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Pettis was on the verge of a title shot before a loss to current champion Henry Cejudo last December, but a win over No. 5 flyweight “Formiga” could garner him a rematch with Cejudo for his first shot at a divisional title.
Escaping His Brothers Shadow
Many think of Sergio as just being the younger brother of Anthony Pettis, even his nickname on Wikipedia is listed as “Baby Pettis,” but the younger sibling is quickly escaping his brother's shadow and showing the world he has championship-level chops of his own. At just 25 years-old, he has an incredible amount of experience for someone his age and has spent most of his formable fighting years taking on some of the best flyweights the UFC has to offer.
The oddest thing about the Pettis brothers are their completely different styles, despite training with each other their entire lives. Anthony is a long-range fighter who likes to keep his distance and land kicks from the outside. Sergio is a pressuring counter striker who likes to keep the action up close. Coincidently, both struggle with what the other excels at. As a pure counter striker, Sergio can use more classical retreating counters with a single precision strike like above, but he favors a much more difficult style of countering that few in MMA have perfected.
Sergio takes on what many in boxing refer to as pressure countering. This style was on full display by legendary boxer Roberto Duran, but it is rarely used successfully in MMA. Instead of using the standard “make you miss, make you pay” strategy of countering like Conor McGregor or Anderson Silva, Sergio likes to push the pace and come forward aggressively, hoping to draw a reaction from his opponent which he can counter in the pocket. Simultaneously leading and countering creates a world of problems for your opponent; never knowing if you are coming forward with a combo or just striking to draw you out and counter. T.J. Dillashaw also uses this “pressure countering” method and you can easily see the similarities in the two. In short, you’re leading with strikes hoping your opponent tries to counter, which in turn can also be countered.
Since Sergio’s countering style requires him to work off the lead, his advancing attacks can be equally effective and win him fights when the counters aren’t landing. Against Ryan Benoit, he put on a dominant performance on the lead before coincidently being countered later in the fight and finished. Although he lost, Sergio learned a valuable lesson that night on why you can’t get overzealous with your leading attacks and has not been that reckless since.
Similar to his brother, Sergio is mainly a striker but he has an underrated ground game. He often looks for takedowns late in rounds if the fight close, showing his fight IQ and knowing a late takedown can seal a stanza. He also defends nearly 70 percent of takedowns and lands on average one takedown a fight, which almost always comes at the end of the frame. His opponent this weekend is a jiu-jitsu-based fighter and many believe he holds a huge advantage on the ground, but I believe it will be closer than most think. Obviously, Sergio wants to keep this one standing, but he can hold his own on the ground and defend takedowns to keep the fight on the feet.
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