Justin Gaethje – More than a brawler

By Josh Yandle

Justin Gaethje is a fighter that needs no introduction to fans of MMA. Since joining the UFC in 2017, Gaethje has put on instant classics versus both Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirer. Whilst also scoring emphatic finishes of Michael Johnson and James Vick. He marches forward like a madman, showing no fear, no quit and no mercy. Despite entertaining the masses, his come forward style has caused many to mischaracterise him as an unskilled or unintelligent fighter. However, the truth is, Gaethje is tremendously skilled as a mixed martial artist.

Justin Gaethje is a pressure fighter through and through. His objective when he steps in the cage is always the same; walk the opponent down, make sure they can’t escape, land strikes and repeat.

Gaethje executes the first stage of his plan very well. He takes small bouncing steps around the octagon so he can adjust and move laterally, cutting off his opponents escape route at a moments notice. Whilst doing this he feints regularly, so the opponent never knows if he’s just stepping forward or throwing a strike in their direction, this often leads to the opponent giving ground and moving back towards the cage.

• 

Here he is feinting Poirer to the cage before feinting a leg kick and using it to hide a shift that allows him to enter range safely and fire off a quick combination.

Defence is a vital part of a pressure fighters’ game, if you’re going to walk forward and attempt to initiate exchanges, you better make sure you’re prepared for the opponent to throw strikes at you; and Gaethje has far better defence than he’s given credit for. He stalks his opponent behind an active high guard, and does an excellent job of moving his upper body to slip shots entirely, take the sting off of them or take them on the arm. Gaethje generally attempts to parry or slip straight shots, roll with or block hooks, whilst usually blocking uppercuts. He uses an array of different defences and constantly switches between them to prevent his opponent getting a read on him that they can exploit with trickery.

You can see in the gif above that Gaethje doesn’t waste any movement, this isn’t done to conserve energy, but to save time. Slipping only slightly with his hands still raised allows him to come back with strikes of his own very quickly.

Note how little difference there is between the first two slips and the slip that leads to a counter. Gaethje’s fluidity makes it extremely difficult for his opponent to read him and makes him a nightmare to fight as the opponent can never get comfortable.

Here he is taking a left hook on the arm and immediately firing a low kick back in return.

Here you can see Gaethje take a small step to the right after the initial right hand, then as he throws the left hook he shifts his weight onto the back foot, taking his head away from Johnson’s left straight and making it easy to hide his jaw behind the lead shoulder. The left hand was also poised to parry in case Johnson’s jab was on target.

To further highlight Gaethjes’ pocket boxing and how he dictates exchanges, here he is controlling the lead hand of Johnson, slipping his hand to the inside just as he ducks to gauge distance and stop a potential TD, before slamming home an uppercut.

Gaethje going to the high guard so often does have it’s downsides, however. As long as the opponent is mindful of counters coming their way, (Which, as mentioned earlier isn’t) they can work the body after feinting or throwing something upstairs, we saw this in his bouts verses both Alvarez and Poirer. Another drawback of the high guard is long combinations, as the high guard requires constant adjustment as different strikes come in, the opponent can keep firing away & keep Gaethje on the defensive. Skilled boxers such as Poirer can combine this with concise footwork and feints in order to avoid his counters and avoid being forced back to the fence. This takes an extremely high level of skill, though, and even when the opponent manages this they still have to deal with low kicks. It’s also important to remember when someone comes forward as much as Gaethje, you’re always going to get hit and a fight vs Gaethje can easily descend into a battle of wills that few men can survive.

Gaethje doesn’t just come forward and make it as up as he goes, either. As he stalks he probes with a jab and gets reads on the opponents’ movements and reactions, here we see Gaethje throwing a jab to the body of James Vick.

When he throws it, Vicks’ hands come down and he circles off to the left of Gaethje

Gaethje remembers this reaction and the next time he gets into boxing range he jabs to the body, feints another, and tries to come over the top with a big right hand that misses. That right hand was never supposed to land, instead it reinforced the idea that Vick needed to circle away from the right hand of Gaethje. It was just a few more moments after this that Gaethje managed to end it. Gaethje feints as he steps in, causing Vick to move to the left of Gaethje as he did before. But this time Gaethje anticipated it, just as Vick starts to move, Gaethje leaps into a left hook to the jaw that halts the movement of Vick; standing him still and upright in front of Gaethje. From here Gaethje uses the left hand to perform a hand trap, making a clear path for the right hand that knocks Vick into unconsciousness.

Gaethje didn’t turn his body into the left hook, instead he squares his hips as he throws it, allowing him to turn and come at Vick from an angle whilst throwing everything into the right hand.

Gaethje is one of the best low kickers in MMA today. Against Vick he used them to counter the taller man’s jab, preventing Vick from establishing his range and offensive boxing he could’ve used to keep Gaethje away. When an opponent doesn’t back away as easily as Vick did however, we see them truly come into play. Gaethjes’ leg kicks were on full display in his bout with Dustin Poirer, where the Louisiana native showed impressive boxing and movement. He used his skill in the pocket to back Gaethje off with counters as well as combinations & good movement in between, cutting tight angles and circling the cage behind a crisp jab to keep Gaethje at bay

Gaethje responded by kicking the legs at every opportunity. Kicking the legs over time will restrict both the opponents ability to move, as well as their punching power, making them a perfect fit for Gaethjes’ game; if he lands enough of them, the opponent will be left with little power on their shots and slow movement.

For an excellent leg kicker like Gaethje, almost any form of movement from the opponent can be used to land a thudding leg kick. When the opponent commits to a punch, their weight shifts onto the front leg, thus making the kick more damaging and meaning that the kick is harder to avoid. So Gaethje punished Poirier for throwing power shots, nearly every time Poirier committed to a hard punch, Gaethje would kick the leg either before the punch got to him, or after the punch fell short.

This isn’t the only way Gaethje set-up his patented leg kicks, however, lateral & backward movement also provide opportunity. When somebody moves backward, their lead leg is the last thing to move with them, making it a prime and easy target, one of the best examples of this in MMA is the first iteration of Lyoto Machida vs Shogun Rua. More impressive than kicking the trailing leg as Dustin moved back however, was Gaethje’s kicking of the leg after lateral movement. When Dustin moved to Gaethje’s right (the non-power side) or Gaethje moved to his own right, the inside of the Dustin’s right leg became more exposed. Gaethje took full advantage of this; here he is taking a small hop before kicking the inside of the leg

And here he is kicking the lead leg out from Dustin, he kicks from the inside angle as Poirier shifts his weight onto the front foot to throw.

Notice the inside angle created by Poirer stepping out to his right

Here you can see Gaethje landing from the outside angle after Dustin switched stance & moved in the opposite direction.

Here Gaethje patiently waits for Johnson to finish his combination and circle off to the side, providing him with the perfect opportunity to land an outside low kick.

Gaethje’s game merges together perfectly, and this is something we see of too few elite fighters. Many have lots of different tools and lots of impressive skills, but not many bring their skills together to create a symphony of violence like Gaethje. He uses excellent footwork to stalk his prey and force them to exchange with him, and then when they do his defence minimises damage and allows him to work both his counter boxing game and land his low kicks. A common answer to pressure is to enter the clinch or shoot a takedown, but these options provide Gaethjes’ opponents with no rest at all, an NCAA D1 wrestler, Gaethje has excellent takedown defence and a strong clinch game to boot. Gaethje has also taken to landing leg kicks and knees to the leg from the clinch, these are not only greatly damaging and tiring, but they also make the opponent far less likely to try and tie him up.

Justin Gaethje may well be a complete and utter maniac with a propensity for extreme violence, but that’s not all he is. Don’t be fooled by the fact that every fight he’s in descends into a war. Justin Gaethje is an extremely technical fighter, and an absolute gift to the sport of MMA.

by Josh Yandle (https://twitter.com/joshyandle)