The trouble with Josh Emmett in the past has been his ability to slow the pace of a fight and jog around the outside. Nothing happens for a while and then suddenly his opponent is unconscious. In a way it is like magic, but it is often so abrupt, after such a slow start that it sort of washes over you and gets forgotten. Emmett’s fight with Michael Johnson in particular was completely forgettable, until Johnson was laid out on the canvas.

There were two ways it seemed like Burgos vs Emmett could go: Burgos could get in Emmett’s face and drive up the pace like no one else he had fought, or Emmett could hurt the always hittable Burgos as he marched in. Somehow the fight managed to be both of these scenarios on repeat for fifteen minutes and it might just wind up being the Fight of the Year as a result.

In the very first round Emmett was put at a disadvantage. He floated backwards, drawing Burgos forward, then burst in on a straight line and Burgos side stepped him. Something about the way Emmett’s foot landed shot straight to his knee and he was visibly in discomfort for much of the fight.

This happened so early that it is hard to tell whether Burgos came in with a plan to counter low kick or picked it up on the fly, but it proved a very solid tactic. When Emmett threw his weight onto his left foot to swing an overhand, Burgos would punt his leg out with the inside low kick.

When Emmett shot a jab, Burgos would hit his favourite inside slip and instead of coming back with a left hook he would throw a right low kick from his squared up position. A beautiful counter low kick that was a staple for the now forgotten welterweight prospect, Tarec Saffiedine. The trick of it—and counter low kicking generally—is that the more an opponent wants to utilize his boxing arsenal, the more he has to put his lead leg out there.

You can stand square and try to hammer in left and right swings but the moment you want to use the jab or throw a good right hand you have to kick your lead foot out in front of you in order to throw your weight onto it. Often the knee is the weak point in that kinetic chain. A bladed jab can be met with an outside low kick that buckles the knee inwards. A big overhand swing can be countered with a inside low kick which forces the knee out and often takes the foot clean out of the stance.

One of the interesting trends in Burgos’ recent career has been trying to use his height and reach a little more. He was in the strange spot of being absolutely gigantic at featherweight but trying to get to the inside on his opponents. His jab looked decent in this bout but between that and focusing on low kicking, his body work was infrequent.

In the second and third round, Emmett’s efforts to close and do his own hitting to the body actually seemed to make a difference to the dynamic of the fight. Burgos’ head is always out there because he wants his man to swing for it and open up a counter shot. He can’t slip or duck his entire torso in the same way and so the right hands and left hooks Emmett dug into the body both scored and annoyed Burgos. They also gave Emmett the chance to follow up with a blow upstairs in combination without having to worry about Emmett slipping to inside position on the first punch and beating him to the second.

If you want to try to get into the science of what makes a great fight, a back-and-forth dynamic is usually a large part of it. That can be one man getting knocked on his arse in round one and rebounding to knock down his opponent in the second, but it can just as easily be a series of exchanges with each man battling for the last word. The first two rounds of Burgos versus Emmett were defined by a pair of key match ups: Emmett’s jab-to-overhand bursts—which were met with counter low kicks, and Burgos’ own jab which was just as often met with pull right hand counters from Emmett. Emmett’s break for the finish line came in the third round when he began to create openings for southpaw left hands. It seems the spectre of T. J. Dillashaw still hangs heavy in the air at Team Alpha Male because it was Dillashaw’s signature drop shift that sent Burgos down for the first time in the fight. Withdrawing his left leg underneath him, Emmett stepped forward with his right foot into a southpaw stance at the same time he lanced out a left straight which skewered Burgos on the centreline. Where for Dillashaw this technique was a constant distraction that allowed him to flow into his left high kick, this is the first time I can recall someone being seriously hurt by it in the UFC.

The second instance conjured a vision of the late, great Willie Pep. Circling with his feet level along the fence, Emmett shimmied to his left, rebounded off his left leg (quite a feat, given that this was the one he injured in the first round) and cracked Burgos with an southpaw overhand left. Even when getting knocked sideways by clean rights and lefts, Burgos complicated matters by returning in combinations just as he did to claw his way into the fight with Kattar in spite of being unable to read Kattar’s jab.

Josh Emmett picked up the decision in what was likely the finest all-around performance of his career but it was very much the sort of fight where small adjustments made the difference. Changing up what he was doing just a little scored Emmett two knockdowns that probably won him the fight. Burgos has some things to work on following this one: most importantly finding his identity as he fights shorter, stockier fighters but has to walk the line between jabbing and kicking on the outside and actually getting to the body as he has in his most successful performances. It would be tempting to linger on the thought of a rematch and what each man can do better, but honestly Emmett has earned something better and I wouldn’t want to see two men with such promise insulate themselves from the rest of the division and smash it all out of each other while the featherweight world passes them by.

While it was not nearly the same calibre of fight, Austin Hubbard vs Max Rohskopf has generated plenty of buzz in the MMA world because of the ending. Rohskopf was an undefeated prospect who had taken the fight at short notice, gassed out, and found himself out of ideas and eating blows at the end of round two. He and his cornerman, Robert Drysdale argued for the full minute between the second and third rounds and eventually the fight was called off.

While the ending attracted all the attention it was an outcome of the strange state that the UFC is in at the moment. Austin Hubbard is not only a decently experienced fighter in the UFC, he has made something of a specialty of fighting grappling savants. Rohskopf might have been a D-1 wrestler and grappling phenom, but in the last year and a bit Hubbard took Davi Ramos and Mark O. Madsen to decisions—almost knocking Madsen out and coming on strong by the end of the fight—and both of those men are much scarier fighters and grapplers than Rohskopf.

Despite a lack of proficiency on the feet, Rohskopf’s entries weren’t bad. He would throw a right hand lead—much better for closing than the jab-and-shoot—and then go after his man’s lead leg with his lead hand across himself. Grabbing behind the knee, across the body is a classic entry to the high crotch / head outside single but Rohskopf used it to pick up the leg in a traditional single. This is similar to Garry Tonon’s high crotch entry to sweep single leg which has worked marvelously in no-gi competition.

When he could get the high leg position Rohskopf would try to kick out Hubbard’s standing leg or perform a quick heave-ho, but when that didn’t work he tried to reap the knee and enter a leg attack. Rohskopf’s initial entries were often like Thiago Moises’ against Michael Johnson—a belly-down straight ankle lock while reaping the leg.

Hubbard protected himself perfectly on the ground. He was always able to unwind his Rohskopf’s legs and free himself from the reap, and on the occasions he ended up on the bottom he was able to keep the cross face off and escape to his knees and then back to his feet.

But the interesting part of Hubbard’s performance was his striking. Similar to the Madsen fight he was using his striking to try and draw or deter the level change in the moment. There was a lot of body jabbing—because it is so difficult to get under and acts as a check on distance—and Hubbard built off this with body jabs or shoulder feints into overhands and right straights.

The switch left knee has become a signature Hubbard weapon and you will recall him troubling Mark Madsen a great deal with it. Hubbard will how a jab or throw an inside low kick—begging the opponent to drop on his hips—then switch and hammer his left knee up in front of his sternum. It’s a shot that only works if the opponent drops their face onto it, but missing it seems to help convince the opponent that they don’t want to shoot.

While Hubbard’s record in the UFC is now 2-2, he is going through a fascinating little arc. He is learning to use his striking specifically to score blows safely between the rushes of very grappling oriented opponents. Some fighters have had amazing success by being anti-grapplers more than they are strikers who can wrestle—most notably think of Robert Whittaker’s run to the UFC belt. It will be fascinating to see how Hubbard’s striking looks against an opponent less inclined to dive for his legs in every exchange.