Former Strikeforce middleweight strap-hanger, Luke Rockhold, is set to scrap with former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) light heavyweight ruler, Lyoto Machida, this Saturday night (April 18, 2015) at UFC on FOX 15 inside the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Rockhold may have lost his UFC debut in stunning fashion, but he's been making waves ever since that loss. Not only is he defeating ranked opposition, but he's absolutely mauled three straight fighters, and all three are known for being tough combatants.
Now, Rockhold is set to do battle with the best fighter he's ever faced. If Rockhold makes it past the crafty attack of "The Dragon," there's a very good chance that he'll end up competing for UFC gold.
Let's take a closer look at his skill set.
Striking
Rockhold is one of the biggest fighters in the division and is a formidable athlete, as well. While on his feet, Rockhold's style of kickboxing takes full advantage of both attributes, allowing him to land crushing strikes and dictate the range well.
For the most part, Rockhold is a pressure fighter. He can certainly work well from the outside, but Rockhold prefers to maneuver his opponent into the fence and then punish him. To move his opponent into the fence, Rockhold relies on his excellent footwork and feints.
It's worth mentioning that Rockhold has a pretty nice jab when he chooses to throw it. His feints set it up well, will double up on the strike, and even change levels with a nice body jab. Against a fellow Southpaw in Machida, the jab could play a much more important role for the American Kickboxing Academy (AKA)-trained product.
Rockhold, like many Southpaws, is also quite effective with his straight left hand. Rockhold will commonly throw the strike as a lead or to counter his opponent's kicks. After landing his left, Rockhold usually rolls out, allowing him to avoid his opponent's counter punches.
Once Rockhold forces his opponent's back to the fence, he has a number of attacks depending on how his opponent reacts. This is the core of Rockhold's game, and it's where he's most effective.
If Rockhold's stands still -- which is fairly uncommon -- or circles to his left, a roundhouse kick is coming. Rockhold's power kick is a huge part of his attack, as his length and physicality make the strike absurdly effective. In addition, he will throw this kick in the center of the Octagon, where he'll use it to do damage as well as herd his opponent into the fence.
Rockhold mixes his targets up with his roundhouse kick. He attacks the inside of his opponent's leg, the body, and goes high with regularity, and the latter two targets can result in a quick finish if they land cleanly. For example, two of Rockhold's recent UFC finishes can be largely attributed to his roundhouse kicks.
The former Strikeforce champion's finish of Costas Philippou was a pretty perfect example of Rockhold's skill. After forcing his opponent into the fence and raising his guard with a jab, Rockhold slammed his shin into his opponent's liver, forcing the boxer to crumble onto the mat.
In his last fight, Rockhold barely bothered disguising when he was going to kick, as Bisping could not move out of the way in time. Even when Bisping blocked, he was knocked off balance and simply damaged by the pure power of the kicks. Since Rockhold was mixing his targets often, he was able to drop "The Count" with a hard high kick after a small level change feint dropped Bisping's hand.
Rockhold also has an additional attack against opponents pressed to the cage that is often overlooked. He'll step forward with some punches before ducking down and moving into the clinch. Once Rockhold secures a body lock, he doesn't look for a takedown. Instead, he'll drill his opponent's mid-section with strong knee strikes.
While landing knees to the body in the clinch isn't exactly revolutionary stuff, Rockhold slams knees into his opponent's liver and ribs and they're extremely effective. In fact, Rockhold finished Paul Bradley with knees to the body back in Strikeforce and landed a couple in his last fight, as well.
If Rockhold's opponent instead chooses to circle to Rockhold's right or attempt to push the Southpaw back with a combination, his response is usually the same. Rockhold's right hook is his money punch, and he can land it with serious power.
Rockhold's counter right hook is incredibly effective. As Rockhold backs straight up -- an admittedly risky strategy -- he'll keep his lead hand a bit low. Then, he'll bring it around and over his opponent's strikes, which is made easier by his size. Since Rockhold is excellent at maintaining his preferred distance, this usually results in his opponent's punches just missing while Rockhold's right hook lands flush.
In addition, Rockhold showed a new wrinkle in his attack to counter his opponent's lateral movement towards his lead hand. Against Bisping, Rockhold scored with a hard lead leg kick, jacking his opponent's jaw by faking low before kicking high.
Defensively, Rockhold doesn't do anything blatantly wrong, but his style is risky. Since he generally keeps his hands low, Rockhold is largely relying on distance and range control to keep himself safe. Rockhold's quite excellent at both, but there's not a lot of room for error.
Wrestling
While I firmly believe that Rockhold has strong offensive wrestling, he hasn't really relied on it at all. He's an AKA-trained fighter, shown incredible defensive wrestling, and is an athletic specimen. All those signs point to him being a very strong takedown artist if he ever actually relies on that skill.
Since the start of his career in Strikeforce, Rockhold has only landed a single takedown. That sounds odd considering his string of rear-naked choke victories, but those usually came after he reversed takedowns or dropped his opponent.
That single takedown actually came against Tim Kennedy, one of the middleweight division's best top specialists. In the final round of their title fight, Kennedy was fishing for a double leg against the fence. Rockhold dropped down, roped up his legs, and yanked Kennedy onto the canvas without much issue.
More importantly for a fighter looking to stand with most of his opponents, Rockhold may be the finest defensive wrestler in the UFC. Rockhold's takedown defense and overall scrambling ability are absolutely fantastic, as he's both very hard to takedown and nearly impossible to hold down.
Rockhold's distance control, made even more effective by his usual reach advantage, allows him to recognize takedown attempts early. If he can't fully stop the takedown with a hard sprawl, Rockhold defends the shot long enough to get his back to the fence.
From there, Rockhold is excellent at spreading his legs and getting a wide base. This makes it difficult for his opponent to connect his hands for a double leg, and allows Rockhold to pester his opponent with punches or elbows to the body in between fighting for underhooks. It's also important to note that if Rockhold does sprawl out in the middle of the Octagon, he's very quick to circle to his opponent's back.
In addition, Rockhold does not often just settle for escaping his opponent's grasp. To reverse his opponent, Rockhold keeps his base wide and reaches one arm between his opponent's leg and one over his back. After connecting his hands, Rockhold will turn and lift his opponent, winding up in top position.
Despite his wide base, Rockhold is occasionally dragged to the mat against the cage. When this happens, he makes sure to land on his butt with his back against the fence. From there, he'll fight for an underhook or use a whizzer to begin working a wall-walk. If his opponent manages to prevent this, Rockhold will turtle up, exposing his back, and try to explode out. Rockhold trusts in his jiu-jitsu, and even talented grapplers like Tim Kennedy weren't able to capitalize on Rockhold turning his back.
Another technique Rockhold uses to return to his feet is the switch. From the aforementioned position -- on his butt, back against the cage -- Rockhold will reach by his opponent's double leg and look for a single leg of his own. Instead of trying to finish the single, he will create just enough space to spring back to his feet.
The wall-walk and switch are hardly uncommon techniques, but Rockhold is able to do them extremely well and against the best fighters in the world. I mentioned briefly that Tim Kennedy is one of the best top control specialists at middleweight, but "Jacare" Souza is likely the best.
While fully energized, Souza is too explosive and too good of a grappler to simply stop his takedown. When the jiu-jitsu master put Rockhold on his back, the Californian used the above techniques to prevent Souza from advancing his position while working back to his feet. Not only did he stymie Souza's top game -- a result yet to be replicated -- but he fatigued the Brazilian at the same time, allowing him to take over as the fight wore on.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ)
Rockhold began training jiu-jitsu in his teens and is currently a black belt in the art. Despite his preference to stand, a majority of Rockhold's wins actually ended via submission, often as he jumped on wounded opponents.
Much of the jiu-jitsu Rockhold uses serves as counter wrestling. As mentioned, he's excellent at sprawling on his opponent and immediately circling onto the back. Once there, Rockhold wastes little time in forcing a rear naked choke into place.
More recently, Rockhold punished Tim Boestch's attempt to hold onto a failed takedown. Rather than attempt to break his opponent's grip and free his leg, Rockhold swam his leg deeper into the hold and through Boestch's arm pit. From there, he locked in an inverted triangle.
Once Rockhold secured the hold, it was only a matter of time. He patiently squeezed the head and attacked with a kimura, never giving Boestch the space to escape. Eventually, he successfully maneuvered on top of Boestch while maintaining both the kimura and inverted triangle, where he cranked on the shoulder and finished the fight.
Impressive stuff.
As for Rockhold's submission of Bisping, there's not a lot to break down. Bisping was half-conscious as he attempted to stand up, and Rockhold latched onto his neck. From there, he pulled guard, flipped him over, and finished the choke with one hand for bonus style points.
It definitely looked cool, but Bisping was basically out on his feet, so it should be looked at as great finishing instinct instead of an incredible display of jiu-jitsu.
When on his back, Rockhold does not attempt to establish a usual guard. However, he does mix in kimura attempts both from his back and against the cage while defending single leg takedowns, which often force his opponent to abandon the takedown. He also used one from half guard against Tim Kennedy, which caused a scramble and allowed Rockhold to work back to his feet.
Fighters without elite level jiu-jitsu defense don't survive on the mat with Souza. Against both Souza and Kennedy, Rockhold made it incredible difficult to advance position on him, the necessary first step in securing a submission. Even in the sole moment that Kennedy did scramble onto his back, Rockhold shook him off with ease.
Best chance for success
Machida's excellent footwork and general evasiveness make him one of the most difficult style match ups for Rockhold in the division. Since corralling Machida into the fence will be a rather difficult task, Rockhold may have to dig deeper into his bag of tricks than usual.
In order to halt Machida's movement, Rockhold needs to be very active with his kicking game. All of the men who legitimately beat Machida -- such as Weidman, Jones, and "Shogun" Rua -- were able to contend with Machida at range and damage him with kicks.
In particular, Weidman did a fantastic job pinning Machida in place with a high volume of kicks. Rockhold should attempt to do the same, as he has the conditioning to do so. Plus, he kicks significantly harder than the champion and could really hamper Machida's conditioning and ability to move with a few well-placed kicks.
While Weidman looked to wrestle once he had Machida against the cage, that probably wouldn't work as well for Rockhold. He should definitely mix in a takedown attempt here or there, but for the most part, Rockhold should be attempting to land damaging strikes as Machida fights to get back to the middle.
Will Luke Rockhold earn the biggest victory of his career, or can Machida take out the rising talent?