Thomas Almeida is rightfully touted as the “next big thing” at bantamweight, and I’d argue he already is. A sensational, come from behind knockout against veteran Brad Pickett pushes his stellar undefeated record to 20-0 with three fourths of those coming via knockout.
His opponent, Anthony Birchak, is 1-1 in the UFC and fairly unknown.
To give you an idea of how hard it is to gauge this guy, only 4 out of his 14 opponents have a Wikipedia page. That may sound shallow but not being able to Wikipedia over 2/3rds of your opponents doesn’t say a lot about the quality of opposition. On the other hand, Birchak is still 12-2 and probably a borderline contender.
So let’s gauge his chances from his most recent (and most impressive) win, a 1:37 first round knockout of Joe Soto. In case you’re keeping track, that’s nearly 20 minutes less than what bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw needed.
Right away, I like what I see.
Snap kicks to the body are underused and their power underestimated. Semmy Schilt and Katsunori Kikuno have built their careers around the snap kick while both Conor McGregor and Robbie Lawler used variations of it to win their respective belts. At worst, the snap body kick can keep your opponents at a distance while draining their cardio. At its best, a snap kick can debilitate an opponent with a solid shot to the solar plexus or liver.
Anyone who paid attention in high school English (yes, Catcher in the Rye was crap. Move on) would know I was foreshadowing the fact that there is a good leg kicker left at bantamweight. And weirdly enough, Birchak is probably that guy.
So in the first 30 seconds of the fight, Birchak has dedicated himself to removing his opponent’s mobility from the equation. At the very least, we know Birchak has good fight IQ preferring to try and slow down Soto rather than bang with the powerful puncher. Because the fight only lasted a minute and a half, there’s only so much GIFs I can justifiably use but until the fight ending sequences there were many more instances of Birchak’s sublime striking.
These include (but are not limited to):
- A perfectly distanced head feint which caused Soto to go defensive, telling Birchak he had momentum on his side.
- A compact leg kick that knocked Soto off balance as the latter tried to close in and attack
- A gorgeous left liver punch – overhand right combination as he advanced
That all pales to Birchak’s knockout set up.
I’m a huge and I mean HUGE fan of “pinning” an opponent’s guard. The idea is that unless you’re very predictable, an opponent physically cannot guard every part of their body (especially true with 4 oz gloves).
It’s why Gennady “GGG” Golovkin can land his liver shot at will despite opponents knowing its coming; he forces their hands and elbows together with his right uppercut and then immediately swings his looping left at their liver before the elbow can drop again. Conor McGregor (god I hate him, but he’s so good) used left hooks against Dustin Poirier to force him to widen his guard so he could sneak his money punch down the middle.
Birchak used his knee up the middle in the thai plum to force Soto’s left arm downward if he wanted to block the knee (which he didn’t). As Soto ripped free of the plum, Birchak simply fired a right cross before his foot touched the ground for a clean connection. Similar to how Jake Ellenberger lost to Stephen Thompson, Soto could see the punch coming but his guard was so out of position that he had no chance of blocking in time.
I’m less a fan of the actual knockout.
The good: Birchak used elbows and was smart enough to switch to an uppercut when Soto started slipping the head shots.
The bad: He never mixed in the liver punch I KNOW he has and instead winged head shots. If Soto wasn’t so badly hurt, he was begging to be countered.
Overall, I really like Birchak.
Joe Soto was defensively sound enough that even the highly mobile, mix up savvy Dillashaw was unable to crack him open for nearly four and a half rounds. But Birchak’s measured, varied attacks and set ups had Soto uncomfortable from the opening bell.
Almeida has a huge edge in power and athleticism but he’s very hittable. Brad Pickett is relatively one dimensional (boxing and head movement) but he was able to deal serious damage to Almeida just by slipping his attacks and returning fire. Birchak’s head movement isn’t as prominent (he seems to rely more on distancing for defense) that’s actually a good thing.
While Almeida was knocked down by a Pickett slip-and-rip, he turned the fight around by taking advantage of the head movement by baiting Pickett into ducking into a flying knee. Birchak will not have these kinds of lapses so if Almeida wants to beat him he’ll have to do it honestly.
Add in Birchak’s leg kicks and Almeida’s long stance and we have a good chance at seeing an upset.
Even if he doesn’t win, hopefully Birchak will get more top 10 match ups because he on the feet he is arguably the wiliest striker the division has seen in a long time.
