What happened to Anthony Pettis
In a first for a major US newspaper, a highly technical breakdown was done of an MMA fighter. It was written by Patrick Wyman.
Anthony Pettis was the first MMA fighter to appear on a Wheaties box, and explicitly aimed to become known as the best pound for pound fighter in the sport’s history. He executed arguably the greatest kick in combat sports history. Now he is on a three-fight losing streak.
In a first for a major US newspaper, a highly technical breakdown was done of an MMA fighter. It was written by Patrick Wyman, senior MMA Analyst at Bleacher Report, and co-host of the Heavy Hands podcast. It is briefly excerpted below, but if you are hardcore fan, do yourself a favor, and click this link.
There are two issues at play, both of which were visible even before Pettis’s three-fight losing streak. The first is Pettis’s reliance on powerful kicks and quick submissions, both of which require the open space in the middle of the cage to function. Dos Anjos and Alvarez didn’t let him have that open space and forced him to the fence; Pettis didn’t have the tight footwork and command of pivots necessary to stop them from pushing him backward.
The second is a reliance on landing the fight-finishing strike or submission rather than simply throwing to score while striking at range. This is what lost him the fight against Barboza, and it has cost him before. In essence, what makes Pettis so special has a serious downside.
The takedowns and control against the cage that both dos Anjos and Alvarez used to defeat Pettis are symptoms of the former champion’s problems, rather than the underlying cause. Pettis knows how to wrestle; against the fence, though, you’re essentially giving your opponent as many attempts as they want. The key is for the fighter to use his feet to stay away from the fence in the first place and limit the opponent’s opportunities.
Let’s take a look at Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay at the time) and his effortless movement around the space of the ring against Sonny Liston.
It’s so smooth, looks so easy, and he does it so continuously amidst the consistent sidestepping that it’s easy to forget that the pivot is not a natural movement. It takes years of training not just to do it in a fight but to do it against an opponent who knows how to cut off the space of the ring and force his opponent toward the ropes.
Pettis needs open space to operate, and the fence is his kryptonite.
This brings us to Pettis’s second major problem, volume. The former champion has a gift for placing the fight-finishing shot and latching on to lightning-fast submissions. His killer instinct and ability to sense when his opponent is hurt is off the charts. These are special gifts, but in Pettis’s case, they come with a serious drawback: He doesn’t score points, or at least not enough of them to win decisions.
The underlying process that guides Pettis’s actions in the cage is flawed. It sounds obvious, but the fighter who throws more strikes tends to land more, and landing strikes is what wins fights on the judges’ scorecards if the knockout blow or submission doesn’t come. Landing a single fight-ending shot is never a certainty, and Pettis doesn’t have the impulse to just throw; the perfect becomes the enemy of the good.
If Pettis doesn’t fix these fundamental and endemic issues, however, there’s no reason to expect this three-fight losing streak to turn around against elite competition. We’ll forever be left wondering what might have been.
