#technically not a traditional front-facing angle because this one is all far away. shows their whole face‚ of course…

[front-facing-pokemon]

[marymccartneyphotos]

Mary: Queen of Shots

Mandarin Oriential Issue 14; 2010

From her landscapes to portraits, Mary McCartney’s natural talent shines through. Here she tells MO Editor Zoë Manzi what it’s like to be the photographer behind Mandarin Oriental’s Fan Campaign

You were a picture editor before you started taking photographs. Is that right?

Yes, I didn’t really know what to do after I left school, but I knew I was interested in photography, so I got a job at a music book company as a picture researcher. It was nice because I went to all the picture libraries as well as meeting certain photographers who had taken photos of specific bands, and got to look at their archives. So that was interesting and it kind of set me thinking. But still, even then, I didn’t think I could be a professional photographer.

Was it the technical side…?

It was the technical side and, I don’t know, it just didn’t seem like a proper job to me at that point. You know, it was a nice thing to do as a hobby, but I couldn’t do it as a career. Then I got my first job. That was for Frank magazine. Stella [McCartney, her sister] had just started her first big design job at Chloé, and I was asked to go to Paris and do a diary and photograph her first collection.

That was an inspired commission…

It was really good fun because I got to spend time with Stella and I learned a lot about how a collection is put together just by being there, snapping fittings and going out with everyone at night. You know, it clicked with me because it’s what I like to do within my photography: meet people and get into their world and see what they’re doing. You get to find out what goes on behind the scenes. It made me appreciate how much work goes into designing, how much time it takes, and how much dedication it requires. I decided to do a course to learn the mechanics of the camera and that gave me more confidence. From then on, it was just about taking pictures, finding my style and the kind of work I wanted to do.

Did you develop an eye for taking pictures, or was it instinctual?

I think I had that already, but rather than developing an eye it’s about having confidence in my ability and style. Everyone’s different, but with my first paid commission, for example, I would hire loads of equipment and do things I wouldn’t usually do, but I was like, ‘I’m being paid, I’ve got to be professional and organised.’ But I wouldn’t be so happy with the photos because they weren’t my kind of pictures – I was over-compensating. So now I don’t do that. I know what I want to get and if people book me, it’s because they want something that is my style. What I do has probably taken me this long to achieve. You know, some people know instantly what they want to do – for me, it just took longer.

And how did your working relationship with Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group come about?

It was a dream job, really. I got a phone call from my agent saying that Mandarin Oriental’s ad agency wanted me to come in for a ‘chemistry’ meeting, which was really funny but actually makes a lot of sense. I went to Hong Kong to meet the Chief Executive. What was great about Mandarin Oriental was that they wanted me to go to different hotels to get a feel for the brand. At first I thought that was a bit odd – why do they want me to? But it worked well because it made me respect them and understand what it is they’re doing, and to experience the friendliness of the staff… There’s a certain style which I probably wouldn’t have appreciated if I hadn’t gone to several of the hotels.

Do you have a favourite Mandarin Oriental hotel so far?

I love Mandarin Oriental, New York. I love coming out and having that view of Central Park but, then, I’d like to revisit Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok. I was only there for one night and I was on my own. I had a butler and didn’t get to utilise the service properly, so I’d like to go back and experience butler service! And the room was practically bigger than my flat at the time, so I didn’t fully get to be fabulous during that stay.

What was it like following in the footsteps of the late Patrick Lichfield [Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group’s first photographer of Fans]?

It was a little bit daunting because he was such an established photographer, but we have similarities in that he also liked to make his subjects quite relaxed. I thought it was good of Mandarin Oriental to pick a female photographer because it gives a different slant and a slightly different feel. Of course, it was very sad, but nice because he had a great relationship with Mandarin Oriental and that made me feel encouraged. He was with them for years and obviously was a big fan, so it made me more relaxed going in. I didn’t feel defensive. I knew that they respect their photographers and there’s a long-term collaboration.

So, how do you go about working on a Campaign with a new Fan?

First, I look at the person and do some research. Then I work directly with them because it needs to be something personal and I want them to be relaxed. Obviously, the whole Campaign is based around it being a place or an image that encapsulates the Fan but, also, I’m quite aware that it’s one image on a page: so how do we get something that will stop you on the page as you’re flicking through? With [singer] Sa Dingding, I tried to think a bit more about movement and materials and we’ve done a really nice shot which is quite fresh. She’s very dynamic, so I’ve tried to capture that. What was great about her was that she started off very reserved. She was dressed in traditional Tibetan materials – covered in fabrics – and as she was getting undressed there were all these different layers coming off and getting more and more funky, like, little beetle-patterned leggings and hearts. She’s an interesting character and she moves well. I wanted to do something with material, to get that Eastern feel. Sa Dingding really liked to perform in front of the camera and Hélène Grimaud, who we just did in Switzerland, was quite different, but she has an amazing smile and a beautiful face. Hélène is a classical pianist, so we did a nice, classic piano shot, which I tried to mess up a bit by having flowers on the piano rather than in a vase, and sheet music spread around a bit. Then I did another one, which is more clean. Hélène isn’t so naturally comfortable in front of the camera. The challenge was to make her relax and enjoy the shoot. And I think she did. I reassured her that ‘wardrobe’ meant we bring clothes and use the sitter’s clothes as well. The aim of the Campaign is that it’s about that person, it’s not a whole new makeover. It has to be something that they would wear, like Liam Neeson wore his own suit. But we’ll take some extra bits and bobs that they may even want to take home, so we try to add to their own look. It’s quite fun. If I were having my picture taken, I’d quite like someone to give me some clothes to try on!

So you might do two different versions…

We do two versions, one is more classic and one to take the sitter out of their comfort zone. The photography needs to progress visually because it isn’t a new photographer each time, so I need to push the boundaries a little bit more. It still has to be quite chic and clean for Mandarin Oriental, and I understand that.

And what goes on behind the scenes at the Fan shoots?

[Laughs] Do you want the real story? Well, I generally work with quite a small team. There are two ways I like to work: if it’s a production, I usually have a digital operator and an assistant and a producer. Otherwise, it’s me and a camera and a bag of film.

So you shoot on film?

I don’t shoot the Campaign on film any more because I like to get the edit down with the sitter, which is possible on screen, and I’ve got a great digital operator who does the calibration and, really, I did an exhibition last year and one of the pictures was digital and you couldn’t actually see the difference. I was like, ‘Pick which one in the room was digital,’ and no one could pick it out. I still love film because the quality of it and the depth of field is quite different, but when digital is done properly and is of a high quality, it’s pretty amazing. I like them both for different things.

Do the Fans give feedback during the shoot?

I do get feedback from them on the day. Generally, they won’t say they don’t want to do something: I would have prediscussed it with them, so they won’t get into that situation. For something like the Mandarin Oriental shoot, I’ll get the sitter to come over and I’ll do an edit, and I’ll show them and say this is the way I’m going… Then if there’s something they hate, because everyone’s got something they hate about themselves – ‘I don’t like my face at that angle’, for example – then I’ll try and work to make them feel comfortable and to get something I’m happy with. So it’s a real collaboration.

Does the travel element enhance or complicate matters?

It’s quite fun. We’re going to China to take pictures of Harry Connick Jr and it’s a bit of an unknown quantity. I can plan the shoot as much as I can, but when I get out there the whole plan will probably change. But I quite like that.

Do you shoot in the hotels?

This time we’re shooting in Mandarin Oriental, Sanya, but we don’t usually shoot at the hotels. That’s just been the history of the Campaign, but I think it’s quite nice to shoot at the hotels more and more. When it began, it was all about the subject and picking their own perfect place, but now the two are marrying together because Mandarin Oriental are doing more resort hotels, which has opened things up for outdoor locations. Before it was all about city hotels. I try to get as many exterior shots as I can, so fingers crossed for the weather!

Tell us about your book.

I’m doing a book, my first one, with Thames & Hudson [titled From Where I Stand] which is coming out in mid-October. I always take pictures, but I take them, look at them, then file them away. Last year I thought, actually, it’s time to do a book and go back and revisit all my contact sheets, which is quite daunting because there are so many pictures – and how do you structure it? So it became more of a personal structure: the book starts off quite quietly and landscapey and then goes into portraits and then comes back out quite quietly as well. Hopefully, it sort of says something about my character and what I’m interested in.

Was that the idea?

Yeah, keep it quite personal and not too eclectic. Having said that, it is quite eclectic because I’m always snapping different things.

What inspires you – do you always have a camera with you?

I like just wandering and watching people. There are moments, if I’m at an event, or I’m going somewhere, or at a shoot… Often when someone is not performing for the camera is when something interesting happens and I hate missing those moments.

In terms of your peers, whose work do you admire?

I suppose I like certain projects that people do. I love that Richard Billingham book, Ray’s a Laugh. I love Gursky and more epic work, probably things that I wouldn’t do myself. I mean, I like David LaChapelle. I think they’re all quite mad and I’d never do that kind of photography and I wouldn’t necessarily put it up on my wall. I suppose I like flicking through books with new work and then, for my home, I like vintage black and white, which is what inspired me in the first place.

What do you like about vintage photographs?

I just love that old-fashioned black-and-white quality and I like the historic feel behind them. I went to see a Berenice Abbott exhibition a few years ago and I came out just totally wanting to take pictures of buildings and façades. Those kind of things, that energy… I think there weren’t so many people taking photographs then, and their characters really came across.

Yes, and the women photographers…

Diane Arbus. I love Diane Arbus. So I suppose her and Lartigue are among my definite favourites, but some of his best photographs were taken when he was, like, nine. It’s disconcerting!

How do you see your work evolving in the future?

I suppose doing more personal projects. Getting into different situations and spending a few weeks or months with certain subjects is something I’d like to do, so you can get more in-depth.

And does that always result in an exhibition?

It doesn’t, no, that’s not necessarily the way I work. But I probably would do it with that in mind and then do the project and then from there edit and, yeah, the natural thing is the exhibition and a book.

And who or what would you most like to photograph?

You know what? Today, I was jogging around with my dog and thinking I would quite like to photograph Eminem. I’ve been listening to him a lot recently. I think he’s so bright and a bit scary and quite an intense character. It would be a real challenge to get him in front of the camera because he looks quite guarded as well. He’s sort of soft and angry and quite interesting, and I’d like to watch him for a while. He’s been through so much and I really find it quite intriguing listening to his music. And he seems quite real: he doesn’t put on a veneer – what you see is what you get. He’d be interesting and challenging

[kassandra-lorelei]

Can you do a fic where C.C. is the one who finally proposes to Niles? I just imagine that after they're together Niles is so happy he doesn't want to chance ruining anything or scaring CC off again. Even after they go to CA, move in together and eventually have their daughter Niles accepts the situation if it means loving/being with her. Then CC suddenly realizes for the first time that for the first time in her life she's actually happy and in love and wants to be with Niles forever

Here we are, my friend! Enjoy!

@missbabcocks1 @holomoriarty

Work at the studio had dragged on for what felt likeforever. Lights kept blowing and having to be switched, halting takes,arguments between the director and the technical director kept breaking outover apparently ‘bad angles’, and the lead actress didn’t seem to be able tomake it through a single scene without breaking into giggling fits.

C.C. didn’t know how much longer she could last before shesnapped and hit somebody. Luckily, she didn’t have to find out, because Maxwellcalled time for that day before it happened.

Those words were like a release valve, and with a cry of“Oh, thank God!” she packed up and left the studio, only just remembering asshe left to yell over her shoulder about Maxwell and Nanny Fine coming todinner on Saturday.

Soon enough, she was on the road, staring holes into therear end of the car in front. Normally getting home wasn’t so bad – Studio Citywasn’t that far from Beverly Hills, if the driver knew how to get there – butthat day the drive felt just as endless as work had. She supposed she waslooking forward to an evening at home, seeing Niles and having the deliciousdinner he would have prepared, before cuddling the little girl that had been asurprise for the both of them at the Sheffields’ first anniversary party-slash-thebirth of their twins.

It had shocked her mother when they’d announced her own pregnancy,both that she intended to keep the baby and that she didn’t intend to ditch thebutler. That’d led to a huge argument before they’d all moved to California,but C.C. didn’t really care all that much – her father and brother had been ontheir side, and she knew she always had Niles.

Niles, who’d stuck by her and not said a word about tryingto propose again, even after they found out they were going to be parents. Theone time where a sudden, emergency proposal might’ve been deemed acceptable. Instead,they’d just carried on the way things were, having fun together as a couple andlearning how to be a family of three. It had been kind of a challenge at first,but they’d managed.

And C.C. was looking forward to another evening of familylife, as she finally pulled into the driveway. She and Niles hadn’t stayedliving in the same house as the Sheffields for long after the big move – they’dbasically just needed a base until they’d gotten their own place. And the onethey’d fallen in love with was just as big as Maxwell and Nanny Fine’s house,in just as good an area, and it had the added benefit of Sylvia not wanderingin at all hours to raid the refrigerator.

She made her way up from the car, feeling happier the closer she got to the front door, which soon had her key firmlywedged in the lock.

“Hello, hello!” she called as she entered the hallway,breathing in deeply as she shut the door and hung up her bag and jacket. Thewhole house smelled like Niles had been cooking.

And the man himself came from the kitchen to greet her, anapron tied around his middle and beaming all over his face.

“Hello, love,” he put an arm around her waist and kissedher. “Good day at work?”

“Hardly,” she replied as they walked through to the kitchen.“Having to babysit two grown men to stop them from tearing each other’s hairout isn’t exactly my idea of being productive.”

“Oh,” Niles frowned. “Those same two at it again?”

“Worse – new technical director, same crappy situation withthe director not getting along with anyone but himself,” C.C. untangled herselffrom Niles’ arm and went to sit at the table, rubbing her forehead. “But Idon’t really feel like talking about it. That’s one problem I’d rather leave atthe door.”

“Hm. Alright, then,” her partner rubbed her back gently. “I’verun you a bath upstairs, if you want, and it should still be hot. Dinner willbe ready by the time you come down.”

That didn’t sound like such a bad idea. So, leaving Niles tocarry on with his cooking, C.C. slipped upstairs, out of her work clothes, andinto the waiting bath.

The water was perfect – just the right temperature to sootheaway the tension that had built up over the course of the day. And it wasobvious Niles had added some bath salts, and oils, to make it smell good.

He knew just how to take care of her, in exactly the way sheneeded…

After she’d dried off and changed into comfortable clothes,she took a few moments to look at their daughter, tucked up in her crib.Charity-Charlotte was nearly two months old, had C.C.’s nose and Niles’ eyesand hair, and neither parent thought they’d ever seen a more perfect child.

Not that they were being partial, or anything.

A caring partner. A comfortable home. A loving family. Threethings C.C. had wondered if she’d ever have, all come true, thanks to one man.

One man who’d given her everything.

Well, nearly everything. There was one thing he stillhadn’t, that got brought to the front of her mind when she passed a group photoof the Sheffields’ wedding day on the stairs.

The thought of it gnawed at her all through dinner, untilshe couldn’t stand it anymore and she just had to bring it up as she tried invain to finish her meal.

“Niles?”

The butler looked up from his own plate, “Yes, dear?”

“After…all the stuff that happened back in New York,” C.C.shifted in her seat, and put her fork down. “Why didn’t you propose again?”

Niles stared at her for a few moments, and the producer wassuddenly afraid that she’d upset him by asking, but she wasn’t going to takethe question back. She wasn’t Maxwell with a love confession. Instead, she heldher breath until he answered.

“Well, it all made me think that you simply aren’tinterested in getting married,” he said, shrugging in a way that told C.C. hewas saddened by it. He turned his eyes back to his food, poking at it with hisfork. “I didn’t want to spoil things between us by asking again, and I didn’twant to make you uncomfortable by putting you on the spot. And as things havebeen going so well since then, I was just…”

He trailed off, and the she cocked her head to one side.

“Just what?” she asked.

“Happy to be with you, in any capacity,” he finished.

C.C. smiled, feeling a warmth spreading in her chest. Hehadn’t asked because he thought she wouldn’t like it! He’d have accepted notbeing married to her, as long as they got to be together!

Being together was the most important thing. But it didn’thave to stop there – she knew that now. She understood. And she wasn’t going togo without it anymore.

“I’m happy to be with you, too. More than I ever thought I’dbe with anyone,” she said. “And you know something? It’s made me realiseeverything I want.”

Niles looked at her, not understanding where she was going, “I’mnot sure I’m following you…”

“Maybe this’ll help,” C.C. murmured, getting up from herchair and coming to stand by him.

She took his hands in hers, drew in a breath, and began.

“Niles Brightmore, you are…the love of my life. You’ve givenme everything I could ever want, even things I didn’t know I needed! We have ahome together, and a family, and I honestly never thought I’d have either ofthose things with anybody. But you’ve always been the exception in my life –the thorn in my side that I couldn’t dig out, the enemy I could talk to like a bestfriend…the annoyance I’d miss when you went away.”

Niles looked stunned as she made her speech. So much so, thatshe could safely continue without interruption.

“And that’s what I’ve realised. I don’t want any of this togo away, ever. I want family life like we have, and I don’t want it to change,”by this point C.C. could feel a familiar heat behind her eyes, and she waspraying to God she’d get through it all without bursting into tears. “I don’twant anything to change…apart from one thing. My last name.”

The butler’s eyes grew wide as her words registered, “C.C….?”

She ignored the implied question. He’d find out soon enough,anyway.

“So, I guess what I’m asking is…” she got down on one knee,determined to make as big a show of it as she could, considering they were athome and she was wearing sweatpants. “Will you do me the honour of becoming myhusband?”

The time between her question and the answer felt as long asher workday, only with more tension involved.

Not that it lasted long. Niles began to beam, and he leanedforward so he was only inches from her face.

“You know I will,” he whispered.

He’d said yes.

He’d said yes, and they were getting married!

With a soft laugh of delight that soon became louder, C.C.leapt up from the floor and threw herself into his arms, kissing him soundly onthe lips.

She then hugged him tightly, “I love you so much, Butler Boy.”

Niles let out a rumbling chuckle deep in his chest, and hepulled her closer so that she was sat in his lap, “I love you too, Babs.”

“I won’t be “Babs” for long – you’ll have to think up someother nickname for me,” C.C. grinned, kissing his cheek.

Niles returned it with one of his own, smirking, “I’ve gotnews for you; you’ll be “Babs” to me no matter what your surname is.”

“Hm, I guess I’ll just have to live with that, then,” shepursed her lips, pretending to be disappointed but actually hiding her amusementvery badly. She then stroked his arm, all the way up to the tip of his ringfinger. “We’d better go out and get you an engagement ring, soon enough. I’mnot having the man I just proposed to go out into the world looking like he’sstill on the shelf.”

“Isn’t it more traditional if you wear the ring?” he asked,putting his hand on her thigh.

C.C. rolled her eyes jokingly, “Since when have we followedtradition, Hazel?”

She did have a point (she was the breadwinner and hadproposed, after all), but as she looked at her future husband, the more sherealised he’d probably been waiting for her to wear a ring he’d put on herfinger for a long time. And she wasn’t going to take that away from him.

But she was going to have some fun while she surrendered.

So she relented with something of a sigh, “Oh, alright…! I’lllet you have this one thing and wear the ring.”

Niles was back to beaming, and he kissed her lips, “Thankyou, my lovely fiancée.”

“You are most welcome, my dearest husband-to-be,” she tookhis hand and entwined their fingers. “Now, we’d better get on the phone to theSheffields and let them know.”

“Hm, can’t that wait?” Niles asked, almost growling. He’dstarted to massage her thigh with the palm of his hand, and he’d bent his headso that his lips were very close to a sensitive spot on her collarbone. “I dobelieve in private celebrations before public ones, on occasions like this…”

“I’d normally agree with you, lover, but I also believe inyour capacity as a yenta,” ignoring the shivering his breath against her skinbrought out, C.C.’s hand slipped down so she could poke him in the chest. “AndI don’t wanna come home tomorrow to find that you’ve told Nanny Fine, who inturn has ended up telling everyone in the greater Los Angeles area.”

Niles deadpanned, “Would you rather have her coming over atthis time of night in order to ask every wedding-related question known to Man?”

Hm. He had a point. They wouldn’t get any peace that nightif Nanny Fine came over – even less than they already did, with a baby in thehouse!

“You know what? Tomorrow’s not looking so bad, all of asudden,” she said, relaxing more into his embrace, and encouraging his hand tostart massaging again. “So, what was that about a private celebration…?”

Niles grinned at her, “How about I take you upstairs andexplain further?”

“Sounds good to me,” C.C. reached up and planted a few softkisses on his lips, before sliding out of his lap to pull him to his feet. “Ithink I’ll need all the practice celebrations I can get, before our honeymoon…”

He let her pull him up, looking smug the whole time, “And I’d bedelighted to assist.”

C.C. laughed, “I bet you would, Scrub Brush!”

Hand in hand, they made their way upstairs. And all thewhile C.C. thought about how lucky she was, to be with a man who’d wait to giveher everything.

Even if it took her all the time in the world to realisewhat had been missing.

[tedfashionski]

Reality Patch

 (3393 - long read, messy, technically ‘unfinished’ whatever that means)

There was a little bubble of interest in the Miu Miu pre-fall collection in the twitterverse a few weeks (months? years?) back – it seemed torn out of time. Made in the winter, shown to press in January? Viral in the early summer? To be bought..… sometime? Part of the issue is the term ‘pre-fall’. Pretty certain that’s summer. This collection feels like it doesn’t exist. I guess if I ever went shopping, it would make more sense? But as a broke hut-dwelling internet denizen, I’m lost. It’s this money-spinning side to fashion commerce that’s the ‘real’ collection, but it’s named after a non-existent season. The pre-fall/resort problem lies in that it’s the collection that gets the least press, because not normally presented in a show, but also functions more solidly as merchandise. Certain agitators want to eliminate these non-events, and revert to twice-yearly seasons. It’s a fucking mess. What even is this?  The fashion calender is broken and illogical. I’m going to write here about the Marni AW 20 ‘Alice in Wonderland’ collection alongside Moocher’s pre-fall thing, because I’ve got queries about patchwork and they play well together.

 I have …complicated… feelings about the patchwork. We’re probably going to see more and more of it and I’m not sure we’re asking the right questions of it. How do we avoid it becoming just ‘aesthetic’ (in pop speak = empty), rather than a manner of process that informs continual work going forward and results in an un-replicable feeling, a new angle on reality (an….. aesthetic). How to stop it becoming something we all get bored of? Because, the only guarantee in fashion is boredom.

 Patchwork collage

 Miu was a solid offering – it maintains a certain quality, obvs – and is good in its own way according to its own logic as Miuccia’s offerings usually are. A vision of commerce, yes, but also a kaleidoscopic frozen moment of girlhood that wants to aid us in our navigation from then to there, the ‘there’ being an upcoming un-season (A/W/S/S?) and maybe a sense of maturity. Now, there’s no point in me complaining about low quality info from the establishment on their dealings then failing to engage thoroughly with work when it is delivered in detail on multiple fronts (written aspect, full campaign, video that I can’t find anymore but remember seeing unless it was a hallucination, and look book – many angles).

 Embellished bodices/check check/white fuzzy tights/nice shiny heels/19th c take on afghan jacket very good/prairie psycho/much boring merch – (awkward stances suggest candid, ambivalent)

   Miu look book Collage

Our press release ponders:

 ‘When was the last occasion you lived in an enclosed world, where time stretched out, seemingly endlessly, in front of you? When was the last time your interior world felt as important as the exterior one, where you were free to imagine and to contemplate who you might actually want to be? Chances are it was when you were a teenager, with all of the triumphs and trepidations that entailed, particularly if you were a teenage girl.’

 Well, it sure sounds like it sucks to be a real adult who gave up on their dreams. When was the last time I felt free in my internal playground? Every day of my life, bitches. I’m your anomaly, Prada copy-writer. But, point taken. Work sucks when you’re doing it for other people, and we’ve all had times when you feel caught and pinched and empty in our creative attempts. And now, we’ve all been grounded by our stupid parents for the last few months. Stuck in our rooms. Some by choice, some not. And if we’re allowed out right now, the second spike is coming and we’re all depressed about the limits we have to live under in order to reduce advancing death.

 ‘A dream-like, interior world is conjured through Douglas Irvine’s photography to match the external, magical manifestation on display in the clothing. A blur of florals and glittering visual embellishment, diaphanous drape and ecstatic movement belie the strict foundations for both the images and garments.’

 campaign collage

  So far, so wordy and detailed. A world is glimpsed. One with blurs but strict foundations. A real world made hazy. We have classic codes walking in a trepidatious vein. Miu Miu girl is testing out the limits of her horizons, playing with her identity through her clothes and thinking to herself, how much do I want to give away? What will I keep? But the text continues:

 ‘Wearing a clothing collection that splices the utilitarian with the formal, the everyday with the extravagant, delicate artisanal embellishment is contrasted with and applied to a notion of the sturdily homespun. Here, nineteenth century literary heroines, both fictional and actual, are channelled, the sources of teenage-girl bedroom revolutions in both style and substance, yet worn by a new generation of everyday heroines with all of their contrasting clothing choices.’

 We lose track here. Not sure this collection actually feels ‘artisanal’ or ‘sturdily homespun’. there’s the late 20-teens pop refrain of dark psychedelia’s fixation on moth-eaten fin de siècle grandness, the upending of 19th C avant-garde in the counter-culture’s looping democratisation. We have an eclecticism, a thriftiness, a carelessness with the past symptomatic of isolated children playing with a mish-mash of pieces born of hemmed-in theatrics.

 3 MIU PICS

 MORE – CAMPAIGN/POSES/FACES/DESCRIBE CLOTHES – here comes what night?. Colour, focus. Don’t really like the clothes, wouldn’t wear any of this tbh.

 CAMPAIGN PICS coll

  As for Marni’s Alice in Wonderland, I have languishing notes which seem as old and tired as the idea of 2019. I was practising twitter threadiness, and got as far as notes on Milan before the covid freeze set in my mind. I like mixed responses, it’s the only thing that feels fair, but with those Milan collections I couldn’t achieve any sort of resolution or clear point. I didn’t know how I felt anymore. I’m unresolved in how I feel about criticism. It should be functional, but not necessarily constructive, if I feel the need to tear something down, as a critic that is within my job description. I’ll write a proper bit on the perils of fashion criticism from a distance, but in short I feel that it’s unfair to criticise a designer’s work from afar, especially negatively, but that until the fashion community realises the value of a public culture of critique (criticism being the only process by which you can hope to form an art system), real critics engaged with honestly parsing the strengths and weaknesses of fashion practice in service of public health will have to criticise from afar. This will impact the quality of the work, but it is hoped the audience can accept the pinch of salt required of virtual critique of a virtual fashion experience. The subject of the criticism here isn’t the clothes. I’m not asking questions of fit, of quality, I’m asking whether this is good fashion communication, as a time-dependent media phenomenon.  And, yes, I know I’m late on this one. Temporal fashion stress must take a rain check at present.

 Marni –

“collaged from the beginning to the end—from macro to micro to fractal. It’s about putting together remnants.”

 cut velvet woven by hand in a factory in Venice on looms that were originally designed by Leonardo da Vinci—a vanishing, time-consuming craft that Risso understandably wants to “protect and exalt.”

 “Are we in a psychedelic world and we need to be more grounded, or are we in a caged world and we need to be freed by psychedelia?”

  THREE MARNI

 risso Quotes:

“Finding beauty in the leftovers,”

“There’s a beauty in the past. I was kind of upset lately, thinking about people on their phones -- what about these objects that take hours to make, like these Venetian tapestries?”.                          mosaic of the remnants.

new, conceptual territory,

remnants of the previous collections

“It’s a celebration of DIY, Alice in Wonderland, and it’s about her spirit, her searching and questioning,”

the Cheshire Cat’s “We’re all mad here” mantra, as he talked about mandalas and allowing time for ideas to grow.

“Her spirit is within each creature, always wondering and questioning,”

“Making this collection has been the strangest mystery,” he confided. “It’s almost as if it regenerated itself – recreated itself – like an insatiable mosaic.”

 THREE MARNI

  At their best they’re the insatiable fractal mosaic he speaks of – something that situates you betwixt density and freedom. Was patchy – moments of clarity, moments of aimlesslness.. Appreciate the fashion-as-curious-adventure methodology. Ties and openness and rotation were true to Marni.. Materials – twisted tradition meeting rational plain cottons hit the mark. Gold rings, like they’ve melted through from another dimension. They were scattered over the body, but I was left wanting to know more of this motif – what if it become structural, like a portal to another plane? Patchwork that doesn’t feel done in good faith. Like a trick. None of these shapes are done in the spirit of patchwork, like the wrong kind of luxury. Too much care is given to appearing careless, but a reach for dizzying angles in effect sidelines affect – it feels tidily resolved, and then mussed around at the end. I’m probably wrong on many fronts about the reality of their process. But what I’m feeling right now is that if all you’re aiming for is the ‘look’ of patched pieces rather that the ‘ethic’ or process of thrift, then you’ll just get trapped in an endless empty labyrinth of false choices. It’s not about the look, it’s about shiftinG your total parameters of design decision making going forward. Additive.

  I’m still figuring out how I feel about this. Both these collections suffer from a neat, pat resolution of the question of the deadstock aesthetic that avoids the hard work of engaging with the limitations of that mode of work. Where is the tension? Where is the sacrifice? The loss of freedom in thrift must be acknowledged. If you’re telling me a story about a lost girl in a crazy world that makes no sense, why do her questions of her physical environment feel so impersonal? Many designers are going to turn to patchworking, out of both necessity and fashion gameplaying. Each designer is going have to work their way to an individual conversation with the difficult questions of recycling while avoiding the traps of the easy way out. Both teams failed at this test, in these collections. Sustainability isn’t easy, or anywhere close to being properly engaged with by our establishment figures. (Viktor & Rolf are a good example of recycling feeling right and thought about and cared for).

 Viktor&Rolf samples

  I’m reading Lolita at the moment. (CAN YOU TELL?)  I’m not a good reader. (CAN YOU TELL?)  A.D.D., I guess. I get bored and drift off to fantasyland. But here’s a stab at some fancypants analysis: The far-off subject, Lolita herself, is overlooked by the narrator’s masturbatory myopia. Her exploration of her own girlhood/womanhood is reduced and flattened by her abuser who needs her to be something else, something thing-y. A two-dimensional being. The tension between predation and autonomy, her wounded rebellion and navigation of self are so distant in the book you can’t help but want to reach out to her, through her abuser’s hideous twisted lens. Humbert’s POV colours everything, Lolita isn’t permitted her own take, everything she does is ridiculous and gazed down upon, he feels he’s permitted to just take her, to prioritise his own long-abated lust without thought of the consequences to her sense of self.

 This vibe I’m analysing here, the bruised and fuzzy self-discovery of Miu Miu and the lost-play of Marni, kind of feels like it hasn’t really shrugged off the top-down, hidden, extractive gaze of the cornered, self-pitying male power player. Maybe the viewer is Humbert. Maybe I’m Humbert. Maybe you’re Lolita. Maybe vice versa. But he’s there, in the corner, or taking the picture. Someone’s always taking it in, and jealously building a crypto-fantasy version of the girl, even as our self-birthing adolescent is feeling towards a way to fight it off.

 campaign

 Spring 2020 was a fucking twisted, disorienting, stretched moment. Tough times for fashion practitioners, not just in terms of lost profits or mob moralising (pppeoppllle arree dyyinnnngggg howww daree you talkkkk aboutttt fashioonnnn) but in the nuts and bolts of fashion practice – if the role of the fashion designer is to collaborate with their wearers in plotting a path to the future, when a world-re-orienting catastrophe occurs, it rapidly recontextualises their attempts at constructing a scaffold around the unknown. The idea that the future can be planned for and known through schedules and aesthetic anticipation gets rumbled. The foundation of that building site got a bit cracked during this Spring’s quake. Mapped onto ongoing structural issues in, what I guess in this analogy is a renovation of our historic temporal orientation casino, basically fashion collapsed in its usual confidence along with the economy (economics being fashion with numbers and no fun so it’s respectably masc. vom). Who knows who’s going to go out of business. There may not be a Miu Miu or a Marni or whoever in the future. Names we take for granted are just going to die. That’s a loss for the art aspect. Cus these guys are creative, mad geniuses who deserve a healthy context for their vision. (OTOH: die, fashion industry, die! I dance in the glow of the flames of your destruction with gleeee). These two collections actually speak to me across the span of the last six months, which takes some doing. They succeeded in the criteria that we should actually apply to fashion practice: satnav for the social soul. As sense of protection from the twists of time. A hand to hold. Someone to talk to. And time is super twisty rn. Good job holding on as we fall through the looking glass, random Italians! Now, to work.

 COLLAGE

 Colours – piecework – slippery glistening rainbow lensflares – Marni, FR places himself as an agent of chaos, someone with a hidden explanation refusing to submit to logic and set ways, a spanner in the works of Alice’s complacency.

 Patchwork, rhizomatic? (????, what is that. Idk, just sounds funnnn), no beginning and end, things relating to one another in disjointed, flexible ways. FR gives is little hints at the instability that patching offers, the early looks in Miu are far too comfortable. In the cut, sheets are formed out of set shapes – traditional, in the spirit of that half-remembered literary heroine – but neat, very very neat. Happy patchwork . Not patchwork that’ll prompt you to any alternative engagement with your world. FR is poking holes, even burning them out with molten gold, playing with the limits of ‘traditional’ or easily molded pieces. There’s skirts that feature block pieces - an armhole, a curve that any dressmaker will recognise, but set elsewhere, surrounded by other pieces so that the shaping becomes as redundant as Alice’s desperate attempts to right her upside down world. That ordered, shaping impulse is pawed at in the Marni work, but indulged in by Miu Miu. Our Miu Miu heroine feels more like an only slightly misunderstood brat, but Marni’s Alice is strung out and barely even human anymore. I’m disappointed in both approaches, but Marni, as the radically abstract collection that’s pushing concept on us, is the one that actually fails in its aims. Mrs Prada & Co are aware of the limits of commercial offerings. They’re happy to speak when permitted, in the lulls between commerce. It’s pragmatic and unadventurous, romantic within set bounds. It’s a walk in the park, where Marni is a clumsy trip through an open manhole cover.

 COLLAGE

 I said at the beginning of this that if we’re only going to see more patchwork as a process we actually have to grapple with it, and there’s a risk at this point in fashion that the fashion people (c’est moi aussi, mfs) are going to go ‘oh, been there, done that, on to the next thing’ without ever actually engaging with it as a means of creating fashion. What does (BRANDNAME) recycling look like, what makes it (BRANDNAME) in a way that become part of a lexicon long term rather than another sticky-plaster? Patchworking is many things, but what are its fundamentals? It’s a way of forming textile surfaces that accepts that which is available. It’s humble and more concerned with ethics than end result. The small squares/triangles in traditional American quilting are ways to systematically optimise waste pieces and merge them with other pieces. This in its own turn creates more micro-waste, perhaps to be used as stuffing, but forcing scraps into legible grids is very strict and imperial, the grid being an easy way of organising a surface from above. Grids and precise geometries are more like things overlaid, not bubbling up from beneath. They’re simple and readily comprehensible. There’s other forms of merging irregular pieces: think of rag-rug like textiles, crocheting with strips, or applique. Certain aesthetic choices can be made when you’re actually working with the idea of recycling waste material, rather than looking for an end-result before you even started. A cut piece has an end but with patchwork it can become endless. There’s kind of something anti-hierarchical about it. Waste pieces formed out of negative space can relate to each other not in the sense of ‘this looks pretty’ but more in the sense of ‘spontaneity rules’.

 I’m realllly self-consciousness about existing in the purgatory between between fashion and theory. Theory thinking of itself as ‘too serious’ for fashion and fashion of itself ‘too fun’ for complex discussion (sidebar: can we stop talking about showstudio as if it is in any way innovative? I can’t watch those videos. I have classic fashion goldfishitis. Where is my colour and jazziness and silly nonsense. Why tf do fashion people think ‘oh, critique! must be unfashion. Must sit in room being boring with no cuts or editing. Here, watch a fucking zoom call, fuck your need for beauty.’ The motherfuckers are working against us. Hate, Hate, Hate, you fucking jerks). So, my difficulty lies in how to dodge the hierarchical perception of theorising, people assuming you’re talking down rather than across, when they’re often dyslexic or disinterested in this kind of stuff because they’ve been taught to think it’s ‘beyond’ them or it’s just some bullshit they’ve found boring/embarrassing/trauamatizing. There’s nothing wrong with finding something boring when it’s engaging in elitist and hierarchical perceptions of ‘intellctualismsm’ or ‘quality’. There’s so much work to do, so much rubble to excavate. I’m not writing about Deleuze & Guattari’s analyses of patchwork for a reason here: I haven’t read them. I attempted A Thousand Plateaus in undergrad, gave up, and since then have really struggled with this feeling of being caught between modes of being - visual/verbal/temporal. Fashion zonked, theory enraged. I have a deep respect for the communicative power of dress and fashion media, paired with immense frustration at the slight engagement with complexity in the culture. Theorizing can be colourful, can be fun, can be bright. Fashion doesn’t need to abandon these wonderful things in order to have some self-respect. In fact, its self-respect will only be assured when it learns to push forward towards aggravating, complex dialectics in its own styles of discourse that fashion people actually want to engage with. I expect at some point within the next decade I’ll find a way to develop my self-confidence in reading beyond wikipedia and want to return properly to the topic of quilting and patchwork in relation to rhizomes and abstract post-structural philosophy, but I’m not there yet. Maybe there’s nothing there in D&G, just hot air, or maybe fashion isn’t worthy of theorising. Both suck in various ways. I’m not confident enough in the theory realm to interact with any self-assurance in a way that computes in both worlds. I’m only just learning to piece myself back together after trying to work within fashion’s established methods and failing. I’m here slowly feeling my way towards engaging properly as a dedicated reader and a dedicated fashion practitioner. But the responsibility to push forward and make fashion practice sufficiently rigorous, self-reflexive, critical and engaged with other fields while playing to its own strengths as discipline that actually brings something to the table, without the solidarity of peers engaged in the same questions, it gets a bit disorienting sometimes.

[vesperlionheart]

Dream Sweet in Sea Major 2

When considering traditional standards of beauty or masculine charm, the features that made Yagura recognizable were not often considered. A notable scar below the one eye, irises colored bleeding pink, and a diminished stature that confused him with children if viewed from behind. No, Yagura was not what tradition would call beautiful, but he was other things.

Among those things he was old, considerably old, and in all the years of his long existence he had learned how to be. He knew what angles worked for him, what lighting suited his features, and how to lower his tenor to a velvet edged voice that could turn razor sharp in a second.  He knew how to hold himself, how to dress himself, how to carry himself. He knew his worth and his worth was pretty damn high. The world was meant for him and was his. He acted as haughty as he pleased and the world slid right into his palm.

It gave him no little delight to be proven time and time again that the world was his to manipulate and take from as he pleased. The woman in the doorway seemed to do nothing more than stoke his already engorged ego.

There was blood across the floor and a dead hand under the toe of his designer shoes. Yagura leaned his head to the side and lowered his lids before lifting a rolled cigarette to his lips and cupping the end. A small burn of red and the end caught and began to smoke.  

With the toe of his shoe he poked under the dead hand and kicked it up so it flopped back down onto the face of the corpse just as he took a long drag to exhale in semi dramatic fashion. The woman in the doorway didn’t move, and her eyes were still glued in appreciation to his figure even though half the other employees were scared and hiding.

“That’s enough for now,” he said to the other boys, turning away so the tail ends of his jacket flapped like a cape behind him. It made his walk all the more purposeful as he walked past the hungry woman and left her wanting. He didn’t even glance her way as he called out to the boys behind him.

“I think they got the message here. We’ll be back in the hour though if they step into our turf again.”

“You think we needed to leave so few alive?” Haku asked in a clear voice that reminded Yagura of the ice.

“Ao?” Yagura grunted before exhaling smoke again.

Ao came up behind Hake and purposefully stopped to turn and look behind them before pulling his gun out from the front breast pocket of his gray pinstripe. He aimed in less than a second and recoiled only slightly when the shot rang out and sank into the woman in the doorway’s forehead.

Slowly, purposefully, Ao put his gun away and reached for his hat instead. The rack had all their hats, as well as a few others that would never be worn by their owners again.

Yagura fit his fedora and pulled the front down low over his eyes before stepping out. A thin mist had settled and every so often the rain would come and wet the world further. It was perfect weather and the Mizu boys were all the stronger for it.

Haku begrudgingly followed his betters out and kept his head down, least his questions lead to more avoidable bloodshed. One woman was too risky to leave alive if she sported a handgun in the belt on her thigh? Apparently.

Ao drove, but Yagura rode from the backseat and was the real directioner for their group. If he didn’t want to go back to Mei’s place than they didn’t have to. She was technically their boss and really the only person that could handle Yagura enough to boss him into doing things for her.

It didn’t take long before they were back in the circle outside the estate. Before the rain could let up the trio exited their car and made it inside where the redhead of thought showed herself.

“And?” she asked, brandy tumbler in hand and eyes expectant. “How did it go?”

“As expected.”

“How many loose ends?” she asked, lips on the rim. Ao moved to stand close to her nearly behind her.

“Around four or seven. We shot the mole from the gentleman’s club.”

“I knew you would,” Mei sighed, shaking her head almost fondly.  “I won’t ask why or bore myself with the details. Say what you have to say and move on. I have my own business to attend to.”

Yagura paused. “Your own…what?”

He was being brushed off.

“There has been a development and I am putting more of my efforts into rooting out the black market dealers in the Barren District. They’ve been…concerning me after tonight.”

“Why. They’re of no consequence to us.”

Her back was to him as she looked to the far wall where a map of the districts was drawn up and put in simple black ink on tempered rice paper. “Someone claimed they were selling mermaid tail again.”

“Tragic. Since when were we bleeding hearts?” He reached to light another white cigarette but kept his hands from reaching, knowing  Mei didn’t like the smoke in her presence. She hated the smell, too.

“They’ve been on my nerves even without this last incident. They’ve become emboldened and tried to bring in what they shouldn’t have from the deep places. They mess with the ancient things and they will feel a swift and just wrath.” Mei looked away from the map and glared at something on the desk. “I don’t want to be swept up in their undertow when justice comes calling for them.”  

He frowned and almost glared at the women he considered too hesitant to take on an entire district in management. He almost regretted sleeping for the last thirty years and leaving the position of leadership vacant for whoever could grab it best. He had no desired to be in charge again, the responsibility was too burdensome and he enjoyed his freedom too much to chain himself to an idea, but Mei irked him. She settled under his scales the wrong way.

“Are you planning on involving myself and the others in these concerns or do you still want me gone?” Yagura asked, shifting the weight of his body from one leg to the other. He was ready to move one way or the other, not that he cared.

Mei turned back to look at him and the red of her hair flickered brilliantly as it reflected the healthy glow of the nearby fire. There was a crackle of charred wood breaking down between them before she found the words she wanted and nodded. “No. You may go. These matters need not concern you. I apologize for keeping you longer than need be. You may do as you please.”

He was dismissed so easily. She could have, but she didn’t ask for his help, even after he brought it up. Could she really be so foolish to ignore his aid?

Fine.

“As you say,” he muttered curtly before turning on his heel and making for the exit.

Yagura slept for a day or two, longer than usual, and woke feeling a bit less confrontational, but not fully rested. There was still a beast inside him that wasn’t done pacing. His agitation took him down to the garage.

“I’m sorry, but the car is out,” Suigetsu said, meekly ducking into his shoulders as he tried to shrink.

“What do you mean the car is out? Who took my car?”

It wasn’t really his car, but no one would dare touch it without him and he had come to grow found of the automobile. No one had ever taken it on their own before. It was unexpected.

“S-sorry sir. Um, Mei told Haku to take Sakura out shopping for some clothing supplies and other needs.”

He blinked only once in the silence between them. “…Who?”

“Oh, it was Haku.”

“No, who did Haku take out? I know who Haku is you dolt.”

“Sakura?” The younger boy’s fear didn’t fade, but Yagura watched as it faded into something more relaxed as Suigetsu smiled to himself and answering.  “She’s Mei’s guest, but Kisame brought her back and she’s been here since. She’s really nice.”

“And I have no car because Haku took her shopping.” Yagura clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

“Th-there are other cars you could use.”

“Not interested.”

Yagura went back to his room to sleep again for less than a day before coming back out again to seek out Zabuza and rope the older man into a patrol of the district they ran.

“He’s out with Ao in the Barren District,” Haku answered without looking up from his novel. The boy’s tone was light and faded, like it was air between them. “Should be back in a few hours.”

“What are they doing there?” Yagura asked in annoyance.

“Whatever Mei asks them. She said she told you she was looking into the movements in that district, didn’t you?” Haku looked up from his book for the first time and cocked his head at an angle to one side, eyes wide and innocent. “Or did she not fill you in on her plans because you were sleeping? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have bothered you with the distraction.”

Haku was almost worse than Mei with the sass sometimes. Zabuza let the kid get away with too much, and it was Yagura’s friendship with the old man that kept Yagura from swiping out and backhanding he kid out of his seat. The mental image was pleasing and the idea of violence made his very bones shake and then settle.

But he didn’t slap Haku. He took his agitation back to bed and slept again, suspecting things would be better the next waking day.

He was standing in the kitchen, staring into a densely packed fridge with one glaring absence.

“Who took my cannoli?” he seethed, slamming the door and storming out with a heading set for Kisame. The man ate like a tank and was in the kitchen more than anyone else. He would knew better than Yagura who the thief would be.

Yagura found the blue giant in the map room, helping Mei assemble pins on the board attached with scrolls wrapped up tight around the pins. Both looked up when he stormed in, but neither shrank or flinched. Mei didn’t need to and Kisame was a powerhouse in his own right. Kisame was likely the only other one who could go  toe to toe with Yagura and not suffer a horrible loss in the first twenty minutes of a fight.

“Who?” was all the shorter male ground out.

“What are you talking about now, dear?” Mei asked in a soft sort of voice best suited to mothers and lovers. Mei was neither to him and they both knew that. She was just his agitator.

“The kitchen. My cannoli.”

Kisame looked up. “Those weren’t yours. That was a run I made, and you were asleep and never asked for any.”

“There are always cannoli for me. Everyone else received their usual. Where is my cannoli, I can smell where it should have been.”

“Like I said, those weren’t for you. Sakura wanted to try one and she liked them, so I gave the rest to her,” Kisame admitted, ducking his head as he leaned over the table even further. Along the high ridges of his cheekbones and the shell of his ear his skin flushed a mellow shade of purple through his blue skin.

“Sakura?” he hissed the name.

“My guest,” Mei added. “Don’t be mean, she won’t like you.”

“I don’t like her, so that’s fine,” he snapped, feeling the static around his face charge. “When is she leaving?”

Kisame looked up suddenly and turned his eyes to Mei who rolled her lips against each other before leaning back away from the table and crossing her arms. Her eyes were on the flags, but she answered him in spite of her split attention.

“She may leave when she wishes. For as long as she has need of it, I will offer her shelter under my roof.”

“What is she contributing?”

Mei looked up sharply and her eyes were knives all on their own. “That is no business of yours. I will not speak on this matter further. You may run out yourself and buy any treat you wish, but leave me to my plans. I must meditate on this a while longer. Kisame? Grab me those cards.”

Mei’s attention slid off Yagura to the cards Kisame was handing her, blank except for a few names and addresses she was adding to the map. Just like before, he was so easily dismissed.

Fine.

That was… just fine.

He didn’t think he would, but the next day he heard the stranger ahead of him, stumbling about in the kitchen looking through the fridge. He stopped in the hall, finding himself at the crossroads of a choice. He had no plans that would take him into the kitchen, but the stranger they called Sakura was in there, and he had half a mind to scare her off before she ruined any more of his life.

Yes, it would be necessary to scare her a little.

He turned into the kitchen, feeling the agitation around his face as he rounded the corner and stopped with his feet firmly planted. Arms crossed he watched the shadow of her as she bend behind the door to the fridge and dug.

“What are you doing, you thief,” he hissed, voice deep and sharp, like a knife from below.

He saw her flinch and stumble backwards out from behind the door, still gripping its side. He could tell right away by the size and shape of her wrist she was small, thin, maybe malnourished, and less a threat to any odd room then he would ever be-even at his weakest.

He held onto his glare like a lifeline when she looked up at him, green eyes wide and glassy. She was a mess, a young, scared mess, and it took the fight out of him.

He growled, hating the feeling he sensed at her reveal. The source of his agitation was before him, but scaring her or intimidating her would do nothing but agitate him further.  

She stepped out further and he noticed how she carried herself on unsteady legs, the unusual angle she moved at, and how thin her ankles were with bare feet and miles of bare legs. She was wearing a dress, but it was too small to consider appropriate for anything other than sleepwear.

With a small sort of horror he realized the hour was late and the sky was dark beyond the windows and that fancy white lace was exactly what he thought it was. He had caught her in her sleeping things like some sort of pervert.

Didn’t she know better?

He looked away, cheeks red up to his ears. “What are you doing here?”

“Food?”

Something curled up in his chest and he almost doubled over from the surprise of the feeling. Her voice was like a memory in his heart and he knew instantly that she was one of the mer folk known for their voices. There was no way she could be anything else. Additionally, Mei mentioned mermaid tail being sold again. No one told him, but he figured it all out.

“You need something to eat, then?” he grunted, voice less sharp and melting fast.

When she nodded he hated how it made her seem smaller than she already was, like she was shrinking away into nothingness. He took a step towards her.

“Then eat something. What are you looking for? There is plenty to choose from.” He came up behind her and glared over her shoulder into the fridge. “There are cookies and cake and frozen pasta. All excellent choices.”

“…No cannoli?”

“Ah, well, I guess you just have a more refined taste than the others. No, there is no cannoli. The only one who eats it is me.”

Sakura wilted at the confession, but nodded in agreement. “Oh. Okay.” She looked to the fridge and then over at Yagura. “Thanks anyway.”

“You’re not going to take something else?”

Sakura shrugged. “I-I’ve tried some other stuff, but it all made me sick so far. Mei said I would adjust in time.”

“So you can’t keep anything else down,” he mused, thinking how horrible that must be. No wonder she was so thin. She hadn’t been properly taken care of.

“Come on,” he said, leading her by the arm. “The bakery operated on a 24 seven schedule. Go change and meet me in the garage. I was heading out there on my own anyway, and I guess it wouldn’t be too much trouble if you tagged along. You wouldn’t be able to get them without me anyway at this hour.”

“Change into one of the new dresses? Will it be…long?”

“Not truly, at least not at this hour. Go, that’s not appropriate to be seen in. When you come out in the future you should wear a robe. Has no one told you how you could cover up or even why?”

Sakura hook her head before nodding once awkwardly and hopping off to change. She came back after several long minutes in a plain gray and blue pinstripe pattern. It was modest, neat, and somehow she made it look like the opposite of what it had been intended for; simple wearing. She clutched a small purse, too thin to hold much.

“You won’t need that,” he grumbled, turning and stalking into the garage with a backwards wave meant to encourage her to follow. “It’s unthinkable to accept the pennies of the poor. Save it.”

He stopped when he realized she wasn’t following. He turned, glower fresh.

“What is it?”

“You’re Yagura right?”

“Huh, what of it?”

Sakura dipped her head and the loose strands of coral pink slid over her shoulders. “Thank you. I’m Sakura.”

He didn’t fluster, but maybe Yagura did go a bit red in the face, embarassed to be thanked so directly.

“Whatever,” he muttered, turning his back to her and walking on. “You’ll need new clothes too. Next time we’ll replace those drab things Haku chose for you. Nothing even came with a hair ribbon. Really, they should be ashamed of their hospitality.”

She followed silently, but with a smile.

“What is that?”

“What does it look like?” he barked. 

Mei frowned, looking down at the bag of hands, some still fresh with wet blood. “It looks like a mess. Where did they come from?”

“You won’t find anyone willing to cut up a mermaid tail for food any longer. “

[flauntpage]

Renato Moicano is a Jack of All Trades, with Answers for All

Renato Moicano is not a fighter who presents a single, stand-out problem. No one is writing home about his thunderous right hand, his blindingly fast jab, or his unstoppable double leg takedown. The Brazilian brings a fairly mundane toolkit to his fights but can eye up an opponent and tell you exactly what is needed within a few minutes of sparring. And when Moicano has assessed his man and hit on what is working, it is ruthlessly exploited until his opponent can no longer keep pace. No, Moicano has no standout technique or tactic to set the featherweights of the world quivering in their boots, but he has something much more useful: he has answers.

Even if you are a fairly committed follower of the UFC, Renato Moicano’s surge to prominence in the featherweight division might have caught you by surprise. Moicano arrived in the UFC in December 2014, beating Tom Niinimaki fairly impressively on the undercard of a Fight Night event. Unfortunately, Moicano was taken out of action by injuries and missed the entirety of 2015, and only managed one mundane decision victory in May 2016.

After another year out, Moicano returned to the cage on April 15, 2017 to face the No. 5 ranked featherweight, Jeremy Stephens. It was an opportunity that seemingly came out of nowhere and yet Mociano made good on it. The Brazilian made Stephens look foolish, clipping off crisp jabs, low kicks and combinations before circling away from Stephens’s straight-armed swings. Since then, Moicano has managed to stay healthy and looked impressive boxing up Brian Ortega (before falling into a guillotine choke), and outclassed Calvin Kattar and Cub Swanson in 2018.

There isn’t a lot about Moicano that you can grab onto: none of his weapons are the fastest or the hardest or the crispest in the division, and that might account somewhat for his almost sneaking up on the featherweight top ten. We are touting him as a brilliant striker, yet he hasn’t scored a single knockout. But when you have access to the footage and you can watch one fight after another, the changes Moicano makes from fight to fight are a more exciting indicator of potential than any Zabit Magomedsharipov or Yair Rodriguez jumping spin kick.

Stephens – Lateral Movement, Straight Hitting

Jeremy Stephens’s game is well known. He is going to walk forward and attempt to kick your lead leg very hard, or take your head off by swinging his hands. The problem is that he’s extremely tough and has a pretty good gas tank for someone swinging all their being into every shot. Even the very best fighters in the world have to show they are capable of adapting in order to beat him.

One of the key weaknesses in Stephens’s game is his footwork. He can cut the cage for a while, but tends to get frustrated by direction changes, and when he gets frustrated his ring cutting gets even worse. So Moicano set to work floating around the cage with his feet almost parallel. This was a stark contrast to his usual long, low stance. With his feet level Moicano could side step more effectively. Each time Stephens stepped in he ate Moicano’s jab, then Moicano would circle off into space and Stephens would have to cut the ring all over again.

Of course no one can be perfect all the time, so Moicano did end up at the fence from time to time. But the Brazilian kept his head (and remembered to move it) and then cut tighter angles out to the side. He often did this by stepping across himself, allowing a tight pivot around to face the opponent or permitting him to run straight through into a sprint in the style of Alexander Gustafsson if he felt particularly troubled.

When the judges’ decision was announced, one judge saw it—bizarrely—for Stephens, perhaps because he had been advancing the entire time. The problem is that moving forward while getting lanced by jabs is really only dictating the pace at which you get your ass kicked. But to everyone else it was quite a coup, Moicano was basically unknown and Stephens had just fought a far closer fight against the great Frankie Edgar who was being lined up for a title shot.

Ortega – Catch and Pitch

Unfortunately, Moicano’s path to the top was hindered slightly in his next match where he made the first misstep of his UFC career, against Brian Ortega. The fight started out well for Moicano as he abandoned the mobile style and opted to play catch and pitch with Ortega. Ortega likes to throw hard and one or two at a time, he also likes to attempt to shoulder roll off his opponent’s right hand but does it pretty poorly, leaving his chin up and his shoulder low. So Moicano carried his left forearm upright, ready to catch Ortega’s right hand and immediately return with his own.

Moicano had success returning on Ortega’s right hands but was caught by surprise at just how durable Ortega was. Moicano put over a hundred blows onto Orega’s head but there was very little to show for it, where Ortega had opened up Moicano’s nose pretty badly in one of the opening trades.

It got pretty heated as Moicano forced more and more trades.

Moreover, for all his technical shortcomings, Ortega often shows a talent for the science of striking. By the second round Ortega was sneaking in body punches while Moicano teed off on his head. By the third round, Moicano was breathing hard. A reactive takedown late in the second round had scored Moicano some points and won him some breathing room, but an attempt at the same in round three saw him dragged into the vaunted Ortega guillotine and he was quickly submitted.

The Ortega fight stands as an example of Moicano doing his reconnaissance and not adapting appropriately because he was too invested in his first plan. Moicano found good success with low kicks as Ortega stepped in. He also found Ortega’s body easily when he shot for it in his punching combinations. But he rarely returned to these targets and instead stuck to his guns in swinging for Ortega’s head.

Kattar – Killing the Jab

Calvin Kattar met Moicano coming off a tremendous knockout over Shane Burgos. Kattar was known as a kickboxer but did much of his work floating in behind a jab in order to score a good right hand. Moicano’s task in this fight seemed to be cutting down Kattar’s mobility while mitigating Kattar’s straight hitting. For the early going it was all the usual Moicano check hooks and the odd kick, but Moicano really found his stride when he timed Kattar with low kicks as Kattar stepped in.

The traditional in and out style of boxing cannot be performed without one leg leading the entire body into the opponent’s range, so as that leg stepped, Moicano punted it—either moving his head off line or checking Kattar’s hands with his own as he did so.

Here Moicano demonstrates one of the prettiest techniques in counter kicking—slipping inside of the jab and countering with the right low kick to buckle the opponent’s planting leg.

A few jarring connections as Kattar stepped in and suddenly Kattar wasn’t so mobile. Kattar would follow Moicano around the cage and then Moicano would stop and start checking Kattar’s hands, showing him feinted jabs and straights, and then as Moicano threw a kick from this close range you could almost see in Kattar’s face the disappointment that he had been suckered once again.

A common feature of Moicano fights is distance control. If he is not doing his own hitting, he simply isn’t there. It hardly seems sporting but that is the way good striking is done. So if Moicano stands still in front of his opponent, you can be pretty much assured there is a trap being set.

Moicano’s movement and distance work against Kattar was broken up by periods where he would stand in front of Kattar, heavy on the front foot in his long stance, and extend his right hand to either check Kattar’s lead hand or obstruct the path of the jab. Obstructing the path of the jab is a great trick that you will see all the time in MMA—it looks like the fighter is open for the left hook behind his extended right hand, but the entire point is to stifle the quickest punch the opponent has, and being ready to react to the slower one that is being offered up.

After eating a couple of those low kicks as he stepped in, Kattar became more cautious in these little pawing exchanges, and then Moicano was free to skip up and hack away with the inside low kick.

When obstructing a jabber’s best weapon, a fighter has to know that the moment his checking hand slips from that path, the moment his opponent’s lead fist is shown a glimmer of sunlight, that jab is going to fly out of its own accord. So rather than simply shutting down an opponent’s jab, a fighter might do even more damage to his opponent’s confidence through carefully choosing when he is going to allow his opponent to jab. Moicano’s right hand was rarely off of the line of Kattar’s jab, but when it was, Kattar’s jab would come like clockwork and Moicano would immediately slip to the elbow side of it and return with a counter right hand.

A final crafty look was Moicano’s work from southpaw. He would occasionally switch stances and then lead with a right uppercut. This served to raise the head of Kattar and stand him upright. Following with a body kick, a leg kick, or a high kick, Moicano was able to score good connections on Kattar throughout the fight. This use of the southpaw right uppercut to both close the distance and stand the opponent up was a staple of the great Nak Muay, Yodsanklai.

Other Habits

Of course there are features of Moicano’s game which are constant from fight to fight. As we remarked earlier, what he does best is adjust the ratios to suit his opponent. On Saturday night, Moicano faces Jose Aldo—the most accomplished featherweight in MMA history and while Moicano deserves this opportunity he has by no means been flawless. Moicano’s check hooks are a double edged sword—he scores many of his best connections by leaning back and whipping out the left hook as his opponent chases him, but he also exposes himself horribly when he does so.

Moicano’s bad habit is the same that Francis Ngannou had when he first came to the UFC. He has his timing down on the check hook and has good success on it, but rather than slide back with his feet or drop his right foot back and lean back into his stance, he will often come up out of his stance and lean back only at the waist. This means that there are many, many awkward occasions in Moicano fights where the opponent is almost on top of him and he is swinging with his hands low and performing a limbo. (It is worth noting that Ngannou fixed this habit and you can see him perform the same technique with much neater mechanics and while maintaining his stance against Andrei Arlovski.)

Like Ngannou, Moicano will pair his check hook with a right uppercut. It’s a good combination because if the opponent senses the hook he will normally drop his head and crunch down to protect himself, then the bus driver uppercut clacks his teeth together.

In the above example, Moicano actually shifts off to his left side as he throws the check hook, taking him into a southpaw stance to land a right hook/uppercut. We all recall this sneaky southpaw hook from the ninety degree angle as Mike Tyson’s favorite punch, but it is hardly a modern invention. Here is Georges Carpentier (world light heavyweight champion from 1920 to 1922) demonstrating the exact same shift to line up the right hand.

Moicano’s back-leaning check hooks are the most worrying because should Moicano go into a lean like this and his opponent instead show him a double jab and commit to covering ground before letting go the right hand, Moicano will have nowhere to go when that right hand comes.

And even those shifts into southpaw out to the side have their problems. Brian Ortega caught Moicano with clotheslines every time he stepped out to the right in this manner with his head up in the air and that is how Moicano got bloodied up in that fight in the first place.

While the counter hooks work wonderfully when Moicano can get opponents reaching for his head, his Achilles heel in the Ortega fight turned out to be his body. You can’t lean your gut out of reach. Moicano is a gangly guy for the weight class and drives a hard pace to begin with, a bit of body work could slow his feet and cause him all kinds of trouble. Jose Aldo’s commitment to bodywork has been sporadic, but after he handed Jeremy Stephens a very rare knockout loss with a liver shot, you have to think he’ll be coming into this fight with a new appreciation for hitting the midriff.

We have only really hit the main points of Moicano’s striking, and there is a lot of clever stuff he does that we just don’t have time to cover in depth (marching double kick combinations like an old school American kickboxer, upward elbows and so on) but it is worth noting just how smooth Moicano has looked on the ground in his UFC fights. He hasn’t scored a single career knockout, but that statistic hides the fact that he has hurt a lot of opponents and then methodically finished them on the ground. You will remember this as B.J. Penn’s typical gameplan, but there’s a touch of Penn in Moicano’s top game as well. When met with butterfly guard, Moicano will clear one knee, drop to a hip and then simply step over the other hook straight into mount.

In his most recent fight, against Cub Swanson, Moicano set to work establishing the jab and frustrating Swanson who was forced to leap to close the distance. A stiff jab sent Swanson to the mat and Moicano quickly found himself in the mount. As a Swanson fan it is sometimes more fun to watch him work hurt because his ground game is something quite wily—constantly working back to half butterfly guard and hitting stand ups and sweep attempts from there. As Moicano postured up to strike, Swanson sat straight up into him, scooting back on his hands and sneaking a knee in to accomplish butterfly half-guard. But even against a guard player as slick as Swanson, Moicano sat to his hip again and swept the leg over to mount once more. Eventually Moicano was able to subdue Swanson with a rear naked choke.

UFC on ESPN+ 2 is an absolutely stacked card of fights for the educated fight fan. From Moraes vs. Assuncao to Oliveira vs. Teymur to Alves vs. Griffin, there are some seriously compelling match ups between high level technicians scheduled. It should tell you something that instead of covering all of those we chose to focus entirely on one fighter today and on his style rather than the specifics of his upcoming bout.

Renato Moicano has shown the ability to spot openings and ruthlessly exploit them, changing his game on the fly without instruction, and even among the elite that remains a rare skill. He has the makings of something very special and it is important that you know that, and in turn that you know just how good Jose Aldo is if he can, at this advanced stage in his career, beat such a prospect.

Jack Slack wrote the biography Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and hosts the Fights Gone By podcast.

Renato Moicano is a Jack of All Trades, with Answers for All published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[ophionrp-blog]

L Y S I A S, SON OF ARES, IS A FIRST GENERATION SOLDIER // he is twenty-seven & a weapons trainer at arcadia. he resides in room 201, ithaca.

AGE YOUR MUSE JOINED MOIRAE

he joined arcadia when he was 5, and graduated to ithaca when he was 19. he was one of the first few soldiers to be admitted to moirae, having been born for this very reason. his father, ares, who was working with the fates at that time, personally trained him until he was 5 and started exhibiting supernatural powers. immediately after he was shown to possess these abilities, he was sent to moirae for further development, as well as to participate in the more experimental stages of the institute. as part of the first generation, he went through much hardship and emerged as the few who managed to graduate from arcadia.

ABILITY

accelerated healing: regenerates cells quicker than a normal human would, which gives him regenerative properties.

superhuman strength: self-explanatory, his strength exceeds a normal human’s.

weapon mastery, ability to master any weapon at first touch: he can pick up weapons and battle with it perfectly without ever having used it, or have had prior lessons on handling it. this extends to using other demigods as his weapons. it allows him to harness their powers, but with limited strength. it’s downfalls are elaborated upon below.

STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES OF THEIR ABILITIES

accelerated healing:

strength: shallow cuts are healed within seconds. deep gashes and wounds can be healed by the minute. his pain threshold is extremely high, and being severely injured does not deter him. weakness: he cannot regenerate limbs even if they’re put back in place, and bones take days to heal. he’s not a particularly strong healer compared to his counterparts.

superhuman strength:

strength: he can lift things that are a lot heavier than a normal human would be able to. examples include: small cars and multiple people at a time with ease. it makes him exceptional at hand-to-hand combat, which, along with his high stamina, builds an excellent fighter. weakness: again, he’s not particularly strong in relation to other demigods, and can be considered average in this aspect too.

weapon mastery:

strength: his choice of weapon is limitless and he does not require training for any of them. this has enabled him to become a weapon’s trainer in arcadia, and allows him to use advanced weapons that he picks up from enemy camps while on the battlefield. he can harness other demigod’s powers, which makes him a jack of all trades, in a sense. weakness: he can only harness powers upon touch. every session lasts 6 minutes before he has to establish physical contact again, and there is a cool down period of 10 minutes each time. when he uses them, the powers he harnesses is only 20% of its original strength. the original demigod will still retain their strength. for example, if he were to harness the power of flying, he’d probably only be able to hover slightly above the ground.

overall, his powers, except for weapon mastery, are pretty basic. he can be considered to be towards the weaker end of the demigod spectrum, which is a defining property of his life, and why he’s the way he is right now. however, he makes up for this with his exceptional battle combat, using his powers to assist him in war, rather than having it be his main source of strength. like his father, he is very well-suited for the battlefield and possesses traits like good endurance, high pain tolerance and mercilessness. they are not technically supernatural powers, but are why he’s a powerful soldier despite his average demigod abilities. he is more of a traditional soldier.

PERSONALITY

he’s seen to be a very charismatic person: loud, brash and confident. he speaks at will and is not afraid to be rude, unless he wishes to manipulate someone into doing something. he carries himself with a sort of playfulness that may be off-putting to some because he hardly takes things seriously— everything is a game to him, whether or not people get hurt in the process. lying compulsively is just one of the many things he does to get people playing into the palm of his hand. more often than not, they never realise they’re being toyed with.

despite being surrounded with people due to his friendly disposition, he’s often seen as a lone wolf because he’s a terrible team player. to him, there are no allies on the battlefield, and he will not hesitate to take the lives of other fellow soldiers during missions, even if they’re fighting on the same side. it’s every man for himself, and the weakest will fall. this has led to moirae dissuading clients from having him sent out to war with other soldiers from ithaca. instead, he goes on missions himself, many of which are successful even with the lack of demigods on his side.

beneath all that lies more depth, and something far different than this person he’s built for himself, but that has yet to be discovered by anyone but his deceased mother.

positive traits: flirtatious, confident, friendly, charismatic, courageous, passionate, independent, analytical. negative traits: hot-tempered, stubborn, cocky, competitive, naive, merciless, cruel, manipulative, fickle.

BACKGROUND

i. boy born out of pyre.

son of ares, the creation of a war machine, poised to be nothing less than powerful. he’s made for this very purpose: to be the finest specimen for arche, the beginning of a new era. father whispers this to the woman he fucked without feeling, takes the baby boy from her arms in a haze. ares is a dictator in a house he can barely call his own. his son isn’t a lovechild, he’s a product to be experimented on. the abilities do not show unless you call upon them, he’s reminded, the words ringing in his head like a mantra he wants to drown in. maybe it’ll hurt less than open wounds and knuckled fists.

mother, or so he’s banned from calling her, tends to his cuts and bruises while ares is away. she calls him baekhyun, my darling baekhyun, with tears in her eyes and a watery smile. he holds onto her, quiet and unspeaking, having been forbidden from crying. after all, what kind of soldier cries in battle? a glaze forms over his eyes, but he’s safe here in her arms until dawn breaks. her voice lulls him to sleep and chases away nightmares of reality.

strength is derived from the only tenderness he’s experienced. yet, she slips from between the gaps of his fingers before he knows it. and when he reaches out to grasp for her and for love, he’s left with the taste of copper.

ii. boy born through blood.

he does it for her, so she’ll never have to cry again, so she’ll be proud and teach him to sing that song he loves. the power he possesses manifests itself when he’s barely six. wounds start healing faster, he’s stronger, more agile, finally capable— and yet, he falls short. he doesn’t live up to expectations, a failure, a disgrace to ares’ line.

there is a softness in him that has to be eradicated before it grows poignant. they are convinced he’s being held back. love is not befitting of a killing machine. he’s taken away to a steel prison, stripped of the last remnants of humanity that cling to him. it makes you weak, it makes you less of a god, it makes you pitiful. the words are lost in a blur between experiments and training sessions.

he’s learnt not to act out the hard way: locked up in a box of nothing but darkness and his own thoughts. the walls closed in as he writhed, encapsulating him, and making his shouts stutter and breath come out short. he never asks for her again.

pain comes in all forms, seared so deep into him he’s forced to dissociate to keep himself sane. he does not cry for he does not know how to. they shape him as they please and he allows it, resigned to this fate, his gaze empty and desolate. the perfect soldier.

it’s not enough.

they take pleasure in making him cut the very last thread himself. the first emotion he’s forced into displaying is shock. she’s sat in front of him, looking just as he remembered her. tired, maybe, a little thinner. his heart aches and it shows all over his face. for once he doesn’t care that there are people watching, he just wants to reach out for her, and he does— ares has a knife to her throat just as the tips of their fingers brush. vulnerable, he has allowed himself to be soft again in her presence and they deem her a threat. he’s ordered to kill her, or risk having her experience everything he’s been through. he can’t have that, he knows death is a blessing compared to the suffering. the sword is heavy and unfamiliar against his palm despite having mastered it at first contact, years ago.

he can’t.

she doesn’t struggle, sitting completely still and gazing at him with love in her eyes and not fear, like he’s baekhyun, not a mindless fighter they’ve created for war. her son. the nod is imperceptible, but he sees it as clear as day; permission to take her life. he shakes his head, unable to form words even as he draws his blade and angles it towards her. “listen to me baekhyun, listen to me clearly”, her voice is stronger than he’ll ever be, and she speaks her special name for him, even in front of ares.

“i love you, always.” she mouths so they can’t hear, then smiles.

it’s the first time he cries, and he does it with the lingering taste of copper in his mouth.

iii. boy born for destruction.

he has loved and he has lost.

only shards of him remain, each sharp and jagged; impossible to fit back together to form even a semblance of what he used to be. he gathers the pieces alone, takes the brokenness and builds something new and completely unrecognisable; someone stronger and without vulnerability. the shattered pieces nick at him and never quite fit together properly, but when he’s done, he’s created a monster. cruel, merciless and bloodthirsty.

remade, the first person to go is his own father. they don’t need a god who is weaker than his offspring. he paints his hands with his father’s blood, prays for salvation in crimson.

this is how he retains control over his own life: going out into battlefields and taking the lives of as many as possible, be it ally or enemy. it’s all a game; the twist of his knife, the snap of bones breaking, the smirk that dons his crimson stained face. it’s nothing but a game and he enjoys it thoroughly. he forgets who he once was with every unmoving body that surrounds him. they learn not to underestimate his stature when his eyes glow with bloodlust and he runs straight first into battle with nothing but a sword. he is to be feared. ares’ son, they whisper. he scoffs. father is nothing compared to him, all but a worthless god with a powerful son to his name.

destruction. he fucks for the same reason, it’s the only way he knows how, father being a prime example— fucking for control over other people, having them on their knees begging. he grows overly crude and hardly ever serious, carrying himself flippantly with a lilt in his voice that pulls into playful flirting, then viciously tearing them apart and discarding them after use with a dismissive wave. if he can’t be whole, no one else deserves to be. he takes pleasure in manipulation. he loves to ruin.

lysias. a name fit for his purpose, he who destroys.

iv. boy reborn.

aut vincere aut mori; either to conquer or to die.

[martinectf268]

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[drink-n-watch]

  Genre : Magical Girl; Fanservice; action; torment

Episodes: 12

Studio: LIDENFILMS

  Thank goodness for Magical Girls! If it hadn’t been for the legendary 5, the world would have been lost to the invading forces three years ago. Now they can finally kick back and enjoy a normal high school life. Well earned, to say the least. Nevermind that the unit was in fact 11 girls, only 5 of which made it out and that the devastating war has ravaged the earth making it ripe for criminal and terrorist organizations to run amuck. Someone probably should take care of those. No need to think about the fact that young girls were made to kill on a daily, and watch their friends die before their eyes or have their families in the line of danger because of them. Surely these things will have no lasting effects. A cute school uniform and some fun at the pool is all you need to wash all your worries away!

I’ve come to realize something about myself. I like the Magical Girl genre. I’m pretty sure I’ve enjoyed every single series that could loosely fit that description. Whether they be the gritty drama, cute innocent action or goofball comedy type. I must have subconsciously known this because I was looking forward to Asuka and brought it up my watch list very quickly. Did my bias hold true?

oh good!

Be honest with me guys, are my little above the fold paragraphs, stupid? I can take it. I really enjoy creating my own summaries, but the teaser paragraphs are another story. It’s just that jumping straight into the technical aspects of the series from there just seems so abrupt.

Anyways, Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka could have used more budget!

Ok, ok. To me, this series is a mix of highs and lows that more or less cancel each other out, and a lot of those lows are on the production side. The best technical asset by far is the character designs which are cute. Actually, they are basic for the most part except the actual magical girls that have that traditional overcomplicated and woefully unpractical aesthetic. I liked it! Everyone else just looks like stock anime characters. The voice acting wasn’t painful and the colours probably won’t hurt your eyes.

they might hurt something…

The rest of the production values should go into the lows. Atmospheric sound design doesn’t seem to have been given any consideration while the soundtrack was uninteresting and occasionally got in the way. Light was flat and framing and directing were basic. Not bad but what you would imagine a first effort to look like. By far the biggest flaw, however, was the animation and art.

Asuka is a high action series and animation was jagged and just unpolished. Occasionally still shots were intertwined to fill things out which made the end product even jumpier. Generally speaking, it gave the impression that the action scenes were just not quite finished and personally, it did take me out of the moment a little. I also noticed that battles are frequent but very short, or at least intercut with moments of stillness (a character lying knocked out while enemies slowly walk towards them, that sort of thing). I guess they couldn’t afford to animate longer sequences. As for the art, as I said the designs aren’t bad but it’s terribly inconsistent. One of the worst offenders I’ve seen in a long time.

great posture

You know what, I was going to talk about this later but let’s just get it out of the way. Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka is a sexualized show. There’s a lot of fanservice and some scenes border on lightly ecchi. This is not a problem in and of itself, however, the art is so inconsistent that instead of being tantalizing, these scenes become distracting if not a little confusing. The girls seem to gain and lose noticeable amounts of weight from one scene to the other. Even from one angle to the other. And not just going from B to DDD cups size. Thighs, waists even faces change proportions in very visible ways.

Moreover, details get lost and character models lose integrity with changes in angles. I have difficulty overlooking bad visuals in animes but I can get past it. However, when you have so many scenes that are supposed to just look great, that’s their main, occasionally only, purpose, then at least for those scenes, you should have really focused on the visuals. That’s my two cents. There are still some very nice fanservice moments if that’s all you care about, but I have a feeling you can find better easily, at least in terms of art consistency.

I know, scary!

The way I would describe Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka is that it’s an interesting plot with a classical premise, delivered in the most uninteresting way possible. I really liked that the story starts after the girls have already experienced (and been heavily scarred by) the atrocities of war. A lot of similar series start off with innocent optimistic girls that slowly get broken by harsh reality. With Asuka, the girls start broken and we get to explore the aftermath which I thought was a good take on it. Putting your weapons down when you essentially are a weapon. Good conflict, lots of potential for drama!

Similarly, the characters are just a little spicier than average. It’s the usual archetypes, the prodigy, the badass, the stoic genius ect… but already twisted and warped by the suffering they’ve had to endure. They’re a little haunted…a little wrong… That’s also an interesting twist.

Unfortunately, both character and plot development are given almost entirely through plain exposition and the writing is not witty or interesting enough to do the story justice. As a result, everything seems a bit more boring than it should and characters never really get to shine despite how potentially interesting they are.

I know right?!?

There’s also the classic problem that they tried to cram way too much into 12 episodes. Because so much of the current story is influenced by events that happened three years ago, the show feels constantly obligated to give us flashbacks to events and people long gone. However, we only get glimpses, so we never really establish and connection to those events. On top of that they need to introduce and develop 6 main characters, 4 main antagonists, an array of supporting characters, explain the laws of this magical universe and cram in some complicated story of interstellar/interdimensional warfare.

It’s just way too overstuffed. To the series’ credit, you do generally understand what’s happening at all times but not always the greater why, or why you should care. Oh, and it’s unfinished. The two main antagonists introduced in the early episodes sort of forgotten midway through and that storyline is never resolved. Instead of long scenes of sexualized torture (not kidding) that added really little to the story, I think we could have used some character-building moments and a little explanation of what the different realms are and why we’re at war. They could have had the characters stand around naked while talking about it, that way they could get the fanservice quota in as well. I’m a genius!

So did my bias hold true? Well, yes! Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka is not an objectively good anime in my opinion. And it’s easy to see that it could have been way better. But I still watched it all and was often curious about what would happen next. It’s a show I wish was better and that’s saying something. I still generally like all Magical Girl shows I’ve seen. But Asuka is possibly the one I liked least.

maybe she reminds me a bit of Tanya?

 Favourite character: Mia 

What this anime taught me: ummm..always have a cyanide capsule when going into enemy territory?

I love drunk me, but I don’t trust her

Suggested drink: Tampico Trauma 

Every time you see lots of blood – take a sip

dismemberment – big sip!

Every time the genki friend tackle hugs someone – take a sip

Every time there’s any Yuri – bow chica whoa wow

Every time– take a snack

Every time there’s a traumatic flashback – get some water

Every time there’s cleavage (front or back) – fan yourself

Every time there’s cleavage during a traumatic flashback – spit take

Every time there’s a magical girl transformation – take a sip

Every time anyone says “Magical girl” – breath in

Every time we see Francine – take a sip

Every time anyone mentions Phoenix is from Russia – switch to vodka

educational!

You know how it goes, I have a tone more pictures you can see/download/use…whatever you like, over here on imgur or if you prefer, on Pinterest. But I will give you a sample here:

    Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka in the Land of Trauma Genre : Magical Girl; Fanservice; action; torment Episodes: 12 Studio: LIDENFILMS   Thank goodness for Magical Girls! If it hadn’t been for the legendary 5, the world would have been lost to the invading forces three years ago.

[leehaws]

Renato Moicano is Jack of All Trades, with Answers for All

Renato Moicano is not a fighter who presents a single, stand-out problem. No one is writing home about his thunderous right hand, his blindingly fast jab, or his unstoppable double leg takedown. The Brazilian brings a fairly mundane toolkit to his fights but can eye up an opponent and tell you exactly what is needed within a few minutes of sparring. And when Moicano has assessed his man and hit on what is working, it is ruthlessly exploited until his opponent can no longer keep pace. No, Moicano has no standout technique or tactic to set the featherweights of the world quivering in their boots, but he has something much more useful: he has answers.

Even if you are a fairly committed follower of the UFC, Renato Moicano’s surge to prominence in the featherweight division might have caught you by surprise. Moicano arrived in the UFC in December 2014, beating Tom Niinimaki fairly impressively on the undercard of a Fight Night event. Unfortunately, Moicano was taken out of action by injuries and missed the entirety of 2015, and only managed one mundane decision victory in May 2016.

After another year out, Moicano returned to the cage on April 15, 2017 to face the No. 5 ranked featherweight, Jeremy Stephens. It was an opportunity that seemingly came out of nowhere and yet Mociano made good on it. The Brazilian made Stephens look foolish, clipping off crisp jabs, low kicks and combinations before circling away from Stephens’s straight-armed swings. Since then, Moicano has managed to stay healthy and looked impressive boxing up Brian Ortega (before falling into a guillotine choke), and outclassed Calvin Kattar and Cub Swanson in 2018.

There isn’t a lot about Moicano that you can grab onto: none of his weapons are the fastest or the hardest or the crispest in the division, and that might account somewhat for his almost sneaking up on the featherweight top ten. We are touting him as a brilliant striker, yet he hasn’t scored a single knockout. But when you have access to the footage and you can watch one fight after another, the changes Moicano makes from fight to fight are a more exciting indicator of potential than any Zabit Magomedsharipov or Yair Rodriguez jumping spin kick.

Stephens – Lateral Movement, Straight Hitting

Jeremy Stephens’s game is well known. He is going to walk forward and attempt to kick your lead leg very hard, or take your head off by swinging his hands. The problem is that he’s extremely tough and has a pretty good gas tank for someone swinging all their being into every shot. Even the very best fighters in the world have to show they are capable of adapting in order to beat him.

One of the key weaknesses in Stephens’s game is his footwork. He can cut the cage for a while, but tends to get frustrated by direction changes, and when he gets frustrated his ring cutting gets even worse. So Moicano set to work floating around the cage with his feet almost parallel. This was a stark contrast to his usual long, low stance. With his feet level Moicano could side step more effectively. Each time Stephens stepped in he ate Moicano’s jab, then Moicano would circle off into space and Stephens would have to cut the ring all over again.

Of course no one can be perfect all the time, so Moicano did end up at the fence from time to time. But the Brazilian kept his head (and remembered to move it) and then cut tighter angles out to the side. He often did this by stepping across himself, allowing a tight pivot around to face the opponent or permitting him to run straight through into a sprint in the style of Alexander Gustafsson if he felt particularly troubled.

When the judges’ decision was announced, one judge saw it—bizarrely—for Stephens, perhaps because he had been advancing the entire time. The problem is that moving forward while getting lanced by jabs is really only dictating the pace at which you get your ass kicked. But to everyone else it was quite a coup, Moicano was basically unknown and Stephens had just fought a far closer fight against the great Frankie Edgar who was being lined up for a title shot.

Ortega – Catch and Pitch

Unfortunately, Moicano’s path to the top was hindered slightly in his next match where he made the first misstep of his UFC career, against Brian Ortega. The fight started out well for Moicano as he abandoned the mobile style and opted to play catch and pitch with Ortega. Ortega likes to throw hard and one or two at a time, he also likes to attempt to shoulder roll off his opponent’s right hand but does it pretty poorly, leaving his chin up and his shoulder low. So Moicano carried his left forearm upright, ready to catch Ortega’s right hand and immediately return with his own.

Moicano had success returning on Ortega’s right hands but was caught by surprise at just how durable Ortega was. Moicano put over a hundred blows onto Orega’s head but there was very little to show for it, where Ortega had opened up Moicano’s nose pretty badly in one of the opening trades.

It got pretty heated as Moicano forced more and more trades.

Moreover, for all his technical shortcomings, Ortega often shows a talent for the science of striking. By the second round Ortega was sneaking in body punches while Moicano teed off on his head. By the third round, Moicano was breathing hard. A reactive takedown late in the second round had scored Moicano some points and won him some breathing room, but an attempt at the same in round three saw him dragged into the vaunted Ortega guillotine and he was quickly submitted.

The Ortega fight stands as an example of Moicano doing his reconnaissance and not adapting appropriately because he was too invested in his first plan. Moicano found good success with low kicks as Ortega stepped in. He also found Ortega’s body easily when he shot for it in his punching combinations. But he rarely returned to these targets and instead stuck to his guns in swinging for Ortega’s head.

Kattar – Killing the Jab

Calvin Kattar met Moicano coming off a tremendous knockout over Shane Burgos. Kattar was known as a kickboxer but did much of his work floating in behind a jab in order to score a good right hand. Moicano’s task in this fight seemed to be cutting down Kattar’s mobility while mitigating Kattar’s straight hitting. For the early going it was all the usual Moicano check hooks and the odd kick, but Moicano really found his stride when he timed Kattar with low kicks as Kattar stepped in.

The traditional in and out style of boxing cannot be performed without one leg leading the entire body into the opponent’s range, so as that leg stepped, Moicano punted it—either moving his head off line or checking Kattar’s hands with his own as he did so.

Here Moicano demonstrates one of the prettiest techniques in counter kicking—slipping inside of the jab and countering with the right low kick to buckle the opponent’s planting leg.

A few jarring connections as Kattar stepped in and suddenly Kattar wasn’t so mobile. Kattar would follow Moicano around the cage and then Moicano would stop and start checking Kattar’s hands, showing him feinted jabs and straights, and then as Moicano threw a kick from this close range you could almost see in Kattar’s face the disappointment that he had been suckered once again.

A common feature of Moicano fights is distance control. If he is not doing his own hitting, he simply isn’t there. It hardly seems sporting but that is the way good striking is done. So if Moicano stands still in front of his opponent, you can be pretty much assured there is a trap being set.

Moicano’s movement and distance work against Kattar was broken up by periods where he would stand in front of Kattar, heavy on the front foot in his long stance, and extend his right hand to either check Kattar’s lead hand or obstruct the path of the jab. Obstructing the path of the jab is a great trick that you will see all the time in MMA—it looks like the fighter is open for the left hook behind his extended right hand, but the entire point is to stifle the quickest punch the opponent has, and being ready to react to the slower one that is being offered up.

After eating a couple of those low kicks as he stepped in, Kattar became more cautious in these little pawing exchanges, and then Moicano was free to skip up and hack away with the inside low kick.

When obstructing a jabber’s best weapon, a fighter has to know that the moment his checking hand slips from that path, the moment his opponent’s lead fist is shown a glimmer of sunlight, that jab is going to fly out of its own accord. So rather than simply shutting down an opponent’s jab, a fighter might do even more damage to his opponent’s confidence through carefully choosing when he is going to allow his opponent to jab. Moicano’s right hand was rarely off of the line of Kattar’s jab, but when it was, Kattar’s jab would come like clockwork and Moicano would immediately slip to the elbow side of it and return with a counter right hand.

A final crafty look was Moicano’s work from southpaw. He would occasionally switch stances and then lead with a right uppercut. This served to raise the head of Kattar and stand him upright. Following with a body kick, a leg kick, or a high kick, Moicano was able to score good connections on Kattar throughout the fight. This use of the southpaw right uppercut to both close the distance and stand the opponent up was a staple of the great Nak Muay, Yodsanklai.

Other Habits

Of course there are features of Moicano’s game which are constant from fight to fight. As we remarked earlier, what he does best is adjust the ratios to suit his opponent. On Saturday night, Moicano faces Jose Aldo—the most accomplished featherweight in MMA history and while Moicano deserves this opportunity he has by no means been flawless. Moicano’s check hooks are a double edged sword—he scores many of his best connections by leaning back and whipping out the left hook as his opponent chases him, but he also exposes himself horribly when he does so.

Moicano’s bad habit is the same that Francis Ngannou had when he first came to the UFC. He has his timing down on the check hook and has good success on it, but rather than slide back with his feet or drop his right foot back and lean back into his stance, he will often come up out of his stance and lean back only at the waist. This means that there are many, many awkward occasions in Moicano fights where the opponent is almost on top of him and he is swinging with his hands low and performing a limbo. (It is worth noting that Ngannou fixed this habit and you can see him perform the same technique with much neater mechanics and while maintaining his stance against Andrei Arlovski.)

Like Ngannou, Moicano will pair his check hook with a right uppercut. It’s a good combination because if the opponent senses the hook he will normally drop his head and crunch down to protect himself, then the bus driver uppercut clacks his teeth together.

In the above example, Moicano actually shifts off to his left side as he throws the check hook, taking him into a southpaw stance to land a right hook/uppercut. We all recall this sneaky southpaw hook from the ninety degree angle as Mike Tyson’s favorite punch, but it is hardly a modern invention. Here is Georges Carpentier (world light heavyweight champion from 1920 to 1922) demonstrating the exact same shift to line up the right hand.

Moicano’s back-leaning check hooks are the most worrying because should Moicano go into a lean like this and his opponent instead show him a double jab and commit to covering ground before letting go the right hand, Moicano will have nowhere to go when that right hand comes.

And even those shifts into southpaw out to the side have their problems. Brian Ortega caught Moicano with clotheslines every time he stepped out to the right in this manner with his head up in the air and that is how Moicano got bloodied up in that fight in the first place.

While the counter hooks work wonderfully when Moicano can get opponents reaching for his head, his Achilles heel in the Ortega fight turned out to be his body. You can’t lean your gut out of reach. Moicano is a gangly guy for the weight class and drives a hard pace to begin with, a bit of body work could slow his feet and cause him all kinds of trouble. Jose Aldo’s commitment to bodywork has been sporadic, but after he handed Jeremy Stephens a very rare knockout loss with a liver shot, you have to think he’ll be coming into this fight with a new appreciation for hitting the midriff.

We have only really hit the main points of Moicano’s striking, and there is a lot of clever stuff he does that we just don’t have time to cover in depth (marching double kick combinations like an old school American kickboxer, upward elbows and so on) but it is worth noting just how smooth Moicano has looked on the ground in his UFC fights. He hasn’t scored a single career knockout, but that statistic hides the fact that he has hurt a lot of opponents and then methodically finished them on the ground. You will remember this as B.J. Penn’s typical gameplan, but there’s a touch of Penn in Moicano’s top game as well. When met with butterfly guard, Moicano will clear one knee, drop to a hip and then simply step over the other hook straight into mount.

In his most recent fight, against Cub Swanson, Moicano set to work establishing the jab and frustrating Swanson who was forced to leap to close the distance. A stiff jab sent Swanson to the mat and Moicano quickly found himself in the mount. As a Swanson fan it is sometimes more fun to watch him work hurt because his ground game is something quite wily—constantly working back to half butterfly guard and hitting stand ups and sweep attempts from there. As Moicano postured up to strike, Swanson sat straight up into him, scooting back on his hands and sneaking a knee in to accomplish butterfly half-guard. But even against a guard player as slick as Swanson, Moicano sat to his hip again and swept the leg over to mount once more. Eventually Moicano was able to subdue Swanson with a rear naked choke.

UFC on ESPN+ 2 is an absolutely stacked card of fights for the educated fight fan. From Moraes vs. Assuncao to Oliveira vs. Teymur to Alves vs. Griffin, there are some seriously compelling match ups between high level technicians scheduled. It should tell you something that instead of covering all of those we chose to focus entirely on one fighter today and on his style rather than the specifics of his upcoming bout.

Renato Moicano has shown the ability to spot openings and ruthlessly exploit them, changing his game on the fly without instruction, and even among the elite that remains a rare skill. He has the makings of something very special and it is important that you know that, and in turn that you know just how good Jose Aldo is if he can, at this advanced stage in his career, beat such a prospect.

Jack Slack wrote the biography Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and hosts the Fights Gone By podcast.

Renato Moicano is Jack of All Trades, with Answers for All syndicated from https://justinbetreviews.wordpress.com/

[vrvisioninc]

Trends with Virtual Reality for Corporate Events

Virtual reality has become somewhat of a ‘buzzword,’ but behind that hype lies a very real technology that has the potential to change the way that we live our lives. Not least in the world of corporate events where capturing the imagination of a single reporter or investor can represent hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit. Like it or not, virtual reality is here to stay, and it’s only going to become more common.

Virtual Reality Corporate Events Have you ever noticed that a lot of corporate events are out of the way? Often, they require hours of traveling and thousands of dollars in costs. Virtual reality corporate events circumvent that and allow viewers to experience the event from the best view. By setting up a single camera to capture the event from the best possible angle, every viewer can experience the optimal presentation.

This obviously helps the presenter too, because those virtual reality corporate events can be pre-recorded, preventing any unfortunate mishaps. But this makes the viewing experience that much better; we can sit in the comfort of our own homes and still see the speaker right in front of us. For the company presenting it also makes branding and sponsorship far simpler. Rather than trying to integrate them somehow into the presentation you could just have their logo appear in the corner of the viewer’s vision.

This type of advertising would be far more powerful than traditional banner ads or TV advertising because the viewer can’t look away, it’s directly in their vision.

Improving Real-World Live Events But what if your viewers do want to be there, to enjoy networking and a few drinks after? Virtual reality can be used to enhance, rather than replace, the experience of a real-world live event. We’ve already seen Intel and Facebook using virtual reality goggles at live events to give their viewers a unique presentation that integrated virtual objects and characters.

The people in the audience wore goggles that showed them exactly what was in front of their face, but also could add in digital creations. Imagine the money that companies could save by creating a beautiful virtual environment, rather than purchasing real sculptures and artwork. In recent years, we’ve also seen cars implement heads-up displays that show you your speed and other metrics without you having to look away. This kind of functionality could be applied to an event.

You might show the time, the speakers name and the best way to contact them. With the best VR equipment, you can even give the audience the functionality to look at a virtual brochure of the event. Almost everything at an event could be replicated or replaced by a virtual version, saving companies money and giving a more interactive and immersive experience.

Virtual Reality on Mobile Devices The most common barrier to entry for companies looking to integrate VR into their events is simply the cost of buying or renting the equipment. Fortunately, the vast majority of people own smartphones, and those phones have the capability for basic virtual reality.

In fact, Samsung and Snapchat have both released small, portable and incredibly cheap headgear that can hold your phone. This allows you to replicate an expensive VR experience for a tiny fraction of the cost.

The cost of virtual reality seems to be dropping every single day, and undoubtedly the single most significant trend in VR is increasing accessibility. No longer is it something that only the first movers and Silicon Valley millionaires have access too, but almost everybody can enjoy it at a low cost.

360-Degree Video Although the 360-degree video isn’t technically considered virtual reality, it represents a massive leap from traditional video towards a user-centric experience. By giving the viewer the control over what they see you significantly improve the content. In recent months, we’ve seen 360-degree video being used more frequently, particularly by smaller companies who want to capitalize on their first mover advantage.

The 360-degree video is particularly good at one thing; giving you perspective. This might be in the case of explaining the dimensions of the room to an employee, showing the event hall to attendees or simply showing viewers more than just the stage. The goal of all virtual reality, from the most primitive forms up to our most advanced, is to make the audience feel like they are there. In this way, a 360-degree video is far superior to even the most skilled technician using a standard camera.

Social Media as a Gateway for the Future of VR Since the advent of the first social media networks, we’ve seen companies like Facebook and Twitter continually scrambling to stay at the forefront of technology. And in the past few years, they’ve unequivocally succeeded. Facebook has integrated 360-degree video flawlessly into the timelines of their users, allowing us to experience events as if we were there. But more exciting than that is the possibility that we will use Facebook as a delivery method for true virtual reality.

Facebook acquired Oculus Rift, the largest and most well-known virtual reality creator and that makes us confident that they will soon be integrating it into Facebook.For corporate events this solves the problem of delivery, they can simply use their Facebook accounts to deliver the virtual reality experience to all of their viewers. And in the past week, they announced a new $200 virtual reality headset that will make VR more accessible than ever.

In Conclusion Virtual reality is the future; it would be difficult to argue against that. But what exactly should we expect in the coming years? For corporate events, the use of 360-degree video will become standard and expected by viewers who can’t physically make it to the event.A virtual reality version of the event, live and after the fact, will be used by the most significant companies to make the experience more immersive, and this will filter down to smaller companies within a decade.

VR represents a new frontier for events, and the companies that are willing to leap will find themselves with a significant advantage over those that wait.

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

The Tactical Guide to Gennady Golovkin vs Canelo Alvarez

“We’re winning this, fighting power with finesse.”

Trainer Andre Rozier repeated this mantra whenever his charge, Danny Jacobs took the stool between rounds. The two had gone through their fair share of daunting tasks together. Rozier had been by Jacobs’ side when the promising young boxer had been sidelined by a rare form of bone cancer, so squaring off with a man known for throwing exceptionally hard punches didn’t really seem scary.

Jacobs was always reckoned to be an excellent boxer, but few had given him much of a shot at Gennady Golovkin. A look at Golovkin’s record, at this point little different from a list of victims, showed no short supply for sturdy technicians.

Six months before the Jacobs bout, Golovkin had been vexed by the slick looks and fast hands of Englishman, Kell Brook but it lasted for all of four rounds before Golovkin wised to his game and began to mercilessly beat him. That Golovkin power had always been too much for his opponents, and it was not as though the Kazakh banger was short on technical ability either. Yet as the rounds progressed, Jacobs held Golovkin to the closest of contests. The punching power, which had become legendary, failed to make a dent.

As the tallies came in and Golovkin was declared the winner, there were the usual cries of “robbery”—a term used about ten times as often as it should be in the fight game—while others insisted that Golovkin had easily deserved the decision. But the fight raised far more questions than it answered. Was Jacobs that good or was Golovkin slowing down?

And so, on the eve of the most anticipated fight to bless boxing in a long time, Gennady Golovkin versus Canelo Alvarez, many are asking if Golovkin’s marvellous ring-cutting feet are beginning to look like clay. Perhaps his management held off on this fight for too long. Could all the cash grabs and record padding that both men engaged in ultimately be the undoing of the thirty-five year old?

A Mexican Fighter

Saul “Canelo” Alvarez doesn’t have the undefeated record that Gennady Golovkin is sold on. From the moment he emerged on the professional scene, Canelo was marketed as the next big thing and the wily Floyd Mayweather Jr. (understanding boxing to be a patriotic game wherein Mexicans provide the biggest demographic) was keen to capitalize on that. Thrown in with the boxing master too early, Alvarez was the canvas on which Mayweather painted one of his finest performances. But since then Canelo has gone from strength to strength, looking less like the hot young prospect and more like a consummate world champion. Just as his ginger hair and pasty complexion are not what are expected when someone describes a great Mexican boxer to you, Alvarez’s blocky physique and knockout filled record belie a much more subtle and graceful fighting style.

The “Mexican style” has been up for debate throughout the build-up for this bout. National styles are a strange thing to think about in the modern era as fighters at the height of the game can train with whatever coach they choose, but traditionally the enormous Mexican fan base has gravitated towards pressure fighters and knockout artists. From the Z-boys to Julio Cesar Chavez, aggression is an important part of what makes a good “Mexican style” fighter. Of course there are also many examples of Mexican greats who fought better as counter fighters, such as Juan Manuel Marquez. Canelo Alvarez is undoubtedly in this camp, too.

In a typical performance, Canelo leads with the body jab and the wide right to the body, and invites the opponent to throw back at him. He shows punches to draw punches and the speed, power and variety of his counter punches make him extremely dangerous. Hooking with both hands to the body and the head, uppercuts from both sides, pull counters, cross counters—Alvarez’s bag of tricks against the orthodox boxer is a deep one. Against the blisteringly fast Amir Khan, Canelo used the wide right to the body to slow Khan down, and looked to check hook the Brit as he stepped in.

Against Miguel Cotto, Canelo used an inside slip to set up the left hand to the liver, the left hook to the head, and the left uppercut.

The uppercut worked particularly well against Cotto’s usual head forward posture when attempting to step to the inside.

When Floyd Mayweather fought Canelo, he didn’t let Canelo get to the body. The wide right hit Mayweather’s elbow or back more often than it found anything good, and Canelo resorted to blasting Mayweather in the arm for much of the fight. Mayweather is a low output fighter with convincing feints, and he often leads with a right hand or leaping left hook before falling directly into a clinch. This limited Alvarez’s counter opportunities and the further the fight progressed the more he opened up offensively, offering Mayweather his own counters off the shoulder roll. Alvarez began slipping deep against Mayweather, and it didn’t work. Instead of trying to time him with uppercuts, Mayweather just leaned on the back of Alvarez’s neck, and made him carry his weight.

While Canelo has a good jab which carries some pop without requiring him to commit his weight, he more often leads with a body jab in hopes of setting up a lead left hook, or a right hand to the jaw. The latter of which was the setup which starched Amir Khan. It can be seen in almost every Canelo Alvarez bout.

Similarly, Alvarez will throw out his right glove in a “jazz hands” motion to distract as he slips to the inside to line up his left uppercut. This was a favorite tactic of the fantastically flamboyant Jersey Joe Walcott and both Canelo and Walcott hurt a lot of foes with their left uppercut.

The inside position, from which infighting is done with the head pressed against the opponent, will be both fascinating and crucial in this bout. In the first round of his fight with the awkward James Kirkland, Canelo was forced to the ropes and Kirkland worked well from inside position with Alvarez unable to avoid or deflect many of his punches. Miguel Cotto, who usually works well from this position, was unable to apply it effectively against Alvarez because Canelo was looking to time him with uppercuts as he stepped to the inside.

Once his head is already on an opponent, a fighter won’t have too much trouble with uppercuts (infighters like Cotto invite them from this cramped position so that they can throw the left hook over the top) but on the way in and the way out they are in very real danger. As Canelo controlled the center of the ring for almost the entirety of the fight with Cotto, he always had the option to step back and fire an uppercut through space when Cotto got to inside position.

But with Golovkin’s ringcraft there is a great chance that Canelo ends up on the ropes at some point and Golovkin begins working from inside position. It will be fascinating to see what Canelo can come up with from there.

Gennady Golovkin

Golovkin, meanwhile is more akin to what most would think of when talking about a “Mexican style” fighter—something he and his camp have also said repeatedly. His focus is on placing the opponent on the ropes and working them over with up-down combinations. Golovkin’s body work is some of the neatest you will see in the game. Typically there are two ways to change up the angles on blows: move to a different location in relation to the opponent, or arc the blows differently. Golovkin is good at standing directly in front of his opponent but bringing his fists in from all angles. He can dig short hooks to the body, barely deviating from the center line, or wing wide, palm down hooks behind his opponent’s elbows. The punch which felled Marco Antonio Rubio was a left hook which chopped downward in the style of an overhand—striking the temple over the top of Rubio’s glove!

Golovkin’s awareness of where his opponent’s head will be, and the variance in tempo and power between his punches is what makes him so dangerous once he gets his man to the ropes. Covering up has just never been a reasonable option against Golovkin because he can assess the guard for cracks so quickly and deliver his power so swiftly.

Golovkin’s footwork is especially tidy. Canelo Alvarez had a great deal of trouble cutting the ring when forced to play the aggressor against the slick southpaw Erislandy Lara (a fight which would Danny Jacobs versus Canelo Alvarez particularly interesting), but Golovkin has never had much trouble forcing the action. The downside of being a great ring cutter is that a fighter has to use his physical presence to get there—it is hard to be elusive and provide pressure at the same time.

Gennady Golovkin’s head movement is less active than many of the great pressure fighters in history. In fact at many points in his fights he will go to a head down guard with his forearms up in front of him. Unlike the traditional earmuffs or peek-a-boo guards, Golovkin brings his elbows forward, away from his body with his palms facing in. It seems like a strange position to start hitting from, with the elbows so far from the body, like the old fashioned pugilistic guards of fighters like Daniel Mendoza.

From this position Golovkin can walk through blows to the head without any trouble, and can also snap out a vicious jab. This guard does make him vulnerable to body shots, however. Dominic Wade was knocked out fast when he fought Golovkin in April 2016, but he landed a couple of corking lefts to the body as Golovkin tried to cover and walk in. When Danny Jacobs fought Golovkin a year later, his constant work to Golovkin’s body behind that floating right elbow was notable.

While on the surface there are many similarities between Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez, you might be better off thinking of Alvarez as an exceptional mid-range puncher, and Golovkin as a more smothering close range fighter. It seems as though for Golovkin to do his best work he will have to cut the ring and close that range. Canelo Alvarez does not have to play the matador very often, most of the time he is in the role of the pursuing puncher. In the Joe Louis style, he comes forward and digs in blows until the opponent returns and then he gives ground and counters to find the big punches. Golovkin has a very crisp jab but that seems the weapon to which Alvarez has the most answers.

One of the interesting factors in this matchup is Golovkin’s willingness to throw a variety of leads. Golovkin jabs well but he will just as happily jump in with a left hook, throw a right hand lead off the bat, or shift into a southpaw stance as he takes a double step in. While these are generally regarded as less “safe” than the jab—which is the longest punch and does not require the fighter to square up or step in close—they are also more rare, and thus harder to prepare for. A master counter puncher works against the punches that opponents and sparring partners will flick out at him, knowing that he is a master counter puncher. Golovkin’s unorthodoxy in that regard might well catch Alvarez by surprise. On the other hand, it would not be surprising to see Golovkin eat a hard counter uppercut or left hook while off balance, halfway through a shift. But that’s boxing, you have to take risks to find openings.

Whatever happens on Saturday night, there is a lot of hype to live up to. Gennady Golovkin knows only one, very aggressive, way to fight. Saul Alvarez fights best when he is served a lot of punches. The stylistic matchup between pressure fighter and boxer-puncher has provided some of boxing’s most grueling, back-and-forth fights. With all of the waiting that fans have had to do for this bout, we can only hope that it lives up to some of that anticipation.

Pick up Jack’s book, Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor .

The Tactical Guide to Gennady Golovkin vs Canelo Alvarez syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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30 Top Haircuts for Hispanic Hair

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30 Top Haircuts for Hispanic Hair

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If you haven’t noticed previously, please take note that Hispanic people are some of the most beautiful human beings on the planet, and that includes both men and women. However, it’s important to keep in mind that people of Hispanic descent usually have unique hair, as it tends to be thick, full, and sometimes difficult to manage. This can make it difficult at times to find a hairstyle that works. That being said, there are plenty of great options available for both Hispanic men and women. Here are 45 great haircuts for Hispanic hair.

Short and Layered

For Hispanic women, going short with your hair should not be a problem just as long as you keep things layered. Having thick, dark hair can sometimes make it difficult, but with some styling, you can make it work and look fantastic.

French Bob

This hairstyle has its roots in Europe, but there’s no reason why a lot of Hispanic women can’t steal it. For Hispanic women who have straight and sleek hair, cutting things short can be a great look, as it’s almost made for women with dark hair.

Blunt Bangs

You should never be afraid to show off your bangs. In fact, if you’re a Hispanic woman with long, flowing hair, highlighting your bangs in an obvious way is a great tactic for keeping all the attention on your face.

Side Swept Bangs

If you like your bangs but don’t want to go through the fuss of trying to keep them in one place, just let them hang in front and swipe them to the side. Yes, your long, thick hair may fall in front of your eyes from time to time, so you’ll have to keep pushing them aside, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Your bangs hanging down in front of your eyes can add just a little bit of mystery to your look, which can sometimes be good.

Long and Wavy

For many Hispanic men, letting your hair grow out can be the way to go, and if it ends up getting out of control, so be it. This look is rugged and edgy, so if you can get your hair to grow long and wavy, go for it. It’ll take some upkeep, but once you get it right it looks great.

Long Locks

Unless you’re a serious romantic, you probably shouldn’t attempt this hairstyle. With long, flowing locks that practically cascade to your shoulder, this haircut is for confident men who know what they want and know how to get it. It’s not easy to pull off, but it’s a great look if you’ve got the personality to match.

Buzz Cut

Trust us, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with cutting it all off and going with a buzz cut, especially if you know that it’s probably going to grow back. Lack of hair can be a fashion statement like anything else, and obviously, it’s going to be easy to manage on a daily basis, so Hispanic men should not overlook the buzz cut as an option, at least every now and then.

Man Bun

You can call it a ponytail, a man bun, or anything else, but if you have long, thick hair, it should be considered an option. Yes, it’ll attract some haters, but there will also be plenty of people who love the look. So, if you’re okay with mixed reviews, feel free to turn that long hair into a man bun.

Medium Layered

For many Hispanic women, shoulder length hair with some layering can be the perfect look. It’s a classic hairstyle that doesn’t take much work and should be acceptable in just about any setting. When in doubt, just go with something traditional that you know will work.

Donut Bun

This hairstyle is definitely going to attract some interest. It goes without saying that you’ll need massive amounts of hair to put together this donut bun, but if you’re unsure of what to do with all that hair, why not try to make sure it all stays in one place. If nothing else, it’ll keep your hair out of your face, so at least some people will focus on that, although more realistically, everyone will be looking at the glamorous donut bun at the top of your head.

Thick Braids

One possible solution for managing thick, dark hair is putting it in braids. There are a wide variety of things to do once you put your hair in braids, but leaving a few loose strands in front to help frame your face is always a viable option if you don’t want all the attention to go to your braids.

Tight Braids

This is definitely more of a long-term solution more so than something you want to just try out for a weekend. That being said, tight braids that almost resemble dreadlocks can be a great idea for a Hispanic woman with long hair who doesn’t want to bother styling it on a daily basis. With the right attitude, this can be a wonderful and long-lasting look.

Colored Streaks

You should never shy away from experimenting with different colors, especially nowadays. If you’re too apprehensive to alter the color of your hair completely, adding a few streaks can be a great way to experiment or ease into the change. Colors like blue, purple, and red, especially in darker shades, are perfect for complementing dark Hispanic hair.

Sleek and Straight

Even if you don’t have naturally straight hair, there are ways that you can create a look that’s sleek and shiny. Once you get everything straightened out, literally, just let your hair fall the way it may and check out how glamorous you can look with this hairstyle.

Part into Ponytail

This is another hairstyle that looks elegant but is so simple to pull off. Just part all of your hair over to one side or another and put it into a side ponytail that hangs off your shoulder. It’s a look that’s easy to cultivate and will have you looking like a million bucks.

Sophisticated Curls

It can be tough to walk around proud with curly hair; the trick is to just embrace it. Just make sure your curls are neatly trimmed and styled properly so you can show them off with confidence.

Pompadour

Technically, this haircut is called the pompadour, but we like to think of it as the modern day Zack Morris. Just take that thick, curly hair and drown it with hair gel until it sticks up in front. Of course, it also helps to have a confident personality to go along with it, or else you’re never going to pull it off.

Just Curls

Sometimes, there’s just nothing that can be done about curly hair. However, there is a way to make those curls work in your favor by making sure they’re well organized and styled appropriately. In fact, if you want to steer into the skid completely, you can try to make your hair as curly as possible. Just fully commit to your curls and you should be satisfied with the results.

Angled Bob

This is definitely more like it: a classic bob but with a little twist because the hair is cut at an angle. The angled bob takes a more conservative haircut and adds a bit of flair to it that really makes it stand out in a crowd.

Side Shaved

Not everyone is going to be able to pull off the side shaved look, but if you’re feeling adventurous, it may be worth a try. If you have hair that’s otherwise long and sleek it’ll be difficult to shave off an entire side, but doing so just might be crazy enough to work.

Short But Wavy

Cutting your hair short doesn’t mean you can’t have some wave and volume in it. As long as you don’t cut it too short, most Hispanic women have enough hair to add some waves or some volume, even if their hair doesn’t quite make it to their shoulders.

Short Curls

Again, cutting your hair short doesn’t mean you can’t have some curls and some depth to it. In fact, flipping everything up above the forehead with some curls is a great way to convey both class and wisdom but still look your best.

Puffy Curls

For Hispanic women who have nothing but curls, just let them flow. Sometimes, less is more, so just let your curls loose and let them blow around in the wind.

Blonde Highlights

Adding colorful streaks is one thing, but adding blonde highlights is a whole different animal for Hispanic women with dark hair. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth a try. With the right shade of blonde, the contrast between that blonde and your natural hair color can be utterly brilliant. If you give it a try, it could turn out to be far better than you expected.

Curly Bob

This is yet another twist on the traditional bob look; this one is a bob with curls. Bobs are typically straight, but if you’re born with curly hair, there’s no sense in fighting it. Instead, embrace the curls with your bob cut and give yourself a haircut that feels as good as it looks.

Let It Flow

When your hair gets to a certain length, sometimes the best thing you can do is just let it flow. If you take good care of it, hopefully, you can get your hair to have a nice shine to it, which will make it all the better when it’s hanging off your shoulder and down your back without a care in the world.

Curly Lob

Seriously, how adorable is this haircut? It doesn’t take itself too seriously and it doesn’t care if things get a little out of place. It’s just fun, fashionable, and lets the hair relax and do its own thing. If only everything were that easy, right?

Fringe Bangs

This is a classic look for women of any culture, Hispanic women especially. This is a great look because it brings bangs into the equation and also allows for a little bit of a frame around the face. Yes, there’s a little bit of work involved in this kind of haircut, but don’t try to tell us this hairstyle wouldn’t look beautiful on anybody.

Nothing But Bangs

Sometimes, not always, but sometimes you just want to show the world that you have bangs, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If you have long, sleek hair, sometimes going with long bangs and even longer hair cascading down the sides can be a brilliant, fashion-forward look.

Crimped Hair

We know you can’t do it every day, but let’s be honest, crimped hair looks utterly amazing on almost anyone. We can’t quite put our finger on why, but there’s something about crimped hair that just drives us crazy in a good way. For Hispanic women with dark, thick hair, crimping your hair is definitely something to do on special occasions; it’s a special look.

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Renato Moicano is a Jack of All Trades, with Answers for All

Renato Moicano is not a fighter who presents a single, stand-out problem. No one is writing home about his thunderous right hand, his blindingly fast jab, or his unstoppable double leg takedown. The Brazilian brings a fairly mundane toolkit to his fights but can eye up an opponent and tell you exactly what is needed within a few minutes of sparring. And when Moicano has assessed his man and hit on what is working, it is ruthlessly exploited until his opponent can no longer keep pace. No, Moicano has no standout technique or tactic to set the featherweights of the world quivering in their boots, but he has something much more useful: he has answers.

Even if you are a fairly committed follower of the UFC, Renato Moicano’s surge to prominence in the featherweight division might have caught you by surprise. Moicano arrived in the UFC in December 2014, beating Tom Niinimaki fairly impressively on the undercard of a Fight Night event. Unfortunately, Moicano was taken out of action by injuries and missed the entirety of 2015, and only managed one mundane decision victory in May 2016.

After another year out, Moicano returned to the cage on April 15, 2017 to face the No. 5 ranked featherweight, Jeremy Stephens. It was an opportunity that seemingly came out of nowhere and yet Mociano made good on it. The Brazilian made Stephens look foolish, clipping off crisp jabs, low kicks and combinations before circling away from Stephens’s straight-armed swings. Since then, Moicano has managed to stay healthy and looked impressive boxing up Brian Ortega (before falling into a guillotine choke), and outclassed Calvin Kattar and Cub Swanson in 2018.

There isn’t a lot about Moicano that you can grab onto: none of his weapons are the fastest or the hardest or the crispest in the division, and that might account somewhat for his almost sneaking up on the featherweight top ten. We are touting him as a brilliant striker, yet he hasn’t scored a single knockout. But when you have access to the footage and you can watch one fight after another, the changes Moicano makes from fight to fight are a more exciting indicator of potential than any Zabit Magomedsharipov or Yair Rodriguez jumping spin kick.

Stephens – Lateral Movement, Straight Hitting

Jeremy Stephens’s game is well known. He is going to walk forward and attempt to kick your lead leg very hard, or take your head off by swinging his hands. The problem is that he’s extremely tough and has a pretty good gas tank for someone swinging all their being into every shot. Even the very best fighters in the world have to show they are capable of adapting in order to beat him.

One of the key weaknesses in Stephens’s game is his footwork. He can cut the cage for a while, but tends to get frustrated by direction changes, and when he gets frustrated his ring cutting gets even worse. So Moicano set to work floating around the cage with his feet almost parallel. This was a stark contrast to his usual long, low stance. With his feet level Moicano could side step more effectively. Each time Stephens stepped in he ate Moicano’s jab, then Moicano would circle off into space and Stephens would have to cut the ring all over again.

Of course no one can be perfect all the time, so Moicano did end up at the fence from time to time. But the Brazilian kept his head (and remembered to move it) and then cut tighter angles out to the side. He often did this by stepping across himself, allowing a tight pivot around to face the opponent or permitting him to run straight through into a sprint in the style of Alexander Gustafsson if he felt particularly troubled.

When the judges’ decision was announced, one judge saw it—bizarrely—for Stephens, perhaps because he had been advancing the entire time. The problem is that moving forward while getting lanced by jabs is really only dictating the pace at which you get your ass kicked. But to everyone else it was quite a coup, Moicano was basically unknown and Stephens had just fought a far closer fight against the great Frankie Edgar who was being lined up for a title shot.

Ortega – Catch and Pitch

Unfortunately, Moicano’s path to the top was hindered slightly in his next match where he made the first misstep of his UFC career, against Brian Ortega. The fight started out well for Moicano as he abandoned the mobile style and opted to play catch and pitch with Ortega. Ortega likes to throw hard and one or two at a time, he also likes to attempt to shoulder roll off his opponent’s right hand but does it pretty poorly, leaving his chin up and his shoulder low. So Moicano carried his left forearm upright, ready to catch Ortega’s right hand and immediately return with his own.

Moicano had success returning on Ortega’s right hands but was caught by surprise at just how durable Ortega was. Moicano put over a hundred blows onto Orega’s head but there was very little to show for it, where Ortega had opened up Moicano’s nose pretty badly in one of the opening trades.

It got pretty heated as Moicano forced more and more trades.

Moreover, for all his technical shortcomings, Ortega often shows a talent for the science of striking. By the second round Ortega was sneaking in body punches while Moicano teed off on his head. By the third round, Moicano was breathing hard. A reactive takedown late in the second round had scored Moicano some points and won him some breathing room, but an attempt at the same in round three saw him dragged into the vaunted Ortega guillotine and he was quickly submitted.

The Ortega fight stands as an example of Moicano doing his reconnaissance and not adapting appropriately because he was too invested in his first plan. Moicano found good success with low kicks as Ortega stepped in. He also found Ortega’s body easily when he shot for it in his punching combinations. But he rarely returned to these targets and instead stuck to his guns in swinging for Ortega’s head.

Kattar – Killing the Jab

Calvin Kattar met Moicano coming off a tremendous knockout over Shane Burgos. Kattar was known as a kickboxer but did much of his work floating in behind a jab in order to score a good right hand. Moicano’s task in this fight seemed to be cutting down Kattar’s mobility while mitigating Kattar’s straight hitting. For the early going it was all the usual Moicano check hooks and the odd kick, but Moicano really found his stride when he timed Kattar with low kicks as Kattar stepped in.

The traditional in and out style of boxing cannot be performed without one leg leading the entire body into the opponent’s range, so as that leg stepped, Moicano punted it—either moving his head off line or checking Kattar’s hands with his own as he did so.

Here Moicano demonstrates one of the prettiest techniques in counter kicking—slipping inside of the jab and countering with the right low kick to buckle the opponent’s planting leg.

A few jarring connections as Kattar stepped in and suddenly Kattar wasn’t so mobile. Kattar would follow Moicano around the cage and then Moicano would stop and start checking Kattar’s hands, showing him feinted jabs and straights, and then as Moicano threw a kick from this close range you could almost see in Kattar’s face the disappointment that he had been suckered once again.

A common feature of Moicano fights is distance control. If he is not doing his own hitting, he simply isn’t there. It hardly seems sporting but that is the way good striking is done. So if Moicano stands still in front of his opponent, you can be pretty much assured there is a trap being set.

Moicano’s movement and distance work against Kattar was broken up by periods where he would stand in front of Kattar, heavy on the front foot in his long stance, and extend his right hand to either check Kattar’s lead hand or obstruct the path of the jab. Obstructing the path of the jab is a great trick that you will see all the time in MMA—it looks like the fighter is open for the left hook behind his extended right hand, but the entire point is to stifle the quickest punch the opponent has, and being ready to react to the slower one that is being offered up.

After eating a couple of those low kicks as he stepped in, Kattar became more cautious in these little pawing exchanges, and then Moicano was free to skip up and hack away with the inside low kick.

When obstructing a jabber’s best weapon, a fighter has to know that the moment his checking hand slips from that path, the moment his opponent’s lead fist is shown a glimmer of sunlight, that jab is going to fly out of its own accord. So rather than simply shutting down an opponent’s jab, a fighter might do even more damage to his opponent’s confidence through carefully choosing when he is going to allow his opponent to jab. Moicano’s right hand was rarely off of the line of Kattar’s jab, but when it was, Kattar’s jab would come like clockwork and Moicano would immediately slip to the elbow side of it and return with a counter right hand.

A final crafty look was Moicano’s work from southpaw. He would occasionally switch stances and then lead with a right uppercut. This served to raise the head of Kattar and stand him upright. Following with a body kick, a leg kick, or a high kick, Moicano was able to score good connections on Kattar throughout the fight. This use of the southpaw right uppercut to both close the distance and stand the opponent up was a staple of the great Nak Muay, Yodsanklai.

Other Habits

Of course there are features of Moicano’s game which are constant from fight to fight. As we remarked earlier, what he does best is adjust the ratios to suit his opponent. On Saturday night, Moicano faces Jose Aldo—the most accomplished featherweight in MMA history and while Moicano deserves this opportunity he has by no means been flawless. Moicano’s check hooks are a double edged sword—he scores many of his best connections by leaning back and whipping out the left hook as his opponent chases him, but he also exposes himself horribly when he does so.

Moicano’s bad habit is the same that Francis Ngannou had when he first came to the UFC. He has his timing down on the check hook and has good success on it, but rather than slide back with his feet or drop his right foot back and lean back into his stance, he will often come up out of his stance and lean back only at the waist. This means that there are many, many awkward occasions in Moicano fights where the opponent is almost on top of him and he is swinging with his hands low and performing a limbo. (It is worth noting that Ngannou fixed this habit and you can see him perform the same technique with much neater mechanics and while maintaining his stance against Andrei Arlovski.)

Like Ngannou, Moicano will pair his check hook with a right uppercut. It’s a good combination because if the opponent senses the hook he will normally drop his head and crunch down to protect himself, then the bus driver uppercut clacks his teeth together.

In the above example, Moicano actually shifts off to his left side as he throws the check hook, taking him into a southpaw stance to land a right hook/uppercut. We all recall this sneaky southpaw hook from the ninety degree angle as Mike Tyson’s favorite punch, but it is hardly a modern invention. Here is Georges Carpentier (world light heavyweight champion from 1920 to 1922) demonstrating the exact same shift to line up the right hand.

Moicano’s back-leaning check hooks are the most worrying because should Moicano go into a lean like this and his opponent instead show him a double jab and commit to covering ground before letting go the right hand, Moicano will have nowhere to go when that right hand comes.

And even those shifts into southpaw out to the side have their problems. Brian Ortega caught Moicano with clotheslines every time he stepped out to the right in this manner with his head up in the air and that is how Moicano got bloodied up in that fight in the first place.

While the counter hooks work wonderfully when Moicano can get opponents reaching for his head, his Achilles heel in the Ortega fight turned out to be his body. You can’t lean your gut out of reach. Moicano is a gangly guy for the weight class and drives a hard pace to begin with, a bit of body work could slow his feet and cause him all kinds of trouble. Jose Aldo’s commitment to bodywork has been sporadic, but after he handed Jeremy Stephens a very rare knockout loss with a liver shot, you have to think he’ll be coming into this fight with a new appreciation for hitting the midriff.

We have only really hit the main points of Moicano’s striking, and there is a lot of clever stuff he does that we just don’t have time to cover in depth (marching double kick combinations like an old school American kickboxer, upward elbows and so on) but it is worth noting just how smooth Moicano has looked on the ground in his UFC fights. He hasn’t scored a single career knockout, but that statistic hides the fact that he has hurt a lot of opponents and then methodically finished them on the ground. You will remember this as B.J. Penn’s typical gameplan, but there’s a touch of Penn in Moicano’s top game as well. When met with butterfly guard, Moicano will clear one knee, drop to a hip and then simply step over the other hook straight into mount.

In his most recent fight, against Cub Swanson, Moicano set to work establishing the jab and frustrating Swanson who was forced to leap to close the distance. A stiff jab sent Swanson to the mat and Moicano quickly found himself in the mount. As a Swanson fan it is sometimes more fun to watch him work hurt because his ground game is something quite wily—constantly working back to half butterfly guard and hitting stand ups and sweep attempts from there. As Moicano postured up to strike, Swanson sat straight up into him, scooting back on his hands and sneaking a knee in to accomplish butterfly half-guard. But even against a guard player as slick as Swanson, Moicano sat to his hip again and swept the leg over to mount once more. Eventually Moicano was able to subdue Swanson with a rear naked choke.

UFC on ESPN+ 2 is an absolutely stacked card of fights for the educated fight fan. From Moraes vs. Assuncao to Oliveira vs. Teymur to Alves vs. Griffin, there are some seriously compelling match ups between high level technicians scheduled. It should tell you something that instead of covering all of those we chose to focus entirely on one fighter today and on his style rather than the specifics of his upcoming bout.

Renato Moicano has shown the ability to spot openings and ruthlessly exploit them, changing his game on the fly without instruction, and even among the elite that remains a rare skill. He has the makings of something very special and it is important that you know that, and in turn that you know just how good Jose Aldo is if he can, at this advanced stage in his career, beat such a prospect.

Jack Slack wrote the biography Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and hosts the Fights Gone By podcast.

Renato Moicano is a Jack of All Trades, with Answers for All published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[flauntpage]

Renato Moicano is a Jack of All Trades, with Answers for All

Renato Moicano is not a fighter who presents a single, stand-out problem. No one is writing home about his thunderous right hand, his blindingly fast jab, or his unstoppable double leg takedown. The Brazilian brings a fairly mundane toolkit to his fights but can eye up an opponent and tell you exactly what is needed within a few minutes of sparring. And when Moicano has assessed his man and hit on what is working, it is ruthlessly exploited until his opponent can no longer keep pace. No, Moicano has no standout technique or tactic to set the featherweights of the world quivering in their boots, but he has something much more useful: he has answers.

Even if you are a fairly committed follower of the UFC, Renato Moicano’s surge to prominence in the featherweight division might have caught you by surprise. Moicano arrived in the UFC in December 2014, beating Tom Niinimaki fairly impressively on the undercard of a Fight Night event. Unfortunately, Moicano was taken out of action by injuries and missed the entirety of 2015, and only managed one mundane decision victory in May 2016.

After another year out, Moicano returned to the cage on April 15, 2017 to face the No. 5 ranked featherweight, Jeremy Stephens. It was an opportunity that seemingly came out of nowhere and yet Mociano made good on it. The Brazilian made Stephens look foolish, clipping off crisp jabs, low kicks and combinations before circling away from Stephens’s straight-armed swings. Since then, Moicano has managed to stay healthy and looked impressive boxing up Brian Ortega (before falling into a guillotine choke), and outclassed Calvin Kattar and Cub Swanson in 2018.

There isn’t a lot about Moicano that you can grab onto: none of his weapons are the fastest or the hardest or the crispest in the division, and that might account somewhat for his almost sneaking up on the featherweight top ten. We are touting him as a brilliant striker, yet he hasn’t scored a single knockout. But when you have access to the footage and you can watch one fight after another, the changes Moicano makes from fight to fight are a more exciting indicator of potential than any Zabit Magomedsharipov or Yair Rodriguez jumping spin kick.

Stephens – Lateral Movement, Straight Hitting

Jeremy Stephens’s game is well known. He is going to walk forward and attempt to kick your lead leg very hard, or take your head off by swinging his hands. The problem is that he’s extremely tough and has a pretty good gas tank for someone swinging all their being into every shot. Even the very best fighters in the world have to show they are capable of adapting in order to beat him.

One of the key weaknesses in Stephens’s game is his footwork. He can cut the cage for a while, but tends to get frustrated by direction changes, and when he gets frustrated his ring cutting gets even worse. So Moicano set to work floating around the cage with his feet almost parallel. This was a stark contrast to his usual long, low stance. With his feet level Moicano could side step more effectively. Each time Stephens stepped in he ate Moicano’s jab, then Moicano would circle off into space and Stephens would have to cut the ring all over again.

Of course no one can be perfect all the time, so Moicano did end up at the fence from time to time. But the Brazilian kept his head (and remembered to move it) and then cut tighter angles out to the side. He often did this by stepping across himself, allowing a tight pivot around to face the opponent or permitting him to run straight through into a sprint in the style of Alexander Gustafsson if he felt particularly troubled.

When the judges’ decision was announced, one judge saw it—bizarrely—for Stephens, perhaps because he had been advancing the entire time. The problem is that moving forward while getting lanced by jabs is really only dictating the pace at which you get your ass kicked. But to everyone else it was quite a coup, Moicano was basically unknown and Stephens had just fought a far closer fight against the great Frankie Edgar who was being lined up for a title shot.

Ortega – Catch and Pitch

Unfortunately, Moicano’s path to the top was hindered slightly in his next match where he made the first misstep of his UFC career, against Brian Ortega. The fight started out well for Moicano as he abandoned the mobile style and opted to play catch and pitch with Ortega. Ortega likes to throw hard and one or two at a time, he also likes to attempt to shoulder roll off his opponent’s right hand but does it pretty poorly, leaving his chin up and his shoulder low. So Moicano carried his left forearm upright, ready to catch Ortega’s right hand and immediately return with his own.

Moicano had success returning on Ortega’s right hands but was caught by surprise at just how durable Ortega was. Moicano put over a hundred blows onto Orega’s head but there was very little to show for it, where Ortega had opened up Moicano’s nose pretty badly in one of the opening trades.

It got pretty heated as Moicano forced more and more trades.

Moreover, for all his technical shortcomings, Ortega often shows a talent for the science of striking. By the second round Ortega was sneaking in body punches while Moicano teed off on his head. By the third round, Moicano was breathing hard. A reactive takedown late in the second round had scored Moicano some points and won him some breathing room, but an attempt at the same in round three saw him dragged into the vaunted Ortega guillotine and he was quickly submitted.

The Ortega fight stands as an example of Moicano doing his reconnaissance and not adapting appropriately because he was too invested in his first plan. Moicano found good success with low kicks as Ortega stepped in. He also found Ortega’s body easily when he shot for it in his punching combinations. But he rarely returned to these targets and instead stuck to his guns in swinging for Ortega’s head.

Kattar – Killing the Jab

Calvin Kattar met Moicano coming off a tremendous knockout over Shane Burgos. Kattar was known as a kickboxer but did much of his work floating in behind a jab in order to score a good right hand. Moicano’s task in this fight seemed to be cutting down Kattar’s mobility while mitigating Kattar’s straight hitting. For the early going it was all the usual Moicano check hooks and the odd kick, but Moicano really found his stride when he timed Kattar with low kicks as Kattar stepped in.

The traditional in and out style of boxing cannot be performed without one leg leading the entire body into the opponent’s range, so as that leg stepped, Moicano punted it—either moving his head off line or checking Kattar’s hands with his own as he did so.

Here Moicano demonstrates one of the prettiest techniques in counter kicking—slipping inside of the jab and countering with the right low kick to buckle the opponent’s planting leg.

A few jarring connections as Kattar stepped in and suddenly Kattar wasn’t so mobile. Kattar would follow Moicano around the cage and then Moicano would stop and start checking Kattar’s hands, showing him feinted jabs and straights, and then as Moicano threw a kick from this close range you could almost see in Kattar’s face the disappointment that he had been suckered once again.

A common feature of Moicano fights is distance control. If he is not doing his own hitting, he simply isn’t there. It hardly seems sporting but that is the way good striking is done. So if Moicano stands still in front of his opponent, you can be pretty much assured there is a trap being set.

Moicano’s movement and distance work against Kattar was broken up by periods where he would stand in front of Kattar, heavy on the front foot in his long stance, and extend his right hand to either check Kattar’s lead hand or obstruct the path of the jab. Obstructing the path of the jab is a great trick that you will see all the time in MMA—it looks like the fighter is open for the left hook behind his extended right hand, but the entire point is to stifle the quickest punch the opponent has, and being ready to react to the slower one that is being offered up.

After eating a couple of those low kicks as he stepped in, Kattar became more cautious in these little pawing exchanges, and then Moicano was free to skip up and hack away with the inside low kick.

When obstructing a jabber’s best weapon, a fighter has to know that the moment his checking hand slips from that path, the moment his opponent’s lead fist is shown a glimmer of sunlight, that jab is going to fly out of its own accord. So rather than simply shutting down an opponent’s jab, a fighter might do even more damage to his opponent’s confidence through carefully choosing when he is going to allow his opponent to jab. Moicano’s right hand was rarely off of the line of Kattar’s jab, but when it was, Kattar’s jab would come like clockwork and Moicano would immediately slip to the elbow side of it and return with a counter right hand.

A final crafty look was Moicano’s work from southpaw. He would occasionally switch stances and then lead with a right uppercut. This served to raise the head of Kattar and stand him upright. Following with a body kick, a leg kick, or a high kick, Moicano was able to score good connections on Kattar throughout the fight. This use of the southpaw right uppercut to both close the distance and stand the opponent up was a staple of the great Nak Muay, Yodsanklai.

Other Habits

Of course there are features of Moicano’s game which are constant from fight to fight. As we remarked earlier, what he does best is adjust the ratios to suit his opponent. On Saturday night, Moicano faces Jose Aldo—the most accomplished featherweight in MMA history and while Moicano deserves this opportunity he has by no means been flawless. Moicano’s check hooks are a double edged sword—he scores many of his best connections by leaning back and whipping out the left hook as his opponent chases him, but he also exposes himself horribly when he does so.

Moicano’s bad habit is the same that Francis Ngannou had when he first came to the UFC. He has his timing down on the check hook and has good success on it, but rather than slide back with his feet or drop his right foot back and lean back into his stance, he will often come up out of his stance and lean back only at the waist. This means that there are many, many awkward occasions in Moicano fights where the opponent is almost on top of him and he is swinging with his hands low and performing a limbo. (It is worth noting that Ngannou fixed this habit and you can see him perform the same technique with much neater mechanics and while maintaining his stance against Andrei Arlovski.)

Like Ngannou, Moicano will pair his check hook with a right uppercut. It’s a good combination because if the opponent senses the hook he will normally drop his head and crunch down to protect himself, then the bus driver uppercut clacks his teeth together.

In the above example, Moicano actually shifts off to his left side as he throws the check hook, taking him into a southpaw stance to land a right hook/uppercut. We all recall this sneaky southpaw hook from the ninety degree angle as Mike Tyson’s favorite punch, but it is hardly a modern invention. Here is Georges Carpentier (world light heavyweight champion from 1920 to 1922) demonstrating the exact same shift to line up the right hand.

Moicano’s back-leaning check hooks are the most worrying because should Moicano go into a lean like this and his opponent instead show him a double jab and commit to covering ground before letting go the right hand, Moicano will have nowhere to go when that right hand comes.

And even those shifts into southpaw out to the side have their problems. Brian Ortega caught Moicano with clotheslines every time he stepped out to the right in this manner with his head up in the air and that is how Moicano got bloodied up in that fight in the first place.

While the counter hooks work wonderfully when Moicano can get opponents reaching for his head, his Achilles heel in the Ortega fight turned out to be his body. You can’t lean your gut out of reach. Moicano is a gangly guy for the weight class and drives a hard pace to begin with, a bit of body work could slow his feet and cause him all kinds of trouble. Jose Aldo’s commitment to bodywork has been sporadic, but after he handed Jeremy Stephens a very rare knockout loss with a liver shot, you have to think he’ll be coming into this fight with a new appreciation for hitting the midriff.

We have only really hit the main points of Moicano’s striking, and there is a lot of clever stuff he does that we just don’t have time to cover in depth (marching double kick combinations like an old school American kickboxer, upward elbows and so on) but it is worth noting just how smooth Moicano has looked on the ground in his UFC fights. He hasn’t scored a single career knockout, but that statistic hides the fact that he has hurt a lot of opponents and then methodically finished them on the ground. You will remember this as B.J. Penn’s typical gameplan, but there’s a touch of Penn in Moicano’s top game as well. When met with butterfly guard, Moicano will clear one knee, drop to a hip and then simply step over the other hook straight into mount.

In his most recent fight, against Cub Swanson, Moicano set to work establishing the jab and frustrating Swanson who was forced to leap to close the distance. A stiff jab sent Swanson to the mat and Moicano quickly found himself in the mount. As a Swanson fan it is sometimes more fun to watch him work hurt because his ground game is something quite wily—constantly working back to half butterfly guard and hitting stand ups and sweep attempts from there. As Moicano postured up to strike, Swanson sat straight up into him, scooting back on his hands and sneaking a knee in to accomplish butterfly half-guard. But even against a guard player as slick as Swanson, Moicano sat to his hip again and swept the leg over to mount once more. Eventually Moicano was able to subdue Swanson with a rear naked choke.

UFC on ESPN+ 2 is an absolutely stacked card of fights for the educated fight fan. From Moraes vs. Assuncao to Oliveira vs. Teymur to Alves vs. Griffin, there are some seriously compelling match ups between high level technicians scheduled. It should tell you something that instead of covering all of those we chose to focus entirely on one fighter today and on his style rather than the specifics of his upcoming bout.

Renato Moicano has shown the ability to spot openings and ruthlessly exploit them, changing his game on the fly without instruction, and even among the elite that remains a rare skill. He has the makings of something very special and it is important that you know that, and in turn that you know just how good Jose Aldo is if he can, at this advanced stage in his career, beat such a prospect.

Jack Slack wrote the biography Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and hosts the Fights Gone By podcast.

Renato Moicano is a Jack of All Trades, with Answers for All published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[flauntpage]

Renato Moicano is a Jack of All Trades, with Answers for All

Renato Moicano is not a fighter who presents a single, stand-out problem. No one is writing home about his thunderous right hand, his blindingly fast jab, or his unstoppable double leg takedown. The Brazilian brings a fairly mundane toolkit to his fights but can eye up an opponent and tell you exactly what is needed within a few minutes of sparring. And when Moicano has assessed his man and hit on what is working, it is ruthlessly exploited until his opponent can no longer keep pace. No, Moicano has no standout technique or tactic to set the featherweights of the world quivering in their boots, but he has something much more useful: he has answers.

Even if you are a fairly committed follower of the UFC, Renato Moicano’s surge to prominence in the featherweight division might have caught you by surprise. Moicano arrived in the UFC in December 2014, beating Tom Niinimaki fairly impressively on the undercard of a Fight Night event. Unfortunately, Moicano was taken out of action by injuries and missed the entirety of 2015, and only managed one mundane decision victory in May 2016.

After another year out, Moicano returned to the cage on April 15, 2017 to face the No. 5 ranked featherweight, Jeremy Stephens. It was an opportunity that seemingly came out of nowhere and yet Mociano made good on it. The Brazilian made Stephens look foolish, clipping off crisp jabs, low kicks and combinations before circling away from Stephens’s straight-armed swings. Since then, Moicano has managed to stay healthy and looked impressive boxing up Brian Ortega (before falling into a guillotine choke), and outclassed Calvin Kattar and Cub Swanson in 2018.

There isn’t a lot about Moicano that you can grab onto: none of his weapons are the fastest or the hardest or the crispest in the division, and that might account somewhat for his almost sneaking up on the featherweight top ten. We are touting him as a brilliant striker, yet he hasn’t scored a single knockout. But when you have access to the footage and you can watch one fight after another, the changes Moicano makes from fight to fight are a more exciting indicator of potential than any Zabit Magomedsharipov or Yair Rodriguez jumping spin kick.

Stephens – Lateral Movement, Straight Hitting

Jeremy Stephens’s game is well known. He is going to walk forward and attempt to kick your lead leg very hard, or take your head off by swinging his hands. The problem is that he’s extremely tough and has a pretty good gas tank for someone swinging all their being into every shot. Even the very best fighters in the world have to show they are capable of adapting in order to beat him.

One of the key weaknesses in Stephens’s game is his footwork. He can cut the cage for a while, but tends to get frustrated by direction changes, and when he gets frustrated his ring cutting gets even worse. So Moicano set to work floating around the cage with his feet almost parallel. This was a stark contrast to his usual long, low stance. With his feet level Moicano could side step more effectively. Each time Stephens stepped in he ate Moicano’s jab, then Moicano would circle off into space and Stephens would have to cut the ring all over again.

Of course no one can be perfect all the time, so Moicano did end up at the fence from time to time. But the Brazilian kept his head (and remembered to move it) and then cut tighter angles out to the side. He often did this by stepping across himself, allowing a tight pivot around to face the opponent or permitting him to run straight through into a sprint in the style of Alexander Gustafsson if he felt particularly troubled.

When the judges’ decision was announced, one judge saw it—bizarrely—for Stephens, perhaps because he had been advancing the entire time. The problem is that moving forward while getting lanced by jabs is really only dictating the pace at which you get your ass kicked. But to everyone else it was quite a coup, Moicano was basically unknown and Stephens had just fought a far closer fight against the great Frankie Edgar who was being lined up for a title shot.

Ortega – Catch and Pitch

Unfortunately, Moicano’s path to the top was hindered slightly in his next match where he made the first misstep of his UFC career, against Brian Ortega. The fight started out well for Moicano as he abandoned the mobile style and opted to play catch and pitch with Ortega. Ortega likes to throw hard and one or two at a time, he also likes to attempt to shoulder roll off his opponent’s right hand but does it pretty poorly, leaving his chin up and his shoulder low. So Moicano carried his left forearm upright, ready to catch Ortega’s right hand and immediately return with his own.

Moicano had success returning on Ortega’s right hands but was caught by surprise at just how durable Ortega was. Moicano put over a hundred blows onto Orega’s head but there was very little to show for it, where Ortega had opened up Moicano’s nose pretty badly in one of the opening trades.

It got pretty heated as Moicano forced more and more trades.

Moreover, for all his technical shortcomings, Ortega often shows a talent for the science of striking. By the second round Ortega was sneaking in body punches while Moicano teed off on his head. By the third round, Moicano was breathing hard. A reactive takedown late in the second round had scored Moicano some points and won him some breathing room, but an attempt at the same in round three saw him dragged into the vaunted Ortega guillotine and he was quickly submitted.

The Ortega fight stands as an example of Moicano doing his reconnaissance and not adapting appropriately because he was too invested in his first plan. Moicano found good success with low kicks as Ortega stepped in. He also found Ortega’s body easily when he shot for it in his punching combinations. But he rarely returned to these targets and instead stuck to his guns in swinging for Ortega’s head.

Kattar – Killing the Jab

Calvin Kattar met Moicano coming off a tremendous knockout over Shane Burgos. Kattar was known as a kickboxer but did much of his work floating in behind a jab in order to score a good right hand. Moicano’s task in this fight seemed to be cutting down Kattar’s mobility while mitigating Kattar’s straight hitting. For the early going it was all the usual Moicano check hooks and the odd kick, but Moicano really found his stride when he timed Kattar with low kicks as Kattar stepped in.

The traditional in and out style of boxing cannot be performed without one leg leading the entire body into the opponent’s range, so as that leg stepped, Moicano punted it—either moving his head off line or checking Kattar’s hands with his own as he did so.

Here Moicano demonstrates one of the prettiest techniques in counter kicking—slipping inside of the jab and countering with the right low kick to buckle the opponent’s planting leg.

A few jarring connections as Kattar stepped in and suddenly Kattar wasn’t so mobile. Kattar would follow Moicano around the cage and then Moicano would stop and start checking Kattar’s hands, showing him feinted jabs and straights, and then as Moicano threw a kick from this close range you could almost see in Kattar’s face the disappointment that he had been suckered once again.

A common feature of Moicano fights is distance control. If he is not doing his own hitting, he simply isn’t there. It hardly seems sporting but that is the way good striking is done. So if Moicano stands still in front of his opponent, you can be pretty much assured there is a trap being set.

Moicano’s movement and distance work against Kattar was broken up by periods where he would stand in front of Kattar, heavy on the front foot in his long stance, and extend his right hand to either check Kattar’s lead hand or obstruct the path of the jab. Obstructing the path of the jab is a great trick that you will see all the time in MMA—it looks like the fighter is open for the left hook behind his extended right hand, but the entire point is to stifle the quickest punch the opponent has, and being ready to react to the slower one that is being offered up.

After eating a couple of those low kicks as he stepped in, Kattar became more cautious in these little pawing exchanges, and then Moicano was free to skip up and hack away with the inside low kick.

When obstructing a jabber’s best weapon, a fighter has to know that the moment his checking hand slips from that path, the moment his opponent’s lead fist is shown a glimmer of sunlight, that jab is going to fly out of its own accord. So rather than simply shutting down an opponent’s jab, a fighter might do even more damage to his opponent’s confidence through carefully choosing when he is going to allow his opponent to jab. Moicano’s right hand was rarely off of the line of Kattar’s jab, but when it was, Kattar’s jab would come like clockwork and Moicano would immediately slip to the elbow side of it and return with a counter right hand.

A final crafty look was Moicano’s work from southpaw. He would occasionally switch stances and then lead with a right uppercut. This served to raise the head of Kattar and stand him upright. Following with a body kick, a leg kick, or a high kick, Moicano was able to score good connections on Kattar throughout the fight. This use of the southpaw right uppercut to both close the distance and stand the opponent up was a staple of the great Nak Muay, Yodsanklai.

Other Habits

Of course there are features of Moicano’s game which are constant from fight to fight. As we remarked earlier, what he does best is adjust the ratios to suit his opponent. On Saturday night, Moicano faces Jose Aldo—the most accomplished featherweight in MMA history and while Moicano deserves this opportunity he has by no means been flawless. Moicano’s check hooks are a double edged sword—he scores many of his best connections by leaning back and whipping out the left hook as his opponent chases him, but he also exposes himself horribly when he does so.

Moicano’s bad habit is the same that Francis Ngannou had when he first came to the UFC. He has his timing down on the check hook and has good success on it, but rather than slide back with his feet or drop his right foot back and lean back into his stance, he will often come up out of his stance and lean back only at the waist. This means that there are many, many awkward occasions in Moicano fights where the opponent is almost on top of him and he is swinging with his hands low and performing a limbo. (It is worth noting that Ngannou fixed this habit and you can see him perform the same technique with much neater mechanics and while maintaining his stance against Andrei Arlovski.)

Like Ngannou, Moicano will pair his check hook with a right uppercut. It’s a good combination because if the opponent senses the hook he will normally drop his head and crunch down to protect himself, then the bus driver uppercut clacks his teeth together.

In the above example, Moicano actually shifts off to his left side as he throws the check hook, taking him into a southpaw stance to land a right hook/uppercut. We all recall this sneaky southpaw hook from the ninety degree angle as Mike Tyson’s favorite punch, but it is hardly a modern invention. Here is Georges Carpentier (world light heavyweight champion from 1920 to 1922) demonstrating the exact same shift to line up the right hand.

Moicano’s back-leaning check hooks are the most worrying because should Moicano go into a lean like this and his opponent instead show him a double jab and commit to covering ground before letting go the right hand, Moicano will have nowhere to go when that right hand comes.

And even those shifts into southpaw out to the side have their problems. Brian Ortega caught Moicano with clotheslines every time he stepped out to the right in this manner with his head up in the air and that is how Moicano got bloodied up in that fight in the first place.

While the counter hooks work wonderfully when Moicano can get opponents reaching for his head, his Achilles heel in the Ortega fight turned out to be his body. You can’t lean your gut out of reach. Moicano is a gangly guy for the weight class and drives a hard pace to begin with, a bit of body work could slow his feet and cause him all kinds of trouble. Jose Aldo’s commitment to bodywork has been sporadic, but after he handed Jeremy Stephens a very rare knockout loss with a liver shot, you have to think he’ll be coming into this fight with a new appreciation for hitting the midriff.

We have only really hit the main points of Moicano’s striking, and there is a lot of clever stuff he does that we just don’t have time to cover in depth (marching double kick combinations like an old school American kickboxer, upward elbows and so on) but it is worth noting just how smooth Moicano has looked on the ground in his UFC fights. He hasn’t scored a single career knockout, but that statistic hides the fact that he has hurt a lot of opponents and then methodically finished them on the ground. You will remember this as B.J. Penn’s typical gameplan, but there’s a touch of Penn in Moicano’s top game as well. When met with butterfly guard, Moicano will clear one knee, drop to a hip and then simply step over the other hook straight into mount.

In his most recent fight, against Cub Swanson, Moicano set to work establishing the jab and frustrating Swanson who was forced to leap to close the distance. A stiff jab sent Swanson to the mat and Moicano quickly found himself in the mount. As a Swanson fan it is sometimes more fun to watch him work hurt because his ground game is something quite wily—constantly working back to half butterfly guard and hitting stand ups and sweep attempts from there. As Moicano postured up to strike, Swanson sat straight up into him, scooting back on his hands and sneaking a knee in to accomplish butterfly half-guard. But even against a guard player as slick as Swanson, Moicano sat to his hip again and swept the leg over to mount once more. Eventually Moicano was able to subdue Swanson with a rear naked choke.

UFC on ESPN+ 2 is an absolutely stacked card of fights for the educated fight fan. From Moraes vs. Assuncao to Oliveira vs. Teymur to Alves vs. Griffin, there are some seriously compelling match ups between high level technicians scheduled. It should tell you something that instead of covering all of those we chose to focus entirely on one fighter today and on his style rather than the specifics of his upcoming bout.

Renato Moicano has shown the ability to spot openings and ruthlessly exploit them, changing his game on the fly without instruction, and even among the elite that remains a rare skill. He has the makings of something very special and it is important that you know that, and in turn that you know just how good Jose Aldo is if he can, at this advanced stage in his career, beat such a prospect.

Jack Slack wrote the biography Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and hosts the Fights Gone By podcast.

Renato Moicano is a Jack of All Trades, with Answers for All published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/