Sandhagen vs Song: The Ultimate Tactical Guide
Does Song Yadong offer enough layers in his defence & counter-striking to avoid being overwhelmed by Cory Sandhagen's volume & movement, and what can he realistically steal from Petr Yan's game-plan?
The bantamweight division has earned a well-respected reputation in combat sports. Although it is overstated, one would not be misguided to point out that the fighters do not possess the sheer power that a 266-lb man does. Instead, this lack of fight-ending power is said to be compensated for with superior skill. And as MMA has modernized and graduated from almost exclusively “Just Bleed!” fans to more enjoyers of technique and tactics, the fast, technical and chaotic energy of the bantamweight division has been well embraced.
With the UFC merging the WEC into the leading MMA organization to begin 2011, the ensuing decade of fighting at 135-lbs was primarily ruled by two fighters: Dominick Cruz and TJ Dillashaw, both of whom came from backgrounds in wrestling but captivated fans with their own extremely unique striking styles and unorthodox footwork patterns.
As the decade neared close, the UFC signed another intriguing bantamweight dazzler in 26-year-old LFA-product Cory Sandhagen, whose opportunity in the big leagues came on a short-notice call-up to fight against Austin Arnett (a bout in which Sandhagen won via TKO in round-2).
Sandhagen emerged as a fascinating puzzle, borrowing certain elements from both Cruz (another agile pot-shotter) and Dillashaw (particularly some of the shifting and the active, pawing jab). However, the Aurora, Colorado native cannot simply be regarded as a direct, linear product of his two major predecessors (and in Dillashaw, a former opponent); as much as there is similarity, there is equally unique elements to Sandhagen’s stand-up.
At the core, Sandhagen is a high-volume switch-hitter who creates angles and opportunities behind an active jab, repeatedly poking the lead hand in his opponent’s vision to gauge his next action without really committing to the punch and getting caught walking into a counter. In fact, Sandhagen wants his opponents to over-react to the pawing jab with big counter-shots, allowing Cory to escape while his opponent burns energy swinging at air. Eventually, this allows Sandhagen to counter his opponent’s counter.
A key element is the variation in Cory’s angles that accompany these pawing jabs. Cory may angle away to the closed-side with a “V-step”, gallop straight backwards with his hands up, or utilize a “back-shift” — retreating into the opposite stance on an angle towards the open-side.
Although he will sometimes also incorporate more traditional counter-striking into his offence (such as the inside-slip-to-rear-uppercut-counter against a closed-stance jab), Sandhagen loves the “first-and-third” method of countering. And even then, he does not deploy this concept in the most traditional manner, where someone like fellow UFC bantamweight Adrian Yanez will fire a jab, roll under the return right hook, and then fire a combination. Sandhagen, rather, will poke at his opponent with the pawing jab, retreat away from the combination until it ends, and then slam on the breaks and come forward with a combination of his own.
And if his opponent immediately retreats after their original counter-flurry, Sandhagen will simply resume pressuring forward with the pawing jab, and the entire process repeats.
It is within this constant switching between moving forward and suddenly retreating, and then moving forward again — and doing so on different angles rather than perfectly linear forwards/backwards lines — that Sandhagen can really leave an opponent swinging at ghosts. However, if it were that simple, Sandhagen would likely run into more counter-shots than he does once his timing is learned. This is where his feints come into play.
As he gauges reactions, Sandhagen will gallop forward into head-and-shoulder feints, then retreat his lead foot back towards his rear foot as a quick “rhythm step”, and then resume galloping forward, frequently stopping to quickly stutter his lead foot and again feint an entry with his head-and-shoulder feints. If his opponent is uncomfortable and jumps backwards as Cory feints, then Sandhagen will shift forward into his southpaw stance to stay within range and continue the process until he has either desensitized you with his feints and enters for real, or he begins pawing his jab and controlling the initiative of the fight.
Because he is constantly dropping back into rhythm steps or retreating away from counter-strikes, Sandhagen is not a “ring-general” in the more traditional idea of using consistent forward pressuring tools to get the opponent to the fence/ropes and keep him there. He is also not controlling the octagon like prime Dominick Cruz, baiting his opponents into following him all over the octagon like a matador. For sure, there are sequences within his fights where he accomplishes those acts of ring-craft, but what Sandhagen does so well is pushing his opponents in one direction and then cutting them off with a strike.
Against John Linekar, Sandhagen found tremendous success sliding down the rear-foot-side of Linekar behind his pawing jab, baiting Linekar to step his lead foot out and pivot away, where Sandhagen would cut him off with various weapons from the right-side of his body.
There are many other things that Sandhagen does so well that we have not discussed: his offensive wrestling has become a legitimate threat in recent years; he has tremendous technique variance between his punches, kicks and knees from either stance; he’s one of the best body punchers in the sport with his liver hook; he is a savant when it comes to setting hand-traps; and he has such a great control of distance between his pawing jab as either an offensive or defensive tool, and his use of “shifting” to either close distance or gain distance on the retreat. As much as I would love to sit at my desk and publish 3,000 words of Sandhagen praise, we have a main event to preview.
Heading into his 5-round match-up with rising 24-year-old prospect Song Yadong, Sandhagen has been afforded a technical step back in competition from his last fight against former bantamweight champion Petr Yan. In a bout heralded as perhaps the most tactical striking match-up ever put together under the UFC banner, the UFC 267 co-main event did not disappoint. However brilliant the tactics on display were, though, it became another typical Yan showcase as he fell way behind on volume in round-one but accrued reads, adjustments and, ultimately, momentum as the fight progressed, and came away with a unanimous decision (49-46 on all three judge’s scorecards) victory to capture the interim bantamweight title.
Sandhagen certainly provided Yan with numerous problems that gave him trouble, but the Russian proved to be far more economical in his approach. Denying Sandhagen’s set-up shots were a huge key for Yan, who alternated between hand-fighting in his long-guard, and parries from his double forearms high-guard. Against Cory’s pawing jabs, Yan did not over-react and either jump back or unleash reckless counters; instead, he trusted his defence within his high-guard, using short parries while either holding his ground or taking small steps forward as Sandhagen waited for a faulty Yan over-reaction that simply never came.
Yan would stay patient denying the set-up punches and then wait for Sandhagen to commit to something significant and then either counter or defend. And when Sandhagen did not build off the jab, Yan would time one of the pawing jabs and counter with either a low-kick or a rip to the body with the round-kick.
Most crucially, Yan did not provide the same reaction time and time again. He spent lots of time extending his hand(s) forward to engage in a hand-fight, impeding Sandhagen’s ability to shoot down the middle; and then when Sandhagen tried to disengage from the hand-fight and loop a punch around (or over the top) of Yan’s extended hand, Yan simply shrugs his shoulder to hide his chin while subtly rolling with the punch, applying what is known as the long-guard.
As Sandhagen pawed his jab and right straight to set-up the rest of his offence, Yan either held his ground or pushed forward with small, efficient steps while using subtle parries. However, when Sandhagen looked to enter on angles with the creative usage of wide shifts, switch-jabs and step-across pivots, Yan would then give ground and retreat. It sounds simple in nature, but retreating whenever Cory tried to create an angle (and force Yan to turn and adjust to the angle), reduced the degree of the angle that Cory created and required him to close the distance all over again.
And then as the fight progressed, Cory slowed down and found greater difficulty maintaining his volume and movement, which allowed Yan to flex his ring-generalship and make a more concerted effort to pressuring Sandhagen to the fence and use effective ring-cutting to keep him there.
With both fighters constantly alternating between orthodox and southpaw stances, another element that makes Yan so special is that he is able to effectively mirror his minimalist game in both stances without hesitation. It does not matter to Yan whether he is in the orthodox stance or Cory is in the orthodox stance, whether he is in the southpaw stance or Cory is in the southpaw stance. Yan is able to immediately diagnose whether they are in an open-stance or a closed-stance and he adjusts instantaneously. Yan offers an extremely layered and systematic defensive approach that ties in effortlessly with his offence, and with his extremely efficient footwork and reactions, the economic nature of his game allows him to build over 25-minutes while Sandhagen faded.
And that brings us to the upcoming bout against Song Yadong. Most of the above-noted elements of Petr Yan’s game do not apply to the latest rising star bantamweight representative of Team Alpha Male. Song is a single-stance orthodox-fighter, unconcerned with ring-control and more focused on removing his opponent’s head from his shoulders with a single punch. But this is not to discredit Song, nor his chances of winning the fight; Song is quite literally one of the fastest and hardest hitting 135-ers on the planet, and he is improving at a rapid pace.
However, as we transition to previewing the first element of this matchup, we must indeed highlight the differences between Yan and Song. Whereas Yan offers a nuanced and layered defensive system, Song is far more one-note in his approach. Despite being what I would consider a “car-crash fighter”, Song’s first defensive instinct, even against a simple jab, is to retreat. Not only does this forego his ability to control the octagon, but it allows Sandhagen to dictate the terms of the fight with his pawing jab.
However, Song is not 8-1-1 in the UFC by coincidence. What has prevented a lot of fighters from really exploiting this tendency from Song is that he will alternate between retreating at even the mere suggestion of an opponents’ advancement, and then holding his ground to create an absolute car-crash with huge counter-punching combinations.
As I mentioned, Song may legitimately have the scariest combination of hand-speed and punching power currently in the bantamweight division, and he puts it on display with his counter-boxing. Song loves his cross-counter to left hook, as well as his right uppercut to left hook. The only fighter to really stand-up to this counter-punching was the ever-underrated Kyler Phillips, who did not surrender that much of a speed disadvantage, and had enough variance in his entries while anticipating the 2-punch counter-punching and made Song pay enough times (while also mixing in reactive counter-takedowns).
Phillips played a very dangerous game with Song and got away with it, but I anticipate Sandhagen taking a safer, more reliable approach, using his feints and non-committal pawing jabs to draw out Song’s big counters while Cory angles away to safety. And then as Song becomes more desensitized to Sandhagen’s false entries, it will allow Sandhagen to commit to more offence, such as getting inside to land his beautiful left hook to the liver.
As most MMA fighters do when they’re unsure of what’s coming, this will likely cause Song to retreat even more than he already does (assuming Sandhagen earns his respect early with the aforementioned tactics). These straight-line retreats will likely open up Sandhagen’s usage of “shifting” blows: the art of stepping through to the opposite stance while throwing a punch to stay in range as an opponent backs away. Phillips was also able to use shifting attacks to punish Song for staying on the train-tracks as he retreats.
Although he has been a giant head-hunter for the majority of his UFC career, Song has recently begun to incorporate more body-punching into his counter-striking. Against Julio Arce, this was initiated by Song dipping his head beneath Arce’s jab and ripping to the body.
While this is a beautiful method of attack when incorporated into a larger, more versatile system of counter-punching, the act of dipping under the jab to counter is probably the first thing I would discourage when fighting Cory Sandhagen, who looks for jump knees up the middle at a higher rate than anyone in the promotion.
Of course, while anyone reasonable would anticipate Sandhagen having an advantage as the more nuanced, experienced, and tactical fighter than the merely 24-year-old up-and-comer, it would be foolish to entirely write-off Song’s chances of winning. After all, this is 4-ounce-glove MMA; the most volatile sport of them all. To act like Sandhagen’s chin is unfindable against a relatively simplistic counter-puncher is foolish — just look at the Linekar fight as proof. Quite clearly, Cory has very good defence, but he does tend to rely on catching punches on his forearms/gloves very, very often. Yes, he does parry straight shots and can slip punches in order to counter, but the real variety in his defence comes from the angles he takes to exit. However, there are inevitable moments in fights where his opponent gets a good read on Cory’s movement and chases him down on the retreat, forcing Cory to block the punches — and with those little gloves, sometimes the punches get through.
Perhaps the most important tool in preventing Sandhagen from getting hit more often is simply the amount of volume he produces on the lead, and his command of the fight’s initiative. As they say in other sports, the best defence is a potent offence. Sandhagen is the far busier, more proactive fighter of the two in terms of a higher output and creating his own offence on the lead with feints, jabs, low-kicks at range, and his more committed entries into the pocket. Song does not have low output by any means, but he is more of a stop-and-go fighter, who could get overwhelmed by Cory’s volume and constant movement. That being said, when he does choose to throw, Song punches in big combinations and in the words of Joe Rogan, Song “possesses the nuclear codes”.
A more proactive tactic for Song to use should be his round-kicks to the body of Sandhagen. Song has very fast, powerful kicks, and this was a tool that Yan used early and effectively against Sandhagen. As we talked about earlier, Yan would patiently hold his ground and deny Cory’s set-up punches, and then either wait for Cory to commit to something and counter, or Yan would be more proactive and time a jab, unleashing a round-kick into Cory’s midsection. Yan would also use his roundkick as a cage-cutting tool when Cory circled towards the open-side. Nonetheless, it was a fight in which Yan invested into the body early and it is not a coincidence that Sandhagen tired as the bout progressed. At no point did Sandhagen effectively make Yan pay for the kicks by catching them or countering, so it would be wise for Song to test his opponent in this area again.
Song also has a very impressive double-attack off his kicks. He loves to fire his right kick to the body and then immediately bring his right cross before the back foot even returns to the floor. Against Julio Arce, the finishing sequence for Song came on a right straight that immediately followed his right high kick. Evidently, this is something that Sandhagen must be aware of.
Sandhagen also showcased a very powerful roundhouse kick against Marlon Moraes, using his jab in an open-stance to steer Moraes and then unleash a kick to the liver. Song is, however, very good at blocking kicks and landing his left hook afterwards. Against an elusive and mobile fighter in Sandhagen, it would be wise for Song to seize every opportunity when Cory middle kicks and attempt to catch it and throw a few shots for the brief moment that Sandhagen is caught in the pocket. I have to imagine that low kicks will also be a large part of Team Alpha Male’s game-plan, as Sandhagen has been susceptible to them in the past — plus, its a good method for Song to reduce the difference in output between the two fighters.
Conclusion
Sandhagen evidently brings a lot of advantages into this stylistic matchup. He has previously defeated a relatively similar fighter to Song in John Linekar — at the very least, someone looking to load up a massive flurry of looping counter-punches — and has made notable improvements since that fight. Meanwhile, Song has not faced anyone quite like Sandhagen.
That being said, whenever you’re dealing with a massively talented 24-year-old, there is an element of unpredictability — Song is improving at such a fast rate that you cannot anticipate the improvements he has made since his last bout in March. In watching his previous fights, one might think they have a clear read on his game as a stop-and-go creator of car-crashes, but every once in a blue moon, you see elements of a more nuanced fighter deep-down waiting to emerge. Every so often, a wonderfully educated jab will suddenly make an appearance, but then disappear for the remainder of the round. Song’s lead hand will show flashes of brilliance, as he begins pawing his jab to bait Kenney into hand-fighting, before Song loops a beautiful left hook around the now-extended lead hand of Kenney.
There are giant new developments in his game nearly every outing. Against Arce, it was Song’s use of shifting blows (the same attack I detailed earlier in regards to something Sandhagen may deploy to close distance on Song’s straight-line retreats) that were a new focal point in his offence. Song would cover huge distance against Arce by leading with his head as he throws a winging right hand, shifting to southpaw while keeping his head low and coming upstairs with a big left hook.
Song was seemingly obsessed with this combination in the fight. Throughout the first round, Song was missing on these punches, but it allowed him to get Arce’s back to the fence where Song is able to do his best work. But as Arce tired in the second round, Song began to connect on the southpaw left hook. The use of shifting blows are obviously yet another dangerous layer to Song’s game, but one would like to see them properly incorporated into an overall more economical offensive attack that Song has alluded to in past fights but not yet sustained.
At only 24-years-old, the early returns suggest Song will eventually blossom into the fighter he has shown glimpses of in the past while still retaining the dangerous, high-octane counter-striking style he currently possesses. But also, in typical Team Alpha Male fashion, there is a chance that the brilliantly-tactical fighter who exists in the subconscious is forever suppressed and never fully takes over (see Garbrandt, Cody).
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