Opinion: The Mental Sport

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UFC 281 on Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New York closed as a strong contender for “Event of the Year.” There were 11 finishes in 14 fights (every match on the main card included), with seven of them occurring inside one round. When considering how many headliners and co-main events have seen the scorecards in 2022, it becomes even more impressive. Yet among the athletic feats, suffocating submissions and vicious, brain-rattling knockouts, I saw something else: an increasingly cerebral sport, one where the difference between and losing can often be found in the mind.

Everyone has considerable physical talent and athleticism nowadays. Everyone knows how to throw basic punches and how to defend, wrestle and fight on the ground. How does one beat a skilled, well-rounded opponent then? It usually comes down to better preparation and tactical decision making during a fight.

Let us look at some UFC 281 matchups and how the mental side factored into each one:

Dominick Reyes vs. Ryan Spann

From a physical standpoint, Reyes should have won easily. Everyone knows at this point how to approach Spann. He is exceptionally dangerous for the first two to three minutes of a fight, where he is fast, athletic and possesses considerable power, especially in his right hand. He declines from there, so much so that Sam Alvey of all people was badly beating him up in the third round of their fight. Reyes should have been cautious in the first round and waited until the second and third stanzas to take over. Instead, he decided to go for risky striking exchanges early on. He was throwing naked leg kicks that Spann countered a few times with a hard right cross, then went into the pocket to trade power punches and got knocked out cold. Perhaps Reyes wanted to make a big impression in his first fight in 18 months. To add to the pressure, it was in Madison Square Garden and he was on a three-fight losing streak. He let the moment overcome him. Regardless, he made a huge tactical blunder and ended up starched in a fight he would have won otherwise.

Dustin Poirier vs. Michael Chandler

Chandler is one of the most explosive fighters in MMA history, and oftentimes, he has relied too heavily on that ability—to his detriment. Against Poirier, he wisely decided to use more of his outstanding wrestling, which led to a dominant Round 2. Poirier, however, was up to the challenge and fought in a brilliant manner. Knowing how dangerous Chandler was in the first round, Poirier encouraged him to punch himself out. At times, he seemingly exaggerated the amount of damage Chandler’s punches caused and goaded him into throwing more flurries. Replays showed that many of Chandler’s punches missed or were partially blocked. This had the effect of sapping Chandler’s energy quicker than usual, and Poirier capitalized at the end of Round 1, as he almost knocked out the three-time Bellator MMA champion. He was patient on the bottom the second, accepted that he lost the round and tried to conserve his energy for a final push in the third. This worked out splendidly, as Chandler had grown visibly fatigued, no doubt exacerbated by Poirier breaking his nose at the end Round 1. He did not fully secure a showy takedown, allowing Poirier to take his back and sink a rear-naked choke. It was a wonderful example of intelligence by “The Diamond.”

Carla Esparza vs. Weili Zhang

This might seem like a strange inclusion. Zhang was a huge favorite and fully justified that perception with her performance. She possessed significant skill advantages over Esparza, which was evident in the fight. Still, Esparza did have a path to victory, difficult as it would have been, and her lack of preparation subverted that as much as any physical superiority Zhang held. Esparza was clearly looking for takedowns the whole time. Rather than doing this through any setups, like clinching first, shooting on reaction to a Zhang strike or preparing an attempt with her own striking, Esparza simply went for shots from far away—an approach any wrestler will admit is no recipe for success. Her corner seemingly did not work out any strategies, either, unhelpfully yelling to “change levels,” regardless of what was going on. What makes matters even worse is that after shooting, Esparza apparently did not expect to be in any serious grappling exchanges on the ground. Zhang kept trying to get her into a crucifix from her back and, from there, attack her neck with a rear-naked choke. It is an awkward position in modern MMA, and the top fighter can turn into the opponent, forcing her to pull guard. It does not appear that Esparza had trained this at all. She was shocked that Zhang engaged in the grappling with her. As a result, she was out of sorts, and the Chinese challenger choked her out in the second round, winning the women’s strawweight crown for a second time. Esparza may have lost even if she had set up her takedowns properly and trained more situations on the ground, but she would have at least had a chance and not been defeated so easily.

Israel Adesanya vs. Alex Pereira

I have written admiringly about Adesanya’s brilliant mind for fighting on more than one occasion. For the first four rounds against Pereira, he conducted another masterful fight. Despite Pereira having an advantage in the striking and hurting him in Round 2, Adesanya entered the final stanza with a commanding three-rounds-to-one lead. He accomplished this through clinching at the right times, disrupting Pereira’s rhythm, allowing himself to recover after eating shots from the Brazilian and sapping his energy. Despite being unable to take Pereira down and even giving up a takedown himself at the end of the second round, he created a scramble in the third that allowed him to win it dominantly, scoring with a number of strikes from the top. For his part, Pereira, while lacking Adesanya’s five-round and grappling experience, also fought intelligently. He has always done well managing his energy. That was true even in the main event of a pay-per-view at MSG, going into the fourth and fifth rounds, which he had never experienced before in MMA. He was tired entering the fifth, but his blows were still deadly. Pereira also never panicked and stuck to his gameplan of maneuvering the champion against the cage before unloading with a flurry of shots. Adesanya probably should have embraced a more boring approach in Round 5. I understand the desire to entertain the crowd and wanting to decisively beat his rival, but Pereira was still incredibly dangerous, as he proved when he knocked Adesanya out. In retrospect, he should have clinched more, especially when Pereira moved him close to the fence.