Rob Font's Jab and Transitional Hitting
I look at Rob Font's brilliant jab and clutch-and-punch tactics, as well as examining the merits of the cross-step and wrestling up from half guard.
Rob Font is a fighter as peculiar as he is lovely to watch. While a look at a short highlight video would give you the impression that he’s a top shelf pocket puncher, his fights reveal a discomfort in the pocket. His feet are never quite set right for boxing in close and his hips aren’t engaged the way you’d expect of someone who makes his hay in clobberin’ range.
Yet when you give him just a bit more distance to work with, Font will dazzle you with one of the best jabs in MMA. A jab as versatile as it is mechanically astute - he jabs to close distance, keep his man outside, take dominant angles, and for plenty of other purposes.
Font has the rough tools of a pocket operator, but the disposition of an outfighter who prefers to set up outside punching range. So how does he synthesize these disparate aspects of his style? The answer is with transitional hitting. Font has a couple unique punch-and-clutch tactics that take him right from his long-range straight hitting into a loose clinch. The beauty of holding and hitting is that it allows Font to open up with his hands without having to react to his opponent in messy pocket exchanges for which he’s poorly suited.
We’ll begin our exploration of Font’s unique brand of outfighting by looking at his brilliant jab.
The Many-Faced Jab
The jab has represented many different things to the MMA world during the sport’s evolution. In MMA’s infancy it was looked upon with suspicion, famously decried by Bas Rutten as ineffective. As the level of boxing knowledge grew and fighters, coaches, and fans began appreciating the subtleties of striking more, the jab came to be seen as an underutilized tool with great potential. Nowadays the level of striking in MMA is at an all-time high and the jab is just, well, utilized. We’ve seen fighters master the jab at the highest levels of the sport, but it’s also trickled down as an integral component to the games of lower-ranked fighters and young prospects.
The jab has more than proven its case as a critical tool for any style, but few do it as well as Rob Font. One key to Font’s success with the jab is in its versatility and variety. He has a closet full of bow-ties and a matching jab to go with each and every one. He jabs to hurt, to distract, to control space, and to intercept, mixing and matching his jabs the whole time to throw opponents off.
Font’s typical jab is a long punch with full shoulder extension that can bust a nose or bloody an eye:
He thrusts the jab out like a fencer’s lunge, pushing off his rear leg and stepping deep with his lead. His shoulder extension and deep stance accentuate his already long reach, allowing him to lance at opponents unable to reach him back.
This is a jab that hits hard, even stunning opponents occasionally, but can still be flicked out at a moment’s notice. He varies his steps as he throws it, occasionally thrusting out his shoulder on a half-step or without moving his lead foot at all to make it less predictable.
Relying so heavily on the jab means that every opponent will be on the lookout for it, but it seems like Font’s opponents can never quite tell when the next one is coming. The reason for this is his liberal use of feints. Font is constantly pumping out hand and foot feints at range, stepping hard as if he’s about to jab or thrusting his fist out only to pull it back.
The feints serve to desensitize opponents. If they’re quick on the trigger and swing every time Font twitches, they end up hitting air, tiring themselves out, and presenting counter opportunities. However if they start letting the feints go unanswered, Font takes the cue to begin stepping in off his jab and opening up with combinations.
Feints work in tandem with the threat of the jab. If the feints aren’t there, the jab becomes predictable and easy to defend or counter. But if the jab fails to generate threat, then the feints will not have the intended effect. If you’re actively pumping out feints but the jabs aren’t hitting, the opponent can simply ignore the feints. But once you smash up their orbital bone a bit or distract them from a big right hand, suddenly the attention is drawn to the lead hand and they start giving you exploitable reactions. Font has a never-ending well of tactics for making sure the jab lands and generates threat.
The jab gives Font an effective way to take angles and turn his opponents at distance. Jabs are perhaps the best punch to facilitate lateral movement, as they can be thrown easily on the move. A fighter must be planted to throw a strong rear hand, but the jab can be flicked out with a step off either foot, or disconnected from the feet entirely and thrown during hops or gallops.
Font uses his to pivot inside of orthodox opponents. A lancing jab distracts and blinds them as he steps out with his lead leg and adjusts his rear to follow. Then by the time they’re ready to answer, Font is already facing their center line with a dominant angle:
Font likes to double up on his jab off the pivot, distracting opponents with the first jab and chinning them with a hard, jolting jab as they turn to face him. A turning fighter is a fighter without his feet set to counter, so Font is free to throw the second jab as a committed, hurting strike.
The jab doesn’t need to hurt to make an impact however, and Font is well aware of that. Once he’s established that his jab carries some pop, he’ll start varying speeds and tossing it out noncommittally to occupy the opponent’s vision. The probing jab is useful to distract your man or confuse his reactions. It can hide a hard rear-hand punch, or just be flicked out repeatedly to force the opponent to show his hand and expose openings.
Font’s probing jab wreaks havoc on the reactions of Ricky Simon here. Simon is trying to slip the jab, but it comes so quick and without commitment that he’s unable to counter, forced to keep bobbling his head around while Font measures distance with the jab and lines up a right hand. Font immediately puts the jab back in Simon’s face and he starts throwing counters, but with the hand occupying his vision they’re hurried and predictable, and Font is able to draw out a poorly-timed shot.
Most boxing-heavy fighters in MMA like to stay in a strong stance with bent knees, ensuring that they’re always in position to punch. Font is a bit of an outlier in that regard, as he spends a lot of time upright with his feet out of stance, stepping between orthodox and southpaw, or just squaring up before resuming his typical stance. This has some downsides (which we’ll cover in more detail later) but it also gives him a sneaky setup for his jab.