How to Fight Giants

In March 2018, Professor Arthur fought a highly skilled opponent who was bigger, stronger, taller and who outweighed him by more than 30kg. Arthur performed extremely well within the regulation time fight, however was outscored in the golden points during overtime. As we say in combat sports, win or lose we are always learning.

Here is a breakdown of the fight:

• Arthur's opponent recognising that Arthur had strong takedown defence, chose to pull guard and attack for sweeps and submissions

• During the fight, Arthur managed to maintain a dominant top position, avoiding the attacks of his opponent.

• The main attack utilised by the opponent was to try to get Arthur to cross his right arm across his centre-line to either take his back, or to attack for the arm bar. Arthur defended both by continuing to control his opponent's hip with his right arm and also using his right leg as a hip blocker to stop his opponent from getting leverage to complete the arm bar

• During the middle of the fight, Arthur countered a sweep attempt by his opponent and managed to advance to a half guard position which he managed to push for a guard pass and mount attempt. unfortunately he couldn't hold for the required 3 second minimum and was reversed by his opponent.

• At the 4:35 mark it becomes very clear the height difference between the two, when his opponent stands up, and Arthur's head doesn't even touch the ground

• The fight continues and finishes with a tie in regulation time and his opponent securing 4 points from a back control position in overtime.

Takeaways:

• While Arthur lost on points, this fight was a great demonstration of technical BJJ in action and how a smaller opponent can still be competitive even against larger, stronger opponents.

• Both opponents relied on strong fundamentals throughout the fight, matching technique with technique

• Keeping a level head and maintaining good hand and hip positioning kept Arthur safe within the opponent's dangerous guard

• All else being equal, technique overcomes all

• BJJ is a game of physical chess as demonstrated during this fight, where the smallest mistake could have resulted in defeat at any time

While TGA is focused on developing the strongest kids and adults competition team in Singapore and the region, we will continue to field our coaches in all available local and regional tournaments to ensure that the techniques we teach within our proprietary syllabus is battle-tested and effective.

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