Photo by MMAjunkie Staff
- Reasons why Gaethje takes damage
- Ways previous opponents have been able to counter Gaethje's and Johnson's style
- More in depth look and Michael Johnson's style
- Possible outcomes
- their signature counters and strategies
- Rolling Thunder
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Rolling Thunder
Why Does He Take so Much Damage?
There’s a lot of mixed feelings surrounding Gaethje’s approach to the fight game. For one, he’s often branded as a fighter with a style that causes him to take excessive damage. There’s a lot of truth to that statement and it stems from a variety of reasons. For one, He’s a high-pressure fighter who’s always moving forward into a hurricane of punches. Secondly, he has a dominant preference to shell up against strikes rather than to move and evade. What makes things even more dangerous is the fact that he rarely likes to give up ground and usually likes to stay in the pocket to exchange. Gaethje is the type of fighter who’s more than willing to take a shot in order to give one. The damage he takes is a product of his stylistic preference but it also opens up many opportunities for him to be successful as well.The Craft of Justin Gaethje
A lot of Gaethje’s best offense comes from within the pocket. He’ll often wing very powerful punches or throw heavily committed leg kicks. He’s always ready to pull his shield up to defend, especially with his tendency to walk right into range; Some of the most effective counters are his looping hooks and kicks.
Gaethje throws the power hand, removing his head from the centerline to avoid counters.
Volatile Leg Kicks
He’s got one of the most vicious leg kicks you’ll see in MMA. The best kickers in combat aren’t just the ones who throw hard kicks; they’re also the ones who throw it with great strategic brilliance. The most interesting thing here is that Gaethje’s kicking game presents a very difficult problem for any fighter stylistically. You see, when fighters trade strikes in the pocket, they typically try to headhunt. It’s a common theme in striking to return punches to the head after blocking them in exchanges. When Gaethje blocks punches, he’ll sometimes mix it up and throw leg kicks while trading. He finds so much success with this because of the fact that opponents aren’t typically expecting to get kicked in the leg while exchanging shots during trades. To compliment that even further, opponents are so fixated on the head, they often don’t see the kicks coming from those low angles. Just check out the example below:
What makes it even more difficult to block the kicks is the fact that Gaethje will often kick while the opponent is trying to counter. Keep in mind when you strike, you must use your footwork to facilitate the transfer of your weight across your body, which means your legs can’t block kicks during this time. It’s nearly impossible to block kicks or string together combinations while striking when someone is kicking your legs off balance. Footwork is the very foundation of striking, so by destroying the root, you cut off everything else they can do from the feet up.
Gaethje’s kick is also what makes him so tricky to deal with from the clinch as well. He’ll often hold you in the clinch, move his hips back to create the space he needs to kick your legs, and chops away. So while the opponent is stuck in the clinch, they’re often neglecting their legs getting attacked as their primary focus is fighting the hands to gain better positioning in order to escape or transition around the clinch.
It’s no doubt that his kicks are highly effective, but he seems to use them selectively. He’ll place a high focus on imposing his kick games only when he sees that an opponent will cripple from the strikes. His most recent fight didn’t display a heavy kick-oriented approach as previous ones. If Gaethje doesn’t sense his kicks are crippling your mobility, he tends to switch to different approaches.
He does make good use of the utility that kicks provide. Aside from causing damage, kicks can be used to stifle certain offensive strategies. Gaethje has displayed some technically sound use of kicks to shut down opponents looking to score offense. Check out a few of these examples.
Shutting down the Jab
When he finds that he’s on the receiving end of eating jabs, he’ll counter them by throwing a leg kick. The opponent won’t’ typically be able to check the kick while in the middle of using their footwork to strike, he’s often able to punish their leg for it. He doesn’t seem to utilize this enough to deal with jabs, but it’s definitely an option he turns to when needed.
Shutting down the power hand
He can also shut down the timing of someone trying to land that rear hand shot. Opponent’s looking to time a power shot will often put most of their weight on the lead foot and sometimes end up getting swept when a kick comes through.
Gaethje gets his fair share of criticism about not properly setting up kicks with combinations, but he’s done a fair job of showing he doesn’t need to in order to be successful with them. If you can time your kicks, you don’t need to set them up with combinations. Gaethje may very well be the fighter with the most technical kicking game in the Lightweight Division.
Gathje’s Signature Moves
His kicks are very useful but his offensive game with the hands tends to fall a bit short in variety. You don’t typically see much variation in strikes outside of the occasional jab and wide looping punches like the hook and uppercut. The craziest thing about studying several of his recent fights has to be the fact that I can’t even remember a sequence where he throws a cross. Nevertheless, he makes good use of what he’s got. Check out a few of his signature moves when he goes on the offensive.Weaving Hooks:
It gets more interesting as we continue on to [part 2] where we discuss methods of countering Gaethje’s style and looking at Michael Johnson’s unique style and how to counter it.
