MAX Holloway was somewhat humbled in his last fight. In his first trip up to the UFC’s lightweight division, the featherweight champion found himself outgunned by old rival, Dustin Poirier and while Holloway rallied in the later rounds it was not enough to prevent the judges from awarding Poirier the win, snapping Holloway’s remarkable run of thirteen consecutive victories. On Saturday he returns to 145 pounds to defend his crown in the division where he has looked pretty much untouchable for the last few years.
Frankie Edgar is thirty-seven years old and twelve years into his UFC career. In fact, Holloway only turned professional a few months after Edgar won the UFC lightweight title in 2010. On paper this is very much old school versus new school, but Edgar was so far ahead of his time that it is arguable Holloway has not faced a takedown artist as skilled as Edgar in his entire career.
Edgar took Sean Sherk’s notion of “boxing into takedowns” and turned it into an art form. Sherk’s idea was to flurry his hands to somehow distract as he dropped in to take his opponent down—but Sherk’s reach barely extended past his pecs and no one took his punches seriously. Edgar’s brilliance is that he will go after anyone—no matter how big or how feared as a hitter—and crack them on the chin to get them punching back.
The best fighters in the world forget that Edgar—often dwarfed even after moving down from lightweight to featherweight—wants to wrestle and as they swing for him, he ducks and hits their hips without resistance. It’s beautiful to watch and he did it to Yair Rodriguez and Jeremy Stephens a couple of years ago just as easily as he had against Gray Maynard in 2011.
Here Edgar takes down the much bigger and harder hitting Jeremy Stephens by chinning him with a quick 1-2-3 first.
Since moving to the featherweight division in 2013, Edgar has just three losses to two different opponents. Most recently, Brian Ortega kept Edgar off his hips by threatening his wicked guillotine / anaconda choke series, and then intercepted Edgar with a counter elbow and followed up with an uppercut to finish him. But Ortega was getting outstruck by a decent margin up to the elbow.
The man who really proved to be Edgar’s foil was Jose Aldo—pretty much the greatest “anti-wrestler” in MMA history. Aldo refused to follow Edgar and instead made Edgar come to him, eliminating that lateral movement and pivoting off the line of attack when Edgar inevitably ran in on a straight line.
But Max Holloway is obviously not Jose Aldo. Holloway has fought well on the back foot before but for the most part his game is volume and it is very hard to apply that volume without actually being in range to be taken down. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the fight with Brian Ortega, where Holloway went all-in, hammering Ortega with hundreds of blows, but was bundled to the floor twice by Ortega who is, in all honesty, not a great takedown artist.
A more cautious performance might be necessary from Holloway here, as when he fought Jose Aldo the first time. In that fight Holloway simply feinted and jabbed, allowing Aldo to come back and fall short on counter combinations and slowly tire himself out. Obviously it is going to be a lot hard to tire out Frankie Edgar than Aldo, who throws every punch to knock his man out, and who has often slowed in the later rounds.
The jab is very much a weapon that Edgar has had trouble with before—from Penn to Aldo to Ortega—because if thrown well it is a non-committal weapon that leverages his height and reach disadvantage, and which provides very little opening to get in on the opponent’s hips. Edgar times his shots best when the opponent is really swinging to hurt him.
One element of the game that has separated Holloway from the crowd is his consistent bodywork. He gets to the body early and often and it wilts his opponents over the rounds. Body punches are a terrific weapon against a wrestler.
The right straight (or southpaw left straight) to the body and the body jab are terrific because they act as a stiff arm—the opponent can duck under a jab to the head but cannot duck under a jab to the chest and the arm prevents him from closing the distance. Uppercuts, hooks and shovel hooks to the body are also marvellous because even if the wrestler steps in to close the distance, the punching arm can quickly be turned into an underhook that prevents the wrestler from getting to the hips.
Kicking is always dangerous against a wrestler if not hidden well. Holloway has been having success with quick snap kicks to the body and low-low kicks to the calf, but Edgar could actually encourage Holloway to kick more recklessly by throwing plenty of kicks himself—though Edgar’s kicking game is often underused in his fights.
Another idea for Holloway—who switches stances very proficiently—would be to spend more time as a southpaw. Against another switch hitter, Jeremy Stephens, Edgar was almost completely unsuccessful in taking Stephens down when he was stood southpaw, though Stephens changed stances on a whim and didn’t look to take advantage of this.
