Chris Mecate: Tough on Top

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Every now and then, however, something reignites my passion for the sport of mixed martial arts and reminds me why it’s the best sport in the world; Rockhold’s inspiring retirement against Costa, Poirier’s submission win over Chandler, Lawler’s fairy tale retirement, Dan Hooker’s rally against Jalin Turner, or Volkanovski proving that MMA makes sense by not getting meme KO’ed by Yair “Wily Coyote” Rodriguez. It gives me the drive and motivation to keep watching, or to make another 1000 tweet long thread about the intricacies of Frankie Edgar’s knee tap or Chris Weidman’s single leg.

Sometimes, I may even get it together enough to put together a semi-professional-looking article(I don’t get paid for these by the way, only experts get paid and I am certainly not that.)

It’s less often that I write, like my takedown defense in MMA series that I totally just abandoned and forgot about. It’s becoming even less often that I even watch MMA; a Sean Strickland main event? No thanks.

It’s sort of a running joke at this point that I argue about MMA more than I actually watch it. 

I’ve compared the sport to American cuisine; a bizarre mash of… stuff, lowbrow enough to be enjoyed by everyone if they have a certain tolerance for violence/the trademark fast food taste, but also occasionally has some absolutely incredible moments. Or, to quote someone else, “It’s like a parody of every other sport put together and it’s occasionally the best sport in the world.”

Remember; James Toney and Jacare Souza have competed for the same organization. In the same sport. It’s completely unserious, which perfectly explains why I(someone known for treating a lot of things like jokes and not taking things seriously) find myself continuing to follow it even after 3 weeks straight of bad fight cards.

MMA isn’t just an incredibly complicated sport to analyze, it is the dumbest, stupidest, most ridiculous and memeable combat sport of all time, which explains why out of all of them, it resonates on the strongest, most intimate, most human level possible.

So why do I bring this up? Well, it’s because in addition to being ridiculous and stupid, humans have the ability to forge deep, long-standing connections that never leave us; friends, family, teammates, coaches. And among the few things I take completely seriously, those connections are one of them. When you train with or coach someone through a sport, you connect with them in a way few understand, especially if you’re teaching them how to grind other people’s faces into the mat. 

And whelp, that pretty much sums up my relationship with two-time NCAA All-American, Chris Mecate (Me-kat-tey).

Coach Chris, meanwhile, takes the word “intensity” and makes it his own. He’s loud. He barks instructions and directions. He makes you do an obscene amount of pull ups. He teaches you how to crank people’s wrists up into their shoulders in very painful ways.

When teaching you how to clear a collar tie, he won’t simply say “hand on neck bad,” he’ll go “In wrestling, or life, never let another man shove your head into the ground.” He’s ridiculously confident, but also humble; after all, he learned and teaches the crank(The Blair Ride) because he was put on the receiving end of it(and presumably lost the match), and teaches it with a gusto, putting his own loud, unique spin on it.

Everything from post-practice film review to individual instruction when he’s walking around the room to coaching anyone from a college wrestler to a high school state qualifier to a ten-year old who’s there because his brother’s in the camp has this same energy, even if he’s training for a fight at the same time. Despite the noise, he’s not blusterous; he’s as affable and approachable as anyone I’ve ever met.

And this mentality is reflected in his fight career; a high-paced fighter willing to grind, is disciplined in his approach, and improves from fight to fight is exactly the type of opponent you’d expect someone like Mecate to be after you spend literally two minutes in the room with the guy. 

A two-time All-American out of Old Dominion university, and the 7th in program history as well as the first in over four decades by the time he claimed his second honor in 2016, Mecate was a 2-time conference champion at 141 lbs. You’d think that these honors came in 2015 and 2016, when he placed 6th and 5th at the national tournament respectively, but no, you’d be wrong. 

His first conference championship was in 2013, in Colonial Athletic Association(CAA) where he was coincidentally named the CAA Rookie of the Year. Old Dominion, among other schools, left it for the Mid-American Conference, or MAC, competing against programs like Missouri and Ohio state(for MMA fans, Missouri produced Askren, Woodley, and Chandler, while Ohio State produced Coleman and Randleman). Coming up short twice for the championship in 2014(caught in a banana split in a very, very even match) and 2015(5-3 overtime loss), one of which to a future All-American, Mecate finally came through and took home his second conference championship.

But it’s not that that should fascinate you; it’s that in 2015, Mecate All-American’ed, and his finals opponent, Zach Horan, did not. In a now unavailable tweet(thanks a lot, Elon), a wrestling analyst described Mecate as a real come-behind wrestler; not overly impressive during the season, but absolutely torched postseason. Of his 115 career wins(115-37 record), ninth in program history as of a 2019 record book, 40 of them come against fellow NCAA qualifiers. 

I say all of this to paint a picture of the man I am writing about; when I do serious pieces about a fighter, like my 30 minute video essay on Chris Weidman, I try to not only go into technical analysis, but also analyze the human aspect of their careers. With Weidman, I was both just starting out making MMA content and not privy to his private life, so I couldn’t talk about or interview him personally. The same is not true for Coach Chris. 

Three things I think you should know before we start:

1. He’s a “wrestle-boxer,” and pretty much everyone who follows my account knows that I love those types of fighters.
2. Even after a lot of proofreading, I’m a very messy writer, so bear with me here. I wanted to go from fight to fight, outlining and detailing the progress, but sadly, certain fights of his are paywalled, so I am missing chapters of the story. As a result, amateur and professional fights will be mixed throughout the article. Sorry.
3. Let me make this clear; I am not an expert, nor do I purport to be one. I barely know what I’m talking about when it comes to wrestling, which is by far my strongest area of analysis. There are like 50 analysts I can name off the top of my head that could do a much, much, much better job than I could(and have taught me a lot about the sport), including Coach Chris himself. I have cited a few of them in this article. This is simply my attempt to engage with a sport I enjoy watching on an intellectual level, since I derive more enjoyment when I do so, and I hope you enjoy what I was able to produce out of it.

This very, very, very long intro aside, let’s get into the article itself; a horrific Frankenstein’s Monster of an article generally constructed as a narrative piece, with sprinklings of technique breakdowns and shameless plugs for a YouTube channel I’ve mostly abandoned, that eventually turns into a prospect evaluation with free advertising(they didn’t ask me for it, but I thought I’d do so anyway to be nice) for a high school wrestling club, all named after his two-day, six hour long camp. 

This is Chris Mecate, Tough on Top

Footage of Mecate’s wrestling career was hard to find, but from what I could see, and from what he told me, he stood in a rather long stance, with sound defense and an extremely physical style, which backed up what he said to me; extremely heavy on top, hard hand fighting with a lot of “above the knee” attacks; snapdowns, underhook throw-byes. Strong upper-body chops(cough, Bo Nickal, cough) can blend quite well in MMA if you’re able to safely get to tie-ups, which brings us into the first question posed to a wrestler fighting in a cage; closing the distance.

In wrestling, there is an obligation to, well, wrestle. Hand-fighting, shots, etc, all take place at a range where these tools are viable. The same is true in boxing for obvious reasons; you are only allowed to punch, so you will be “boxing” with each other. That’s not to say there aren’t variable ranges in bth wrestling and boxing; distance shots/range boxing, handfighting to takedown attempts/the pocket, clinch wrestling/infighting, but an “MMA boxer” can simply be circled around and cut off with leg kicks as their jabs are too short to touch a long kicker, or an “MMA wrestler” can find themselves being face-planted shooting without setup from too far out.

The sport has evolved to the point where pretty much all prospects are aware of this; Mecate said himself that there was “absolutely” a premium put on closing the distance on his opponent and getting clean entries. And to do that, you need to learn how to, well, strike.

To start with the basic of striking, Mecate’s stance is wide and bladed. It’s good for in and out movement and extends his stride on takedown entries, 

but as a boxer, it makes exchanging extremely difficult, as it limits pivoting and lateral movement,

you can be timed on your bounce via rhythm breaks, since it’s really hard to reset if you’re jumping with your feet, or on your entries since a wide stance puts you in quite poor position to exchange safely after,

and a tall stance can make you extremely hittable.

Mecate told me that he feels more comfortable in terms of his base when he’s in a wider stance; he finds it sturdier, and he likes how it extends striking power with his stride; thankfully, he seems to know not to hang out in the pocket; he likes to leap around, set a rhythm and feint his level changes, crash into range, and preferably set up his wrestling. His striking is largely set up off his boxing as well; he did play with kicks earlier in his career, but they weren’t connected to his hands very well, and ended up making him vulnerable to his opponent’s offense.

In his first amateur fight, his two best punches are the lead hook and the shifting overhand right, which obviously tie together well; the left hook can close the door off the pocket entry that the shifting right can afford you, and they naturally pinch an opponent between two punches when thrown together.

He seemed to have a reasonable, though nascent ability to pick off counters or close the door with them.

Additionally, he did straight up blitz. It was, uh, not pretty.

As Mecate largely abandoned the lead hook, since a wide stance will take the power off of it, he has since made a great commitment to jabbing since. This is obviously a significantly better choice, as the wide stance allows him to step into his jab more, and put actual power behind. Additionally, he was clearly aware that blitzing is a very risky tactic, so he prefers to keep his stance and keep engagements to shallow combinations on the feet.

Mecate doesn’t seem to have incredible punching power like say, Michael Chandler; Chandler’s shifts from a wide stance are often too extended to maximize his power, but Chandler is such a massive puncher that he can get away with a sloppy shift. When Mecate jabs into his overhand, I’m not sure if it’s a KO punch for him.

Fortunately, he seems to be aware of this too, since he’s massively improved on something that every great proactive takedown artist has; punching into takedowns. This is when a wrestler translates the momentum of their punch into their takedown entry;

This almost always involves a shifting punch, since the motion of the shift naturally extends one’s stride into a shot. The rear overhand/shot is a classical pairing that Mecate took a liking to; early on, he clearly had the motion down, but his lack of refined setups on the feet meant that the result was, well… sloppy.

Meanwhile, watch it set up much better; Merab’s more refined striking, such as the constant jab feints setting up his rear hand let him disguise his entry much better.

As I showed, he already can do it, but more refined setups on the feet for his shifting right hand meant more chances to land it, and more chances to hit his preferred entry. And given that he likes the shifting right, doing it from a more optimal distance as well ensures that he isn’t shooting from too far out, as you saw him do in his first amateur fight, as his rear foot will then be right between his opponent’s feet like they should be, rather than right outside of his opponent’s feet and requiring more steps to hit the shot.

He can also jab into takedowns, obviously. He has a strong snatch single and high C from his jab-feint.

There’s obviously no way Mecate is going to become a technician on the feet on par with a Dustin Poirier or Jose Aldo. What really matters is if his wrestling plays into his striking.

The answer? Encouragingly well. 

Obviously, Mecate possesses strong chain-wrestling.

He likes to crackdown on a high C as shown above, and run the pipe on a single leg,

or chain them into a double leg at a strong angle, coincidentally both ways of avoiding the hip pressure needed to latch up/finish a guillotine choke.

And he’s quite good at catching kicks too, which is a nice thing to have;

Obviously, you can’t rely on your opponent screwing up and throwing a stupid kick for you to catch, which is where his jab and shifting rear hand setups come in. A far cry from simply hulking body locks against opponents massively outgunned athletically.

In this sense, there is very much synergy in his wrestling process and MMA process; unlike, say, someone like Cormier; Cormier himself(from the little footage I could find) loved the snapdown-go/behind but in MMA became a high C-chucking tank. On the other hand, Chris Weidman’s MMA shot was a snatch single or a high C to a quick finish; in wrestling, it was the John Smith low single to a preferably quick finish, so the two seemed to match up quite well.

Weidman and Cormier even bantered about his high C on the UFC 281 weigh-in show. 

But even when his shots fail, they open up transitions which are more chances to land offense. 

Wrestling in MMA seems to be somewhat misunderstood as an offensive tool in and of itself; per the scoring criteria, a takedown doesn’t score. The offense done on the ground is what scores. Transitions are essentially what allows a hustling wrestler to land offense despite being unable to do much work done on top; after all, why waste all that effort?

This isn’t a perfect definition, but essentially, think of transitions as any time when striking and grappling are connected(The word “transition” can also refer to grappling transitions such as using strikes to pass a guard or a prolonged scramble, but that’s not the definition I’m using here.)

It’s become its own phase in MMA, to the point where being a transitional fighter isn’t a special perk at this point, it’s simply a requirement at the high level. They can be anything from snatching a collar tie in an exchange

to classic takedown/overhand interplay like we’ve already discussed,

or the signature of the inventor of systemized transitional work; Frankie Edgar.

His signature was using a failed takedown attempt to frame off for a strike, and sometimes straight up abandoning subpar entries to land offense such as knees in a clinch or a shot off the break. He took it a step further; if you want to extend my definition, transitional offense can *technically* encompass setting up a takedown. In Edgar’s case, his striking and wrestling entries were identical and blended into each other.

If anything, the fact that Aldo’s incredible ringcraft, lighting-quick footwork, and impenetrable takedown defense completely shut down Edgar’s torrid pace and all-time great MMA wrestling only serves to highlight the effectiveness of transitions. Transitions, among other things(like the highest pace I’ve ever seen a fighter fight at in the history of MMA) let Merab, a fighter known for very low-scoring affairs, beat a fighter known for crushing his opponents like a vise over 5 round affairs from pillar to post.

Mecate’s motto for wrestling, funnily enough, is “score points,” and he’s even remarked about how all the greats of every sport have the ability to score in, you guessed it, transitions. He’s well and fully aware of their importance, and alternates between insisting strongly on a takedown or transitional offense.

Now, obviously, the primary goal of wrestling an opponent in MMA is to take them down and implement your top control (I use the word “conventional” because pre-transitional fighter Merab exists, where the point of his takedowns is to make you defend the takedowns, followed by more takedowns).

Mecate has a quality that many high-level wrestlers who transitioned to MMA have; he’s extremely heavy and physical on top by default; additionally, he has a defined process for working on top; he will look for a strong grip on his opponent’s face in side control, keeps his hips low and weight heavy, and has various ideas for offense while he smothers his opponent.

From halfguard, he’ll secure a grip on the opposite side, figure-four his feet, and squeeze, making life quite miserable for the bottom man.

If his opponents turn in, he will use a nearside cradle to land knees to their midsection and force them back to their backs.

In general, however, he will look to step into mount, his best position. Mecate will cross his legs underneath his opponent or grapevine them into their legs, trapping them beneath his weight.

He doesn’t go fully high on the chest, however, which limits the power he can generate on his ground striking (the deadliest mounted ground and pound artist in MMA history is Luke Rockhold), and will instead look to attack for submission holds. According to Mecate, he does this to maintain hip control; controlling the hips to “stop the spazz.”

And if you attempt to belly-down and base up, it’s folkstyle time; he’s obviously very strong when someone attempts to base up, and capable of riding his opponents out. His ground strikes from this position also bait a transition to, well, mount. His process on top is to achieve a lockdown position, ideally mount, and smother, using ground strikes as a way to inform his passing, rather than the other way around.

In short, he’s a strong, physical athlete with supreme conditioning, a solid process on the feet, good wrestling to back it up, and an absolutely smothering top game. He’s pretty much the fighter I’d expected him to become given my time with him; a grindy wrestler with intelligence and nuance in his overall game. 

Alright, this is the part where I will be demonstrating my incredible skills as a keyboard warrior who can type fancy words, so you can skip to the end if you can’t handle that. Do command F, Blair

Let me be clear; I’m not acting like I know better than Mecate, or his coaches, because, well, I don’t. These are only my observations and suggestions as a fan who has trained a bit.

In terms of improvements, this article obviously can’t cover all the bases, so I tried to prioritize. On the feet, there’s the obvious requirement to establish your striking before you initiate wrestling exchanges, so as a result, the primary question should be “how should Mecate try to establish his striking in order to safely get to his wrestling?”

I won’t ask how a jab feint can draw out a shot to be countered, even if improved counterpunching to capitalize on his jab-feints is certainly a helpful tactic, or talk about the potential danger of Mecate being put on the back foot. I will ask how a jab feint can set up his high C or draw out a low kick to be caught.

The answer lies in a few things; one, more dynamism in his jab, two, handfighting, and three, consistency with level changes.

A better jab allows one to play the 1-2 game safer; Mecate knows that with stance, he would lose long exchanges with a competent pocket boxer, so he keeps engagements on the feet to shallow outside boxing before getting to his wrestling.

Notice, however, how he isn’t committing fully to the jab. He has the long stride to commit fully, and the length and distance management it provides would keep him safe barring a nasty cross-counter. Fully committing to it opens up a plethora of other options outside of having a new scoring tools/

Feinting an unestablished move against the elite may as well not be feinting it at all.

Varying the jab and jab feints to the body would only confuse his opponents more, and if his boxing is largely his lead hand with intermittent rear hands that also set up his wrestling, set up by his bounce, that’s quite a tricky puzzle on the feet.

The versatility of a jab is something to behold; if they pull, weight on the rear foot makes a sprawl difficult and a shot easier to finish. If they counter with their rear hand or lead hooks, one can duck right under for a reactive takedown.

All of these qualities have been shown time and time again by the best wrestler in MMA history, St-Pierre:

As for the handfighting, handfighting is simply a way to improve his lead hand. Mecate should look to control the lead hands; fighting off or in between them with his now improved jab to say, throw a 1-2 or his rear hand is one benefit, but also, you can wrestle!

Finally, more consistency with level change feints would play perfectly into a jab to the body. See; Edgar, St-Pierre. Mecate should look to drop his level more often than he already does, confusing opponents even more.

All of this put together will give him more takedown entries, and it’ll prevent stuff like this from happening again.

But let’s go back to that LFA clip. Notice the shot right after the setup, and the finish.

Why did that look kind of… off compared to the other clips?

I completely forgot to ask him this, but for some reason, he sticks his head on the inside when punching into takedowns, rather than on the outside like Merab did. I

My first guess was that it was to avoid the guillotine choke. The problem with this, however, is that your head is far more naturally going to go to the outside, as your lead foot is stepping to the outside and your neck generally doesn’t twist that way.

My second guess is that it’s simply the wrong setup for the wrong stance; in general, one’s rear hand is the much higher percentage move in a closed stance matchup due to the angle given by the opposite facing opponent. The Merab clip was an open stance matchup, while GSP’s were closed stance.

It seems head outside is the far more optimal path; maybe he has a good reason that I forgot to ask him about, but at least from the outside, it seems to hurt his drive on shots. In a closed stance matchup, where his jab is his most available punch, his jab/shot setups are probably the most optimal, and he can reserve the “punching into takedowns” for open stance matches/southpaws.

Essentially, I’m proposing a hopping, long jabber with an extended stride on takedowns, a strong ability to chain-wrestle with feints to the head and body that disguise his open high C. He would have the added ability to hand fight into takedowns and build into a shifting right hand that doubles as a takedown entry; he can also catch kicks and is aware enough to abandon poor entries for more worthwhile offense. Sounds like quite a challenge to overcome.

Now, it wouldn’t be a true “Tough on Top” article without talking about his top game, would it.

The first thing I noticed is that Mecate isn’t great at passing from his feet; when posturing in guards, he tends to get stalled there as his opponents hang onto guard, and his side control and halfguard sequences often come from his takedowns putting him in that position.

The answer imo is simply to fix his ground striking; think of almost every great top player in MMA history except more sub oriented top games like Jacare, and to an extent Johnson and Makachev. To massively simplify it, opponents were incentivized to open their guards and attempt sweeps or submissions because being in closed guard against them was a death zone, due to the ground strikes. When inside the guard, Mecate doesn’t pummel inside when he’s sitting in your guard, so his shots from top position come from the outside of his opponent’s hands, which is obviously suboptimal. To show us why it’s suboptimal, here’s Dustin Poirier showing off his underrated top game against McGregor;

When they open their guards to try and regain a better position after getting smashed, then that’s when the passing process begins. And if losing control as they, say, get their feet on your hips, is a concern, then the top grappler simply needs to learn how to exploit stacked guard. To do this, I will point you to a few more clips of Conor McGregor getting punched in the face:

This obviously is not easy; perfect marriage of damage and control is near-impossible, but this principle holds true both ways , as demonstrated by (probably?) the second-best top player at 170 right now, Shavkat Rahkmonov.

Side note, Shavkat is excellent in transitions himself.

Credit to @RyanAWagMMA(substack here) for teaching me this; hanging out in mid-range, especially in MMA, is very no bueno. You should be either all the way out and controlling their ankles so they can’t scramble up to their feet and re-enter, or be inside of their guard and controlling their hips. Essentially, if you’re passing on the feet and concerned that the space you’re giving can result in an opponent’s escape, take a lesson from the greatest top game in the history of the sport.

Some more work to kill the angle of sub attempts before they happen as well; he’s extremely heavy on top, but not very mobile, so opponents have been able to get the angle for submission attempts before.

Mecate likes to go single hook rather than double hook on the cage, which, according to him, is to ensure that he can remove the hook and get back into a good position if needed. The problem with that, obviously, is that you can be reversed trying to go for offense.

Normally I’d add a GIF or a video to explain my issues with the single hook, but here i’m going to shamelessly plug myself again.

Mecate told me that his thought process around transitioning to the cage META in MMA grappling was simple; understand that it’s either enemy or friend. I’d describe it more as that dude in the corner you don’t really bother, and then you’re chill, since his best shots all come in open space. If that’s the case, dragging his opponents away from the cage when they attempt to scoot back into it is probably the route to go. And since his top game doesn’t seem to be oriented around gnp, the single hook isn’t a bad option, especially with how he does it.

Additionally, as a lockdown grappler, he should look to secure the crucifix in side control; that way, he has a strong position to absolutely ruin his opponents with elbows, and the control needed to gain enough space with them to deal real damage. Submissions are also open from this position as well; it’s quite difficult to finish elite competition from that position, but it can be an absolute killzone until the opponent escapes it.

It seems very… shallow to say “just go for subs,” but if you’re playing the smothering, no space game on top like he does, having fight-ending weapons in your arsenal helps. An armbar from mount, kimura from side control, etc. That would add real potency to his top game that seems missing, especially from halfguard.

If you skipped over that whole section, welcome back. Blair.

If you’re still with me, dear reader, you may ask, why all the Edgar, Weidman and Cormier comparisons? That’s easy; they’re American wrestle-boxers. You may also ask; why was this so freaking long?

The answer? I’m long-winded, and have a lot to say. And that’s the thing; I tend to overthink stuff way, way too much. It’s been a massive mental block in both my academic and athletic careers, and interaction with other people, and decision-making, and, well you get the point.

I thought long and hard about why wrestlers seem to pick up striking faster than strikers seem to pick up wrestling, and my answer was; it’s not harder at all. Nova Uniao solved the “teach strikers to wrestle” thing with Aldo and Barao’s footwork and anti-scrambling tactics; just, uhhh, nobody else has figured it out(see ATT’s patented anti wrestling game plan being to plant their butts on the cage and wall-walk.)

Coach Chris gave me a much simpler, much more common answer, but the straightfoward nature of the answer doesn’t make it any less true. For other martial arts, it’s about self-defense. Neutralization is success. For the wrestler, it’s about domination. Wrestlers go the step further to absolutely wipe out their opponents. They say simple doesn’t mean easy; complicated does not mean more true.

And that’s the essence of Coach Chris, or any other elite competitor’s intensity; the straightforward, uncomplicated mindset required to compete at the highest level. Useless thoughts are cast away and all cylinders fire in pursuit of one, single-minded goal; triumph.

Call it heart, call it chutzpah, call it balls, that’s what it is, that’s why he resonates so strong as a coach to so many, that’s why he puts in incalculable hours to reach the next level, and why I put an infinitesimal fraction of that time into writing a 30-40 minute article on him. I hope this has been a sufficient tribute/technique study/prospect evaluation, and not another Frankenstein.

Chris Mecate fights tomorrow at UFL 3, in their featherweight semifinals. I don’t know who he’s fighting, but what I do know from meeting him and his postseason college career is that when it matters, Chris Mecate can step on the gas like nobody else. Coach Chris, if you’re reading this before, after, or if at all, I wish/ed you the best of luck. Be tough on top, and score points!

Instagram embedded didn’t work, so here’s a link!

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