Justin Gaethje: Paths to victory at UFC 249
Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC
Following on from our initial thoughts, we decided to take a look at both Justin Gaethje and Tony Ferguson’s paths to victory.
Danny Martin: This feels fairly straightforward. Ferguson is infamous for his messy stance, slow starts, and tendency to get hurt very badly in the early going before he is able to establish his distance. Gaethje is a powerful leg kicker, he starts extremely fast, and he hurts guys very, very badly when he punches them. The main weapon for Gaethje needs to be the leg kick, because Ferguson’s stance can be caught out too wide, too narrow, or completely flat in transitions and opponents have had serious success crippling him here. Tony was able to mute RDA’s leg kicks when he began counterjabbing, but I have a feeling that won’t work as well against Gaethje. Justin understands that in his quest for attritional KOs, he is going to take a few to do so.
The pocket should be a wash. Gaethje isn’t particularly deep defensively, but he is getting better at converting punches into collar-ties and his combination punching to the body and head is particularly nasty. Tony’s concession in losing exchanges is to simply bite down and throw back, and while that might work well against Donald Cerrone, Gaethje is both positionally better and just flatly better inside. Tony doesn’t have much of a consistent method of counterattacking, which means that he just throws what he sees and it often puts him way out of position. Fundamentally, Ferguson’s only way to win this fight is to simply approach Gaethje head on and I don’t have a lot of faith in his ability to pull that kind of fight off anymore.
Lukasz Fenrych: By hitting Ferguson hard and often until he falls over, the earlier the better. Ferguson’s notoriously slow starts aren’t safeguarded by any sort of defensive care while getting up to speed, and Gaethje’s ability to crush range fast, kick as well as use his hands to punish Ferguson’s unbalanced movement, and soak up a lot of damage himself should Ferguson get anything off mean that Ferguson will have a very tough time getting space to work.
Mateusz Fenrych: This is by far the less complicated permutation of this matchup. Ferguson is an extremely slow starter, to the point that he has repeatedly had to survive being dropped in the opening stanza by various opponents, even those not generally regarded as heavy handed.
Gaethje has big, clubbing power right out of the gate, and he’s wholeheartedly enthusiastic about applying it in judicious quantities until the fight ends, and increasingly accurate with it too.
Range-finding is usually not an issue for Gaethje; his ever improving footwork and defence, coupled with an accepted risk of damage means he tends to be in range in very short order with all opponents.
While Ferguson is unlikely to be as easy to cow into retreat as Barboza or Vick were, Gaethje will nevertheless have access to his target in the early going for certain, and Ferguson’s defence just isn’t consistent enough to deflect/avoid all of Gaethje’s intent.
Kyle McLachlan: My biggest plus point for Gaethje here is little to do with his ability to cut off the cage, his shrewdness in setting up guided missiles upstairs with his bombardment of the lower limbs, or his proactive head movement and defence allowing him to catch his opponents walking onto those missiles.
No, it is because I fear that Tony Ferguson’s declining physical attributes and my fear his legendary toughness levels will fall off a cliff any day now, perfectly coincide with how dangerous Gaethje is.
If Tony Ferguson is weakened from making weight twice in as many weeks, look out: Gaethje might have an easy night and a very early shower in whatever Jacksonville hotel he’s shacked up in.
Tommy Elliot: Like my colleagues, I think Justin’s power and the amount of damage he does early to the legs and body will just make Tony’s typical late surge untenable. Tony really gets rolling when he can get guys on the back foot, I don’t know that Gaethje will allow that (more cautious performance against Cerrone notwithstanding). Justin is good at pressuring past long range to get inside and do damage so I don’t think Tony can rely on his jab to keep him off. I expect Gaethje to seriously hurt Tony and for Ferguson’s rally to be too little too late if even makes it to the championship rounds.
Philippe Pocholle-Marchetti: Justin is better in the pocket, better on the outside and the inside. But mostly Justin's great capacity to gauge distance will be a big help for him. Justin became a master at making his opponent think they are out of range when they aren’t. One thing though, Justin has to do it inside 12 minutes or it’s gonna be a problem.
Kyle: I’m certainly of the opinion that the longer it goes, the more it favours Ferguson.