Coach Conversation | Max Holloway vs Dustin Poirier 3

Kyte: Always good to sit down with you for one of these; it’s been too long, so let’s get into it — what’s the best trait of Max Holloway and what’s the best trait of Dustin Poirier? 

Madden: First things first — we gotta give both of these guys their flowers; I love them both so much.

Both of them are the essence of what a fighter is; they should be studied and looked up to for many years to come by up-and-coming fighters — for their technical ability, of course, but man, just the heart and what these guys represent in the cage. They are both “fighter’s fighters” and everything they’ve been through in their careers is f****** incredible.

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I really respect these guys and I tip my cap to both of them and look up to them a ton.

Kyte: 61 combined UFC appearances, fought each other twice already, and have fought amongst the strongest, toughest “strength of schedule” slates of anyone in UFC history.

Madden: It’s insane! It’s a Murderer’s Row, for years, and still to this day.

Kyte: It’s the toughest dudes on the planet, every time out.

Madden: It’s absolutely insane the things they’ve accomplished in this sport. It’s really what all fighters hope they can be.

If guys had half the career that either of these guys had, they would consider it a massive success, so before anything else, that has to be said about both of these guys. It’s a bummer one of them has to lose on Saturday, so hopefully we just get an amazing five rounds out of these guys.

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Kyte: Agreed.

Madden: Okay, so best traits — Max, his output is phenomenal, his pace, his pressure; he’s notorious for this and it’s something that can help him on his path to victory in this fight. I also think his diversity of strikes is something he can lean into in this fight, as well.

For Dustin, he has some of the best boxing for MMA and some of the best boxing defense; a really unique style of defense using his elbows and shoulders to block, which I really, really like a lot for MMA. He’s done a really great job adapting that, and man, he just finds ways to win fights and he’s so hard to get out of there.

These are the guys that you have to kill to get them out of there. Any time you think about “heart,” Dustin’s name needs to come out of your mouth first. That’s not a trait we want to rely on in this sport, but he has it in spades and it’s something we always have to bring up.

Kyte: When it comes to his defense, what is it about that approach that you like so much for MMA?

Madden: You see guys in MMA still just kind of using high guard a lot, use the shell, and I don’t know how long we have to keep having this conversation, but you’re so hittable when your hands are up and stationary; these punches can still find their way through.

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I’m a big advocate for using other things, like your shoulders, like your elbows to put in front of your face and defend yourself, and Dustin does a really good job of having some type of hybrid defense, especially when he’s fighting righties, where he gets that lead elbow high, that lead shoulder high and put some hard things out in front that punches can run into and keep him safe.

He can stay in the fire a little longer because of that, take some shots on his shoulders and his arms that would otherwise get through and cause some damage. He can find great counter-attacking opportunities in those positions because it lets him stay in the fire a little longer. For someone who is going to trade in the pocket, he’s created a really nice style of defense that allows him to sit in there a little bit longer.

Kyte: And with Max, we know about the pace and output, but the thing you mentioned that I want to expand on is the variety.

As a striking coach, as someone that teaches this stuff, what is it about that diversity and giving someone all those different things to worry about that is so effective and so important for more people to start adapting and try to implement 

Madden: For me, as a coach, this is such a big part of my philosophy, and when you boil down fighting, you need to give the opponent more problems to solve, and you have to be able to solve their set of problems quickly.

If I’m only giving you the problem of dealing with my left and right hand over 25 minutes, it’s still a tough problem to solve, but you have time to figure that out. But if I introduce not only the body work, but kicking the legs, kicking the body, kneeing the body, introducing elbows up top,too — and Max can do all this stuff really well — you have a whole other list of problems that you have to deal with and solve, all while you’re trying to give me an issue, as well.

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Output is one thing, but output and diversity of strikes is a whole different ballgame, and Max has that ability. He’s good from both stances, he’s good top and bottom, left and right; he has weapons inside and outside. To win this fight on Saturday, he’s going to have to present all those weapons and give Dustin multiple looks in the striking.

We can talk about this in path to victory, but…

Path to Victory

Kyte: Well then let’s do it! You’re leading me down that road, so what are the paths?

Madden: If you make the assumption that there won’t be a lot of wrestling in this fight, which I think is a relatively fair assumption, given its circumstances, Max will have to pair his output with his diversity of strikes in order to be successful in this outing.

Kyte: Needs to blend everything, be who he was against Justin Gaethje and against Calvin Katter; throw everything, pile it up — 400, 500 shots and make him keep thinking rather than getting into a straight-up boxing match.

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Madden: If it’s punch-for-punch, we favor Dustin — not only the power, but the defense in the pocket, his shot selection; that for sure goes to Dustin.

Max has the technical ability, he has the tools in the toolbox, like the spinning back kick to Gaethje’s face in the waning seconds of the first round — those are things that you’re not necessarily expecting, but it doesn’t take much and it changes the whole course of the fight when your nose gets pushed across your face and you have to breathe out of your mouth.

Now your mouth is open and you’re more susceptible to the punches coming in, all because he mixed in that spinning kick instead of staying there and trading punches.

Kyte: Combined with the footwork and the movement as well, right? Because if he sits there rooted and it’s southpaw versus orthodox and we’re just going tit-for-tat…

Madden: How many times has Dustin done that exact dance in his career?

Kyte: A bunch, and he’s usually come out ahead on them.

Madden: Exactly, so over 25 minutes, you have to be continually twisting that Rubik’s Cube, and (Max) has the tools to do it. We’ll see if he chooses to on Saturday.

Kyte: And so, for Poirier, how does he get a win, in his swan song, in his home state?

Madden: I think it’s pretty straightforward.

Beating Max twice before is one thing and you have kind of the keys to victory, but we’ll see because one of the things that is interesting about this trilogy is the time between all of the fights. You’d almost expect brand new fighters in each of these three fights, which is really cool. 

But Dustin has to force Max to exchange with him, and I do think he has the upper hand there in those exchanges. Rely on the boxing, bait Max in to throwing with you, push him back close to the fence. And that’s true for both of them and MMA in general, but if you can dominate the cage and fight downhill, towards the wall, limiting the ability for these guys to move — and we saw that in Max’s last fight: he got finished close to the fence, got pushed towards the fence.

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Kyte: He got stuck going backwards, doing stuff that he doesn’t tend to do. 

Madden: Exactly, and it’s true for everyone: the second you get pushed against the fence, things change a little bit and the pressure gets a little tighter, you start making mistakes you wouldn’t otherwise out in space.

Dustin can capitalize on that if he can get Max to the fence, and we also know if he gets him there, he has the ability to wrestle there; he did it in the last fight. Mike Brown was calling for him to wrestle early in that fight, and I know Dustin sometimes hears Mike, but doesn’t often listen to Mike with both the wrestling defense and offense, but if he decides to incorporate that into this fight, too, he’s gonna have the ability to dictate the tempo and direction of the fight.

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I don’t see Max initiating any offensive wrestling in this fight, so it’s up to Dustin as to whether he wants to dictate those things with his wrestling in this fight.

X Factor

Kyte: What are the X-factors here 

Madden: For Max, it has to be that we’re looking at the first time that he’s ever come off a KO loss in his career. Now, there has been some time since that fight — which was when again?

Kyte: The end of October, so we’ve had some time, but it’s one of those ones where you have towonder, like you’re saying, how it’s going to linger?

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Madden: And it’s at such an interesting time of his career, where he’s had so many fights already, the mileage is there. This is really what I’m going to be paying attention to is him coming back off this first KO.

He’s gonna get hit in this fight, 100 percent, and we’ll see what it looks like when that happens.

And for Dustin, it has to be the location of this fight. This event was built around him, for his swan song, which I think is incredible and I’m glad the UFC did this for him — to get a pay-per-view in his home state to finish his career is amazing — but you and I talk about this all the time: things like this can be a double-edged sword.

Are we worried about Dustin fighting more reckless because it’s there? I mean, Dustin lives in the fire anyways, but he could do some things that maybe would be avoidable, and Max will make him pay for mistakes, so we’ll see. I’ll be interested to see what that energy does for him, where his mindset is on Saturday. 

It’s a different walk when you know it’s your last one.

Kyte: So you’re somebody that has made the walk several times. Going into the last one, did you know it was the last one?

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Madden: I didn’t. I had some injuries after, so I never got the luxury of knowing it was the last one. 

Kyte: Okay, so we can’t pull on that personal thread, but, in general, we’ve seen a lot of people in this position, where they know it’s the last one, and it usually goes one of two ways: either we go all out, leave every last ounce of yourself in there or the emotion of it and the moment of it gets a little big.

Knowing Dustin, having watched his entire career, I would lean towards the former, rather than the latter, but even that can be a little dangerous. We actually need this to be “just a fight” for him to be at his best.

Madden: That’s exactly right.

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Kyte: With Max coming off the knockout — which is a thing we talk about regularly — instinctively, you don’t think it’s going to change much because his game is so forward based, volume based, output based, but when that’s your style and you’re coming off that first one, how do you reconcile those two things?

One Coaching Curiosity

Madden: That’s a great question and this is my Coaching Curiosity for Max because what I’m interested to see is if we’re gonna see defensive adjustments, tactical adjustments in this fight based on the result of his last fight? Is he going to be a smarter fighter, a more evasive fighter because of this?

You hit the nail on the head: Max’s strengths are not being the evasive fighter, and so you walk a really fine line as a coach where you can hurt someone’s confidence if you start saying we have to fight a different way because of what just happened. You can start to build some doubt in a fighter’s mind if you start asking them to change at their core what they’re really good at and what got them this far.

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I know some of the guys on his team and around him — they’re phenomenal coaches and Max has been with them his whole career, for the most part, which is something I really applaud. Sothey know him the best, they know what’s best for him, what he can and can’t do in a fight.

But he’s lost to this opponent two times already and he’s coming off a knockout, so the curiosity for me is what changes are they gonna make and does it get to a point that we’re taking the fighter’s confidence away because we’re changing his style?

If I had to guess, I don’t think a lot is going to change, and we’ll see if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Kyte: I agree, and mine dovetails with yours because how much of it is telling yourself that it was ’45 and I shouldn’t have went down?

“I fought Gaethje a few months earlier and look how good I did against him, and he’s a wrecking machine. I was piecing him up, he couldn’t really touch me, so it was just that I did that drastic change back to featherweight.”

How much of it is telling yourself that versus that you have to also account for being 33 now — and much older in fighting years because he’s been in 40 fights…

Madden: And a bunch of them were wars!

Kyte: 100 percent, so it really is that you’ve gotta take all these elements in, consider them all, but you still also have to be Max, and be who you are at your core.

It’s just fascinating to ponder what this is going to look like. There is so much of this fight to pull at here… it’s amazing.

Madden: I agree.

Kyte: This fight is… I just don’t want a sad ending.

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Madden: That’s what I’m hoping for, too! If we can get a fight that is similar to the last one in 2019, cool; may the best man win.

Kyte: It’s unfortunate that one of these dudes has got to lose… although I guess they don’t have to; we could fight to a draw! 47-47 — Max up 3-1 heading into Round 5 and Dustin 10-8s him to close it out with a rally.

Madden: Knowing those two guys, they would want to go to a sixth round!