Alexandre Pantoja - The Bar Brawling Back Snatcher  

This article was originally published ahead of Brandon Moreno vs Alexandre Pantoja 3. Pantoja won the title in a thrilling contest, but many of the technical observations in this study still stand.

It is a peculiar situation when a fighter finally earns a shot at a world title and he is challenging an opponent he has already bested. Rarer still is the occasion that the challenger already has two victories over the champion. Alexandre Pantoja is that anomaly: he has bested the UFC flyweight champion, Brandon Moreno, twice already and is still entering this fight as the underdog on the betting lines. It wasn’t that he scraped past Moreno twice either, in their first meeting he submitted Moreno in round two, and in their second he battered Moreno to a convincing unanimous decision.

That is not to say that those betting lines are wildly misjudged though. Brandon Moreno has undergone a transformation. Even between his first world title fight with Deveison Figueiredo and the second, Moreno grew in leaps. Being firmly in with both the Mexican and nerd communities also means that Moreno is something of a star for the UFC—whatever that means in this post-star era. Meanwhile, Pantoja is at last receiving some attention after scoring two impressive submissions back-to-back. But when you furrow your brow and examine the fight footage, he is still largely the same guy.

Pantoja came into the UFC as a potential star. He was the number one seed on The Ultimate Fighter season 24—the “tournament of champions.” As a method of shaking up the world’s longest running and least interesting reality show, this was a compelling idea as every entrant in the show was a champion in a regional promotion. Pantoja met Moreno in the first round and submitted him with a rear naked choke, then bested Kai Kara-France, and finally lost to Hiromasa Ogikubo. Those names all hold up very well seven years on. More than who he was beating, Pantoja was marked with potential because he was a decent finisher in a division that has always lacked them.

As you might have deduced from the fact that he is receiving his first UFC title fight three years after Moreno, Pantoja hit some speed bumps en route. A decision loss to Dustin Ortiz, a beating at the hands of a surging Deveison Figueiredo, and most recently a sketchy decision loss to Askar Askarov all pushed him further back in the queue. And of course, in the Demetrious Johnson era we needed a new challenger every three to six months, while Deveison Figueiredo and Brandon Moreno have fought each other four times in the last three years, making it difficult for even the best performing flyweights to get a look in.

Pantoja is someone who has always been on my radar in the flyweight division for the mix of brilliant and frustrating elements that seem to be at eternal odds, vying to express themselves through the body of this talented but infuriatingly undisciplined fighter. Today we will examine his ridiculous stand up and his sublime grappling.

The Ridiculous

Alexandre Pantoja fights like a bar brawler. Or like the XFC soccer mom if she had power and elite jiu jitsu to fall back on. His striking started out as a one-two with one hundred percent of the emphasis on the “two”, and it remains that way to this day. In his first UFC fight you can watch him throw himself forward behind his right hand, leading with his face, and stumbling straight into the opponent. You can pull up his most recent two fights and he will do it at some point in both of those as well.

Fig. 1

After throwing his right hand and leaning himself off balance, Pantoja will do one of a few things. Most commonly he will pull his right hand back to his chest and throw it again: an almost unique bad habit which he shares with Karolina Kowalkiewicz. Both fighters treat their left hand as an afterthought and believe the best “combination” is to pump the right hand twice.

His second most common follow up is to continue falling into the right hand and throw his right leg out in a low kick. This has worked ridiculously well against even the better technical strikers he has fought. The especially boxing centric stances of Brandon Moreno and Manel Kape meant that they could blast him with a counter off his sloppy right hand, and still have their lead leg buckled in or kicked clean out in the aftermath.

Pantoja will even throw it up to the head from time to time and surprise opponents who seemed unaware that he had that move in his back pocket.

And occasionally Pantoja will grab a clinch off his right hand. Sometimes a double collar tie, sometimes an underhook. He probably doesn’t do this enough given how slick his grappling is.

Fig. 2

If you had to point to the reason that Pantoja’s horrible fundamentals translate into outstriking better technical strikers, it could come down to the cliché of Pantoja simply having “that dog in him.” In both Moreno fights, Moreno was able to clatter Pantoja with good counters—the kind of counters that are the reason you don’t throw yourself out of position like Pantoja does—and Pantoja simply took it as an insult and threw more strikes. The sole time he wasn’t able to grit his teeth and win the striking exchanges on tenacity was against the thudding power of Deveison Figueiredo. But it tells you a great deal that Brandon Moreno fought four fights with Figueireido and never seemed to be mentally rattled by the enormous puncher in the same way that he was by Pantoja—a decent puncher but not a knockout artist by any means.

Let us examine this ludicrous exchange from the first Moreno – Pantoja bout. Moreno lands a good counter left hand as Pantoja sticks his chin out to throw the right.

Pantoja simply ploughs through it and Moreno pokes out another counter that connects, albeit with not the same stink, and again. The exchange sums up the general issue Moreno had, he was landing good counters but not getting out of the way when his opponent was happy to take them. This was something that he found against Deveison Figuereido in their first fight and he was able to amend it. But this clip could serve as a microcosm for the dynamic of the Pantoja – Moreno rivalry: Pantoja is making horrible technical errors and Moreno is landing counters, but through Pantoja simply pushing ahead Moreno’s counters become less meaningful and he loses confidence.

Pantoja’s striking is all grit and sawdust, but his grappling shines like a precious stone. In fact it is often frustrating that he has a touch of the “Jorge Gurgels” and strikes when he could perhaps get things wrapped up quicker by pushing the point of his grappling. It is often his opponents who choose to initiate grappling exchanges with Pantoja, and it is then that Pantoja can show off the Lamborghini he keeps in the garage.  

The Sublime

This brings us to Pantoja’s greatest technical strength: he is perhaps MMA’s best back taker. To understand that let us examine one short sequence from the Brandon Royval fight. When in trouble, Royval loves presenting his back and then shaking his opponent off to come up on top, or attacking legs. In Figure 3, Pantoja has dragged Royval to the mat and has a seatbelt grip—his left arm over Royval’s left shoulder and his right arm under Royval’s right armpit. Pantoja has managed to insert his leftfoot as a hook, and Royval must clear that to turn up to his knees and have Pantoja slide off, so Royval removes it with his hand (a) and drops his hip down to the mat, denying Pantoja another shot at that hook (b).

Fig. 3

Royval steps through with his right leg (c) and begins to build up to a tripod (d). This is a position you will you see quite often in MMA because stripping the hooks and turning to the tripod often leads to the attacking man falling into bottom position and losing the back altogether.

But in this instance, Pantoja is a little too sharp. Figure 4 picks up the action. In (a), Pantoja has no hooks, but his left knee is inside of Royval’s hip pocket. Royval scissors his left leg through once again an drops to his left hip, removing the knee (b). But Pantoja throws his right foot in as a hook as Royval’s hips open up (c).

Fig. 4

This is a spurious control position though, and difficult to begin choking from. Figure 5 continues the action. Pantoja uses his right foot to pull Royval towards him and slides his left knee back underneath Royval’s hip, using a crab hook behind Royval’s calf (d). Pantoja extends his right foot across Royval’s beltline, creating what is called a “long hook” (e). Using the top of his foot to hook the outside of Royval’s thigh, he can lift Royval enough to bring his left foot out and back in as a hook (f).

Fig. 5

Rather than settle for two hooks, Pantoja immediately releases his right hook (g) and brings it in behind behind Royval’s right leg, locking his feet (h). This single hook control, on the choking arm side and with the knees pinched over the opponent’s hips, is a terrific platform to begin choking and Demian Maia has used it to great success in MMA. By locking the opponent’s hips in place it also gives the attacking fighter a more potent neck crank should be unable to get under the jaw and want to simply try to twist the opponent’s head off.

The Crab Ride

If you needed to identify one rule that separates great grappling from great MMA grappling—particularly on the bottom—it is movement. Elite guard players from the grappling world fail to apply their bottom game in MMA because they have honed it in a world where they set their grips or apply their set ups to culminate in a sweep or transition or leg entanglement that puts them on offence. In MMA, elite grappling is not about control so much as how you move when you do not have control. The armbars that Charles Oliveira and Alexandre Pantoja throw up from their guard would be pointless in grappling because they never yield a submission and risk a guard pass, but in MMA they create a scramble that gets the bottom man back to his feet.

Figure 6 shows an example of Pantoja’s movement and awareness paying off in a sequence that perhaps wouldn’t occur in a straight grappling match. In his fight with Askar Askarov, Pantoja spent three rounds defending takedown attempts, while Askarov fought more frustrated and sloppy as each round progressed. Figure 6 shows Askarov pursuing Pantoja to the fence and diving on a low single leg (a).

Fig. 6

Pantoja attempts to step around the corner (b) but is lifted over the top as Askarov puts his head into the back of the knee. Pantoja falls into bottom position but as Askarov stands to take top position, Pantoja inverts, catches behind both of Askarov’s knees (d), and draws his own knees up inside (e), pulling himself into a crab ride behind Askarov (f).

The crab ride is a powerful intermediary position en route to back control or the leg drag. It is a curiosity because it originated in amateur wrestling with that sub-breed of pinner, the “leg rider.” Yet it has been adapted to Jiu Jitsu as a position that is almost always acquired from the bottom and used to come up on the back or on top. The “kiss of the dragon” sweep from reverse de la riva is an inversion used to attack the crab ride from the bottom in a very similar fashion to the way that Pantoja gets underneath and behind Askarov in Figure 6.

Pantoja’s skill from the crab ride, and in going between back control and the leg drag, allows him to fence wrestle not with the intention of getting on top, but with the intention of sitting down with the opponent in his lap. Figure 7 shows a sequence that played out twice in the relatively short fight with Brandon Royval.

Fig. 7

Pantoja has a back bodylock, but Royval is keeping his rear pressed into the cage (a). Pantoja slides his left knee in behind Royval’s left knee (b). Drawing his elbows tight to his sides, Pantoja squats down and pulls Royval onto his thighs (c). After squeezing Royval into him, Pantoja steps out with his left foot and his left thigh sweeps Royval’s left leg out (d) before Pantoja sits down (e) and lands in the crab ride, with his feet behind Royval’s hamstrings.

Mutual Ashi & The Reap

Against Askar Askarov and Ulka Sasaki, Pantoja was able to demonstrate his slick guard play even while trapped against the fence. Stacking against the fence is a common tactic in MMA—you keep the opponent’s feet above their head and drop punches on them. They can’t get up because their feet are elevated, and they can’t effectively attack upper body submissions because their head is pressed firmly into the fence.

From these positions Pantoja has made great use of a leg entanglement that the Danaher crew / lineage call a “mutual ashi.” Here’s Gordon Ryan in his excellent Systematically Attacking the Legs instructional demonstrating a traditional single leg x / ashi garami leg entanglement.

Fig. 8

And here he is demonstrating the mutual ashi.

Fig. 9

The difference is his left leg. In the standard ashi garami or single leg x, his left foot is safe from attacks, inside of his opponent’s thigh. In the mutual ashi, he is attacking his opponent’s leg but they are also able to attack his free leg, hence the “mutual” name.

A mutual ashi is putting yourself at risk as you attack the opponent’s leg. In a grappling match, where you have time to foot pummel and handfight to get into a good attacking position before attempting to get on a leg, that risk is unneccesary or reckless. In MMA, time on the bottom is time spent being hit and losing on the scorecards so once again, movement becomes more important that accuracy and control.

Figure 10 shows one of three good mutual ashi entries Alistair Overeem used against Curtis Blaydes. Blaydes wanted to sit on top of half guard for as long as possible, chipping away at Overeem with strikes and permitting minimal scrambling. Overeem used the mutual ashi entry to threaten three good heel hooks and twice escape up to his feet.

Fig. 10

Overeem is holding a half guard with the outside leg hooking Blaydes’ trapped leg (a). As Blaydes brings his knee to the floor and places weight on Overeem (b), Overeem shrimps his hips out to his right and uses his hands on Blaydes’ jaw and armpit to cut a deeper angle (c). After shrimping, Overeem throws his right leg over in a reap (d), getting his right heel to his left knee as Blaydes turns back into him (e). Notice Overeem’s left foot is exposed on the outside. Overeem turns the mutual ashi into an attacking position by locking his feet on Blaydes’ right hip and pushing Blaydes out to lift his left foot off the floor (f).

Fig. 11 shows the footwork of the mutual ashi to reap a little better.

Fig. 11

Overeem begins his entry, using a shrimp, his hands, and the swing of his right leg to get Blaydes moving (a). He can use his left knee on Blaydes’ torso to frame and create a little more space, and keep Blaydes’ left knee off the floor (b), before connecting his right heel to his left knee again (c). He can now kick through to lock his feet together on Blaydes’ far side and attack the outside heel hook (d).

The difference between a standard ashi and a mutual ashi is that in a standard ashi you have inside position with both feet. This means that you can enter a standard ashi from a butterfly guard or a butterfly half guard. A mutual ashi only has inside position with one foot, but this means you can enter it from a knee shield half guard like Overeem, or a deep half as Charles Oliveira sometimes does, or from being tripoded along the fence as Pantoja does. Fig. 12 shows an example against Askar Askarov.

Fig. 12

Pantoja isn’t going to be able to get up with his ankles above his hips, and he can’t move effectively to attack with his head crushed into the fence. As Askarov stands over him, Pantoja gets on his left hip and inverts his left knee so that it is pointing at the mat (b). When he is ready, Pantoja kicks his left foot through between Askarov’s legs and throws the reap as Askarov tries to drop his weight to the mat again (c), (d). Pantoja’s right knee helps prevent Askarov from dropping his weight in time, and once Pantoja reaps the knee (e), he can kick his left foot through to Askarov’s right hip, connect his legs, and start exposing Askarov’s heel (f).

A similar entry can be seen against Ulka Sasaki in Fig. 13, except in this instance Pantoja pummelled his left foot in as a butterfly hook first (b), and turned onto his side in a knee shield half guard as Sasaki dropped his weight (c), before attacking the mutual ashi just as Overeem did against Blaydes.

Fig. 13

Any reaping leg attack has the benefit of turning the opponent away from you. This means that it can prevent him from striking effectively and give you breathing space, but it can also mean that the opponent exposes his back. Sasaki tried to run out of Pantoja’s leg entanglement and let Pantoja jump on his back in the process, submitting to a strangle moments later.

This article has clearly shifted in tone from a despairing look at Pantoja’s striking to a celebration of his ground game and that sums up the frustration which Pantoja’s fights bring. Even in his striking he has had smarter moments. When forced to contend with the explosive and highly touted Manel Kape, Pantoja took about twenty percent of the recklessness off his swings and kicks and—throwing the same combinations—cautiously outpointed a much more highly regarded striker. Yet in his most recent fight, Pantoja went back to swinging wild and trading blows from the opening bell.

But perhaps Pantoja’s choice to fight dumb reflects an accurate assessment of his situation. As a flyweight in non-title fights he has been relegated to UFC undercards for much of his career. Even a smart win over the highly touted Kape was not enough to get people talking. Coming out and overwhelming the obviously past-his-best Alex Perez with hillbilly haymakers did draw eyes though and he is, at last, getting his shot. No matter how much Brandon Moreno has improved, those previous fights still happened. The scoreboard reads 2-0 for Pantoja, on the feet and on the floor. There might never have been a fighter coming into a UFC title fight with more reason to be confident. Getting here was more difficult than it should have been, let us see if Pantoja can make good on what might be his only chance.