Contributor: Ben Kohn
First off, big thanks to Connor Reubusch for his help in my analysis of the striking between Johnson and Moraga, his articles and explanations to me really helped me a lot.
Saturday night, Flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson will face unknown John Moraga (great job UFC, really pushing your title contenders correctly) in a fight I guarantee will be high paced and exciting as hell. Both these guys are incredibly technical, both on the feet and on the ground and the striking of this fight will be incredibly interesting. Both fighters like to pressure their opponents by moving forward and that tends to make for interesting and exciting fights. Both have no issue with throwing hands despite both usually having the wrestling and grappling advantage over their opponent. Johnson showed an ability to hurt his opponent with strikes in his last title defense and Moraga can finish the fight with both strikes and submissions. This is a must-see fight and I for one cannot wait.
Since dropping to Flyweight, Johnson has gone 3-0-1 defeating Ian McCall, Joseph Benevidez, and John Dodson, all by decision. His use of an incredible and unrelenting pace combined with his speed and footwork have made him an enigma that the flyweight division seems unable to solve. DJ uses his limitless gas tank to fuel his style of constant movement, stance switching, blinding flurries and smooth takedown game. You may be able to handle him for a round or two but sooner or later, he tires you out and just ends up dominating you. His stiffest test in John Dodson was able to rock him multiple times with beautiful counters but eventually, the pace was just too much. DJ likes to use his fleet feet and very good footwork in order to draw opponents in and counter them. He will make his opponents follow him around the cage and quickly reverse direction with a hard straight. Against Dodson, he constantly pressured him, never giving the opportunity to move forward and forcing him to fight at his pace. While this definitely tired Dodson out, it forced Johnson to fight at a distance where he is most vulnerable. While Johnson has good low kicks and a fantastic clinch/dirty boxing game, his actual boxing skills are not very high level and he is extremely hittable for someone so elusive and hard to catch. Dodson caught DJ coming in multiple times and put him on his ass twice in the second round because of his reckless charges. Overall, DJ has been able to do so well on the feet because he has been faster and more athletic than his opponents. He relies on talent a lot but he has also shown improvement from fight to fight so hopefully he has worked on his actual defense and head movement. The question is whether Moraga can take advantage of these defensive holes or not.
John Moraga is a confusing puzzle on the feet. Against Ulysses Gomez, he looked absolutely sublime on the feet, landing beautiful counter-punches and combinations before finishing the fight with some brutal shots, including two hellacious standing elbows. However, against Chris Cariaso, he looked pretty listless on the feet, unable to get close enough to the smaller and shorter fighter to work his great boxing. The key there was Chris’ usage of kicks aplenty to the body and head of Moraga. These kicks from the southpaw stance, and the fact that Moraga’s jab was nonexistent in the fight, did not allow Moraga to really find his range and going into the third, Chris had the momentum swinging in his favor before Moraga finishing him with a slick modified guillotine early in the third. Moraga is a pressure counter-striker, using his fantastic head movement and constant forward motion to force his opponents to miss and allowing him to fire off his counters to very good effect. Against Cariaso however, he wasn’t able to find his range because against southpaw’s the general rule (and what his corner said to him) is not to jab but to step your lead foot outside his and fire the straight right hand. The problem was, Cariaso’s kicks were stopping him from finding his range and he was coming up short on many of his punches because of his lack of a range weapon. The fact that Moraga doesn’t really kick that much also causes a bit of an issue for him as it allows his opponents to focus mostly on defending the hands.
Johnson is so slick with his evasive movement and footwork, that if he fights smart and employs a similar gameplan to 
Cariaso’s, he will be able to outwork and confuse Moraga on the feet, not allowing him to find his range and basically pick him apart. If he decides to charge in without head movement like against Dodson however, he will run into some hard counters from Moraga. Although Moraga has the tools to exploit the holes in DJ’s game, it still relies on DJ making a mistake and I can’t bring myself to give Moraga the edge in the standup based off that. Edge in striking goes to DJ.
The clinch and grappling portion of the fight is going to be fun as hell to watch. Both are from wrestling backgrounds and both prefer to be in control on top. DJ’s clinch striking is just phenomenal as he is constantly throwing and usually landing knees, elbows, and punches while clinching and can drop down for a takedown at any time, and will most likely get it as well. His transitions between the standup and his beautiful takedowns are just wonderful to watch as his set-ups are really damn near perfect. Once on top, you aren’t really going to be worried about ground and pound as he doesn’t seem to throw with much power in most of his time on top, he likes to keep a frenetic pace but not very hard shots are generally thrown from the top.
Moraga on the other hand will fire away with hard ground and pound shots from the top and constant choke attempts, even if it means losing position on top, which he has a few times. On the bottom though he will throw up armbar and various submission 
attempts from the guard and can kick his opponent away to create space if need be. He is extremely aggressive on the ground and is not someone who can be held down and grinded on easily.
Both mean have their strengths when it comes to the grappling portion of the fight. The standing grappling portions of clinch work and takedowns would go to DJ but on the mat, both top and bottom, Moraga is the more dangerous fighter for sure. Based on the ability and higher likelihood of a finish happening on the ground from Moraga, I will give him the edge in the grappling facet of the fight.
Speed will play a huge part in this fight. One of the reasons Dodson was able to hurt and do well against Johnson early in the fight was because he could match his speed and athletic ability until he gassed. The question is if Moraga can do the same and my feelings after researching and watching him fight is that he won’t be able to do so. DJ is too fast for him and the worst part is, he doesn’t slow down as the fight progresses which means there is no “surviving the early onslaught” for Moraga. Rather he will be a step behind but will definitely give Johnson as good a fight as he can but I think DJ will comfortably win most rounds en route to a win by Demetrious Johnson by Unanimous Decision.
-Ben can be reached at [email protected] or @agentbenten.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
