The Blueprint 01.19.12: Special FX
Posted by Patrick Mullin on 01.19.2012
The main event of the UFC’s first exclusive FX card is a lightweight battle between Jim Miller and the Young Assassin, Melvin Guillard. With their UFC title aspirations on the line, which man comes out with their hand raised?
The Blueprint 1.19.12: Special FX
The main event of the UFC's first exclusive FX card is a lightweight battle between Jim Miller and the Young Assassin, Melvin Guillard. Both men are top contenders but each are coming off of high profile losses in their last bout. In the shark filled waters of the lightweight division two losses in a row can be devastating to your chances at a title fight. With their UFC title aspirations on the line, which man comes out with their hand raised? Read on to see who feels the thrill of victory and who feels the agony of defeat.
Welcome back my fans, friends, countrymen, and inhabitants of planet Earth. I am Patrick Mullin and I am your MMA architect providing you with The Blueprint! Now I'm not saying I'm a maven or anything in the world of MMA predictions, but in picking winners and losers since the return of The Blueprint this writer has gone 4-0 in his comeback effort. That can all easily change Friday night however when Jim Miller and Melvin Guillard face off in the main event of UFC on FX. It's a classic striker vs. grappler match up with huge consequences for the careers of both men. Each was on a tear before slipping on the proverbial banana peel with a losing effort in their preceding bouts, and have the unenviable task of trying to get back in the win column against each other.
This fight is our most difficult test to date. The lightweight division is perhaps the most stacked division in all of MMA, particularly in the UFC. After an impressive win streak since losing to title challenger Gray Maynard, Jim Miller found himself thoroughly dominated by Benson Henderson and instead of challenging for the UFC title on PPV in Japan as Henderson now will, he headlines a card on free television. Melvin Guillard was on a win streak of his own until he got reckless against Joe Lauzon and was badly hurt by a hook he never saw coming which led to a submission defeat. In one fight Melvin went from thoroughly in the title picture to back down the ladder. With an impressive win here either man can immediately thrust themselves back into the title picture, while a loss may freeze them out for a long time to come. On to the particulars!
Jim Miller Height: 5'8 Reach: 71 inches Record: 20 Wins (11 Submission, 3 KO, 6 Decision) 3 Losses (3 Decision) Years Pro: 7 years
Jim Miller's Keys to Victory
1)Cut off the Cage - Jim Miller is normally an aggressive and active fighter looking to close the distance and take his opponent to the ground where he can work his BJJ into play and lock on a submission for the victory. He'll be at a disadvantage when standing because Melvin is much quicker on his feet than Jim is. In order to neutralize this and stop Melvin from being able to dance around the cage so quickly, Miller is going to have to stay in front of Guillard and prevent the escape routes Melvin uses by his footwork and feinting. If he doesn't Melvin will be able to pick his shots and then get out of range for Jim's shot attempts and counterstrikes.
The way Miller needs to do this is by not following Melvin around. He needs to use lateral movement to stay with Guillard and force Melvin to move in the direction that's most useful for Jim to set up a takedown attempt or land a strike to score some points. Melvin tends to use serpentine like motions with his upper body to gauge where an opponent will move. Miller cannot bite on these feints and instead must use his own to compliment the lateral movement to force Guillard to step back until he runs out of real estate and make him easy prey for the takedown.
2) Hands Up High - It's no secret that Melvin Guillard is a destructive hitter. Pound for pound there may not be a more powerful striker than Melvin in all of MMA. There are very few guys who have the lethality in their strikes that he does. So why give him any opportunity to land those devastating strikes? Jim Miller has never shown a questionable chin, but Melvin has the kind of power to take out anyone regardless of how good their beard is. Miller if he hopes to win this fight has to minimize the amount of clean strikes that Guillard can land on him, so he must remember the pre-fight instruction of "protect yourself at all times".
Normally I'm an advocate of good head and upper body movement as well as a tucked chin to avoid being hit cleanly. Miller despite all his talent does not possess very good head movement and tends to keep his head centered as opposed to his left or right side which makes him easier to hit. So what Miller absolutely must do is keep his hands high to protect his chin. Because of the way Guillard mixes up his strikes the most effective hand guard for Miller as a shorter man looking to get inside would be a variant of the "peek-a-boo" guard popularized by boxing trainer Cus D'Amato seen in his students Floyd Patterson and Mike Tyson. This will keep his hands in the best position to protect his chin while still having them in position to let his hands go if needed.
3) Kill the Body - It used to be a given that if Melvin Guillard made it through the first round of a fight that he would be absolutely gassed afterward and it would be a miracle if he lasted the distance. Since moving to Greg Jackson's camp it seems as though Melvin's cardio has not been an issue as he's been taken the distance by Gleison Tibau, Ronnys Torres, and Jeremy Stephens and won all three fights. However he really was not pushed very hard in this bouts and it was Guillard who was able to control the pacing of them. If Jim Miller can get in close and secure a takedown, he can work knees into the body of Guillard to really tire him out. If he doesn't secure the takedown, he can work short punches on the inside to the ribs to take Melvin's wind away and set up a late submission victory by virtue of Melvin just not having enough strength to defend the submission attempts Miller is capable of.
Jim Miller's Perfect Strategy - Jim Miller must start off and make good on his first takedown attempt to attain a psychological edge over Melvin Guillard and make him believe he can be taken down at any time in the fight, even if he cannot maintain control of Melvin on the ground. At this point he can keep the fight at close quarters and rough Melvin up along the fence and really smother his explosive offense. From there he needs to take every opportunity he can to drag Melvin to the ground and work intelligent ground and pound, forcing Melvin to get desperate and either give up his back or a limb where Jim can sink in a submission and make Melvin tap out.
Melvin "The Young Assasin" Guillard Height: 5'9 Reach: 71 inches Record: 29 Wins (19 KO, 2 Submission, 8 Decision) 9 Losses (8 Submission, 1 Decision) 2 Draws 1 No Contest Years Pro: 10 Years
Melvin Guillard's Keys to Victory
1) Test the Beard Early - Jim Miller has never been knocked out in a fight. When you're a professional fighter in title contention, to say you've never once been knocked out is a very significant accomplishment. However when you look at the guys Miller has fought, he's never fought a true puncher. Melvin has almost as many KO's as Miller has wins. In his last bout Miller took a horrific beating on the ground from Ben Henderson. He was beaten up as we've never seen before. There has to be the question of if that fight has any lingering effects on Jim and his resistance to punishment.
Melvin immediately must assert his superior striking power and try to land at least one big punch early to see where Miller's chin is at. If Jim takes it well, then you know he's not going away easy and that you should set up your striking opportunities for the win via combinations rather than looking for one shot at a time. If you can hurt Jim Miller badly with one big shot, then you can be patient rather than have to work extra hard to create opportunities. He may go for a desperation double leg and leave himself open to be battered into a TKO loss. Either way Melvin has to be confident in his fight ending power and know that Miller has not felt power like his and that the more he feels it the less of a chance he has to win.
2) Mix Up Your Strikes - Earlier in his career, Melvin would either try to win a fight with one big shot and not follow up, or would get too reliant on his hands to try and win. When you become predictable you give the opponent an opportunity to more adequately defend themselves and limit how well you can score against them. This was the Melvin Guillard who we last saw remnants of against Jeremy Stephens. Now this fight basically turned into a sloppy boxing match, and while Melvin certainly did enough to win it a guy more versatile than Stephens may have been able to take advantage of how one dimensional Melvin's attack was.
The Melvin Guillard who battered Evan Dunham was the opposite of this, as he effortlessly mixed together punches, knees, and elbows to hurt and eventually stop Dunham in the very first round. Dunham had never been stopped before this fight. Versatility is going to be one of the keys to Melvin's striking success because of how smart a fighter Jim Miller is. If Miller sees anything predictable he'll know exactly what to do to take advantage of it. However if Guillard forces Miller to try and adjust his defense against impossible angles and Jim tries to cover up rather than fight back he can wind up getting caught, hurt, and finished.
3) Joe Lauzon - Confused by this statement? Allow me to elaborate. Melvin Guillard was on the most successful run of his career prior to running into a left hook from Joe Lauzon in his last bout. In reality Melvin Guillard has had two careers. There was Guillard before Greg Jackson, and there is Guillard with Greg Jackson. The guy before Jackson got along just on his talent and not really working hard to improve or learn anything. The guy who has paired up with Greg Jackson has become a very hard worker, shown vast improvement in the canyon sized holes he had prior, and generally become a much better fighter.
No fighter is perfect however, and you really don't know where you need to improve until someone gives you a painful lesson in a fight. As good as Melvin had looked in running 5 straight wins off against good competition, he got complacent and believed not only could he take out anyone with his strikes, but he felt that nobody could take him out with theirs. What this led to was him planting his feet and swinging for the fences after he landed his first good strike against Joe Lauzon. As a result he dropped his hands because he got cocky and got caught with a left hook he never saw coming. It's the ones you don't see that can take you out, and he was so badly hurt that this left him easy prey for a Lauzon choke.
The style match up for Guillard is not all that different in this bout than it was against Joe Lauzon. Now after seeing what he did wrong in that fight with MMA maven Greg Jackson guiding him, the mistakes should be relatively fresh in their minds and as such easy to rectify when they train for this bout. If Melvin wins this bout, in my mind he owes a bit of an assist and a thank you to Joe Lauzon for bringing him back down to Earth.
Melvin Guillard's Perfect Strategy - Guillard should start fast and find Miller often with his left jab. As soon as he lands it with any type of consistency he should follow up with fast right hands to the chin and chest and force a retreat from Miller. At this point Miller will get somewhat desperate for the takedown and Guillard can use shots from too far away by Miller to control his head and neck to score with big knees and uppercuts. If Miller goes to his back Melvin would be wise to force him to stand back up rather than engage and finish off Miller with punches and knees to secure a TKO victory and firmly entrench himself within the top 10 lightweights in the UFC.
Final Prediction - Like I said this is perhaps the toughest fight I've covered to accurately predict a winner. I've always been of the belief that when he has his head on straight, Melvin Guillard is capable of beating any lightweight in the world. Jim Miller is the boss of bosses if he gets on top of you on the ground with how good his BJJ is. The strengths each man bring to the table here are the weaknesses each man seem most likely to succumb to. In my mind what that makes this fight boil down to is who can do what they want to do first.
If each man comes out right at the other, Melvin will come out swinging and Miller will come out immediately shooting. Early on in fights Melvin can be very difficult to takedown because of his balance and physical strength. I think Miller will attempt and fail initially to take Guillard down. What this will lead to is Jim trying to strike to get inside to try and attempt a better shot and he'll eat some very hard strikes that will hurt him and cause his reactions to become instinctual rather than calculated. At that point his instinct is to just go for the legs and try to take Guillard down, and he'll open himself up to very hard and fast combinations that will end his night early and force Jim to reevaluate his career at the moment.
