UFC on ESPN+ 33: Rakic vs. Smith Grappling Quick Hits
Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
Well that was a weird card. After four straight submission finishes, a string of 6 decisions in a row brought us to the end of the card, with Rakic/Smith mercifully being only 3 rounds. Also, credit to Rakic for just not giving a damn and taking the safest route to victory. LHW is thin and him having a boring fight won’t really hurt him. After Reyes/Jan, he’s a fight or two away from the title at most.
Moving past that, we did get to see 4 submissions, which got me excited to write about them in this third installment of this series. We had the fantastic comeback win from Mallory Martin over Hannah Cifers, the clean textbook armbar from guard by Polyana Viana, and Sean Brady’s brutal guillotine over Christian Aguilera. As happy as I am for Caceres’ win, the actual submission has almost nothing to break down, but congratulations to him! The first one we will break down is Mallory’s comeback RNC finish.
Comback RNC and 50k to boot
Well if you want to make a statement, Mallory Martin certainly found a way. After getting knocked down in round 1, and eating a ton of follow up power shots, Martin had to come back strong against Cifers to win. With a 10-8 round behind her, Martin knew she had to get this fight to the ground, where she would display a clear advantage over Cifers.
After punching her way into the clinch, Martin begins to dig for underhooks and drives her her into Cifers’ chin, standing her up straight and making it easier to control her. Head pressure and control is an extremely important factor in the clinch, and Martin utilized it well here. With the right underhook secure, Martin laces a leg, pulling it straight back. Cifers tries to maintain her balance, and Martin uses this moment to slide her hand around the back, popping her shoulder into Cifers’ armpit and securing her position further. With Martin on her side now, and the leg still laced, she rotates Cifers’ upper body and kicks her leg forward, removing Cifers’ base and securing the takedown.
Once Martin secured top control, she went to work immediately, landing hard punches to the face of Cifers, and controlling her with ease. Because of the way Martin took her down, Cifers’ left leg was still caught in between Martin’s, and this was a problem. She could not slide it out to recover half guard as Martin used her hips to pressure Cifers’ knee down, collapsing her legs together (this would be a folding pass in BJJ, but we see Martin first used it to land ground and pound). From here, Martin was able to slide her left leg over the bicep briefly and land hard shots before Cifers’ could free her arm, and would do this on 3 occasions in this sequence. Martin’s use of ground and pound was both damaging and strategic as well. Rather than simply work to pass to a dominant position, she recognized there was an opportunity to use this passing position to inflict damage as well. At the end, we see Cifers actually give Martin the mount willingly to stop the incoming barrage of punches. This did not work out well for Cifers' though.
Cifers is wilting from the pressure and constant stream of strikes. A desperate attempt to hold Martin close is easily broken by elbows being slammed onto her dome. Martin uses one of them to push Cifers back to the mat and slides her knee onto her bicep, pinning it down to land more shots. Cifers is extended but still gives up her back as she’s completely out of ideas on how to stop these shots or get back to a better position. Martin floats to her back with ease and has both hooks in, sliding her hips lower down to maintain a secure position. Cifers preemptively is trying to block punches that didn’t come, and Martin just slides her arm under the neck, locks in the choke with a gable grip, and gets the tap.
Martin’s first UFC win was clearly a sweet one, as you can she from her reaction. An excellent display from a fighter just 4 years into their career. Got hurt and battered, and came back urgent to get the fight to a place she would hold an advantage. She didn’t take her time, she systematically beat and broke Cifers in a dominant display of offensive grappling. Credit to Martin, I’m looking forward to her next fight.
Sean Brady’s Mounted Guillotine
Damn Sean, you didn’t have to do him like that. 13-0, 3-0 in the UFC, Sean Brady is most definitely trying to make a statement in the crowded welterweight division. With his first UFC finish, Brady is likely going to be getting someone closer to the rankings for his next opponent. But enough of that, let’s discuss the nasty top control Brady displayed which led to his guillotine win. One thing to note is that throughout the ground engagements, Sean displayed an excellent awareness of when to utilize his ground and pound to open passing opportunities and vice versa, which led to the finish in the end.
As Brady opens up to land strikes, Aguilera digs his right arm in, securing an underhook. He also uses his locked legs to bump Brady over him. However, he did not open his legs to try and escape while Brady would have been off balance, ending up curled under him, the underhook a near non-factor now. Brady pushes himself back, getting his weigh back over his knees and begins hammering Aguilera with hammerfists and elbows. Aguilera is pushed back and decides to lock his hands around the back and pulling Brady in to stop the strikes. He tries once more to bump Brady over him, but without the underhook and with Brady’s hips switched so that his weight is over the mat, it’s ineffective. Brady then begins to push at Aguilera’s knees to see if he can open the half-guard and, while Aguilera was focused on the legs, wrapped his right arm around the neck. With the neck wrapped, Brady’s posts with his head and begins to slide his knee out. As soon as he does, rather than trying to slide his whole leg out, he digs his knee into the upper thigh of Aguilera to push his right hip to the ground. Aguilera tries to push it back with his hand, but Brady grabs his wrist, pins it, and slides the leg out, mounting Aguilera, and trapping his right arm in doing so. Aguilera pulls Brady’s right foot in, and turns into him to escape and get on top. The problem is, he was on the wrong side. Brady was easily able to use the choke to roll Aguilera to his back again, re-establishes the mount, and puts Aguilera to sleep.
Viana Opens Up Her Textbook
The submissions that often get the most attention are the flashy or brutal looking ones. Maia’s juicing of Rick Story, Demetrious Johnson’s incredible armbar over Ray Borg, and a host of other examples to choose from. Yet, there’s a beauty to the simple submissions as well, the set ups taught to beginners in their first few months of BJJ, the submissions that aren’t really supposed to work as well past a certain point. When you I see those submissions, I enjoy their simplicity, and find them impressive in their own right. Polyana Viana gave us a perfect example of a textbook armbar setup and finish from the guard against Emily Whitmire.
Viana has a strong overhook with of Whitmire’s right arm throughout the set up, as she slowly rotates her hips and climbs her legs higher and higher up the back of Whitmire. She alternates between short elbows and grabbing the head back down, forcing Whitmire to choose between taking the shots or establishing a strong posture. Whenever she attempts to posture to throw strikes, or pull her arm out, Viana pulls her head back down, re-establishing her overhook. Whitmire begins to stand up and that’s when the armbar setup begins. Maintaining the overhook, Viana reaches her right over across Whitmire and grabs her shoulder. She also grabs Whitmire’s forearm with her overhooking arm and her knees have now climbed all the way up the back. Whitmire does recognize the danger and drops her knee beside Viana to try and pull her elbow out. However, she made a big mistake in not stacking her weight on top of Viana to do this, and Viana pops her hips up and slides her leg over Whitmire’s face to apply the armbar. Whitmire, now completely off balance, falls over, trying to wrap her legs around Viana to maybe push her hands off, but it’s way too late. Viana has the arm fully extended, and Whitmire is forced to tap.
Simple, effective, and smooth. I absolutely love to see it, and with that submission win she snaps a 3 fight skid. Well done Polyana, hopefully we see a few more of those out of you.
With that, we come to an end of another installment of Grappling Quick Hits. Tune in next time as well, for when there’s awesome grappling to be had, you’ll find one of these not far behind it. Enjoy the hostilities. Bink!…..or whatever the equivalent in grappling would be. Bonk? Boink? I don’t know.