Rick Story Spoils Gunnar Nelson

There's a reason I call Rick Story the king of the spoilers. Last night he was at the height of his
powers.
A spoiler is a middle of the pack competitor who can make very good guys look very average.
Maybe he never breaks the top five, but no matter who he's in with, there's a good chance they
won't look as good as they have before. Last night, Rick Story met Icelandic hot prospect, Gunnar
Nelson in a five round tilt. In one of the best attrition performances I've seen in MMA Story wiped
the floor with him. By the middle of the fourth round, it was all Story and only three people in the
arena still believed in Nelson at allunfortunately one was a judge and the other two were
commentators.
Elsewhere, Rory MacDonald was able to stop Tarec Saffiedine with strikes. Also, Max Holloway
put away Akira Corrasani with little trouble. And a couple of other lovely knockouts took place
which we'll talk about imminently.
King of the Spoilers
It is one thing finding a gameplan to beat a fighter but it is quite another to convince your man, a
ball of emotions, to actually stick to it. Rick Story has one of the finest work ethics I have seen in
mixed martial arts comeptition. He takes the blows, he never gets upset, and he keeps doing exactly
what he's been told. On this occasion he had been told to kick Gunnar Nelson's legs out, wind him
with the trademark Story body shots, and keep it up for twenty-five minutes.
One of the paramount rules of mixed martial arts and striking arts in general is that movement based
styles are always, always, always vulnerable to low kicks. If it's a style of lateral movementa la
Dominick Cruz, Demetrious Johnson and T.J. Dillashawyou chop the trailing leg during their
sidesteps. Against a point karate style, in and out fightersuch as Lyoto Machida, Gunnar Nelson,
Stephen Thompsonyou chop the trailing leg as they move back. If they eat the kicks, they'll slow
down. If they check the kicks, they'll have to stop moving to do it.
If there is movement, there is a leg left behind. The problem with a karate style counter striker is
that if you just run in after low kicks you'll run onto a straight and it'll be lights out. This is where
feinting is important, or at least showing punches often enough that the opponent will move. These
type of fighters are minimalists, they don't like showing their counters on thin air. Fake them out
enough and their willingness to throw the counters will disappear.
Between low kicks and powerful rear straights and hooks to the body, Story slowed Nelson down
severely round by round. To move in and out quickly, you need a leg in front of your centre of
gravity, and a leg behind it so that you can push off in both directions. Pushing away from rather
than dragging yourself towards a direction is the secret to quick movement.
The more of a shellacking Nelson's body and legs took, the less his stance was for moving, and the
more it was for holding him up. The closer his feet came underneath his centre of gravity, the
slower his movement, and his punching power disappeared by the fourth round of the fight.
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Nelson in the first round, fast on his feet.
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Nelson in the fourth roundstruggling to survive.

As huge an advocate of the karate style as I am, I do not believe that it is a style which holds up to
attrition, and it is certainly not as effective in the fourth and fifth round as it is in the first and
second.
Conversely, the attrition low kicking and body punching game is not nearly so effective in rounds
one through three as it is in the fourth and fifth. Many fight fans don't realise it, but a five round
fight is so far removed from a three round fight that they might as well be different sports.
By the last seconds of the third round, Gunnar Nelson was finally slowing down after the effective
attrition work of Storybut most fights would have ended there and Nelson might have won. But
as it was, he had ten more minutes to fight and his legs were gone.
The other problem with Nelson's style is that it is one strike at a time. In the early going he would
hit Story in the face, clinch, and Story would land a few good body shots.
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But by the late going, Nelson's one shot at a time style had none of the elusiveness to make up for
its holes. When he lunged in, he was left standing there and ready to hit.
A final strong note from this bout is Story's shot selection on the low kicks. If you throw inside
kicks against a fighter in a long stance, they are a slight movement away from taking it on their
shin. Max Holloway kicked Conor McGregor in the shin three times, then seemingly gave up on
low kicks altogether.
If you throw to the outside of their lead leg, they have to pick it up, square their hips and point their
shin outward to deal with it. A bigger motion is required, which is always a good thing when
fighting someone who is relying on their reactions as a defence. Against the Diaz brothers, B.J.
Penn, Conor McGregor and plenty of other long stanced fighters I have watched fighters kick shin
to shin on the inside four or five times and then give up on them altogether.
By ensuring that he was often working to the outside of Nelson's lead leg, no matter which stance
he was presented with, Story was able to break Nelson's balance and take away his movement.
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Story picked up a split decisionwhat that other judge was watching I have no ideawhich didn't
reflect the dominance of his performance. The best I've seen him look to date, and I look forward to
more from this thoughtful, grinding Rick Story.
Though this is a severe road bump for Gunnar Nelson, I suspect Nelson will get back on track
quicklypartly because he is so talented, and partly because so few fighters seem to realize how
much low kicks and body shots matter to movement fighters. And again, if he goes back to a three
round fight this kind of attrition won't even have time to take effect.
Odds and Ends
On the UFC's other Fight Night card last night, Rory MacDonald was able to knock out Tarec
Saffiedine with a beautiful C-cut combination. That is the overhand right ducking the opponent's
head into a lead uppercut. It is one of the few consistently effective applications of a lead uppercut

as a knockout blow. Here is the great Matthew Saad Muhammad showing it off.
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Rory's wasn't as pretty, but it got the job done.
Something which should be mentioned, as MacDonald loves lunging in with the front snap kick to
the face, is the terrible drubbing received by Niklas Backstrom off of a missed kick.
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When you miss a front kick and it goes across the opponent's body like that, you are essentially
giving them a dominant angle for free. The great Buakaw has knocked down so, so many good
fighters off of moving to the side of front kicksmost notably Yoshihiro Sato. Front kicking is a
great distance game, but dangerous if you start throwing your weight past your opponent.
Finally, Max Holloway showed a level of class on the feet well above Akira Corassani in a fantastic
knockout win. Corassani routinely wings his right hand, then recovers his hips very slowly. We talk
a lot about closing the door with the left hook so as to not leave oneself open to right hands after
throwing one's own. This is a perfect example of why I mention it so often.
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Both of the knockdowns came as Corassani threw his right, then slowly recovered his weight and
ate a tight straight right in the process. It's a bad habit, but you will be surprised how high in the
ranks of MMA it creeps. Gilbert Melendez has been failing to recover from his right for years, and
finally got dropped by Diego Sanchez of all people as a result.
A quality night of fights, now it is just a short wait until Aldo versus Mendes II.
Pick up Jack Slack's ebook, Fighting Karate at his blog Fights Gone By.Jack can also be found on Facebook
and Twitter.