Ilia Topuria: The V-Step, the Shoulder Roll and the Pivot

 Josh Emmett was supposed to be a test for Ilia Topuria. While he is far from a rounded threat, Emmet’s frightening power makes him a force to be reckoned with for anyone at one hundred and forty-five pounds. As it happened, the fight became a one-sided beating, with Emmett desperately swinging at air, hoping to hurt Topuria and eating right hand after right hand.

The most impressive part of Topuria’s performance was that he did not run from Emmett. He didn’t calf kick and sprint circles around the cage. He stood in front of Emmett, drew out his best punch, made it miss by inches, and hammered him on the return. For use of the shoulder roll in MMA, you would be hard pressed to find a better showing.

There are in fact three interconnected techniques we need to examine to understand how Topuria made Emmett’s incredible hitting power a non-factor: the V-Step, the shoulder roll, and the pivot.  

The V-Step

The jab is regarded as the basis of scientific boxing. For some the jab alone can be enough, but the goal of boxing from day one has been to land the biggest swing you have on your opponent, and stop him from doing the same to you. The jab came along because standing with your power hand in the rear, ready to swing with all your might, had the side effect of making your lead hand weaker, but closer and faster. To most educated observers a jab that exists in a vacuum is a neat trick, while a jab that builds into and out of other techniques is the very essence of fighting science.

Anyone who has seen a movie with even a passing reference to boxing will have heard the expressions “stick and move” and “in and out.” Sometimes you might even hear a mention of “angles” and not backing up on a straight line. Armed with this knowledge alone and no outside help, you could dream up the principle of the V-step.

Fig. 1

A V-step is moving straight in to attack, and then retreating out slightly to the side. Your path of movement creates a large letter “V” underneath your feet as you change directions and deviate from the line of attack. Figure 1 shows the ideal of the V-step. You jab in, and then you step back to your left, or back to your right.

Fig. 2

The issue a fighter will run into is that because the stance is not symmetrical, the two V-stepping options are very different propositions. Figure 3 shows a simple V-step in and then back to the right. The fighter steps in with a jab: first advancing their left foot and drawing their right foot up into their stance behind it (b). The fighter then rebounds off their lead foot and moves their right foot back and to the right (c), following with their left foot to consolidate their stance.

Fig. 3

It adheres to the main principle of athletic footwork: outside foot, inside foot. You pick up and move the foot that is closest to the direction you plan to move in. This is the stepping foot, and then the other foot is the pushing foot. The natural rhythm of jab and retreat is to throw weight onto the lead foot with the jab and then rebound off it in the retreat.

The Pivot

Here is the conundrum: you have a front foot and a back foot, but they are also your left foot and your right foot. For this reason, retreating to the right is much easier for an orthodox fighter. Figure 4 shows the crux of the problem with V-stepping back to the left.

Fig. 4

To jab in the fighter’s left foot—his front foot—leads, and his right foot—his rear foot—comes up into stance. To jab and retreat the fighter drives off his lead foot and springs back almost immediately after he enters. The fighter must move front foot (1), back foot (2), and then back foot again (3). But the back foot is his right foot and moving back to the left, while leading with his right foot, will necessitate the fighter crossing himself up. Figure 5 shows the compromise he must make:

Fig. 5

To spring back onto the right foot off the jab but still angle out to his left, the fighter pivots on his lead foot before sending the right foot back to the left of his line of entry. He has pivoted his entire stance around the point where his lead foot jabbed in, and then retreated on that line.

An Aside About Sugar Ray Robinson

A short aside here to note that this does not mean you cannot jab and circle left without performing a big pivot. There is a technique called the safety lead which Sugar Ray Robinson used masterfully. This involves stepping forward-and-left on the jabbing step, rather than stepping straight in and rebounding. The fighter must have their reactions on point because where the pivoting V-step places you behind your lead shoulder and draws the opponent into overreaching, the safety lead moves you into range and asks the opponent to throw down. Here’s an example of Robinson poking out a couple of safety leads as he brings himself into trading range.

Fig. 6

The safety lead, and the body jab with the same step to the left, allowed Robinson to slightly angle around his opponents as he picked at them. One of his great tricks was to slot the left hook in as a lead, having built anticipation for his jab. After throwing out some safety leads and circling left, Robinson would take that diagonal step with his left foot and then bounce in on the hook instead.

Fig. 7

Robinson is held up as an all time great of boxing because he could do it all. He could dance, he could slug, he could dodge your fastest shot and absorb your hardest one with a laugh. It will not surprise you then that he also used the pivoting V-step in tandem with his safety lead. Here he jabs, body jabs, and pivots around his lead foot to send himself back to the left. As his opponent lashes out, Robinson is already on a new angle and coming in with the left hook once again.

Fig. 8

Returning to Ilia Topuria: the V-step back to the left had the effect of lengthening the path of Emmett’s right hand—encouraging him to overswing—and taking Topuria as good as a mile away from the Emmett’s left hand. Figure 9 shows an example. Emmett correctly picked up on Topuria’s vulnerability to the left hook in two handed exchanges (which we will touch on later), but when Topuria was jabbing in and out with the V-step, the left hook had absolutely no hope of hitting Topuria because it was a) shorter than the jab that Topuria used to set the range before stepping back, and b) Topuria was well off to the right of Emmett’s centreline, meaning Emmett had to overswing beyond the powerful portion of the hook to even try to reach him.

Fig. 9

This is part of the value of the V-step. The jab draws a response and often against a power puncher that response is overcommitted. Here is an example of Ilia Topuria making Josh Emmett pay for the same left hook falling short. Notice that as Topuria bounces back his left shoulder is high (c), (d), while Emmett’s head is completely away from his lead shoulder as he struggles to wind his weight back in off the missed hook (d), (e). Bouncing back in off his right foot, Topuria cracks Emmett with a right straight (f).

Fig. 10

That’s a lot of explaining for a move that looks simple and—honestly—a little bland. But this brings us onto the third part of the technique: the shoulder roll.

The Shoulder Roll

I have long called for the shoulder roll to take a more prominent place in MMA, but there are still many under the impression that it only works in larger gloves. The truth is that in four ounce gloves it is relying on those gloves as a guard that is a liability. The muscle and bone of the shoulder and back are not going anywhere if you take off the gloves altogether. If a fighter is aiming at your jaw and your jaw is pressed to the inside of your lead shoulder, and your body is brought into a line behind it, they aren’t going to hit your jaw no matter how hard they try. The same is true of the reverse shoulder roll after throwing your right hand—a method that is almost mythical in MMA.

Fig. 11

Instead you commonly see MMA fighters slipping with their jaw far away from their shoulder. The devastating effect of a shot to the jawline has been common knowledge since the late 1800s, but if you need reminding just watch Charles Johnson linger in a slip with his chin away from his shoulder two weeks ago. Maksum cracked Johnson with a right straight and because of Johnson’s position Maksum had access to Johnson’s entire jawline and the blow turned Johnson’s head all the way around.

Fig. 12

The most famous proponent of the shoulder roll in MMA is Dustin Poirier. We have examined his transformation from clumsy banger to clinical counter puncher in Dustin Poirier - Advanced Striking 2.0. Learning to hide behind his shoulders allowed him to stand in front of opponents with less fear, which allowed him to develop his reactions and counter punching, which made him a far more dangerous fighter. In that article we discussed the adaptations he made to his stance in order to use the shoulder roll in MMA: the projected lead elbow—sacrificing all body cover—and the rear hand being brought up so high that the fingers can be placed on the top of the head and the wrist, rather than the glove, is acting as a guard against roundhouse swings.

Fig. 13

Just four days ago, the famously nervous Jack Hermansson overcame his fear of big hitters, easily shoulder rolling off the right hand of Joe Pyfer—the hardest puncher in the world, according to the UFC Performance Institute and a letter from his mother.

The great thing about the pivot in our pivoting V-step is that it puts the fighter into a bladed position behind his lead shoulder. For this reason the pivot has always been a great weapon in cutting off combination punchers in boxing. During Miguel Cotto’s last great run he went up to middleweight, where everyone he fought was noticeably bigger than him. One of the ways that he kept himself from getting mauled in exchanges, or leaned on, was to pivot tightly around his lead foot and hide behind his lead shoulder. Even when his opponent’s right came flying in, it bounced off his shoulder or he rolled it off the top of his head, and then they were forced to stop punching and turn to face him on his new angle—completely breaking off their offence.

Fig. 14

While Bobby Green has done well showing everyone that shoulder rolling is possible in four ounce gloves, he managed to do so without demonstrating the key feature of the shoulder roll: that it is a platform for counter punching. The moment an opponent’s right hand is felt on the lead shoulder the shoulder rolling fighter doesn’t need to use his eyes: he knows the opponent is close enough to hit with a right hand, and out of position from his own.

Here are a couple of examples of James Toney—at different phases of his journey to spherical—hitting a short right hand counter out of his shoulder roll. Notice that the more the opponent overextends to hit him, the more dramatically they fall onto his counter. It is that purest ideal of martial arts: the more power the opponent uses, the harder they get countered.

Fig. 15

This leads us to the conclusion of the pivoting V-step, and likely the reason Topuria adopted it, going into a fight with an enormous puncher who adores his overhand. Figure 16 shows Topuria V-stepping, and Emmett selling out on his overhand. The right hand that had already flatlined Michael Johnson and Ricardo Lamas, and went right back to working against Bryce Mitchell in Emmett’s next fight. Instead Emmett is left awkwardly swinging to an angle off to his right. His right hand bounces impotently off Topuria’s shoulder (d) and then, as Emmett’s weight follows the blow he is forced to step forward and catch himself (f). Topuria takes his shot: a pool cue right hand that finds Emmett’s face flush.

 Fig. 16

For drawing out a big right swing, there are few better tricks. Andre Fili is an avid V-stepper and you can see in Figure 17 an example from early in his fight with Dan Ige. Fili pokes in, stepping both forward and to the left, flicking out a jab he has no intention of committing to (b). His back foot swings around behind him as he pivots and exits diagonally backwards (c). Ige is already swinging a counter overhand at Fili’s original position on the line of attack (d) and falls forward, but doesn’t chase Fili enthusiastically enough for Fili’s counter left hook to land (e). You will notice in frame (f) that Fili is back out at safe range having offered up little of himself, and created a good opportunity to counter. Of course, Fili later got caught out trying to force Ige back on a line, but to know an outcome and let it prevent you from studying the tape is a great way to stop learning.

 Fig. 17

The value of the V-step in the Topuria - Emmett bout far outweighed the few stiff counters Topuria landed off it. By gaining confidence in his shoulder roll, Topuria could jab more assuredly in the knowledge that he could get down behind his lead shoulder afterwards. From the mid-point of the fight, Topuria’s jab was still sometimes just a flick to gain a response, but every second or third jab would carry that extra couple of inches of commitment and snap Emmett’s head back. Topuria’s success on the counter and Emmett’s constant swinging at air created pockets of the fight where Emmett took his finger off the trigger, allowing Topuria to step in with right hand leads and two fisted punching flurries.

Countering the V-Step, the Pivot and the Shoulder Roll

Josh Emmett was not without options against Ilia Topuria. The pivoting V-step is a neat tactic, that matches up extremely well with Josh Emmett’s one-note counter-offence, but it is still just a tactic. Each aspect of it—the v-step, the pivot, the shoulder roll—can be attacked effectively if the fighter and his team know what they are looking for.

The V-step itself, the simple in and out, is countered with footwork and ringcraft. Pressure a fighter close enough to the fence and he cannot V-step effectively without putting himself into the boundary. The V-step exists to draw out counters so the fighter attempting to counter it must restrain himself to non-committal counters as he tries to cut down the ring or cage. You have heard me say it a thousand times but double jabbing is the ideal means to chew up space, put something in the opponent’s face, and stay relatively safe behind your lead shoulder and on top of your feet. A huge part of Emmett’s problem was his squatted down, hunched over stance and then throwing punches out ahead of himself from there. To be “on top of your feet” allows quicker movement and more chance of actually getting to the guy even if your plan is as primitive as “chase him back.”

To answer the pivoting V-step specifically, one great option is shifting. You will notice in many of the above examples, the reacting fighter tries to swing at the V-stepper and ends up overextending and falling out of their stance. Choosing to shift is prioritizing moving the feet towards the target before throwing your punch—and chin—out ahead of you. Figure 18 shows the footwork for the shift. As the V-stepper jabs in, the receiving fighter should parry or slip the jab, get his head to the outside of the V-stepper’s lead shoulder and step through with his right foot to outside foot position (d). This is the time to blast left body kicks and high kicks, right hooks, left straights, and ankle tap low kicks behind the lead foot to keep the opponent off balance.

Fig. 18

The shifting right hand is a great way to do this with a punch attached. For a great example of using the shifting right hand to counter lateral movement, Demetrious Johnson hammered John Dodson with it several times in their pair of fights. Alexander Volkanovski, Topuria’s next opponent, is a big proponent of the stepping right hook. In fact it becomes a bit of a crutch for him against southpaws, and he turns very one-note.

Fig. 19

When a fighter pulls out the pivot in MMA, and makes it look good, it might seem unstoppable. But the golden rule of fighting is that moving in one way opens you up in another. Jose Aldo was the king of the pivot: in his boxing, in his takedown defense, and he even used a type of pivot to check calf kicks. In both fights with Frankie Edgar he took Edgar’s straight line charges, pivoted off, and made Edgar look silly. Edgar did hit on the big weakness of the pivot though.

Fig. 20

When an orthodox fighter pivots clockwise around their lead leg—as in the pivoting V-step—their lead leg is right there for low kicks. Last week we discussed Superlek using the double jab to get Takeru moving before low kicking and the principle is the same: if you want to kick someone in the leg, occupy their legs with footwork. A fighter pivoting around his lead leg is in no position to pick it up and, when pivoting clockwise, the orthodox fighter exposes the back of his lead leg, allowing the kick to buckle his leg in.

The issue for Edgar was the problem at the heart of using any counter technique or tactic in fighting. Jose Aldo was not giving him an easy read. Each time Edgar stepped in there was a chance that Aldo would pivot, but there was an equally strong chance he would make a galloping retreat and pitch the counter right hand, or stand his ground and intercept Edgar with a vicious knee strike. With Topuria vs Emmett the pivot came after almost every time Topuria stepped in to jab: the opportunity to counter was much more obvious and Emmett was not having to lead against Topuria to get the chance of the pivot.

Emmett came close with a few low kicks in the pivot, and hit a few out in the open, but low kicking isn’t his game and his squatted stance keeps him from performing the kind of step or shuffle up kicks he would need to cover ground. He had some success timing the stepping in portion of the V-step though, and this is something that Alexander Volkanovski has always been a fan of with his calf kick.

Pivoting can also be challenged with footwork. The fighter eschews a direct counter, holds himself back from swinging, and repositions himself to reclaim at least equal footing. Figure 21 shows the basic pivot to break the line of attack (represented by the segmented line).

Fig. 21

A bit of competence from both stances goes a long way here. An aggressive way to challenge the pivot is to shift forward into southpaw and outside foot position, just as against the pivoting V-step. From here the fighter now standing southpaw can open up with left high kicks and left straights which were previously a non-threat. He has also taken the opponent from one side of his stance to the other, changing the opportunities and defenses both men have to consider.

Fig. 22

A more passive version of dealing with the opponent pivoting off is to continue into a dart to switch stance, seen in Figure 23. As the opponent pivots off line, the attacking fighter brings his right foot up to “click his heels”, turns to face the opponent and kicks his left foot out behind him to meet his foe in a southpaw stance, having removed the opponent’s dominant angle.

Fig. 23

Finally let us consider the shoulder roll itself. It is a brilliant technique that shields the jaw almost completely. One old time boxing rule that Sugar Ray Robinson recounted in his autobiography is to punch higher against opponents who can hide their chin well: to aim for the temples which are sensitive to trauma like the jawline but cannot be hidden by the shoulder. To shoulder roll a punch to the temple, a fighter must turn with the blow or pull away—he must use the evasion aspect of the shoulder roll, rather than the blocking aspect of it. Then you are working against his reactions and not just flailing against his relaxed but sturdy base position.

But that is tricky stuff even for the great boxers of the world. The more easily applicable technique is to stop worrying about the right hand. The weakness in the shoulder roll is on the open side. The side that is covered only by the opponent’s rear hand. He can hold his hand higher and try to keep the solid bone of his forearm in the path of the left hook—as Poirier does—but that is not a certainty. Sneaking left hooks in front of and behind the opponent’s power hand is a much less daunting prospect than attacking him on the side where the muscle and bone of his shoulder hide his jawline. Fedor Emelinanenko versus Tim Sylvia is a great example of a fighter leaping in with a left hook against an opponent with a high rear hand and hitting him in the neck anyway. Keeping your guard up is a precaution and by no means a guarantee.

Fig. 24

Figure 25 shows an example of Emmett making some ground and shifting through to land a left hook against a tightly shelled up Topuria. You will notice that even though Topuria’s right hand is high, the left hook hits him in front of his glove.

Fig. 25

Figure 26 shows a neat trick that Emmett pulled off in the last round. Throwing his right hook to the body (with no risk of being called for kidney punching because it’s MMA), the power of his right hand turns Topuria a little, and Emmett’s left hook smacks across the front of Topuria’s face again.

Fig. 26

Even against the greats, drawing a fighter’s attention to their rear hand is a great trick to counter the shoulder roll. Jabs, body jabs and left hooks can all be used together to draw the opponent between parrying in front and shielding roundhouse blows with his rear hand. In MMA though, the left high kick and the left body kick can make this even more difficult. Even if a fighter keeps his rear hand high and braced, a good kick can blast straight through—or bruise up the arm to the point of uselessness.

Topuria has something of a problem with blows from his right side anyway, because he does not roll behind his right shoulder, and doesn’t often dip, weave, slip or clinch off his right hand. When Topuria lands his right hand he either lingers and returns to stance, or drops his right hand to his chest and sells out on a left hook that throws him off balance if he misses. Emmett clipped him with left hooks half a dozen times when he was throwing almost blind, Jai Herbert landed some more carefully placed ones and of course that left high kick through the same opening. Some diehard fans of the Spaniard became a little upset when I shared some examples in the Twitter post below, saying that you cannot keep your hands up all the time, but that is not the point. If you throw the exact same thing and present the exact same opening after almost every right hand, that is a very exploitable habit.

Fig. 27

Returning to attacking the shoulder roll, we have discussed a) focusing on drawing the opponent’s rear hand out of position and b) using kicks because it’s an MMA fight. A third option is to wait on—or draw—the right hand. Think back to when I said the shoulder roll is the perfect platform for counter punching because you can park up on the end of the opponent’s right hand, absorb it on your shoulder, and throw back with absolute confidence that if they are close enough to hit you hard, you are close enough to hit them hard. Well that swings both ways. Your vulnerability when attacking the shoulder roll comes after you have squared up and thrown your best shot, but if you can draw the opponent into missing his counter right hand, he winds up in the same position.

Perhaps Emmett’s best moment of the fight came in this example from round 3. Topuria jabs in (b), and as he pivots and retreats out in the V-step, Emmett falls short on his left hook once again (c), (d). Topuria comes back off his right foot and pitches another booming right hand counter (e), but this time Emmett ducks it (f) and now it is Topuria who is squared up and helpless as Emmett clatters him with a right hand (g). It was one of the few times that Emmett went beyond the “when he jabs, I swing” level of the fight, but it was gorgeous to watch.

Fig. 28

Ilia Topuria fights Alexander Volkanovski this weekend for the UFC featherweight title and I confess, I have only written about a handful of techniques that he brought together for one fight, against an opponent for whom those techniques were perfect. The V-step, pivot and shoulder roll could all be permanent features of Topuria’s game, or they could be something he practiced specifically for Emmett and never shows again. There is much more to Topuria, and of course the depth of Alexander Volkanovski’s game has been daunting to every opponent he has faced.

We will give that match up the discussion it is due tomorrow on the Jack Slack patreon Boicast, but for now let us all agree that the sweet science is beautiful, and boxing in MMA can be just as beautiful if you are brave and talented enough to try it.

If you have stuck with me this far but are not on the Patreon, here’s my Advanced Striking 2.0 study on Alexander Volkanovski and some of his signature looks to say thanks.