Lessons in Pressure with George Hardwick: or, what Chris Curtis Could Learn.
Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
On Saturday, July 23rd, at the UFC Fight Night event at the 02 Arena in London, Chris Curtis (a fighter known for his slick MMA-boxing skills and breaking opponents down with his bodywork) faced Jack Hermansson, a wrestling-based opponent who instead came out and delivered a performance of tricky range-focused kickboxing. Curtis found himself frustrated throughout all three rounds and lost a clear decision as he struggled to ever get close enough to make his striking pay off.
On Friday, July 22nd, at the Cage Warriors 141 event at the 02 Arena in London, George Hardwick (a fighter known for his slick MMA-boxing skills and breaking opponents down with his bodywork), faced Kyle Driscoll, a wrestling-based opponent who instead came out and delivered a performance of tricky range-focused kickboxing. Although Hardwick found himself in a few tricky spots early on, as the fight went on he broke down Driscoll’s defences and won the fight via stoppage in the fourth round.
So… can the UFC fighter learn anything from the success of his Cage Warriors counterpart? Well, obviously this comes with caveats- Curtis was fighting at a much higher level here, and clearly there are also things Hardwick could learn from watching Curtis- but… well, yes. There are a number of things that Hardwick did to break down his opponent’s gameplan that, if he found himself in a similar situation again in future, Curtis could find helpful. Since this is a useful illustrative example for anyone interested in pressure-fighting technique, let’s take a quick look.
Cut the cage, don’t follow
This is an exhortation you hear fairly often from commentators during this kind of matchup (in MMA and boxing both), and indeed was brought up more than once during the fight, but even though it sounds self-explanatory, it’s not always clear what that actually means. Well, thankfully, in this pair of matchups we’ve got a pretty good set of examples of how to do it, and what sort of mistakes can lead to being the one following.
The first, most obvious component here is the direction of movement relative to your opponent. Stepping directly at them might seem to be the most efficient way to get a strike home as quickly as possible- but done without the correct setup, it leaves them with complete freedom of choice about where to move to avoid you. Even if the first strike gets home, it’s difficult to land any follow-ups. So cutting the cage first and foremost means cutting the options of the opponent down. Part of this can be the kind of strikes you throw- but Curtis wasn’t really lacking in the kind of hooks and herding kicks that you’d typically use to achieve this, and if anything Hardwick’s arsenal is more focused on straighter punches than his (though his kicks worked very well for this)- so that wasn’t necessarily the difference-maker here.
What was, was the footwork. As mentioned, stepping at an opponent has the benefit of being the fastest route, and Curtis seemed to hang his hat on this principle- but in doing so, he repeatedly let Hermansson go wherever he wanted in the cage. Even on occasions where he did back him up towards the edge of the Octagon, the final approach would be a direct rush, and while he pushed his opponent to the fence on several occasions, Hermansson was almost always able to simply bounce off it in either direction unimpeded and get himself clear.
Curtis pushes Hermansson to the fence, but then drives straight down the center to land his strikes, leaving his opponent space on both sides to chose from.
Hardwick, meanwhile, would make most of his approaches at an angle relative to Driscoll’s center line. Stepping across an opponent in one direction, of course, makes it much more likely that they’re going to move the other way. This, leveraged correctly, has benefits that can be reaped both immediately and in the longer term- for example, taking a couple of steps around to the right and then throwing a left hand can walk the opponent onto that shot, but strategically Hardwick would also, quite simply, take steps across the direction where Driscoll was furthest from the cage wall, thus consistently forcing him towards it and constricting the space directly behind him into which he could escape.
Hardwick takes two circling steps to his left to close the available space on that side, then catches Driscoll with the right overhand as he moves the other way.
Once on the cage, too, Hardwick’s footwork was on point - where Hermansson was usually free to pick left or right once he felt the fence, Driscoll would not only usually find one of those directions cut off, but as the fight went on find himself trapped there entirely as Hardwick took small steps across him to cut off the angle as he moved.
In this example, Driscoll changes direction repeatedly in an effort to find some room, but he finds Hardwick getting there ahead of him each time, leading him to momentarily panic so much he nearly turns his back.
This was often aided by a smart switch of stance- something not necessarily recommended to a fighter not completely comfortable knowing when to switch, but a potential option - and even without that, circling an opponent in the direction they’re trying to escape to keep them pinned against the cage is a must for a pressure fighter.
So that’s the first aspect, positioning. This is, however, almost entirely useless without the second (seemingly less spoken about) aspect here - timing. It’s almost impossible to take the correct angle and move across your opponent’s line if they’re the one consistently making the first move- and, in Curtis vs Hermansson, that was very much the case. Even on occasions when the American got himself into decent positions to throw, he’d pause before doing so - and that meant that when he’d make the final move, his opponent was already moving, and that meant adjusting to his opponent’s lead rather than being able to choose his move.
Curtis did make moves to cut Hermansson off here, but because he’s stepping second, he’s playing catchup. Not only does this make it tricky to close that gap, but since the Swede is choosing the moment of engagement, he knows as he steps around Curtis’ lead that that right hook is the only serious option- and being aware of it, avoids it easily.
Frequently these pauses were an evident attempt to get Hermansson to throw at him so he could counter- but there was really no reason to stop his forward movement while doing so, and on almost every occasion, even when he landed a successful counter, Hermannson was already stepping away so the sting would be gone and any follow ups miss badly.
Curtis throws up a high guard and Hermansson bites with a jab. Curtis drives forward to deliver the counter, but because he hasn’t made any adjustment while Hermansson throws, his opponent knows where he is and where he needs to go, and though the bodyshot gets home, Curtis has to pull the follow up right because it would leave him badly out of position, allowing Hermansson to escape into space.
Hardwick, meanwhile, seems to take letting his opponent make the first step as a personal affront. He’s constantly edging into his opponents’ space, making them be the ones to have to find a way out. It’s important to note, though, that this doesn’t mean relentless, constant forward motion. Hardwick pauses all the time, and even has a similar play to Curtis’ guard-up pause to draw a lead- but the difference is that even when doing that, Hardwick is still constantly edging into space, but also, crucially, the shot out of the guard will vary- sometimes he’ll wait to counter, sometimes he’ll take the lead instead. Where Curtis stopping meant, almost always, that Hermansson knew he had a second’s grace to either strike or move, Hardwick ‘stopping’ still gave Driscoll multiple potential things to react to, which meant his options were far more constrained.
Taking the first step like this is also a key component in discouraging an opponent’s kicking game. Driscoll did indeed come out aiming to maintain range by kicking, like Hermansson- but this really only stayed true throughout the first round, and even then you saw quite quickly multiple occasions where he would chamber a kick but then abandon it as Hardwick closed the range further than where he’d be comfortable throwing it. Even when he did, he’d find himself trying to kick while stepping back to maintain range, a losing proposition that made the kicks less effective and left him off-balance as he fell back. Curtis, meanwhile, never really found a way to discourage Hermansson doing the same, and ended up taking hard body kicks right up to the final bell.
Driscoll tries to throw a kick to get himself some space, but Hardwick’s constant fractional forward movement has caused him to hop too close to the fence as he does so, making the kick awkward and allowing Hardwick to step in and push him all the way to the cage.
Feints are a tool for movement
On Cage Warriors commentary, Dan Hardy spent a fair bit of time lamenting Hardwick’s lack of feints. This was odd, because not only did he repeatedly land by convincing Driscoll he was going to throw the opposite hand to the one he did, or (as in the fight-ending bodyshot), faking high shots to go low or vice versa, he also feinted steps and movements forward and guided Driscoll’s movement with threats from one or the other hand. Feints are obviously a great way to land strikes in and of itself, but also incredibly useful as an added tool to get in an opponent’s head and control their movement, and Hardwick used this to the max. Unsure if a strike was coming from left or right, Driscoll’s only safe defensive options were either to back straight back out- which in this fight often meant straight into the fence - or engage in the next phase of defence (head movement or the guard), an area where he was simply not as comfortable.
Driscoll is being guided to his right here, and would quite like to reverse direction. Hardwick convinces him not to though, just by flashing his right hand a couple of times, and then puts him onto the cage with a left hand as he moves back right.
Curtis, on the other hand- well, he would feint, of course, but those feints weren’t really tied to anything. He would occasionally feint a jab while stepping forward and then follow with a left to the body- but the end result was never really different than when he would actually jab and then follow with a left to the body, and beyond that, most of his feints would cause a reaction from Hermansson… and then never really be followed up on. Seeing which feint caused Hermansson to move where and then throwing a strike into that space would have been very useful, not just to land a scoring shot in itself but, as with pretty much everything else mentioned so far, to give him more things to think about and limit his options for the time after that.
Move while your opponent throws
This might be the single biggest issue Curtis had in the fight- almost every time Hermansson threw, unless he was completely ready to throw a counter to that specific shot, he’d stop moving. There were valid reasons for this- his defence is typically built on shoulder rolls and parries that are harder to pull off while moving, and he evidently didn’t feel comfortable doing so- but that combined with the previously mentioned pauses in his movement that gave Hermansson a trigger to throw on seriously curtailed his ability to close the space at all. What made this doubly baffling is that he would, in fact, throw a perfectly good high guard up to bait shots- and then abandon that guard when the strikes came. This would have been tricky against a shorter opponent, but with Hermansson having a range advantage and using kicks to his benefit, it meant that Curtis would have to wait for the Swede to finish throwing and then move forward before offering his response, giving up the initiative in a big way.
Curtis stands stock still and throws up a high guard. When Hermansson shapes with his hands he abandons that for a one-handed parry- and while the recovery to block the kick and move with it is a very slick bit of defending, it gives him no initiative at all in answering back.
It should be noted that the point here is not that Curtis should only ever use a high guard or that his other defensive moves are invalid- just that if he is going to have one in his gameplan, it’s worth using it to its strengths- one of which is it’s the simplest way to keep cover while moving.
Hardwick, meanwhile, is perfectly happy running the gauntlet to get close. Sometimes this can get him in trouble- and did, in this fight, when Driscoll cracked his nose open in the first round- but for the most part it meant that, by the third round, the American was as worried when he was throwing himself as he was when Hardwick was on the attack- because he’d have very little idea, when he stopped, where his opponent would be and how far and fast he’d have to move to get to a safe range.
Driscoll throws- and lands- a perfectly good 1-2, but he’s unprepared for Hardwick’s movement behind it and (once again) backs himself onto the cage in an effort to get clear. This tendency was bothering Driscoll so much by this stage that, about thirty seconds after this example, once he’d found his way off it, he backed back onto the fence again after throwing his own strikes even though, in that instance, Hardwick didn’t even bother moving forward.
This is another aspect where the two performances can be directly compared- since where Curtis would throw up a high guard, stop moving, then abandon it, Hardwick would throw up his guard, come in behind it as Driscoll threw, and then work directly out of it once he was done. It’s a spot where the higher-level fighter could directly take some inspiration from the new Cage Warriors champion - since if the earmuffs high guard wasn’t part of his game at all it would be one thing to say he should use it, but since it’s already there, it makes very little sense not to take advantage. It’s not without risk - Hardwick can definitely stand to fix his guard up a bit, since it’s pretty open down the center and that is where most of his problems came, and moving while your opponent is striking can risk running yourself onto something- but done right, it’s an excellent space-squeezing tactic that can completely unnerve an opponent- and has the advantage that just after striking is when an opponent is typically their most vulnerable, and if you’re closer to them than they want or expect you to be, they’ll find it even harder to re-compose themselves into their preferred stance.
In Summary
We’ve covered a variety of subjects here, but there’s a common theme- what Hardwick was able to do that Curtis wasn’t was consistently take the initiative away from his opponent. Using a variety of tricks and pushing him around both physically and mentally, Hardwick made Driscoll dance to his tune- and those tricks, with adjustments, can be applied by any pressure fighter looking to close up against a rangy outfighter, whether they’re kicking or not. It’s important to be clear here- this is not written to tear into Chris Curtis, or to suggest that the overall level of the games on display is the same here. Hardwick might well be UFC level, but he also might not, and only time will tell on that front. What it does show, though, is that certain things are fundamental across all levels, and that one can learn from watching various levels in more than one sport.
It also shows that, regardless of where he’ll eventually reach, George Hardwick is a fighter to watch (and if he fights Mike Figlak, whose performance earlier on the same card is also worth watching, you should definitely tune in). Chris Curtis, meanwhile, will be back - and hopefully he’ll have a bit more movement to bring to the table when he returns.