Edson Barboza vs Sodiq Yusuff -

The Jack Slack Breakdown

The Yusuff Jab

Much of Sodiq Yusuff’s success in this fight was his use of the jab. Those who remember his Contender Series fight with Mike Davis will recall that Yusuff likes to stand with his shoulders square and his right hand checking the opponent’s left. From this position he can rotate his shoulders to a side on position as he stabs in with the jab. It results in a jab with a bit more pop. Yusuff immediately began poking in this jab from the first exchange of round one.

Fig. 1

One of the ways that Yusuff used this jab was to force movement. Edson Barboza’s best punch is a left hook which he normally throws off an inside slip, and he isn’t much for jabbing of his own. As Barboza slipped inside the jab, Yusuff kept the arm out and the lead shoulder high—momentarily creating a leverage guard—before turning his palm in and seizing Barboza’s head as Barboza slipped. With this collar tie, Yusuff unloaded a right hook and a right uppercut that stunned Barboza in the early going of round one (Figure 2) and he returned to the jab into collar tie at many times throughout the twenty-five-minute bout.

Fig. 2

Edson Barboza has always had trouble under pressure, but has also achieved some of his greatest knockouts from opponents trying to pressure him. This is because when he is in trouble, Barboza starts looking for Hail Mary strikes. He will throw up his switch kick and wheel kick off the back foot, and those get him into trouble by throwing him out of position, but his most dangerous weapons are knees and jumping knees.

Yusuff showed great awareness of this by pursuing Barboza to the fence and then flicking his jab in front of Barboza’s eyes once or twice before every legitimate step in. Figure 3 shows Barboza lunging forward for a knee as Yusuff drops away and forces the Brazilian to fall short.

Fig. 3

While Figure 4 shows Yusuff closing in on Barboza along the fence. He pokes a half hearted jab without committing his weight (b), (c) and Barboza reaches out to grab a double collar tie and look for the knee. As Barboza realizes he has misread Yusuff he pulls his hands back into position just as Yusuff hammers him with an overhand (d).

Fig. 4

The Yoza Kick

As Barboza made it out of the first round and the second round began, Yusuff got to work with an unusual technique. Yusuff became the first to make good use of Yuki Yoza’s ‘Yoza Kick’ in the UFC. We have waxed lyrical about this before, a couple of times, but the Yoza kick is a rear leg front kick into the opponent’s rear leg. The awkwardness of the kick can be seen in Figure 5. Notice how Barboza’s hips and shoulders are thrown out of position as the kick hits his rear leg, and Yusuff sneaks in a little stepping right hand as he comes down out of the kick.

Fig. 5

The Yoza kick had an interesting side effect. Because it is a straight line kick, the front kick to the rear leg will often shoot up the inside of the powerful round kicks that Edson Barboza relies on. Between the Yoza kick and Yusuff showing a couple of good, solid checks, Barboza pretty much abandoned his brilliant right low kick in this fight. Yusuff’s checks were of the modern, Aldo-esque variety, where the stance is shortened and the knee pointed out into the kick: this meant that not only was the shinbone pointed out, but Barboza connected further down his own leg. On two notable instances he threw a hard low kick and clacked only his toes off Yusuff’s shin.

The one time that the Yoza kick let Yusuff down was when he attempted it with his back to the fence. After throwing the kick out in the open he had stepped through to southpaw and retreated off to his left side. With his back to the fence he had far less room to play with and Barboza was able to chase him back with body shots.

Fig. 6

Barboza’s Body Work

If there were a book of Aesop’s Fighting Fables, the moral of Barboza vs Yusuff would be the effects of bodywork versus head strikes. Barboza did not draw himself back into the fight and win it through beating Yusuff to the punch, but by trading blows with him, often looking the worse in the exchange. Yet it was Barboza’s diligent targeting of the body that lingered and stuck with Yusuff, while Barboza—his face a swollen mess—fought like a relatively fresh man even into round four.  

One sequence that played out multiple times during the bout was Yusuff throwing his jab, Barboza slipping to the inside, Yusuff taking the single collar tie and then both men landing at the same time—Yusuff with the right hook or uppercut to the jaw, and Barboza with the left hook to the body. It was an almost tit-for-tat exchange but one man took it in the face and the other took it in the ribs.

Fig. 7

Before the left hook the body began to score well, Barboza found success with the right hand to the body. Whether it was a straight or a wide right, Barboza was offered the shot underneath Yusuff’s left arm whenever he jabbed. It seems as though all of Barboza’s answers for the jab take him to the inside of it, as opposed to the elbow side. But this meant that at many points Barboza could land the right to the body under Yusuff’s jab, and immediately follow with his signature left hook to the body or head.

Fig. 8

The right hand to the body also worked well to hide Barboza’s peculiar stepping right hand lead. This was a big part of Barboza’s fight with the southpaw, Makwan Armikhani and we have discussed it at length before. But against an orthodox fighter, Barboza was able to line up the right straight by performing an inside slip before stepping in. This right hand up the inside of the opponent’s lead shoulder, when thrown as a counter, is called an inside right. Barboza’s right hand lead is doubly peculiar because he throws it so far forward that he must step with his right foot to catch himself. Of the two occasions Barboza showed it in this bout, the first allowed him to stun Yusuff and begin to turn the tide.

Fig. 9

While Yusuff’s jab was a large part of his success, it was as much a part of his undoing. Obviously the left elbow being open is necessary for Barboza’s right hand to the body to land effectively, but because Yusuff reached for the collar tie in every exchange, Barboza would often sneak in an extra knee to the ribs as the two men came together, Figure 10.

Fig. 10

And while Barboza’s bodywork was largely done with his hands, his back kick cannot be overlooked. Even though most of Barboza’s UFC back kicks have been landed by timing the opponent coming forwards, he was able to use a more aggressive variation in this fight. Because he was attempting to stay on the front foot and impose himself on Yusuff, Barboza was afforded the chance to time Yusuff circling along the fence.

To Yusuff’s credit, he made direction changes to try and get Barboza to jump the gun, but Barboza made the read perfectly. In Figure 11, Yusuff circles to the right, changes direction and circles to his left, and then changes to try and complete a circle out to his right again. As he circles past Barboza’s lead foot, Barboza throws the kick so that Yusuff will meet him halfway through the spin.

Fig. 11

No matter what kicking sport you are talking about, using the back kick as a ring cutting weapon is one of about three reliable ways to land it. Later in the fight Barboza was able to score with his wheel kick in this way, where most of the time that is something he times on an opponent stepping forwards.

Were we not pressed for time, we could discuss the scoring of the fight, or Barboza’s crafty use of the leg reap to stall Yusuff out from the bottom in round one, or Yusuff’s excellent get ups late in a twenty five minute fight when he was clearly exhausted. But the key takeaways from this fight are the value of bodywork, of the probing / controlling jab, of the Yoza kick, and of being a stubborn old bastard. It was an excellent bout and one of the better main events the UFC Apex has ever hosted.