Kamaru Usman & The Art of Pinning

Examining what makes Usman's top game so powerful and the mistakes Buckley made.

Joaquin Buckley recently emerged as a potential contender at Welterweight, capitalizing on the UFC’s tendency to keep aging veterans ranked despite a lack of recent success, and dispatching several of them in dominant fashion. Buckley looked to continue his rise against 38-year-old former champion, Kamaru Usman, but there was still enough left of the old champ to halt Buckley’s title aspirations.

Fresh off a 2-year layoff, Kamaru Usman turned back the clock to deliver a classic Usman beating against Buckley. Despite a Buckley resurgence in the final round, the takedowns came easy for Usman and once he got on top, Buckley couldn’t budge him.

What was particularly interesting about the fight is that it looked closer to an old school Tito Ortiz-style beating than the newfangled cage-riding we see from most wrestlers in MMA today. Usman held Buckley flat on his back against the cage and kept him there, roughing him up with punches and elbows.

The Dagestani style cage riding system developed as a counter to the wall walk. Fighters got tired of being stuck against the cage and controlled on the ground, and so they learned how to post back up to their feet using the fence as a backstop. But in order to do that they need to plant a hand or a foot on the mat, which then exposes them to having their posting limbs wrapped up and controlled. Usman rarely let Buckley even get to the point of posting up, however, and the fight serves as a good example of how to maximize opportunities on top without surrendering space for an escape.

Two of the most important principles for winning scrambles, or even being able to initiate them in the first place, are base and posture. The fighter with a stronger base in a scramble - he who has more limbs gripping the mat, or a wider, more set stance - is better poised to retain his balance and generate momentum to move his opponent. The higher up a fighter’s head and hips are, and the greater the alignment between the two, the easier it is for him to drive upward and explode.

Leg riding positions are designed to directly attack the opponent’s base as he tries to build it up, but Usman kept Buckley’s posture under such tight control that he rarely got a chance to fight for his base. The simplest and most effective way Usman kept Buckley underneath him was to force himself through Buckley’s guard and position his weight constantly over Buckley’s head.

The guard is such a useful defensive tool because it puts the opponent in between your hips and the parts of you they want to hit, making it difficult for them to get their hips weighing over you. But against the cage, all the guard player can do is kick off with his own hips, he can’t hip out backwards to regain space, and crowding him becomes much easier.

Usman was constantly forcing himself forward, positioning his head right over top of Buckley’s while peppering him with punches and elbows. There was never any daylight above Buckley, in effect trapping him beneath a low ceiling. To start building up his posture, Buckley would need to first get Usman’s upper body out of his way, or wait for Usman to create space in striking and move quickly. But Usman would throw a few strikes and drop his head back down, keeping Buckley pinned underneath him.

Half guard was Usman’s bread and butter position in this fight. If you’ve watched a lot of UFC fights, you’ve heard Joe Rogan talk about Randy Couture’s love of half guard for ground and pound thousands of times. Full guard can be difficult to strike effectively from, since the bottom fighter has both his hips in front of the top player, while side control can be difficult to maintain since the top player doesn’t have direct control over the hips. Half guard allows the top fighter to sit on a leg and keep one hip controlled, while bypassing the hip at the same time. The cross-facing arm becomes a powerful striking tool, while the bottom fighter is limited in their ability to manipulate distance and balance.

Once again Usman was constantly maintaining weight and pressure over Buckley’s head. Every moment Buckley spent on bottom was with his head being harassed, either with strikes, a strong cross-face, or an underhook and head pin. Whenever he tried to make a move to raise his posture, Usman would cross-face him back down easily, as he was forced to start from an already weak base. Usman would again throw a few hard strikes, wait for Buckley to attempt to move within the space he’d been given, and shove his forehead into the jaw or dig an underhook to force him back flat.

Even when Usman postured up to throw more powerful strikes, he was still laser focused on killing Buckley’s posture.

Buckley starts framing off Usman’s face to force his head away, and with short time left in the round, Usman postures up and creates space to deliver powerful blows. Buckley tries to use the space to scramble out, digging an underhook as Usman opens his elbow for a hammerfist. But Usman throws his weight into Buckley, knocking him to the cage, and immediately grabs a collar tie to shove Buckley’s head back down to the mat before he can get his feet underneath him.

With Usman constantly keeping weight over his head and pinning his upper body, Buckley’s only shot of escape was create space and find daylight with his lower body. But Usman was quick to respond on the few occasions Buckley could bring his legs into play.

With his upper body squished flat, Buckley was once again starting from a position of disadvantage, and Usman would easily step over his knee shield or tripod over his butterfly guard, getting back to half guard and his upper body pin. When Usman briefly lost his pinning position, he would progressively work back up to it by securing Buckley’s base, then climbing back up his body to the head. This is where some of the typical cage riding positions came into play for Usman, as he would mount and tie up Buckley’s legs, stapling his base to the floor, until he could secure control of the head and flatten Buckley out once again.

Buckley struggled to find enough space to get his head high and was largely kept from even attempting escapes. His go-to tactic was to wait for Usman to open up space while punching and reach an arm across to the opposite side, getting Usman’s head under his armpit as if going for a guillotine.

This sort of position can allow the fighter on bottom a quick moment to build their base, keeping the top player’s head low while they elevate theirs. But Usman immediately responded with a claw grip, reaching across Buckley’s shoulder as if going for an arm triangle. The claw grip let Usman keep weight over top of Buckley, slowing his ascent, and gave him access to the hand Buckley was posting up on, which he could control and pull out from underneath Buckley.

As an aside, the overback grip is another useful tactic for the top player to keep weight on a wall-walking opponent. Yusuf Raisov demonstrates the value of this underutilized grip:

Raisov has one leg tied up, but Alexander Matmuratov has his head high and is working on regaining his base. Raisov starts out cross-facing and squishing Matmuratov’s head to the fence, but that only stalls his ascent. Raisov works up higher on the leg and controls the far leg, pulling it inwards while rotating Matmuratov down with his cross-face. Matmuratov’s posted right hand prevents him from going to his back, but Raisov reaches all the way over his back and drapes his upper body over Matmuratov’s head, fully crushing him back down to an upper body pin.

Once the bottom fighter has recovered to a sitting position on the fence, a cross-face no longer forces their head into the mat, but just pressures it backwards into the cage. An overback grip can take its place, getting behind the wall-walker and pressuring them straight down.

While Usman’s strength on top allowed him to make the most of his control, Buckley’s weak reactions in transition caused him to miss crucial opportunities for escape.

When thinking about how to escape from a strong pin, the answer is obvious. It’s an oft-repeated mantra in combat sports that’s been said a million ways - from Kurt Osiander’s catchphrase, “You fucked up a long time ago,” to “prevention is better than cure”. But the position is best addressed before it’s established. Once you’re underneath Kamaru Usman with his weight on top of your head, every possible mechanical advantage is working against you.

If you study fighters with the best takedown defense in the sport, one principle that comes up over and over is that they summon a great deal of urgency the moment their butt hits the mat. That brief second where a takedown is secured but a controlling position hasn’t yet been established is the best window for escape the defensive grappler is likely to get, and exploiting it is crucial.

Let’s look at how Buckley handled those transitional moments:

In the first clip, Buckley delays Usman’s takedown by posting on his hand, but runs out of ideas when Usman keeps his legs, leaving his left hand on Usman’s back instead of pushing the head away to try and break Usman’s posture. In the second, Buckley fights hard to stay on his feet, but once he’s going down he collapses like a toppled domino and waits for Usman to settle on top of him. Buckley didn’t seem to have a clear idea of the positions he wanted to be in once on the ground, and instead he gave Usman time to establish a pin.

Compare Buckley’s reactions with Leon Edwards’ in his third fight with Usman:

Edwards knows exactly where he wants to be when he’s taken down and wastes no time getting there. He starts turning before the takedown is complete to avoid going to his back, landing on all fours, then scoots to glue his near hip to the cage. He avoids a pin outright by showing his back, and by keeping his hip on the cage, he can build up on his knee while locking Usman out of controlling the limb. With the permanent knee post, Edwards’ hands don’t need to bear his weight and he can use them to fight Usman’s grip off his legs to stand back up.

Joaquin Buckley has proven difficult for wrestlers to take down thus far in his career due to his strength and athleticism. But elite fighters in divisions like Welterweight tend to possess both high level athleticism and a great deal of science. If Buckley is to consistently win these sorts of fights in the future, a more considered approach will be necessary.

To learn more about how Leon Edwards dealt with Usman’s grappling, check out Leon Edwards: Sharpshooter

For a look at how Rani Yahya uses claw grips and tightwaists to control opponents on the cage, check out Rani Yahya's Crushing Top Pressure and Deep Half Shenanigans: