So this might very well be a bunch of horseshit but I'd like to write some stuff about these videos because I recognize the way he talks from tons of poker instructional videos, including some from some of the most talented and successful poker players in the world. We're talking people with millions of dollars in online cash game winnings.
Before I start,
disclaimers:
1. I wrote my thesis in law school about game theory in negotiations.
2. I'm not currently playing poker, but I've had lifetime winnings of middling six figures in online cash games, a bunch of deepish runs in mid sized tournaments (prize pools of mid to low six figures, my biggest cash was around 25k euro) and had it as my main source of income for about five or six years.
3. I have about two hours of stand up training life time, so I don't know very much about it at all.
Read at your own peril.
Game theory
Dominick Cruz talks about footwork and fighting as if it was a game in a game theoretical sense, which it is.
Here's the definition from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-theory/
So basically, in a fist fight we have two fighters (agents) who interacts (hits each other with various success) with respect to their preferences (some wants to strike to set up takedowns, others head hunt etc) and the outcome may or may not be according to the plan for either one of them. Boom, a game.
In all games we have a optimal strategy, that is, an option in a specific situation which is a pair of strategies from the both fighters that they both believe can't be improved upon for a better result against the opponents strategy. So basically, when two equally skilled fighters gets to a stand still when neither one can hurt the other and both believes that if they do something else the outcome will get worse they think they've found it, and if two fighters fought a million times against each other with good coaches analyzing the fight each time they would probably figure it out.
Cruz, information and adjustments
When Cruz talks about footwork it sounds a lot like if he gathers information about what kind of mistakes an opponent does. In the fight with Mizugaki in the second video he concludes, according to the narrator, that the opponent over-uses the right hand which makes the correct way to fight him to overuse whatever counter you can find to the right hand. This is a lot like in poker videos when the narrator concludes after a sample of hands that the other guy plays a non-optimal strategy that includes too many bluffs, too few bluffs, too much calling or whatever and then adjusts by calling more, calling less, stops bluffing etc. Basically, when you've figure out what the other person does in a non-optimal way you can beat them much harder by also playing non-optimal, but in a different way which counters their mistakes. A easy example would be that while head hunting too much in general is bad, since it makes you predictable and opens up a whole can of issues against a competent striker, against someone like Katsunori Kikuno who never moves his head and/or defends it in anyway or someone with a very week chin you should just go ahead and wing powerpunches against his head.
What Cruz's strategy with all the non-comming footwork, jabs, feints etc does is that it figures out what the other guy does too much off and then adjusts with committing strikes/takedowns/whatever only when he knows in which way your reaction to his entries is unbalanced, that is, what kind of defense you overuse and what kind of reaction you underused. Basically, if you don't mix stuff up he'll adjust and eat you alive. Same as poker. Also I hate the term “mix it up”, but it's probably the right one.
”Leveling” or how to deal with it
The most obvious way to deal with someone who tries to figure out what you do wrong or in a game theoretical sense how you are unbalanced is to fight/play perfectly. Unfortunately no one can do that. The next best thing, besides trying your darnedest to not make mistakes, is to do what poker players calls “leveling”, or simply being on another mental level then your opponent. Roughly speaking you can divide people in these categories:
Level 1 thinkers: Knows what they're good at, does that. “I hit hard, so I keep throwing powerpunches”
Level 2 thinkers: Knows what the opponent is good at, adjusts to that. “The opponent is a good grappler, let's make sure I don't get taken down”
Level 3 thinkers. Knows that the opponent knows what they're good at. “The opponent knows I'm a good grappler and wants to get him down so he'll keep his hands low to counter the takedown, thus I'll hit him in the face.”
and then it goes on and on and the important thing is to always be one, but only one, step ahead of the opponent. I this case it'll mostly be about "last time he did Y, I did X, so this time I need to do Z/Y/X because of him thinking I'll do X/Z/Y" in various combinations.
The problem is that a coach can't really do this stuff in specific fight situations with lots of options, since it's split second decisions multiple times per round the fighter needs to have pre-fight information about the other persons tendencies or an ability to adjust correctly during the fight to the other fighter's adjustments. Against most people you can just get instructions from your corner and correct it after a round, but Cruz seems to change what he does multiple times per fight which it why the leveling game will be a mental battle between him and his opponent. If it's true that he has the highest fight-IQ, he'll probably win that more often then not.
The only way Duane Ludwig can influence this if he either figures out ways that can counter big parts of Cruz decision tree for each entry Cruz does and thereby give Dillashaw a bigger margin of error or figure out a strategy that doesn't let Cruz do his stick and move-information gathering stuff.
Given all this I'd favor Cruz if he is as skilled, strong, conditioned etc as Dillashaw just because he's probably smarter, but on the other hand I can't imagine that he actually is that given his injuries and the general beastyness of his opponent. I'm guessing it comes down to how close he is to optimal shape and how far behind T.J. that is. Given his last fight and his personality I'm guessing that Cruz won't be that far off, but I'm not sure if it's close enough that his fight-IQ can make up for it.
This is before watching tape on the main event, and without any bets down.
