In Praise of Wonderboy
Art by Snack Muay (@SnackMuay on Twitter, @SnaccMuay on Instagram)
Stephen Thompson has had an interesting career arc, not only in terms of wins and losses and technical development, but also in how fans perceive the karateka. Originally thought of as a dynamic striker liable to whip out a spin kick KO at any moment (see: Ellenberger, Jake), his second title tilt with Tyron Woodley instead retconned him as a boring, safety first fighter. This is however an extremely unfair characterization and ignores the fact that Tyron Woodley tends to have bad, boring fights with almost everyone (especially during his title reign as he followed the normal champion habit of becoming more conservative in his approach). Yes, Thompson likes to counter and he will attempt to draw his opposition onto his offense, but unlike frequent analog Lyoto Machida he’s not dependent upon an opponent leading and is more than happy, especially in his later career, to pressure and attack.
That stylistic evolution from waiting counter threat to all terrain MMA striker has been the result of a handful of technical changes that have allowed Wonderboy’s point karate approach to blossom into a comprehensive attack. To see how his game has changed over the years and put some context around the intelligent adaptations he’s made it’s useful to compare his masterful win over hot prospect Geoff Neal with his first career loss, a gritty UD he dropped to The Immortal Matt Brown.
The Prospect Loss
Matt Brown is made of desiccated, burnt leather held together by rage and a deep love of inflicting extreme cruelty via elbows. He is also a fairly plodding striker and the kind of fighter that Wonderboy, were he able to deny The Immortal his clinch and top control, should be able to style on. Of course that’s not what happened when the two met up in the cage in April of 2012. At that time Thompson lacked a few key elements in his game that he needed to be able to deal with Brown’s determined pressure and insistence upon grappling up against the cage and on the mat. In the main, these were:
Fundamentally sound stance and footwork
Punching form that kept him over his feet
Proactive defense at the end of exchanges
The ability to put something, anything, between himself and a pressuring opponent
It may sound odd to fault the footwork of a fighter so renowned for getting in and out quickly and meeting his opponent’s entries with well timed crosses, but the fact is that at the time of the Brown fight Thompson’s footwork was pretty poor. Sure he could move very quickly forward and backwards, and he was very good at timing his opponents stepping forward to land a big punch, but forward and backwards were about the only directions he could move. In addition, the blitzes he brought from karate left him completely off his feet at their conclusion, a sitting duck for a counter punch or intercepting takedown.
Backed up against the cage, Wonderboy attempts to improve his position by blitzing forward with a characteristically karate series of crosses. Brown simply ducks under onto Thompson’s hips, and with his weight committed so far forward over his feet Thompson can’t do anything but get pushed right back into the cage.
Thompson’s stance and footwork weren’t only a problem during blitzes. Wonderboy is well known for pulling his head back Muhammad Ali style to avoid punches, but in an MMA context with no ropes to fall back against and takedowns being in play the sort of pulling Ali often did coming all the way back over his rear foot is a significant liability.
Brown pressuring Thompson towards the cage. The Immortal throws out a jab and sees Thompson pull back by standing up and shifting his weight almost fully onto his rear leg. The next jab is just a feint followed by a level change resulting in one of the easier takedowns Brown would land in the fight.
When dealing with a pressuring fighter like Brown, it’s very important to use jabs and fast kicks to freeze your man as he comes forward so that you can angle out and reestablish your preferred distance. In 2012 Wonderboy largely lacked those tools, so dependent was he on waiting for his opponent to commit to something he could counter. What that meant in practice was that pressuring opponents could move forward at will without having to worry too much about Thompson landing anything unless they threw first.
Brown again coming forward. He throws a high kick which forces Thompson back an additional step towards the cage. Brown simply follows and after a small shoulder feint blasts Wonderboy backwards to the cage with a shot. Wonderboy tries to counter but it’s too late.
Thompson’s lack of lateral movement and dearth of volume meant that Brown spent most of the fight walking him down without worrying too much about anything coming back at him. When Thompson did plant his feet and fire back (Wonderboy has always liked a scrap more than he’s given credit for) Brown was able to shoot on him or enter his preferred clinches a high percentage of the time. In the instances where Brown decided to stand and trade rather than grapple it didn’t go that much better for the South Carolinian. Thompson’s habit of throwing with his hands down and his chin up mean that Brown only had to wait out his combos at which point Wonderboy was there to be hit.
Thompson throwing crosses but not moving his head or feet after as Brown walks him down. Eventually Brown gets his timing, stays in range, and after slipping yet another naked cross lands an uppercut/hook combo on Wonderboy’s exposed chin.
These are pretty serious technical deficiencies for someone looking to make their MMA bones with their striking. Thompson might have gone the way of other karateka like Katsunori Kikuno in seeing his career hit a dead end as his opposition realized they just needed to draw him into exchanges and counter or force him to the cage and time his blitz off for easy takedowns. Instead, Thompson did something we don’t always see, especially from fighters deeply committed to their core style: he adapted.
The Veteran Performance
I’ve trained a handful of times with Matt Brown, and I once asked him about his approach to Thompson, given Wonderboy’s hype and highlight reel coming into that fight. His response was something along the lines of “I knew with a tricky young guy like that that I had to son him a little”. Brown knew he had to take Wonderboy out of his fight, make it rough, and deny him the phases and opportunities he needed to get his spectacular offense rolling, and he counted on Thompson not having the experience in the cage to keep Brown off of him and fight his own fight. The Immortal was right of course and he got a clear win that has aged beautifully. Against Geoff Neal the tables were turned. Now Thompson was the veteran coming in against a rising prospect with heavy hands looking to pick up the first big name win of his career. And my goodness did Thompson son Geoff Neal badly. All three judges called it 50-45, but honestly that was being a little generous. The fight felt more 50-43 with Wonderboy completely shutting down Neal’s offense and landing his own with virtual impunity. The reason it’s so interesting to compare this fight to the Brown clash was that Neal tried to implement a game plan similar to Brown’s of lower volume forward pressure, but this time Thompson was ready. The evolution in his game was on full display that night in Las Vegas as Thompson put together the most comprehensive striking clinic I’ve seen since Holloway - Ortega, perhaps one of the cleanest performances ever. Wonderboy (though as my colleague Sriram Muralidaran pointedly observed, at 37 years of age perhaps ‘WonderMiddleAgedMan’ would be a more appropriate sobriquet) interrupted Neal’s forward movement, took ever angle in the cage, and generally bamboozled the Fortis MMA standout from bell to bell. What made such a great performance possible? The list is as almost perfect inverse of what got him in trouble many moons ago against Matt Brown:
Safe volume to interrupt Neal’s forward momentum
Taking advantage of that volume to angle out and get to the center when Neal was focused on defending
Proactive defensive movement after his own offense to avoid counters
Improved punching form that allowed Thompson to stay in the pocket without worrying about getting KOed
Touching/framing constantly to allow for safe lateral movement and to stifle Neal’s counter offense
All night long Thompson filled the cage (and it was the small Apex cage, which in theory should have helped Neal, but maybe only helped him take more damage) with jabs and side kicks keeping Neal at bay even as Wonderboy racked up points on the cards. This was not something he got from karate. On the contrary, this was evidence of Thompson having made an adaptation that also helped Robert Whittaker to the title: he learned to box, and moreover he internalized the stylistic approach of boxing (hit and don’t get hit, set up your big offense with less damaging but faster and safer offense, proactive defense) and applied it to his karate based game.
This is the sort of volume that was largely lacking against Brown. Thompson isn’t looking to win with a single shot. Instead, he’s filling the space in between himself and Neal, dissuading Neal’s forward pressure while giving himself the space to move towards the center.
Here again we see Wonderboy just patiently jabbing while moving his feet. Yes, he finishes with the cross, but only because he saw his jabs open up the line for the heavier punch. Note too that after that cross Neal looks to counter but thinks better of it as Thompson has already faded out of range: proactive defense.
Looking more Roberto Duran than Gichin Funakoshi Thompson lands a series of jabs and hooks before his finishing cross. Note how smoothly Wonderboy used the hook to take the outside angle in the open stance matchup. Throughout this fight Thompson showed a sophisticated understanding of the dynamics of open stance matchups taking advantage of them masterfully.
Of course, Thompson didn’t only jab to fill space and keep Neal off of him. Wonderboy was well aware that Neal wouldn’t sit there getting jabbed for five rounds (he’s not Al Iaquinta after all), so he was constantly on the lookout for counters from Neal that could be recountered.
Thompson on the lead sees the cross counter from Neal. Wonderboy was already pulling causing Neal’s counter to fall short, but because Thompson stayed in range and in stance he was able to land a 1-2 of his own before gliding beyond Neal’s second fillip. Note that Wonderboy’s pull didn’t involve planting all his weight on his rear leg, so unlike against Brown he was still in position to fire back.
A cleanly landed jab draws a big forward movement from Neal. Thompson times the slip to catch Handz of Steel coming back up with a 1-2.
Another reason Neal was never able to get much going was that Thompson never watched his work. In the Brown fight Wonderboy did a lot of throwing and standing, but there was none of that on Saturday night. Instead, Thompson was finishing almost every attack rolling out on angles, including one of the slickest pieces of proactive defense off a kick this author has ever seen.
The blitzes are still there, but instead of crashing into a clinch or getting taken down off his feet Thompson is staying balanced and rolling out.
Wonderboy did this over and over all night and Neal never found an answer. Here Thompson touches with his left hand just to keep Neal in place as he throws the right and moves to Neal’s weak side.
And this is just, pardon my French, some Jackie Chan movie shit.
When Neal did manage to get Thompson to the cage, Wonderboy was able to consistently blitz off safely. A big part of that was the degree to which Thompson simply stayed in contact with Neal. Fighters can feel an opponent start to move more quickly than they can see it, so by staying in contact with Neal Thompson was able to tell when he was getting ready to throw as well as disrupt Neal’s balance.
Wonderboy blitzes off the cage but instead of moving himself to create distance he frames off Neal’s high guard and pushes him backwards defusing any counter threat.
Getting backed up again Thompson gets Neal to hide behind his guard with a blitz. He then pushed Neal slightly as he angles out and finishes with a check hook anticipating Neal returning to pressuring.
In the center this time Wonderboy has a hand on Neal’s lead arm. Feeling that hand drop away and anticipating a hook, Thompson drops his chin behind his left should and frames against Neal’s shoulder as he angles out safely.
And when the Wonderboy that likes to scrap came out, Thompson was able to eat some shots because his positioning was markedly better than in past fights.
Wonderboy throwing down. He eats a very clean left hook counter in the middle of this exchange, but because he’s in reasonably good stance with his chin down he’s able to keep throwing rather than crash to the mat.
Bad Timing
Stephen Thompson will most likely go down as one of the better fighters to have never worn UFC gold. His peak coincided with a period during which the welterweight strap was held by wrestlers with very conservative striking styles, among the worst possible matchups for a fighter like Wonderboy. Had he reached the top a few years earlier to fight Robbie Lawler or Johny Hendricks there’s a good chance he might have become the champion (indeed, he beat Hendricks not long after his title reign ended). I don’t give him much of a shot against Kamaru Usman, though I do think a Colby Covington fight would be surprisingly competitive. But whether he gets another shot or just acts as a high level gatekeeper for the rest of his career, he’s still one of the rarest of MMA animals: a stylistic specialist who was able to evolve into a dangerous all around fighter.