Leon Edwards: Sharpshooter

An in-depth look into the unique style of one of MMA's top strikers, as well as the most thorough examination of MMA clinching and wall wrestling I've seen put to paper.

The fighting career of Leon Edwards has paralleled his life, characterized by adversity and punctuated with triumph. Growing up amidst a culture of crime that took his father’s life and promised to imperil his own, Edwards instead chose another path. At his mother’s urging, a teenage Edwards joined an MMA gym and never looked back.

His story is a great example of the power of sport to provide the structure, affirmation, and support youth need to transform their lives. And now he’s become a role model not only to those brought up as he was, but to an entire country after becoming the first UK champion to win a UFC title without moving his camp abroad.

But the path to the belt for Edwards was anything but smooth. After putting together a win streak spanning eight fights and three years, Edwards got a big break when he was scheduled to fight Tyron Woodley one fight removed from losing his belt - the lowest risk, highest reward fight in the entire division. But his big breakthrough moment was not to be, as COVID-19 forced Edwards to pull out; this theme would soon recur ad nauseam.

After more than a year without activity, Edwards was removed from his #3 spot in the UFC Welterweight rankings in what seemed like a move to force him to accept a fight well below his station with Khamzat Chimaev, as his ranking was reinstated the very next day once the fight was announced. But the Chimaev fight would be cancelled three times due to COVID complications, pushing Edwards’ hiatus as far as 602 days.

While he was sitting out, Edwards had to watch Jorge Masvidal, Gilbert Burns, Jorge Masvidal again, and Colby Covington all get undeserved shots at Kamaru Usman’s Welterweight title. And his long awaited return to the Octagon ended in a tragicomic no contest to late-notice replacement, Belal Muhammad, due to an Edwards eye poke. At that point almost two years of Edwards’ prime had been wasted by COVID and bad luck. In a sport like MMA where most athletes only get a small window where career trajectory and matchmaking align, that could have spelled the end for his championship dreams.

Edwards finally got another break when he was given Nate Diaz as a gimme fight in what would end up thrusting him into a title shot against Kamaru Usman. But the sailing wasn’t smooth from there either. After a hot start, Edwards began falling apart in the later rounds, seemingly intent on allowing Usman to force his strengths uncontested. It got so bad that the commentators even speculated he had accepted defeat, holding on for the moral victory of losing a decision. Mere seconds after that call, Edwards launched one of the most shocking knockouts in the sport’s history, felling Usman with a picture perfect head kick.

After a brutal slog to the title, down three rounds to one in what would likely be his last chance, Edwards changed his life. A single minute stood between crushing defeat and triumph. It wasn’t that he never wavered - he spent the entire fight wavering. It was all he could do to keep himself just hanging on, but in the end that was enough. It never broke him. And once victory balanced on the thinnest of margins, Leon Edwards finally executed, once again emerging through the hardship having accomplished what seemed impossible.

Edwards quickly grew into his new role as Welterweight champion, fixing everything that went wrong for him against Usman in an immediate rematch. His reign has shown no signs of slowing down since then, as he followed it up with an easy win over Colby Covington. Without further ado, let’s dig into the techniques and tactics that make Leon Edwards such a unique and dangerous fighter.

Southpaw Slickster

A quick look at Edwards’ stance makes it clear that he prioritizes powerful strikes off his rear side. He sets up in a wide stance with his rear leg behind him, ready to push off into powerful rear kicks and straight punches at a moment’s notice. Figure 1 demonstrates Edward’s wide stance.

Fig. 1

To an opponent standing on the other end of him, that wide, set stance generates a lot of threat, as he appears immediately ready to feed them a powerful left hand or shin whenever they think about stepping in. But it also highlights his preference for pot-shotting over exchanging. His hips tend to stay centered for the most part, which keeps him in position to kick at any time, but the lack of hip fold and the width of his stance make pocket exchanges awkward.

Edwards camps out an extra step away from his opponent, where either man would need to take a deep step in to land a clean punch. This distance management serves as his main line of defense - on the outside, he can dazzle his opponent with his speed and setups, where their attacks become a lot more predictable and easier for him to read.

A big part of what makes Edwards so effective from a range where most fighters become predictable in their attack is his shrewd feints. When an orthodox striker fights a long southpaw, often they’ll resort to flashing their lead hand and pumping their jab ineffectually, but the long distance in front of them means their opponent can sit back and avoid biting on the feints, since they’re not close enough for the feints to carry threat. Then when their real attack comes, it’s telegraphed by a deep forward step or a level change.

The feints Edwards throws out look exactly like his real strikes. He’ll quickly turn his shoulders as if throwing his rear hand, or flick his rear hip forward and bend his knee like he’s initiating a rear kick. Often he’ll cover the opponent’s lead hand with his own while feinting his rear side with his hips and shoulders, forcing the opponent to key in on his feints and removing a possible entry for them.

Constant hip and shoulder feints serve to desensitize his opponents, who eventually have to stop reacting to every one to conserve their energy and avoid tipping their hand. But that’s what allows Edwards to be effective with single strikes, as once they stop reacting, he can pelt them with a hard kick or blast his straight left down the middle. The feints also enforce his preferred distance. His opponents usually look to close distance, but a quick shoulder twitch will make them think twice about stepping onto him.

At a high level, heavy strikes thrown on the lead need to be disguised in some way to consistently succeed. For aggressive fighters, combinations often play a major part in setting up strikes, with the first few punches serving to hide the power punches that end the combination. But for pot-shotters like Edwards who mainly work in single strikes or two-strike combinations, a bit more finesse is required. Since they lack the benefit of tossing away a few punches to set up a clean shot, one of the best ways to ensure their strikes land clean is to make them look like other strikes. Pairing strikes with similar preliminary motions is a classic method for conservative strikers to hide their offense without exposing themselves to damage.

The southpaw double attack is probably the most famous example of a pairing that exploits similar preliminary motions. The concept is simple - the southpaw’s rear strait and head kick both start with a slight step forward and a turn of the hips and shoulders, but defending them demands different placement of the opponent’s rear hand. The straight draws the rear hand out in front of the chin to parry it, while the head kick draws it up by the ear. Once both strikes have been established, the opponent is left guessing where to put their hand and punished for guessing wrong.

Like any dedicated southpaw kicker, Edwards makes liberal use of his rear hand to hide the head kick. This was the move that stole Edwards the Welterweight Championship against Kamaru Usman, drawing out the parry by flashing the rear hand and slamming his shin straight into the open head.

Part of what makes Edwards’ kicks so deadly is their sheer mechanical efficiency. He kicks with very little tell and no wasted movement, and tends to get his shin directly on the jaw rather than kicking with the softer instep. In MMA, power kicks are typically thrown with an exaggerated and telegraphed forward step of the plant leg, but Edwards often whips his leg up from a standstill, making it near impossible to read.

He’ll even slide his lead foot back at an angle as his opponent steps forward outside his lead leg, pivoting to track their movement and throwing the head kick simultaneously. All the opponent sees is his weight moving backwards with no step to give it away, and suddenly his shin in knocking into their head. Kamaru Usman came into their third fight prepared to defend the head kicks, but Edwards still managed to sneak a couple clean ones through by kicking straight from his stance.

A final setup Edwards uses to hide his headkicks is gesturing low before kicking high. Sometimes it’ll come out as an exaggerated level change preceding the head kick, others he’ll simply look low to direct the opponent’s attention before kicking upstairs.

This was the setup he used to hurt and nearly finish Belal Muhammad in their fight. He’ll often stick his rear hand in the opponent’s face as he comes out of his level change as well, adding the threat of the straight as an extra layer concealing the headkick.

Edwards’ body kick benefits from the same advantages as his headkick - concealment from feints, mechanical efficiency, and synergy with his rear hand and head kick.

He’ll occasionally set up a powerful body kick by showing the lead hook and hopping forward into the kick, but for the most part he just throws it naked and lets his feints and the threat of his other weapons do the job of setting it up.

When fighting a fellow southpaw, the shoulder and back get in the way of his rear kick and his weapons have to change slightly. He emphasizes leg kicks more and becomes more active with his jab, using it to enforce his distance while keeping up the hip and shoulder feints to hide his leg kick. For a fighter who regularly kicks the legs against elite wrestlers, Edwards has been remarkably successful in avoiding kick catches, largely due to his active feints and his tight form. The feints hide the step into the leg kick and the initial turn of the hips and shoulders, and once he’s started the kick, the opponent has very little time to react.

Edwards’ timing also allows him to open up with leg kicks on opponent looking to take him down. His most comprehensive leg-kicking performance came against Colby Covington, where he would time Covington circling to his left and step in to blast powerful leg kicks. The danger of leg kicking a wrestler is that they’ll step in toward the kick, widening their base to jam it and causing the kicking leg to ride up into a takedown. But with Covington’s weight moving away from the kick, he was unable to step toward it and Edwards was free to tee off.

While Edwards is adept at setting up offense and scoring from a long range, most of his opponents are not. By setting such a long distance, he takes a lot of his opponents’ effective tools away and funnels their offense into predictable forms that are easy for him to see coming and avoid. Ideally for Edwards, his man will either try to kick with him at range, in which case they’re drowned by his experience and skill at that distance, or try to rush through the distance where he can easily counter.

Edwards’ defense in the pocket leaves a lot to be desired, but he has a great sense of distance at long range, knowing just how much he needs to pull back to avoid an opponent’s kicks. Fighters trying to kick with him at range usually wind up hitting air, while Edwards continues feinting into scoring blows.

But if his opponent steps in deep to close distance before kicking, Edwards can read the step in and brace for a counter:

So Edwards wants to strand his opponent on the edge of his kicks where he can mix up and disguise his pot shots, while funneling their offense into discrete and easily readable single shots. How then, does he enforce that distance on fighters who are looking to get closer and force him into exchanges? The answer is by investing heavily into sharp first-layer counters.

Once Edwards gets drawn into a boxing exchange, the flaws in his boxing start to show themselves. He stands upright and doesn’t use his hips well on defense, he doesn’t work well in longer combinations, and his footwork isn’t geared toward the subtle adjustment steps and weight transfers of pocket boxing. But he has good eyes for an opponent stepping in on him and is usually ready to meet them with a hard left hand before pivoting or hopping out the side.

Edwards’ counter left works almost like the traditional Karate-style “reverse punch”. The basic idea is that you maintain an extra step of distance so that an orthodox opponent’s jab falls short, meaning they have to take two actions to reach you - step, then punch. If they punch or feint without the step, you can simply ignore it, since they’re too far away. If they go to step and punch, you time the straight left on the forward step, intercepting their punch and giving you a window to sneak out the side door.

Against southpaws, the closed-stance matchup removes that pocket of distance and forces Edwards into more traditional boxing-style counters. He focuses mainly on countering the southpaw’s jab, as that usually precedes their entry into the pocket. By attacking the jab with outside slip counters and pull counters, he can cut off their entry before they trap him in an exchange.

The shoulder feints are a great benefit to his counterpunching against southpaws, serving to draw out their jab so he can punish it. Leon will lean over his lead shoulder and hip, often with his hands down, putting his head right in the path of the jab. But as soon as they take the bait, he pulls his weight back over his lead hip, slipping outside the jab and loading his weight for a big uppercut or straight. One of the key tenets of effective counterpunching is that it becomes much easier if you’re forcing or goading the opponent to throw the kind of punches you want to counter, as it gives you control of the initiative.