UFC Vegas 61 Aftermath: Enter the Zuck
Mark Zuckerberg and his wife were the sole audience members.
If you missed it, Mark Zuckerberg loves MMA now. He trains with Khai Wu. He rented out the entire APEX, or the UFC rented it to him for the night. But, we had fights and as per Sunday tradition, we have to break it down. Let’s get into some UFC Vegas 61 Aftermath!
UFC Vegas 61 Notes: Joaquim Silva with the slick finish
Normally we touch on some notes from the previous card and today I want to get a bit more in depth on a finish before we talk about the main event. On the prelims, Brazil’s Joaquim Silva finished Jesse Ronson with a super slick flying lead knee. Normally we see the finished from flying knees come from the rear, planted knee. It generates more power from pushing off the ground. Think Alistair Overeem or Jorge Masvidal. But Silva mixed things up and we’re going to be looking at that today.
To start off this finish, (1) Joaquim Silva poked Jesse Ronson with the jab to gauge his reaction. Immediately after, (2) Silva throws his lead hand out again. This time, it is not a jab. He’s reaching for Ronson’s head to pull down to the impending knee. Ronson reads the not-jab and thinks he should slip to his right to throw a counter. He sees the hop taken by Silva and thinks “knee” and is eyeing the rear knee of Joaquim Silva.
Now the step up knee is much more powerful than the lead knee but that doesn’t make the lead knee harmless as Ronson would soon find out. (3) Silva steps in and does a funky skip and lifts his lead knee instead of the step in rear knee. He also grabs the back of Jesse Ronson’s head with the not jab and pulls it into the knee. One of the smaller nuanced things here is the orientation of Ronson’s head. Because he was slipping a jab, his head was tilted to the right slightly, exposing his jaw to the knee. When Silva pulls his head down, it’s the jaw, not the face, of Ronson where the knee lands and (4) down goes Ronson.
The knee landed by Joaquim Silva may have been the step up knee but was adjusted on the fly. That we will never know. Regardless, Silva got a cool highlight finish and a $50k bonus for it.
Mackenzie Dern: Adversity
In this past week’s Beforemath edition, I said that Mackenzie Dern needs to be as efficient as possible to win this fight. One thing Mackenzie Dern was not was efficient. All night Dern threw haymakers that would never land on a fighter with the striking prowess of Xiaonan Yan and when she did clinch for the takedown, she suffered. Dern resorted to pulling guard against Yan and if we’re talking efficiency, that ain’t it, chief.
After watching the Yan fight with Carla Esparza, one could safely assume that Xiaonan Yan isn’t a wrestler by any stretch of the imagination. What Dern didn’t expect coming into UFC Vegas 61 was that Xiaonan Yan would actually work on her takedown defense. Dern has only five takedowns in her UFC career which spans 10 fights. 2 of those were against Yan and skews the numbers pre-fight.
Simply put, Mackenzie isn’t good taking her opponents down. The problem comes when she fights, she’s too reliant on her hands and comfortable doing so. A look at a fighter like Demian Maia, who can be a shining example of a BJJ guy who knows how to get fights to the ground without taking as much damage, would do Dern so much good.
If Dern felt like she won that fight, or a draw at best, she’s delousional. She needs to understand where her weaknesses are (getting the fight to the ground) and work there. We know her striking will likely never be good. We saw Yan and Marina Rodriguez tune her up. Instead of working where she’s not good, she needs to work on where she’s good at, the best in the division perhaps, and work on leveraging that (pun intended) by working on ways to get there that don’t start you out on bottom.
Xiaonan Yan: Massive Improvement
Xiaonan Yan showed massive improvement at UFC Vegas 61. After getting dominated on the ground against Carla Esparza and the close fight with Marina Rodriguez, Yan was risking her third straight loss in a bad stylistic matchup with Mackenzie Dern. What I overlooked in the Rodriguez fight was the 2 takedowns on 4 attempts for Xiaonan Yan. She’s obviously been working on grappling and with her fantastic sanda background, that’s a great improvement.
Against Dern, Yan showed that fighters are not going to go out there and simply take her down to beat her up. When Dern got in on the single leg, Yan did a decent job staying up, albeit not perfect. When she got taken down, Yan was adequate enough to not get submitted by the sticky web of Mackenzie Dern. She also had the wherewithal to not stay on the ground when Dern pulled guard.
Early in round one, Xiaonan Yan was schooling Dern and her sub-par striking. She opened up with the side kick, as per sanda tradition, and Yan did a good job to pivot out and land shots while not being where Dern expected. Mackenzie Dern threw wild and over extended, which let Xiaonan Yan land her clean shots. She also used the push kick and oblique kick, a tactic we proposed in Beforemath, and kept Dern at bay when she could.
Xiaonan Yan has some interesting fights ahead. Rose Namajunas is my favorite. Namajunas isn’t fighting for the title in a rematch, thank God. Instead Weili Zhang is taking on Carla Esparza for Esparza’s title. Namajunas is smart and technical, has good wrestling, and could be a number one contender fight for Xiaonan Yan. There’s also the Marina Rodriguez rematch which was close the first fight. Don’t forget Jessica Andrade. All of these fights are ranked above her. Underneath, I wouldn’t take any fight that’s not Amanda Ribas. Xiaonan Yan is in a good position right now. Ya love to see it.