Max vs Colby: Why Their Cardio Is Very Different, And How They Get Away With It

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To begin this long, and almost drawn out, article I’d like to first emphasize what cardio is and why it is so important in such a sport. Cardio is usually described as cardiovascular exercise, or any specific activity that uses aerobic breathing– oxygen. However, when we talk about cardio in mixed martial arts, we aren’t necessarily talking about ones’ breathing. Instead, cardio tends to lean towards a person’s muscular endurance and conditioning. The ability to not only use our muscles and techniques at their full power, but at the desired volume and pace that any given fighter might wish to dictate.

Take Randy Costa, for instance. While he is very adept at standup, and shows good power with his striking, his conditioning leads any fight that lasts past a single round to an impending loss for the young prospect.

27-year-old prospect Randy Costa suffers his second defeat at the hands of Tony Kelley. TKO.

Another underrated example that I would like to bring up is current Bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling. His cardio, while not the top amongst his peers, is solid. Taking into account that he often mixes his NCAA wrestling with black-belt grappling and his own unorthodox form of striking, he shows a commendable level of cardio to push him to finishes or decision wins. However, while his cardio is underrated, his pacing seems to be his main issue, as he tends to push a high pace that leads to lower outputs as the fight progresses.

Aljamain Sterling showing off his cardio against ranked contender Pedro Munhoz to earn a decision victory.

The main reason I show these examples is not to humiliate said fighters, but to build upon the argument on why such attributes are important. Being able to not only outpace your opponent, but also outlast your opponent, is detrimental in an elite level competition such as this.

Which brings me to why fighters like Colby “Chaos” Covington and Max “Blessed” Holloway are not only important, but special in the sport.

Colby “Chaos” Covington is the epitome of cardio. A Division I wrestler with tremendous chain-grappling ability. Often in his fights, he leans on this ability to drown out his opponents, who expend enormous amounts of energy trying to either deny takedown attempts, or scramble back to their feet.

Now, you might think to yourself, “Does this not lead to him expending his own energy?” Constantly using your strength and energy to force an opponent to a position is definitely tiring, if it doesn’t succeed. However, as we look into our first bit of video on Covington, we’ll try to find out why this is a non-issue when it comes to him.

Colby Covington’s first round display of wrestling

“But Kevin, he only managed to land one complete takedown after a full minute of heavy grappling work. On top of that, Robbie managed to get back up again.”

Yes, it’s fair to assume that for your average wrestling, doing such heavy, pace-pushing wrestling will wear out your tank, especially against an opponent who finds success in scrambling back to their feet. However, if you look at the following image, you might see a little bit of what I’m saying

Colby employs two excellent tactics here that ensure Robbie’s tank wears before he does. One, he wraps his hands around the hips of Lawler. This ensures that the lock he has on his opponent is tight and increases the difficulty at which he has at jumping back onto his feet. Two, he buries his chest towards the sternum of Lawler. Not only does this help him keep position as he drags Lawler down, but it ensures that Lawler has a tougher time gathering his oxygen and energy.

So as he’s wrapping himself around Lawler and dragging him down, he’s ensuring that the energy that Lawler expends is much heavier than if he were to have a higher grip and more positive space for Lawler to work with.

So as Lawler makes his way back to his feet, he’s using more and more energy to try to get back to a stand-up position.

As the fight progresses, his takedowns become easier and he’s able to land much more volume on the feet and on the ground due to this. The pressure he enforces slowly chips away at an aging Lawler, who is continually forced to try to not only bear the weight of an 180 pound man, but find the timing and slowly dwindling strength to break the grips and push away from the cage.

He uses similar techniques against Jorge Masvidal, which lead to a dominant decision victory.

There are two reasons this works extraordinarily well for Colby.

The first reason it works so well is due to his overwhelming experience compared to a large quantity of his opponents. Not only has he had years of training with prominent coaches such as Mike Brown and Conan Silveira, but his new coaches, BJJ black belts Carniero and Valdere. This, coupled with years of D1 conditioning and matches, has created an experienced wrestler who always finds the time to make the rounds to continuously improve not only his technique, but any conditioning that may be required as a result of his grappling prowess.

The second reason is playing so well to these advantages. He knows he has the rounds necessary to push his grapple-heavy style, and while he might not have the physical strength of his rival Kamaru Usman, he has the technical ability to continually drag his opponents down. This opens up plenty of striking opportunities since his opponents are continually worried about the threat of takedowns; so even though he might not be an amazing striker by any means, it makes no difference, because as long as he can continuously pile on pressure and force his opponent to try to match the pace, one which he has shown no problems of maintaining, his opponents are stuck in a perpetual state of overexerting themselves trying to get back to their fight into their often stand-up based advantages.

Enter Max “Blessed” Holloway:

Holloway’s stylistic approach to fighting differs drastically from the former. A kickboxer with overwhelming volume and standup pressure that wilts out anyone not able to crack the Lament Configuration that is his style. Only two fighters to date have been able to defeat him in his best form. Like Colby, however, he is a fast starter. He dictates the pace from the first minute of the round, and continually marches forward with plenty of snappy jabs and straights.

But one of the things that is vastly underappreciated about Max is his ability to make the opponents miss with good footwork and minimalistic head movement..

Beautiful head movement. Holloway vs. Ortega

He pairs this with a fair amount of bodywork. Not just body shots, but he implements side leg kicks. So, on top of tremendous volume to the head, he slowly breaks down your mobility and breathing.

However, his best attribute that complements his skillset would be his chin. It brings everything together. Even though he might not hit hard, as long as you’re not able to put him away or make him reset his rhythm, he can keep a constant flow of increasing pressure that wilts many elite fighters.

The craziest part of Holloway, however, is that he is barely 30 and still continually evolving.

In the Kattar fight, for instance, he implemented many new techniques to his arsenal. Inside and outside leg kicks, oblique kicks, even headkicks and elbows. On top of that, he applied more body work early in the fight, not only with his hands but also an improved jumping spinning back kick.

“Well what if his opponents grow tired of the onslaught? What if they decide to take him down?”

Thankfully, Max has been dutiful enough to attend his wrestling classes. Thanks to this, he has been able to stuff takedowns from the likes of Brian Ortega, Frankie Edgar, Anthony Pettis, and Ricardo Lamas. All of this while still being able to keep his legendary pace.

And even if he gets taken down, in most instances, he works against the cage so well, that’s he’s able to get back up to his feet.

His style works for two reasons that I can think of:

One, his elite chin. Anyone can continuously apply pressure in a fight. However, a well-placed shot is all that is needed to end a fight, or at the very least cause a halt to the aforementioned pressure. This is not an issue for Holloway, as he’s faced the cream-of-the-crop in the standup department and his chin has held up to every test.

And two, his punching power. Max is by no means a power puncher. Possibly his biggest weakness, he instead has found a way to use this to his advantage. He exerts his muscles less, and by pulling back power on his punches slightly, his muscles fatigue less, allowing him to pile on volume without worry about his arms tiring or his gas tank emptying.

Truly, these two are quite possibly the most amazing cardio machines that the sport can offer. While they may differ in how they choose to drown their opponents with volume, in the end they’ve put in the rounds to effectively dispatch opponents in their preferred manner.

What do you think about these two? Are there any fighters that you feel can match these two in terms of cardio-pressure? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments below!