Seizing the initiative with Steve Erceg

In a fistfight, initiative is everything. See how UFC flyweight Steve Erceg used the initiative to walk Matt Schnell into a sensational knockout.

This piece was written a couple weeks ago, just after Steve Erceg KO’d Matt Schnell in the UFC Apex. I held it back because… who wanted to read about Steve Erceg when Sean O’Malley’s first title defense was just around the corner? Little did I know that Erceg would soon be announced as the next challenger for flyweight champ Alexandre Pantoja. Not that the UFC has done a good job of promoting him, having buried him on the undercard beneath 500 pounds of heavyweight flab, but still: Steve Erceg is suddenly relevant, in addition to being a cool fighter worth watching.

For those of you who have not yet read my Sean O’Malley breakdown, let this serve as a bit of a teaser. It focuses on some of the same cocnepts, chief among them initiative, one of the most vital concepts across all combat sports, and one which is rarely discussed elsewhere. Even if you don’t subscribe for the paid articles, however, I hope you will enjoy this breakdown of one of the best and most interesting boxers at flyweight.

So: Steve Erceg, and the importance of initiative. Let’s get into it. 

Initiative is a core concept to just about every one-on-one sport there is. MMA, boxing, chess, fencing, tennis–in every competition between individuals, the winner is usually the individual who claims the initiative, who makes their opponent react to them rather than the other way around. Initiative means control, and the more control one has over the contest, the more dominant the victory. 

In striking, initiative is a slippery thing. Rarely does one fighter have complete control over the flow of the fight. That’s how it goes when relieving the pressure of a rolling initiative is often as simple as taking a backward step. 

In grappling, by contrast, dominant positions can actually be secured: a grappler in full mount may still have to deal with his opponent bucking and rolling to escape, but the initiative is so total in such a position that these frantic movements are anticipated and handled with relative ease. To force an escape will always cost the bottom fighter much more effort than the man on top. 

Striking is different. Both fighters are in full control of their own bodies as long as they remain conscious. Dominant positions can still be attained, but they are always fleeting. As soon as Fighter A gains a strong angle, Fighter B is already halfway done taking that angle away (assuming that both fighters know what they’re doing). And, as noted above, a simple reset to long range will solve most positional deficiencies. Distance is a cure for many ills. 

This is why pressure fighting has been MMA’s dominant striking meta for the last decade. The more volume you put on the opponent, the less time he has to deal with each individual strike. Initiative is cumulative. And pressuring an opponent all the way to the fence is a wonderfully straightforward way of denying him the chance to simply step back out of range. 

Australia’s Steve Erceg shows that walking forward is not the only way to lead the dance. With efficient footwork and a keen awareness of distance and angles, a striker can dictate the exchanges just as effectively off the back foot. Erceg did just that last weekend, controlling Matt Schnell like a matador baits a bull. 

Our first sequence comes from the first minute of the fight. Matt Schnell starts out very aggressive, trying to overwhelm Erceg with pressure and volume. Because Erceg is set on keeping his distance, Schnell actually succeeds in cornering him. But instead of using this good position to orchestrate a methodical attack, Schnell gets impatient. Take a look. 

Schnell initiates the exchange with a combination of threats. He feints a jab, then looks to come around the side with a left hook (a classic idea; we will see Erceg use the very same setup in our next example). But Schnell’s hook-off-the-jab is just another kind of feint, a throwaway shot. What Schnell really wants is to land a right hand, which is why you can see him squaring up as he enters range, stepping off to the left with his lead foot in order to align his back hand with the target.

 This is a nominally clever sequence of moves. Schnell is thinking in layers, trying to anticipate Erceg’s reactions and overwhelm his defenses. 

Good intentions, but none of these threats has been established. The hook off the jab, for example, should be thrown when the opponent has started to reach for the jab with his own right hand, thus creating a hole in the right side of his guard. Erceg does not react in this way, because Schnell has not yet established his jab. Erceg has no cause to respect the threat.

Thus the whole combination is built on shaky foundations. Erceg does not believe the jab; therefore he does not fall into the hook; therefore Schnell’s initiative does not really exist. Erceg can comfortably ignore all of this lead hand trickery, and focus instead on the realities of the position. 

From a positional perspective, what Erceg sees is an opponent rushing into range and squaring himself up. This movement exposes him to a jab straight down the middle, a shot which can be thrown more quickly and directly than the right hand Schnell wants to land. Erceg casually spears Schnell with the lead hand, thus freezing him in place long enough to comfortably reset. 

Ultimately, Schnell may as well have walked up to Erceg and simply loaded up on a right hand–the effect would have been the same.

Now, let’s see Erceg demonstrate what a hook off the jab is supposed to look like. 

Lovely.

Why does Erceg’s trap succeed where Schnell’s failed? Well, we got the first part of our answer in the previous example: Erceg has managed to establish his jab as a real threat. Every time Schnell wandered into range with his center-line exposed, Erceg’s jab was there to greet him. Here is the result of that groundwork: the moment Erceg feints a jab, Schnell’s right hand comes out to catch it. Not only is he exposing his chin, but he is doing it in response to Erceg’s actions. That’s what initiative looks like.

Once Schnell has fallen into the trap, Erceg continues riding the initiative. After eating the hook, Schnell begins moving his head, blindly guessing at what may be coming next. Instead of chasing the moving target, Erceg takes a small step forward to keep himself in range. He waits a split second for Schnell’s head to stop moving, and then draws another reaction out of him. A quick feint of the lead hand gets Schnell to stand up out of his crouch, and this time Erceg is ready to meet him with a beautiful straight right hand.

When a fighter really understands how to seize and maintain the initiative, it looks like this. Like mind control, always one step ahead of the victim. 

About 20 seconds into the second round, Erceg led Schnell into his last dance of the night. 

In the moments leading up to the knockout, Erceg continued probing with his jab. Time and again, Schnell sought to catch the jab in the palm of his right hand, this brief contact serving as a trigger for his counters. 

Note that Erceg does not try to land most of these jabs on Schnell’s face–instead he tries to use Schnell’s defense against him. At first he feeds the jab into Schnell’s hand, trying to draw it away from his face in order to sneak the next jab past it, straight down the middle (very similar to the hook setup in the previous example). Schnell is wise to it, and looks for a cross counter. It doesn’t land, because Erceg does an excellent job of pivoting with his jabs, making it difficult for Schnell to line him up.

The next jab caught triggers a double jab in response. Again Erceg pivots and steps back out of harm’s way. Schnell continues marching forward. You might think this means he has all the initiative, but not so. Erceg is the one controlling the distance. His constant pivots enable him to get out of range with very small steps, so that he is always balanced and in position to meet Schnell on his own terms. And just about every one of Schnell’s punches has in fact been triggered by Erceg’s lead hand. Schnell is the one coming forward, but Erceg dictates when he throws. 

This is how Erceg sets up the knockout. Once again he feeds the jab directly into Schnell’s hand, not looking to score damage but rather to give Schnell’s trigger finger a nudge. As expected, Schnell immediately pops out a counter jab–but Erceg has anticipated it perfectly. By the time Schnell’s arm has extended, Erceg has already slipped inside of it, dropping his level to land a short right hand to the ribs. 

One look at Schnell in this penultimate moment really demonstrates the importance of initiative. The entire exchange has been initiated by Erceg, and it is Erceg who lands the first clean shot. Schnell really should have backed off the moment Erceg met his jab with that right hand to the body. Had he done so, the fight would have continued–but he insists on staying in the pocket, trying to track down Erceg’s elusive chin with a left hook. Instead it is Erceg, the man leading the dance, who lands the left hook and ends the fight. Schnell failed to recognize Erceg’s initiative. He went on playing catch-up until it was too late.