A wider base in your feet gives you more power in your shots, and a greater ability to quickly move away from incoming shots. He constantly brings them together, giving up the shoulder width stance that you should always maintain. Throughout this sequence, keep an eye on Cruz’s feet. Here’s another example of what some call a lack of footwork fundamentals. Here’s a great example of that from the Scott Jorgensen fight.Īt the start of the clip, as Cruz backs away he completely crosses his feet, almost looking to be off balance for a moment, but then uses a hop to get back to an orthodox stance and resumes his attack. Similar to Rashad Evans, Cruz does things that are usually big problems, but he makes it work with Here you see Pickett able to secure a takedown with relative ease thanks to having trapped Johnson against the cage.ĭominick Cruz’s footwork is interesting in that there is a lot that is technically “wrong” with what he does.

Pickett also managed to control the cage positioning at times. In that fight, Pickett was able to read Johnson’s leg kicks, consistently catching the leg and using it to score takedowns.

The biggest time Johnson’s footwork failed him was against Brad Pickett in Johnson’s lone loss. One of the reasons he can string blows together like this is his total comfort in either the orthodox or south paw stance.įraser Coffeen: Switching back and forth so fluidly gives Johnson more options in his combos, and makes his already fast strikes come together even faster. That is not the case with Johnson, who accelerates with blinding speed while always maintaining exceptional poise, composure and balance to react on the fly accordingly.įraser Coffeen: Here is another example, this time from Johnson’s UFC debut against Kid Yamamoto.Īgain we see Mighty Mouse able to push forward while throwing knees, punches, and kicks. We’ve seen “fast” fighters in MMA but generally the quicker they move and react, the more off balance and out of control they are. As he steps, he throws a punch, and the combination of the kick and punch with their forward momentum are enough to drop Page.ĭallas Winston: Further to Fraser’s observations, an excellent indicator of a successful strike or combination is the balance with which it is thrown. As soon as his foot is down, he takes a small step with the right foot (still keeping the proper distance). Johnson throws the kick, then brings that left foot down in the lead position. I think it’d be very difficult.This takes some incredible timing. “So that is a big deal in these fights, especially when you’re our size from 145 and down, weight matters. If I move up to 145 or 155, size is a problem. I mean I fought him and the size difference is a problem. “At featherweight, everybody at the top five is hard, everybody at 135 in the top five is hard to beat, especially for somebody that small. “At 125, I can’t see too many people ,” Cruz said during the FOX UFC Fight Night post fight show via Fox Sports. Johnson’s next move will be to chase his eleventh title defense in the UFC’s flyweight division, a record that the fighter is demonstratively chasing, but after that a potential history-making move north to 135-pounds awaits ‘Mighty Mouse’.īantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt has confirmed his ability to make the 125-pound weight limit, in what would be an intriguing test for Johnson’s eleventh defense, but the more likely scenario would be for Johnson to defend against one more flyweight challenger and then try his hand at bantamweight - the division in which he suffered his last career defeat to Dominick Cruz.įormer 135-pound champion Cruz though did sound of some warnings to Johnson during the FOX post-fight show saying that while Johnson’s obvious skill would make him a dangerous contender at bantamweight, that extra size of his opponents could cause ‘Mighty Mouse’ trouble. Demetrious Johnson wrote his name large in the mixed martial arts history books last Saturday night, earning his tenth successive title defense against Wilson Reis and underlining his status as the sport’s best pound-for-pound fighter.

Dominick cruz vs demetrious johnson