Times New: How Rob Font Routed Cody Garbrandt
Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC
After a hot-and-cold UFC career, Rob Font has put together the run of his life.
As Font himself would admit, he hasn’t been the most consistent of fighters — both in terms of activity and performance, the New Englander had struggled to gain a foothold since his debut with the promotion in 2014, and every step forward only appeared to mean an imminent step back. Font’s best performances (over solid names at the time, such as Silva de Andrade and Almeida) were as convincing as any at 135, and yet when he got to a top-5 opponent, Font routinely found himself fumbling; whether it was the pressure of a Lineker, or the opportunism of a Munhoz, or the veteran craft of an Assunção, Font was turned away each time like clockwork, and twice in fights that weren’t particularly competitive whatsoever. Combined with frequent injury issues, the book had apparently been written on Font: as a man who could beat up anyone well outside the top-15, but would struggle to compete inside the top-10.
As Font fruitlessly toiled underneath the elites, Cody Garbrandt rocketed past him — Garbrandt debuted in the UFC a few months after Font and went 5-0 with brutal knockout after brutal knockout, and where Font’s step-up in competition was the bruising veteran John Lineker, the closest to that sort of test for Garbrandt was the fellow prospect Thomas Almeida. In a sense, “No Love” only even attempted a conventional title run after he’d won and lost the belt, and while his fight with Pedro Munhoz went quite badly, a win over the declining great Raphael Assunção kicked the Garbrandt Redux into full effect. It wasn’t just to retroactively justify all the opportunities he’d been granted, but to find another one — with the promotion’s favor behind him and a division that was perpetually messy at the top, perhaps a win over Font might’ve been all it took.
However, the newfound elite Rob Font had other ideas, going from strength to strength to beat two good names and then smoke former title challenger Marlon Moraes. When the divergent paths of the workhorse and the Chosen One converged, Garbrandt had become the stage for Font’s masterpiece — a swarming performance in which the former champion had been completely drowned by the end of the fight, and one of the most dominant five-round striking clinics that bantamweight had seen at a high level.
I - The New Garbrandt
With Garbrandt’s new affiliation with the solid coach Mark Henry — in addition to his usual Team Alpha Male — the changes to his game were still being ascertained as of the Font bout. The Assunção fight had seen Garbrandt struggle to initiate exchanges but try to compete in the kicking match from range instead, where he’d previously ran headfirst into fire when opponents weren’t doing that for him — although the extent to which that low volume was attributable to Assunção’s idiosyncratic game was still in question. The Font fight answered that question; for better or worse, Garbrandt had moved away from committed leads with his hands in general, but tried to answer the question of Rob Font’s careful leads in different ways.
Garbrandt seemed to want to lengthen the range against Font — looking to make sure Font wouldn’t easily get the leads he liked, and so would expose himself trying to force offense. To this end, Garbrandt fought very conservatively early; trying to counter Font’s step-in with leg kicks (which would go away once Font really started pressuring from long range) and looking to break the line of attack as Font entered with his straights.
The other tool Garbrandt used early was his own jab — never in an offense-creating capacity, but to walk Font into something as he looked to attack from range. Garbrandt’s jab is mechanically quite good — without taking his head offline with it, though, the longer Font could generally be assured to land on Garbrandt if Garbrandt is in range to jab.
The first round of Garbrandt vs. Font was, consequently, a slower affair than the rest of the fight; Garbrandt wasn’t as willing to just step into exchanges with Font, even if Font was historically much more capable on the lead than on the counter (and at the end of his own straights than inside them), so Font had to figure out a way to work into range. The way that Garbrandt wouldn’t really concede to a closer range didn’t keep his power completely out of the question as a threat, either:
The Assunção knockout came when Garbrandt’s opponent stepped in on him against the fence, and Garbrandt leaned and bent into a crouch before popping back up — against Font, Garbrandt used the threat of that incredibly committed and fast right to prevent entries while he was along the fence. The Chosen One in more ways than one.
When Garbrandt threw, he was still quick and his shots had authority — but through the start of the fight, Garbrandt’s game was essentially designed to keep Font out of the range that would allow himself to do his own best work on the counter. Garbrandt’s thorough unwillingness to stand his ground and allow a close range could’ve worked out differently; for instance, in the same situation, Font’s teammate Calvin Kattar (who, in many respects, is much better than Font) likely would’ve gotten far more frustrated chasing after him. Font himself has had his moments of wild blitzing in the past, and an errant abandoning of his stance could’ve been what Garbrandt needed to find a crucial shot. For as long as Garbrandt was dangerous, however, Font committed to staying disciplined and solving the problems in front of him, one by one.
II - No Love Lost
Garbrandt’s method of taking the jab away wasn’t a particularly nuanced gambit — where Assunção was able to turn a retreat-oriented game into a dominant strategy against Font, Garbrandt lacked a lot of the same nous that allowed him to do it. The deep gauge of distance and ringcraft was one of those aspects, Assunção’s peculiar comfort in conceding a fight as low-volume as necessary until his specific setup plays out was another, but the most important piece was that Garbrandt simply lacked any consistent or specific response to a jab. A strong jab being a potential route to deal with Garbrandt wasn’t a new idea from a conceptual perspective nor an empirical one; Garbrandt’s below-average reach for the division and his game being tuned towards short-range hook counters meant that a jab made sense to enforce a longer distance, and the final frame of the Cruz fight saw the former champion either land with the jab from range or get away with jabbing without ever being punished for the attempt:
With Font primarily being a jabber to start with, this was an incredibly actionable route for him — and he dealt with Garbrandt’s primary response to the jab in several different ways himself, as the depth of Font’s primary strategy revealed itself through the first few rounds.
If any singular tactic can be pointed to in Font’s wild success against Garbrandt, it was his ability to feint into range — not just with his hands, but with his feet and his posture. Font’s fight against another (although vastly slower) blitzing combination counterpuncher in Douglas Silva de Andrade showed a similar approach — Font could repeatedly feint the step into range, either pulling the blitz out of his opponent to exploit or dulling their read on true entries. At times, Font would even squat down further in his stance, the way he would to throw a real power-jab, only to delay the shot or throw away a few lead-hands instead, leaving Garbrandt with no reliable cues on when to do anything.
When Garbrandt decided on his fastest tool to deal with such an arrhythmic challenge, Font was ready — the counter jab was punished a very short time after Garbrandt first showed it, as Font just flashed the jab before slipping to the inside to cross-counter Garbrandt’s return. Font could draw the jab to rip the body, or slip outside the jab while using his own lead-hand to line up his rear (and Font’s fairly unique tactile approach to pocketfighting is also seen at other points in the fight).
For classical Garbrandt — the high counter-combinations — Font was also ready. The way that Font fights, in a deep and low stance, has a few functions — Font fights long and not tall, and he doesn’t have to lower his level too much to enter into range while being safe from the hook flurries. When Font was close enough to really jolt Garbrandt with the jab, or he sat on a right hand, Font proactively weaved or took his head offline and it completely disarmed those flurries on the counter for the former champion.
Font’s other important consideration was the movement of Garbrandt — Garbrandt stayed very mobile through the entire fight, never really settling down unless his back was on the fence, and Font needed to account for Garbrandt often stepping laterally each time he entered. Font is a forward-moving fighter at his core, but also isn’t much of a cage-cutter with his feet; however, one thing he’s always been very good at is understanding where his strikes push his opponent (as seen in his finish of Thomas Almeida), and Font punished Garbrandt for his exits as well. In a sense, Font’s somewhat inefficient pressure helped him too — Garbrandt was fighting an incredibly inefficient fight, never in the same place two seconds in a row if he could help it and moving in wide arcs around the cage, and Font could read those arcs while allowing Garbrandt to continue to drain himself on the backfoot.
Noted earlier the way Garbrandt would move to try to defuse the jab — to be more specific, he’d angle to Font’s rear side, away from the lead hand and looking to force Font to turn if he’s going to find the rear straight. Instead, Font went into the third round with a couple solutions — Font would look to use the jab to hide himself angling into Garbrandt’s stance, stepping deeper into him and lengthening his rear hand to intercept Cody’s exit, or taking larger steps to jab diagonally and account for where Garbrandt would be. Font got very good at tracking Garbrandt’s retreats as the fight went on, and Garbrandt deciding to just retreat linearly the rest of the time played directly into Font’s hands.
As the fight progressed, Garbrandt became less and less able to keep up his strategy of kicking and avoiding exchanges in the face of Font’s pressure and sharp range work, and Font started to gain the confidence to fully address the threat of Garbrandt along the fence; he was never reckless enough to step in when Garbrandt was obviously looking to rerun the Assunção finish, but did limit Garbrandt’s ability to just drop below his line of sight mid-exchange.
For being such a rangy fighter, Font is incredibly handsy on the inside, and Garbrandt’s exaggerated leans on the fence failed to completely dissuade Font because of it. When Cody looked to get to that deep bend as Font jabbed, Font could just post or frame with the jabbing arm — pushing off him at some points, manually straightening him up, or keeping Garbrandt from popping back up and transferring the weight to throw the big “get away from me” right. Font eventually started using this same strategy to track Garbrandt’s head along the fence to punch it — similar to how his jab turned into single-collar-ties with Simon’s inside slips and frames-to-elbows for Almeida slipping outside. The big lean wasn’t just mitigated but punished when Font took a tip from another MMA Rob — the head kick as Garbrandt threw himself out of position to avoid the straights.
Garbrandt’s “more composed” form had been completely flustered into nonexistence by the end of the third round; he wasn’t surging into blitzes, but only because Font’s jab was a constant threat to keep that distance intact, and he’d been forced into passivity by just never really being able to account for the jab on the counter. His options became an increasingly difficult wrestling approach or to try to maximize each of the few shots that he could land on Font — and as he started to sell out on becoming his old self, Font put a beating on him that rivalled any in MMA.
III - Jamrocked
Rounds four and five of Garbrandt vs. Font were where a good corner likely would’ve thought about a stoppage on behalf of Cody Garbrandt — and Garbrandt’s uncommon offensive potency for a bantamweight wasn’t really something that should’ve changed that. Garbrandt was still fighting under the broadest of definitions, but he spent long stretches of the fight completely on the defensive (and even that was only in name, as he wasn’t really capable of defending anything). On Font’s part, the last two rounds were the absolute best of his career — against a former champion, Font delivered 10-8s at the very least, building on everything he’d been doing through the early parts of the fight and chopping Garbrandt up in every range.
As Garbrandt started to wear down from the damage and lose some of his disciplined movement due to his exhaustion (and the way it didn’t really help him), Font could just get him on the fence with the double jab and sit down on massive rights. The only likely reason Garbrandt survived is that, absent of any effort to find counters, he was just staring at each strike as it came with no options to deal with them. Again, Garbrandt’s desperation ducks were completely robbed of any effect by Font just framing on him, which also kept Garbrandt from comfortably shooting from that position (as he had earlier in the fight).
Most of the emphasis, deservedly, has been on Font’s boxing, but he had one interesting use of his kicking game against Garbrandt as well. Font didn’t really blitz much at all earlier in the fight, but he’d been using a hard rear-leg front kick throughout — which both deals attrition and obstructs Garbrandt’s counter-blitz (which he does for kick counters as well) — and used those to set the blitz up. As Garbrandt reacted to the feint or retreated off the kick, Font could step in safely with big combinations that were otherwise a bit too reckless for a fight like Cody. The few instances where he closed the door with the jab were welcome too — getting his shoulders and hips back into position by throwing the 1-2-1 as a blitz, since Font doesn’t really have a left hook.
In particular, Font’s bodywork in the fourth round was one of the most brutal aspects of the fight — Font wasn’t completely ignoring the body of Garbrandt up to that point, but was commanding the fight too easily with his straights from range to really need to duck into the pocket regularly. In the fourth round specifically, Font had a couple minutes where he dug to Garbrandt’s body in every other exchange, and wasn’t ever punished for it by Garbrandt’s now supremely-limited counter threat.
Even when Garbrandt was active on the counter, Font could just draw them out and duck underneath to hit his body — but when Garbrandt started to just retreat without any counter ideas, Font feinted in and used a powerful rear hand to the gut, at least once to set up one of his bigger combinations along the fence.
Ahead of the final few rounds, Garbrandt’s corner had a few ideas on how he could deal with Font’s defensively-aware approach — countering to the body, countering with the uppercut (with a mention of Canelo Alvarez) — but the only one that Garbrandt consistently tried at the 11th hour was just urgency. Font may have looked nearly flawless for nearly all of the fight, but he could be flustered when forced to be the one reacting — John Lineker defeated Font years ago with his devastating front-foot attack, and Garbrandt was the faster of foot of the two. Spending the entire fight allowing Font to set up his range and all of his threats was a demonstrably ineffective idea from the Garbrandt camp, and their best option now was ruthless aggression — but after Garbrandt’s desperate first few minutes in the fifth, Font shut him down there too.
Font was likely too confident to break mentally by the time Garbrandt decided that doing the things that get him wins might be smart to do here, but the couple minutes where he tried did show the issue with his original approach. The men who beat Font most consistently took his initiative away — and while Garbrandt was pretending he had the cleverness of a prime Assunção, he found his moments later when he took a page out of John Lineker’s book, forced his way inside Font’s straights, set up with bodywork, and made him react to the flurry instead of dictating when it’ll come.
When Garbrandt really keyed on the counter-right over the jab, though, Font’s form provided a built-in answer. Similar to many of the times Shane Burgos looked to cross-counter Font’s similarly-constructed teammate Calvin Kattar, Font getting behind his shoulder on the jab kept him relatively safe from many of Garbrandt’s counters. While Kattar is a good bit cleaner defensively, Font’s lower stance also somewhat helped in providing a built-in barrier.
Even this rally, though, fell victim to Font’s ability to react smartly to what Garbrandt brought him. Font had tried a few times to pull Garbrandt onto the rear uppercut — showing the jab and drawing the overhand to get him to lower his level — and this had already resulted in at least one sickening connection to the body. As Garbrandt’s urgency forced him back into “counter everything as hard as possible” mode, Font’s uppercut worked like a charm — the cross-counter fell short as Font threw away the jab and hopped back in his stance, and Font knocked him back with a hellish shot to the face, ending the final stand.
Parting Thoughts
Font still doesn’t own the most dominant victory over Garbrandt — that goes to the second go-round of TJ Dillashaw, who destroyed him in a round while experimenting with different guards and grinning through the entire fight — but a rightful 50-43 over a former champion does wonders for the leader of the “New England Cartel”. With Garbrandt’s limitations insofar as durability, no one had really been able to make him look so lost for so long — and with the prior knowledge of Font’s formidable power, an anomalous showing for Garbrandt’s head really just afforded Font the opportunity to show a level of consistency that’s rarely seen outside of elites. Against a dangerous counterpuncher, Font confidently walked the tightrope between passivity and aggression — where Garbrandt in the same situation has swung wildly between both extremes, both as a function of temperament and technical depth. Rob Font may not move into one of the deepest top-3s in MMA history -- Petr Yan, Cory Sandhagen, and Aljamain Sterling are all very difficult for him for different reasons — but he’s earned his position as being the best of the rest at this point in time, and even that’s a massive triumph considering where he was situated just a year ago.
As for Garbrandt, it’s very likely that his insanely rapid ascent has come back to hurt him badly in the end. About nine years into his professional career and with the mileage (especially after the Font outing) to match, large stylistic changes aren’t particularly easy — and Garbrandt has seemed somewhat malleable in terms of temperament, but his tools have never really changed. Whether his unwillingness to initiate exchanges was a function of changing camps or (more concerning) a function of being gun-shy after three straight knockout losses is also a question; Garbrandt is still a terrifying athlete, but his last five fights have featured precious little success for him, and an incredible amount of damage in the process. Being locked into the “elite” tier by being a former champion, as well as perhaps missing his window to meaningfully develop new skills by getting only elite fights just four years into his professional career, could spell a hard and fast decline — but even against Font, Garbrandt showed the danger he posed to some degree, and is still young in absolute terms. More unlikely turnarounds have happened than a hypothetical Garbrandt one — but the turnaround to watch for now is that of Rob Font.