The Doggy Bag: Silva's Web

Mysteries of the Thai Clinch

I just watched a replay of Rich Franklin beating Edwin Dewees, where he used the muay Thai clinch and delivered several knees to finish him off. So, this would seem to me that he has knowledge of what happens once he's in that clinch. Later, I watched a replay of Anderson Silva getting Rich in the clinch and battering him with knees. Franklin seemed lost. For that matter, when Wanderlei Silva was raining 17 or 18 knees to Quinton Jackson, he did nothing either. Is there some “superman” quality to getting someone in that clinch that makes them forget to cover up, or break the hold?
-- J. Howitt

Jordan Breen, columnist and radio host: In order to adequately understand what could account for a fighter like Rich Franklin claiming that he thought of the clinch would be his "sweet spot" going into his first bout with Anderson Silva, and his evisceration that followed, it's important to realize the many faces of the clinch.

Strictly speaking, Rich Franklin has never been a killer specifically from the hands-round-the-neck Thai plumb. Throughout his career, Franklin has usually used this clinch for just seconds a time, to punctuate punching combinations with some knees when opponents stop moving their feet while covering up. The Dewees fight shows one of Franklin's more prolonged uses of the straight Thai clinch, trapping and delivering several knees. However, this is largely because his exhausted opponent was standing flat, with his face down and arms out, which made him an easy target.

However, there are other aspects of the nebulous thing we call the clinch in MMA that have helped Franklin excel. One of Franklin's successful points of style has been coupling this situational use of the Thai plumb with the wrestling-style Greco-Roman clinch. Franklin isn't a powerhouse wrestler, but he's always been able to use good footwork and pummeling to get body control and set up strikes. Naturally, the Dewees fight shows this off as well, as he is able to use dirty boxing to set up larger punching combinations and uses near-wrist control to deliver several nasty knees to Dewees' body.

So, in Franklin's case, his clinch game is not the Thai clinch alone, but he uses it conjunction with the body clinch to create an all-around offensive inside game. (Sidenote: I've already espoused this on radio, but if you want to see this hybrid inside game taken to the next level, check some videos from D.C. area welterweight Kyle Baker, who has synthesized the clinch in uniquely vicious and entertaining fashion) However, against Anderson Silva, Franklin was facing a fighter whose talents are largely within the traditional Thai clinch, and in that fight you can see the difference between a fighter who uses the Thai plumb as a means to an end, and a fighter for whom it is usually the end itself.

Franklin's use of the Thai clinch is normally in short bursts, either in tight quarters, or against stationary opponents who are covering up. Silva, conversely, has a much more robust grasp of the technique and its nuances, so when he got neck control on Franklin, he was able to attack freely and sustain it. Against a longer opponent with leverage and technique in the Thai clinch, it's imperative that one have solid footwork, so as to not allow their opponent the stability to launch knees at them, and to take them off balance in order to break the clinch. Franklin didn't use any footwork, but rather tried to quickly use his arms to swim and pummel. However, because of Silva's positioning and footwork, he able to drag the flat-footed Franklin all over the cage. For the brief moment that Franklin did close the distance and take away much of Silva's advantage, he resumed standing flat and stopped moving, throwing short, ineffective punches rather than trying to throw off Silva's balance and break free completely, allowing Silva to regain the collar tie and resume smashing him until the end.

These same principles apply to Quinton Jackson's clinch-based losses to Silva and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua (though admittedly less in the second Silva fight, where the right hook that smashed his face apart seconds before all but sealed it). Like Franklin, Jackson is a fighter who has made good use of quick clinch knees (think the Randleman fight), but it is made plausible through his strengths in the body clinch. However, when fighters have grabbed the clinch on him, he has focused on blocking rather than pummeling, running straight forward or not moving his feet at all, and trying to wriggle out of the collar tie by tensing up and standing erect, which makes your physical base narrow and compromised. This is how physically larger and stronger fighters so often get ragdolled by opponents with solid clinch technique, and creating this idea that the Thai clinch is more black magic than martial arts, which couldn't be further from the truth.