Adesanya’s exploits are under the microscope in this installment of The Film Room.
We did not know what to expect from Adesanya when he joined the UFC, but he quickly proved himself as one of the best strikers to ever grace the Octagon. His feints and distance management are superb, and his patient and varied attack makes it almost impossible to know what is coming next. He had Rob Wilkinson hurt in the first round but chose to slowly pick him apart instead of aggressively looking for the finish and risk getting hit. Patience is a virtue, and his ability to not get overwhelmed and stay patient on the big stage while focusing on his defense is a rarity in MMA. The New Zealander’s striking style also seems to be better for this sport than it was for kickboxing. Adesanya uses lots of feints and fakes, laces in jabs from below the opponent’s guard since he keeps his hands low, utilizes constant stance switches and has the ability to stay patient and intelligently pick his openings.
Adesanya is a master at setting traps for his opponents and using their tendencies against them; that is only achievable with elite feinting ability. Using a variety of feints and benefitting from the ability to comfortably fight out of both stances, he can overwhelm an opponent’s reactions without even throwing a strike. To the casual eye, some of these feints might look like useless ticks all fighters possess, and in some cases that may be true. However, for Adesanya, each and every feint serves a purpose. Whether he is trying to draw reactions out of his opponents and looking to counter or just feinting to see how they react to set them up later in the bout, each movement has justification. Even if he does not strike immediately off the feints, he can read how the opponent will react to them and use the same feint to set up his combos later in the fight.
Against Brad Tavares, Adesanya was using Lyoto Machida-like hip feints to set up his body kicks. Adesanya has the incredible ability to change his kicks in mid-swing. To take advantage of this gift, he routinely uses the question mark kick. The question mark kick is thrown as a front kick, but once the leg comes up, the kicker flips his hips and turns it into a standard round kick. Most question mark kicks are thrown to the head, but Adesanya loves to mix them up to the body. If you watch closely, Adesanya uses his hips to make Tavares think he is throwing a front kick. When he actually throws the kick, he uses the same hip movement to get Tavares’ hands high but turns the kick over for a round kick to the body.
Many people have claimed Adesanya is the next Anderson Silva because of their similar striking styles. This is somewhat true, but what is undeniably the same between the two is how they choose to defend attacks. Their defense revolves around footwork and evasive movement. Some fighters prefer to stand their ground and block strikes with their arms and legs, but if the point of hand-to-hand combat is to hit and not get hit, then using footwork to evade attacks seems like the superior strategy. The problem with this style of defense is that the fighter generally lacks the classic methods of defending. As such, if you can pressure Adesanya to the cage, he is not comfortable standing his ground and blocking.
Although Adesanya would rather use his footwork to evade, he is becoming adept at rolling with strikes and taking them on the forearms and shoulders. Against Tavares, Adesanya liberally used the shoulder roll every time his opponent came in with a double jab. Again, there are major holes in these styles of defense. Evasive defense does not work well against aggressive opponents or opponents, like Whittaker, who strike in long combinations. If Adesanya is smart, he knows Whittaker will be pushing the pace for all five rounds and hopefully worked on keeping his hands high and learning how to deal with pressure.
Adesanya’s finest performance to date was against Derek Brunson in November. He seemed to toy with Brunson for most of the encounter, and when he decided to go for the finish, he knocked him out immediately. Most of the bout was spent defending takedowns against the cage; the second they separated, it seemed like you could see the switch flip, as Adesanya decided to go for the finish and scored the knockout. This was reminiscent of the aforementioned Silva in his prime. At the height of his powers, it seemed that “The Spider” could end a fight whenever he wanted but chose to play around, ala his UFC 153 pairing with Stephan Bonnar. Although this may not be the case, it appeared as though Adesanya was doing the same thing to Brunson before executing an effortless knockout.
In his most recent fight, Adesanya put on one of the greatest middleweight title fights of all-time with Kelvin Gastelum. On the lead, Adesanya did what he always does: lots of feints and misdirection, constant stance switching and landing simple but well-timed and executed combos. His long 1-2 down the middle landed all night against the shorter Gastelum, and his usual kicks to the body kept him guessing.
Adesanya also had the opportunity to counter more than usual against “The Ultimate Fighter 17” winner. Gastelum and his team clearly did their homework and knew the best way to beat Adesanya was with pressure. However, the short and stocky Gastelum had a tough time closing the distance and was met with some perfectly timed counter straight rights down the middle.
Gastelum still enjoyed some brief success closing the distance, which should be concerning for Adesanya and his camp. Adesanya’s evasive defense has been lauded in the past, but the fight with Gastelum exposed its shortcomings. When Gastelum decided to come forward with long combos, Adesanya looked flustered and often moved straight back to the cage. He also dropped his hands during these sequences and relied on his head movement. This is great when it works, but leaving your head wide open is never advised at the highest levels. Whittaker is aggressive but tactical with his approach. He will press forward with jabs and feints before unloading with combos, and he has proven to be a master at closing distance with his front kicks. Adesanya is not nearly as good on the counter as he is on the lead, so if he fails to earn Whittaker’s respect early, he could be working off his back foot all night.
Adesanya has yet to face off with a grappling-based fighter, but so far, his takedown defense has been quite impressive. One question always dogs fighters transitioning from kickboxing or boxing to MMA: How will they perform on the ground? As seen with fighters like Stephen Thompson and Joanna Jedrzejczyk, some strikers only need effective takedown defense to succeed. Adesanya seems to be taking the same approach, as he has used magnificent defensive footwork to deny 85 percent of the takedowns coming his way. Whittaker has also proven to be a fantastic defensive grappler, but neither man typically shoots for takedowns. The result? We are probably in for a five-round striking bout.