Breakdown of Donald Cerrone vs Eddie Alvarez at UFC 178

What reminds you the most about Muay Thai use in MMA? I think the most remembered moment is when Anderson Silva broke Rich Franklin's nose at UFC 64. Back then, there were fighters who still didn't know about the Thai clinch.

Today, no elite fighters are unaware of the Thai clinch, but Muay Thai is not only about clinching. Let's think about a fighter's style and how it incorporates Muay Thai.

At UFC 178, Donald Cerrone faced Eddie Alvarez in the co-main event. Alvarez had a shorter reach and his striking style relied heavily on boxing. Therefore, he needed to step in and out when striking.

Alvarez used that step-in movement well early on and he landed a high volume of punches in the clinch. He took the first round as a result, but don't forget that Cerrone had already started to punish Alvarez's body with knees.

Since Alvarez had to step forward when punching because of his reach disadvantage, Cerrone's knees worked well as counters.

In the second round, Cerrone's counterattacks with knees dealt more damage to Alvarez's body, and this damage left Alvarez unable to fight in the clinch.

When clinches did happen, Cerrone's knees stopped Alvarez from dirty boxing. When fighting from a distance, Cerrone's low kicks hurt Alvarez's leg and that slowed him down.

This made it easier for Cerrone to continuously attack Alvarez's leg. I also point out that Alvarez's step-in punches became ineffective with his leg damaged.

This fight was largely about which fighting length was better for each fighter. The competition mostly took place at a short length, and Cerrone held an advantage due to body and leg damage that allowed him to win.

          Cerrone talk about fight.


Muay Thai (and kickboxing) is about creating attacks from several different lengths and finding the most preferred and successful length in order to win a fight.

Cerrone's skill at doing this showed in his fight with Alvarez. He succeeded with Muay Thai without relying entirely on the Thai clinch, but rather by relying upon other important and lesser-known parts of Muay Thai.


We should think more about how fighters try to get better at using length and angles against each other.

Striking pressure defines where a fight goes

When Japanese MMA is evaluated, it is often pointed out that many fighters do not know how to do a proper weight cut. What I would also like to note is that most fighters do not fight in the weight class that is defined by their body frame.

For example, in boxing, Shinji Takehara is the world champion of the heaviest division. His division is middleweight (160 pounds), and he stands 6 feet 1 inch tall. Boxers have a more strict view about fighting at their proper weight. There are fighters in MMA with smaller frames who try to gain muscle for more grappling strength. Therefore, I can't say that everyone fits my theory, but still many Japanese fighters choose the wrong fighting weight.

Motonobu Tezuka fought against the clearly bigger Alex Caceres. After the fight, Tezuka said that he can drop down to flyweight. That makes me think that, when a Japanese fighter enters a major organization where foreign fighters have bigger frames, the Japanese fighter should drop down a division.

That's not to say that every fighter must do so. Certain fighters are not meant to drop the weight, such as the grapplers that I mentioned who bulk up in order to allow themselves to improve their grip on submissions or to maintain position on the ground. Those fighters excel by using their physical strength to their advantage and they would struggle if they cut weight and lost muscle. It becomes risky when they can no longer use their familiar fighting style once their strength is diminished.

There are also many fighters who choose to compete in higher weight categories because there often isn't as much money to be made in MMA's lower weight classes like flyweight, bantamweight and featherweight. Fighting in the higher weight classes leads to bigger paydays. Frankie Edgar, for example, captured the UFC lightweight title even though he only has a bantamweight frame. I am worried that there is too little investment in the lighter weight categories, which limits the sport's potential for growth.

In MMA right now, grapplers need to develop striking pressure to succeed at setting up takedowns at the highest level. Fighter need use strikes to keep opponents off-balance to set up takedowns.

Striking pressure can be made up of a fighter's reach, speed and power, but technique can be used to create space or to close the distance. Striking pressure can be overcome if you take note of distance, angles, combinations and so on. Shinya Aoki did try to do this in his fight against Eddie Alvarez after he had previously lost the pressure battle in his bout with Gilbert Melendez, but due to his lack of power and chin, Alvarez overwhelmed Aoki anyway.

When an opponent has a longer reach, and can adapt to any situation, the fight becomes tougher for a grappler with a shorter reach. This means that divisional flexibility has become much tougher than before.

In the past, you saw fighters trying to submit opponents from the bottom. Once elite fighters learned how to defend submissions from the top, wrestling became much more important in grappling. And now that fighters have become better strikers and have learned how to sprawl to defend against takedown attempts, it is difficult for grapplers to turn fights into grappling matches without first using striking pressure.

Big thanks to Robert Sargent (from MMA Rising) for English editing.