping is oh you know he's got to work out of there you know he's he's losing the fight here he's getting hurt it's like yes that's all true but Dominic noticed like it looks like Gooden wants to be here because he's not hasn't made one move to escape this position right and his opinion which I think he's probably right which is that he recognized that chy was a lot more dangerous at distance uh with his cakes and you know all the different weapons that he has from striking so at least from the clinch he knows really he just has to watch for knees and elbows and he was obviously absorbing it pretty well although I mean honestly he took so many knees to the body and a lot of elbows to the the Brows guy's not cuddable man because he got hit with so many elbows and like nothing really happened and durable body cuz he was getting pelted with these but either way where was the strategy to win because he really I think he scored a couple takedowns but he wasn't able to keep him down uh chy was very good at getting back up to his feet and then it was kind of like everything was wasted so this is another one where it feels like the strategy wasn't really well fleshed out like if it was just to clinch and then try to secure a takedown you have to work harder for those takedowns you know he would just get over under and easily turned again if you're the guy doing the takedowns you can't have your back on the fence pretty hard to do takedowns when you're slumped into the fence right you have to be the guy on the outside so you can you know yank the legs or do inside trips you know or try to work towards the back you know you can't be the one with your back on the fence so again really confusing on you know what he was expecting to do it feels to me like Cruz is probably right in that this guy probably just wanted to survive you know and he went into survival mode like almost in round one which is kind of crazy to me right like uh for me I'm I always trying to win right uh I don't care about surviving if surviving means losing right uh I I need to win the contest I need to do everything I can to win so strange right it's a fight that I watched I'm like man I don't understand how he ever thought he was going to win you know um and yeah those are the two I mean there were a few other fights but I don't want to you know repeat myself here but regarding strategy it seems like some of these guys didn't really you know figure out the path to Victory right or they left a lot to be desired as far as a planning you know it's kind of like that South Park with the Gnomes where they underwear gnomes where step one collect the underwear step two is blank step three is profit you know it's like you know step one clinch step three win what was step two you know like you guys didn't put everything together um I feel like if you're trying to win fights especially you know big fights like this where you're a main event your your game plans have to be very well fleshed out there should be nothing left to chance and seeing what to me appears like gaps in the game plan where it's like I guess he like maybe couldn't expected the moment he got a bick the takedown was going to happen automatically and then didn't consider what to do if he got stuck you know it's like um you should have had like a hundred things to work on right so uh this is not to dunk on anybody you know fighting's tough right but at the same time I feel like say like the the tough talk you know like if they did work on stuff in Camp and he didn't do it then that's another issue right like you didn't execute the game plan you might have gotten you know stuck and just didn't weren't thinking you you weren't following the plan you weren't listening to coaches they didn't really share what the coaches were saying on this corner so harder for me to assess that you know um but it definitely feels like there was a an error in the training something didn't go right you know and regarding with tatsuo I felt like you really need to go for those chokes right uh you got a back body triangle early in a round you should be finishing that if you're like the expert Grappler and I the other critique I didn't mention there so he did very little ground pound on top and this is another mistake if you're again expert Grappler and you're having a tough time getting chokes you need need to loosen the guy up and start throwing hands cuz that's what makes grappling easier is when you can distract them with something else you know it's kind of like those guys who you know when you mount them and they kind of do this thing where they try to protect their arms and they have them blow in the chest so it's hard to you know secure an armar isolate an arm you know and they're keeping their frames low it's like yeah this works in maybe in the support grappling situation but we're doing MMA I start punching your face and you're going to get knocked out so you're going to have to come up and now you can start isolating arms right so like when you can strike it's a great tool for grappling because you're going to open things up a lot easier but if you never present the threat then your opponent can relax and just focus purely on grappling defense and kind of nullify and make your offense a lot more difficult so um I felt like that was a mistake there as well as far as never throwing any striking pressure ground BR pressure uh especially since he wasn't really going for chokes he was just looking it kind of looked like he was just going for control um so yeah I felt like if tatsuo was a little more clever there he would have got the win in that match you know round two or in round four but uh he dropped the ball in those opportunities and cost him the match and unfortunately his undefeated record but uh you know you can always learn you know even and take that one that you you know and become a better Fighter for it but those are my thoughts anyways uh hopefully they'll serve you right as far as you know strategy it's an important aspect of fighting because if we we're looking technically Tyro is way better on the ground than Brandon but because he was implementing poor strategy he wasn't able to leverage that right so even with all the best techniques you can watch all the great videos you can see stuff that I've been posting but if you using poor strategy you're not going to get good results right strategy trumps everything else right even being super fat super strong you know if you don't have a good strategy to exploit those advantages that you have it's worthless