Striking, just like pitching in baseball, is an art. Punches need to be thought out, traps must be set.
Just like a pitcher who throws 100 mph isn’t a guarantee to dominate in the majors, neither is a striker who loads up and fires like he’s to collapse the walls of a tall building.
Unless, of course, you’re talking about UFC featherweight Josh Emmett.
There is little subtlety to Emmett’s approach. He’s going to try to punch you as hard as he can for as long as he can until you can take it no more and slump to the canvas in a concussive state.
Force versus force until someone wilts.
The scar tissue’s thickened, and the jaw’s been tested repeatedly. He’s at the age when the nickname usually switches from ‘Champ’ to ‘Coach.’
Emmett, though, still burns with the fire and fury that have led him to a 19-4 MMA mark and a 10-4 UFC record.
He just turned 40, but the thoughts aren’t so much focused on investing his money and enjoying the fruits of his labor gained from a 14-year professional career.
Instead, he’s out to deliver another concussion and make one last run at a championship. He meets Lerone Murphy Saturday in the main event of UFC Vegas 105 at Apex on the UFC campus in a battle of ranked featherweights that Murphy believes should be a No. 1 contender’s bout.
With the bout between the eighth-ranked Emmett and the 10th-ranked Murphy set, the question seemed obvious: Would Emmett use his wrestling to try to shut down Murphy’s highly regarded striking game?
Emmett, though, reacted as if he’d been asked to crack the genetic code.
“When have I ever used my wrestling,” Emmett asked.
Yeah, that guy’s not going to shoot. He may go down. If he does, it’ll be because Murphy clocked him and caught him on the chin, not because Emmett decided to play it safe and turn the bout into a grappling contest.
In a 14-year career in which he’s faced the best wrestlers, the best strikers and the best submission artists the sport has to offer, he’s mostly eschewed the sport that he excelled in while in college.
Wrestling background or not, in his last 12 fights, all against high-level opponents, Emmett’s scored just three takedowns. He’s not bluffing. He’s bombing.
There’s usually a highlight reel knockout on every UFC show, as CEO Dana White has not been shy about his preference for violence and chaos in the ring. Seeing a fighter fight defensively and slow the pace makes White’s skin crawl.
For him, it’s go, go, go, go, go, and the heavier the punches and kicks, the better.
And that’s just how Emmett fights, which is why he’s still getting a main event at 40 years old and after going 1-2 in his last three.
He almost decapitated Bryce Mitchell with a first-round knockout in less than two minutes at UFC 296, ending a two-fight losing streak to Yair Rodriguez and Ilia Topuria.
Strangely, more than a year after the fact, the knockout has gone viral again.
Mitchell made pro-Adolf Hitler comments on a podcast, and said he’d like to go fishing with the Nazi leader.
The reaction was fast and swift: Outrage was the word of the day.
Emmett said after Mitchell’s comments about Hitler went public, he was inundated with texts, calls and emails.
“I didn’t even know what was going on, but my phone was going crazy,” Emmett said. “I was thinking, ‘Maybe they announced another fight I didn’t sign up for.’ That happened once before. Then I saw [what he said] and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ It was going crazy. It was the No. 1 thing trending on the internet.
“I did an AMA [on Reddit] six, seven years ago, and this is why I say the internet is undefeated. Someone asked me then who I’d like to fight, from any time period, and I said I’d like to knock Hitler out. They pulled that up, from a seven-year clip, and started making all these memes. I was wondering how they find this stuff.”
Emmett, one of the nicest guys in the sport, feels badly for Mitchell, but he doesn’t have a lot of time to worry about the fallout given he’s got the unbeaten Murphy in front of him.
Murphy (15-0-1) is a -310 favorite at DraftKings sports book. Emmett is +250.
Being +250 means a bettor who wagers $100 on Emmett to win would make a $250 profit. At -310, a bettor would have to put up $310 in order to win $100.
Emmett shrugs off the odds — “Where do they find these people?” he said of the oddsmakers — but said his friends and family are excited.
They are all going down hard for Emmett, backing their cheers with cold, hard cash.
And Emmett insists he won’t let them down.
“When this right hand lands,” he said, not needing to finish the sentence.
If you’ve seen him fight even once and send someone into the nether realm, you know exactly what he meant.