Welcome to another recap of Before the 90 Days: The Season Where No One is Dating. First off, if you’re watching Geoffrey’s segment, your safe word is “orange”. If that doesn’t work, please lock yourself in a panic room and wait there until the Avengers arrive. If you hear one voice say, “No really, this is totally the Avengers” do not open the door. Or maybe just social-distance yourself from this whole fucking storyline, because we should not be observing this human stain.
Let’s turn our attention to prisoner of war Usman, busy filming a real life version of Get Out. You know it’s bad when the con artist seeking green card access to bolster a floundering hip hop career is the protagonist. I haven’t felt this awkward since last season of Vanderpump Rules when I was forced to defend James Kennedy. Anyway, Baby-Girl Lisa still hasn’t successfully harvested his essence to maintain control over the Dark Crystal, and Usman threatens to throw a wrench into her plans with a daring escape in the trunk of his friend’s car. Then he realizes he left his phone in the hotel room, and it’s got the lyrics to “Dabbing” on it, so he’s forced to return, to face Lisa losing the mind she never had.
She declares that he’s been absent for 30 minutes and she’s upset …which would have also been the case if he were gone for five minutes, or not at all, or if he went to the bathroom unsupervised, or put on his right shoe before his left one, or stood up too quickly or not fast enough. This time, Lisa’s argument is that she was “scared’ to be left alone (with producers in a hotel room). Annoyed with this never-ending wheel of complaint, Usman declares that he can’t win with her. Then BGL cuts him down with “Let’s not be a drama queen about this.” That’s right kids, all aboard the Gaslight Express, where the person reacting to the drama is the drama queen — not the person perpetually creating it. Would someone please take this man’s photo so he can restore his spirit to his body with the flash? GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!
She continues to stitch a verbal quilt of grievances, while noting how irrelevant Usman’s points are, and looking like she’s ready to start filming her episode of Intervention. Usman slowly realizes that Lisa is unlikely to have an adult conversation with his mother, let alone a respectful one, and he may not be able to salvage his Nigerian hip hop career, let alone forge one in the US of A. He goes outside and admits to the producers that he may have reached his breaking point, and would like to know if they have some kind of relocation program. This is not what Lisa expects from a prisoner, and she informs the producers that “the man who left here is not the man I abducted.”
Usman returns at 2AM to sit in an adjacent room and not talk to Lisa, making half of his wildest dreams come true. He lights up a hookah and considers how he has this “wonderful opportunity” to go to the states, and it might be too much to pretend to like Lisa long enough to get a green card. The producers ask him how he’s doing, and he says that anything he does is not enough, and before he can answer further BGL groans her way into the room.
“Nobody’s perfect. You need to make up your mind and make it up quick,” She declares, because that makes sense. He attempts to confront her, and states that he’s always respected her, and she insults him. And if it’s this bad in Nigeria, what’s it going to be like when she submerges him in preservative gel in the United States? “You’re very insecure about this relationship,” Lisa mumbles.
Usman says that yes, he is, that’s the truth. Then Lisa unfurls her scroll of half-assed excuses, including that the whole trip has been stressful, that there’s a five hour time difference, that she’s in this hotel room that bests the average Idaho haunt but is beneath her, and it’s a day of the week that ends in y, and he should know how she feels about that. Then she says she wants to “close it up” which is the closest Usman is going to get to an apology. For whatever reason, Usman decides that this will do, and later Lisa expresses concerns about returning to the US alone, and declares “ it will destroy both of us.” By this she means she’ll be forced to rework the plot into something that ends with her saucy finger, and will leak the unedited version of Usman’s “I Love You” video, because that’ll teach him.
Speaking of horror movies, let’s stop by Silence of the Lambs to visit Creepy Ed, who puts the lotion on the skin or else it gets the hose again. Rose has made the unfortunate mistake of returning to their shared hotel room, where he hands her a robe and tells her to take a bath, then forces champagne on her, and says he’s going to rub her feet. Note that he didn’t ask her if she was interested in any of these things. Ed considers this “showing how romantic he can be” while the rest of us call this “reasons to run out of the room with your shoes in your hand the minute he goes to the bathroom.” As she gets comfortable because he told her to, Big Nightmare declares he’s “staring at her feet and not her pajamas,” and I’m staring into the deep black abyss, hunting for a portal to escape this. Friends, this is it: the Most Cringe Scene in 90DF History. There’s not even any competition. This is the Citizen Kane of cringe.
“It rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever its told,” Ed declares, with “Goodbye Horses” softly playing in the background.
“Please let me out,” Rose cries.
Since Rose is recoiling in a manner obvious to anyone who isn’t an incel, Ed seizes the opportunity to ask her for a kiss. She says on her cheek or the end of her fist after a wind up, whatever he prefers. He asks for “the middle” which she assumes means the forehead. He kisses her on the cheek, and then brow beats her into kissing him on the mouth. She gets it over with as quickly as possible, and Ed declares that it was “nice” and Jesus Christ, someone put a collar on this beast.
“Would you fuck me? I’d fuck me,” Ed explains (“Goodbye horses, I’m flying over you…”.)
“Is this called coercion in United States?” Rose asks.
“It puts the lotion in the fucking basket!”
The next morning it appears Rose has finally succumbed to his ridiculous advances, and seems cool with it. She declares a hatred for his under-the-bridge beard, and Ed notes that she has hairy legs, which he finds “gross,”and asks her to shave them to best match his blow-up doll ideal. This is rich coming from someone with a greasy mop of Clairol for Mayo dangling in his face. Soon I’ll kick off a GoFundMe to buy Rose a full-body merkin to insulate her lady flesh from Ed’s Rumpelstiltskin mitts. For now, she goes in for the shave and Ed ditches the beard, and I long for the Wookie days of yore.
Later he heads to Rose’s house to act like a goon around a larger audience. He takes a three hour cab ride to her village, where he is shocked to discover that the Philippines is like the Philippines. First he meets Rose’s son Prince, who initially seems confused, and then declares “daddy!” And embraces him. Big Ed isn’t sure how he feels about being a father again at 54, but he’s totally okay with dating a child. Ed is also uneasy about meeting Rose’s sister Maria, because she hit up Ed for cash. Once Maria meets Ed, she realizes she should have asked for more.
The family is waiting with a little surprise party, and Ed meets Rose’s other two sisters and a brother-in-law. When they ask what he thinks, he wants to know where the windows are, and if he should worry about getting rabies from wayward bats or cockroaches, because he’s heard both things are attracted to the scent of canola oil. Seriously: why can’t anyone on this show make a polite comment to the family except Angela? How hard is it to say, “Well I bet you have a great view of the stars!”
Rose’s family has a nice set of dishes arranged for dinner, including fish, chicken, rice, and the silky gravy of Ed’s back sweat. He asks for something to drink, while they marvel at the river running down his face, and we learn her father is running late because he’s busy at the pig farm, which also sounds suspiciously poor to Ed. When Father arrives he’s quiet, contemplating that his daughter is hoping to marry someone older than himself, who is pushing his food around his plate, and calling a chicken like a dog to feed it from the table. Rose’s father wants to know if Ed knows the difference between dinner and a dog, and then asks what Ed’s intentions are, other than getting on his damn nerves. Ed declares, “I want to get to know your daughter, no games.” Sure, Prince is already calling him “daddy,” but wouldn’t want to create strange expectations by suggesting marriage post-coitus, amirite?
Ed declares that now that he’s seen the depth of their poverty, he worries that he’s just a meal ticket to Rose, and not the man of her dreams, even though he’s after Rose for specific things himself. I mean, a lot of 19 year old women are just jonesing for a controlling, anxiety-riddled man who hasn’t had sex in 28 years to fulfill their hobbit kink, so he has a right to be choosey. It’s important for her to love him like Rose loved Jack in the Titanic, even if Ed can’t draw anything and would demand to be the only body on that floating door, and she’s the only person to consider him king of any world.
Meanwhile, Tom continues his crusade to come off as a sympathetic character by making sad eyes from his good angle for the camera. As he pieces together one of his predictably boring outfits, he says he hopes they can have a conversation and attack the problem and not the person, but admits that he doesn’t care about attacking the person if the person is Darcey and not himself.
He situates himself to await her arrival, while Darcey enters the joint with a Beyoncé track in her head, and dumps her 16 changes of clothing on an unsuspecting hostess who has questions. Then she struts. Her. Shit. This is officially the first time Darcey has donned an outfit that isn’t from her signature Midlife Crisis line, and that jumpsuit is the fuck-you jam, and I want it for my next dramatic public fight with a future ex. She greets him as “Thomas” and passes on the affectionate greeting in favor of a handshake, before settling in for some gold medal passive aggression.
Tom: I’m nervous. Because I’m full of shit.
Darcey: No need. It’s just me. That’s called constipation, Tom.
Tom: How was Malta? If I had talked to you sometime in the last six weeks, I might know the answer to this question.
Darcey: It was nice to spend it with Stace. Thank you for the birthday…text. You said you were going to call or video call, I waited that whole day…but it’s okay. I know you’re a dick.
Tom: What actually happened to us? I’m going to act like what happened isn’t me going balls deep in another chick and bragging about it on instagram.
Darcey: I don’t know, but you must not know about me, you must not know about me. Should I say it twice? That’s kinda weird. It sounded better in my head.
Hannibal Lector: Cut him on the bias, Clarice. Serve him with a nice Chianti.
Tom goes on to say that she “was” this lovely woman, but has very specific things she wants, and she’s really not there for him, because she’s preoccupied with selecting the right filters for her twirling face-angle shots on instagram. He insists that Darcey never lets him talk during the conversations they don’t have, while a waiter with bad timing regrets his water glass decisions, and knows his tip is going to be bullshit. Darcey’s not having it, and knows he’s rerouting the events of the last six months to be about her doing something wrong, so she wants to know what his secret is, and talks to him in a soothing voice that is WAY more terrifying than mad Darcey.
“What do you want to hear?” Tom asks, because he’s still determined to make this about how out of control and unreasonable Darcey is, what with her fancy wanting interaction and silly expectations that he wouldn’t start another relationship before breaking it off with her.
“Tell her she’s insecure,” Baby Girl Lisa advises.
Darcey says she knows about the other woman he’s been posing with in stilted thigh-grab photographs, and Tom says that he met this person three weeks ago, and her name is Shannon, and he was hoping to get some exit sex. Since that doesn’t seem to be working out, he goes with, “I met someone who loves me the way I want to be loved. In three weeks.” Then what the fuck are you doing there, dude? He says, “You had everything of me in your hands, and you didn’t see it. And it was hard to listen to the Jesse thing all the time, when I was busy thinking about other people I planned to bang.” Since this isn’t already ridiculous enough, he says he’s not her notion of love, and that he loves her like a sister he wants to have sex with. Darcey thinks about what this means for her and Stacey, while Tom says he wants to be her friend.
Darcey nixes that bullshit, and says she doesn’t want to be friends. Then Tom tells her to “try not to ruin the next” relationship, and it’s easier to get through this scene if you imagine Tom has a diseased ballsack for a chin, which isn’t far off. He lets Darcey pay for his coffee, and continues throwing his Chex Mix on the floor by saying it’s a weight off of him, and when Darcey tells him to enjoy his life, he responds, “I will now that you’re not in it.” That twice a year interaction was really bringing him down before.
Tom tells the producers that he showed up to see if anything was still there, and because he wanted to be on camera one more time, and because he wanted to have sex with Darcey’s smother-titties before returning to the safety of Shannon’s thigh. Darcey is over this shit, and is ready to watch the baseball bat video with Beyoncé is a yellow dress, breaking stuff.
It’s time to revisit the platonic romantic relationship of Erika and Stephanie. As she stated last week, Stephanie is “waiting” to have sex until she’s actually bisexual, so Erika should start checking out social-distancing hers and hers nursing homes right now. Erika got to know Stephanie as someone with a risqué, fun, and sexual online persona, and she incorrectly assumed that Stephanie would clue her in if her real self didn’t match that presentation. With this in mind, Erika is certain Steph will love her big date surprise: a little artsy neon-lit joint where the last Rockabilly chick in an updo coaches women through the wet wrap construction of boob molds! Is this a thing so one day they can look back fondly on the time their tits weren’t smacking against their knees, or to create a decorative dinner mint container? I want to surprise a friend who will hate me afterwards with this, or arrive with just my cat and wide eyes and my own set of decorative paints. Or maybe I will wake up my partner tomorrow by hovering over him with a jar of plaster while whispering, “it’s time to preserve me.”
Stephanie doesn’t like this because she is wrong, and this is her first time seeing her own breasts outside of the internet. So she sits there awkwardly while everyone has their guns out for a showdown at the double-d corral, wondering why the fuck Erika didn’t see fit to, you know, ask if she wanted to have her tits in the air. All snark aside, I’m siding with Stephanie on this one. Choosing to explore the wonders of titty molds is one thing; arriving at a surprise titty shakedown is another, especially when this doubles as the debut fondling experiment. Something tells me Erika was hoping this would lead to The Sex. This is very Ed of you, Erika. But your fried egg overalls are still amazing.
Anyway, Stephanie decides to play along, and shakes the boxes of medication out of her bra to brace for breast spackle. The other titty sisters preserving their boobage opt to engage, which they will soon regret, and they ask about their relationship, and whether one of them intends to relocate to keep their romance warm. Stephanie, who is pissed off enough that she’s looking for anything to inspire grenade lobbing at Erika, says that she doesn’t think it will last very long if they’re not in the same place. Erika reminds her that she’s a photographer, and already has weddings booked that she needs to complete before moving to another country. Plus, she hears there’s a great plague coming that will leave us all under house arrest indefinitely. Also: it’s day 2. Maybe slow down on a borderline ultimatum. Erika then expresses confusion that on one hand Stephanie is very eager for their relationship to be set in stone, and on the other doesn’t want to have sex with her when they’re working with a tight three-week timeline.
“Is this coercion?” Rosemarie asks.
“Sort of,” Erika reluctantly admits. “I’m hoping it won’t count because I’m bisexual.”
“Still creepy though, and I KNOW creepy,” Ed is there with the confirmation.
Later on they ready themselves for a date, which is really a set-up so Stephanie can interrogate Erika about having a dating app on her phone. Other people would, you know, ask about the app the minute it was spotted, but the cameras weren’t there and this storyline needs Stephanie’s extensions.
Stephanie kicks things off by stating her intentions to take Erika to a nice dinner, and gives Erika a cute tiara headband thing to wear on their date. Once they’ve settled into their table and the thought of romance has dared to enter Erika’s head, Stephanie brings up the “boobie papier mache” and thinks a lot of people get the wrong impression of her, based on what she’s shown and told them. Then Steph demands to know what’s up with the app, and if Erika’s dated anyone else in the four months they’ve been thousands of miles apart. Erika says that she hasn’t and isn’t, but keeps it going for the networking side of things, and by networking she means dicks and vaginas under glass, which are useful in event of emergency.
Stephanie asks if she’d be open to deleting it, so Erika does it, but is annoyed that Stephanie doesn’t trust her and this action is required, and she hasn’t even had any swindle cake yet. Stephanie says the app just makes her uncomfortable, to which an exasperated Erika declares, “Everything makes you uncomfortable!” She says that Steph sold herself as free spirited and then arrived operating with the assumption that presents grant her the right to control her. 87% of the 90DF cast is miffed by this suggestion, and so is Stephanie. Erika takes off Stephanie’s tiara mind control device and storms off, and we get a good look at the extension cords and a sad drain on the floor when they chase after Erika while Stephanie fake cries at the table.
For some reason the producers are still entertaining the Yolanda story, which features her unwavering commitment to displaying total ignorance of British accents, despite the ability to pull up a two minute video on Youtube that would clarify this madness. Yolanda’s daughter notes that Williams appears to have a Nigerian name, address, phone number, accent, and passport, and the caps lock text he sent her reading, “HI I’M NIGERIAN” is a little suspicious. Yolanda is flummoxed, because he lives in Manchester and looks like an underwear model, and why would anyone lie about that? No one is this stupid. Stop it, 90DF. This makes Nicole’s insistence that Azan isn’t already married look convincing. Are there no actual relationships in the queue?
Later, she spends a few days trying to get a hold of him, before she receives an email threatening to release nudes she sent Williams if she doesn’t send money. Kinda like the money Williams asked her to send so he could travel to Vegas. Yolanda thinks this might be part of a rogue hacking operation, scouring the internet for instagram accounts to delete. She needs him to be real so desperately, and I’d feel sorry for her if this wasn’t already outed as an act, and I suspect she made up the email address herself and sent the threat to stretch out her screen time. Have we seen any relationship with Williams up until this point? Other than a string of heart emojis?
Finally, we’ve got Avery and Ash. They’re prepping for a three day trip to the other side of Australia, which Avery doesn’t see as a vacation, because she’s here to get answers about Ash, and you can’t possibly learn about someone by whether or not you’re capable of having fun with them.
“I have an opinion about this,” Erika interjects.
Avery is suspicious because of the shady behavior of Ash’s brother, who at dinner didn’t seem to support Ash’s statement about how easy it would be to take his child away from his mother to live in another country, permanently. Determined to not fall into the dicksand, Avery intends to confront him. They drive down into the country and Avery marvels at the beauty, before they stop in a pretty spot to have a picnic with Ash’s flower shop commitments on full display.
Ash: Yes, I am hearing you, and I am seeing you, and I think it’s good that you have words.
Avery: You’re giving me a rehearsed response. I think you’re sugarcoating the complexities of bringing Taj to America with you. Your brother didn’t seem convinced this would be as easy as you said.
Ash: This is communication, and it is open and honest and from a heart-centered place. I am confident that we can reach a positive outcome in these endeavors, if we continue to co-exist on this plane.
Avery: For fuck’s sake, I get that you’re trying to be positive, but living on planet earth means we’ve got to shovel some shit every once in awhile. Give me a truth bomb.
Ash: I’m afraid the complexity of this will cause you to bail, since you’ve previously dumped my ass. Also, here is some more jargon to plow over that rare moment of honesty, and to speed past the notion of what my ex-wife might have actually said about all this.
Avery: I need to talk to your ex-wife.
Ash: Oh damn.
Next week, Ed is shocked to learn that he’ll be sharing a room with another 54 year-old when he flew in for 19, David walks around Ukraine yelling Lana’s name and putting up missing-person posters, Ash is afraid of his ex-wife talking in plain English to Avery, and Erika is slowly wilting in the face of Stephanie’s highly developed control issues that already dominate their sexless union. Oh, and Darcey is flummoxed as to why Tom had to see her in person to humiliate her on TV, but she’s glad she got to wear that sick outfit, and for fuck’s sake will someone who actually wants to be in an instagram relationship hit her up and work out a hashtag with her already? Fuck!
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submitted by Welcome to another recap of Before the 90 Days: The Season Where No One is Dating. First off, if you’re watching Geoffrey’s segment, your safe word is “orange”. If that doesn’t work, please lock yourself in a panic room and wait there until the Avengers arrive. If you hear one voice say, “No really, this is totally the Avengers” do not open the door. Or maybe just social-distance yourself from this whole fucking storyline, because we should not be observing this human stain.
Let’s turn our attention to prisoner of war Usman, busy filming a real life version of Get Out. You know it’s bad when the con artist seeking green card access to bolster a floundering hip hop career is the protagonist. I haven’t felt this awkward since last season of Vanderpump Rules when I was forced to defend James Kennedy. Anyway, Baby-Girl Lisa still hasn’t successfully harvested his essence to maintain control over the Dark Crystal, and Usman threatens to throw a wrench into her plans with a daring escape in the trunk of his friend’s car. Then he realizes he left his phone in the hotel room, and it’s got the lyrics to “Dabbing” on it, so he’s forced to return, to face Lisa losing the mind she never had.
She declares that he’s been absent for 30 minutes and she’s upset …which would have also been the case if he were gone for five minutes, or not at all, or if he went to the bathroom unsupervised, or put on his right shoe before his left one, or stood up too quickly or not fast enough. This time, Lisa’s argument is that she was “scared’ to be left alone (with producers in a hotel room). Annoyed with this never-ending wheel of complaint, Usman declares that he can’t win with her. Then BGL cuts him down with “Let’s not be a drama queen about this.” That’s right kids, all aboard the Gaslight Express, where the person reacting to the drama is the drama queen — not the person perpetually creating it. Would someone please take this man’s photo so he can restore his spirit to his body with the flash? GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!
She continues to stitch a verbal quilt of grievances, while noting how irrelevant Usman’s points are, and looking like she’s ready to start filming her episode of Intervention. Usman slowly realizes that Lisa is unlikely to have an adult conversation with his mother, let alone a respectful one, and he may not be able to salvage his Nigerian hip hop career, let alone forge one in the US of A. He goes outside and admits to the producers that he may have reached his breaking point, and would like to know if they have some kind of relocation program. This is not what Lisa expects from a prisoner, and she informs the producers that “the man who left here is not the man I abducted.”
Usman returns at 2AM to sit in an adjacent room and not talk to Lisa, making half of his wildest dreams come true. He lights up a hookah and considers how he has this “wonderful opportunity” to go to the states, and it might be too much to pretend to like Lisa long enough to get a green card. The producers ask him how he’s doing, and he says that anything he does is not enough, and before he can answer further BGL groans her way into the room.
“Nobody’s perfect. You need to make up your mind and make it up quick,” She declares, because that makes sense. He attempts to confront her, and states that he’s always respected her, and she insults him. And if it’s this bad in Nigeria, what’s it going to be like when she submerges him in preservative gel in the United States? “You’re very insecure about this relationship,” Lisa mumbles.
Usman says that yes, he is, that’s the truth. Then Lisa unfurls her scroll of half-assed excuses, including that the whole trip has been stressful, that there’s a five hour time difference, that she’s in this hotel room that bests the average Idaho haunt but is beneath her, and it’s a day of the week that ends in y, and he should know how she feels about that. Then she says she wants to “close it up” which is the closest Usman is going to get to an apology. For whatever reason, Usman decides that this will do, and later Lisa expresses concerns about returning to the US alone, and declares “ it will destroy both of us.” By this she means she’ll be forced to rework the plot into something that ends with her saucy finger, and will leak the unedited version of Usman’s “I Love You” video, because that’ll teach him.
Speaking of horror movies, let’s stop by Silence of the Lambs to visit Creepy Ed, who puts the lotion on the skin or else it gets the hose again. Rose has made the unfortunate mistake of returning to their shared hotel room, where he hands her a robe and tells her to take a bath, then forces champagne on her, and says he’s going to rub her feet. Note that he didn’t ask her if she was interested in any of these things. Ed considers this “showing how romantic he can be” while the rest of us call this “reasons to run out of the room with your shoes in your hand the minute he goes to the bathroom.” As she gets comfortable because he told her to, Big Nightmare declares he’s “staring at her feet and not her pajamas,” and I’m staring into the deep black abyss, hunting for a portal to escape this. Friends, this is it: the Most Cringe Scene in 90DF History. There’s not even any competition. This is the Citizen Kane of cringe.
“It rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever its told,” Ed declares, with “Goodbye Horses” softly playing in the background.
“Please let me out,” Rose cries.
Since Rose is recoiling in a manner obvious to anyone who isn’t an incel, Ed seizes the opportunity to ask her for a kiss. She says on her cheek or the end of her fist after a wind up, whatever he prefers. He asks for “the middle” which she assumes means the forehead. He kisses her on the cheek, and then brow beats her into kissing him on the mouth. She gets it over with as quickly as possible, and Ed declares that it was “nice” and Jesus Christ, someone put a collar on this beast.
“Would you fuck me? I’d fuck me,” Ed explains (“Goodbye horses, I’m flying over you…”.)
“Is this called coercion in United States?” Rose asks.
“It puts the lotion in the fucking basket!”
The next morning it appears Rose has finally succumbed to his ridiculous advances, and seems cool with it. She declares a hatred for his under-the-bridge beard, and Ed notes that she has hairy legs, which he finds “gross,”and asks her to shave them to best match his blow-up doll ideal. This is rich coming from someone with a greasy mop of Clairol for Mayo dangling in his face. Soon I’ll kick off a GoFundMe to buy Rose a full-body merkin to insulate her lady flesh from Ed’s Rumpelstiltskin mitts. For now, she goes in for the shave and Ed ditches the beard, and I long for the Wookie days of yore.
Later he heads to Rose’s house to act like a goon around a larger audience. He takes a three hour cab ride to her village, where he is shocked to discover that the Philippines is like the Philippines. First he meets Rose’s son Prince, who initially seems confused, and then declares “daddy!” And embraces him. Big Ed isn’t sure how he feels about being a father again at 54, but he’s totally okay with dating a child. Ed is also uneasy about meeting Rose’s sister Maria, because she hit up Ed for cash. Once Maria meets Ed, she realizes she should have asked for more.
The family is waiting with a little surprise party, and Ed meets Rose’s other two sisters and a brother-in-law. When they ask what he thinks, he wants to know where the windows are, and if he should worry about getting rabies from wayward bats or cockroaches, because he’s heard both things are attracted to the scent of canola oil. Seriously: why can’t anyone on this show make a polite comment to the family except Angela? How hard is it to say, “Well I bet you have a great view of the stars!”
Rose’s family has a nice set of dishes arranged for dinner, including fish, chicken, rice, and the silky gravy of Ed’s back sweat. He asks for something to drink, while they marvel at the river running down his face, and we learn her father is running late because he’s busy at the pig farm, which also sounds suspiciously poor to Ed. When Father arrives he’s quiet, contemplating that his daughter is hoping to marry someone older than himself, who is pushing his food around his plate, and calling a chicken like a dog to feed it from the table. Rose’s father wants to know if Ed knows the difference between dinner and a dog, and then asks what Ed’s intentions are, other than getting on his damn nerves. Ed declares, “I want to get to know your daughter, no games.” Sure, Prince is already calling him “daddy,” but wouldn’t want to create strange expectations by suggesting marriage post-coitus, amirite?
Ed declares that now that he’s seen the depth of their poverty, he worries that he’s just a meal ticket to Rose, and not the man of her dreams, even though he’s after Rose for specific things himself. It’s important for her to love him like Rose loved Jack in the Titanic, even if Ed can’t draw anything and would demand to be the only body on that floating door, and she’s the only person to consider him king of any world.
Meanwhile, Tom continues his crusade to come off as a sympathetic character by making sad eyes from his good angle for the camera. As he pieces together one of his predictably boring outfits, he says he hopes they can have a conversation and attack the problem and not the person, but admits that he doesn’t care about attacking the person if the person is Darcey and not himself.
He situates himself to await her arrival, while Darcey enters the joint with a Beyoncé track in her head, and dumps her 16 changes of clothing on an unsuspecting hostess who has questions. Then she struts. Her. Shit. This is officially the first time Darcey has donned an outfit that isn’t from her signature Midlife Crisis line, and that jumpsuit is the fuck-you jam, and I want it for my next dramatic public fight with a future ex. She greets him as “Thomas” and passes on the affectionate greeting in favor of a handshake, before settling in for some gold medal passive aggression.
Tom: I’m nervous. Because I’m full of shit.
Darcey: No need. It’s just me. That’s called constipation, Tom.
Tom: How was Malta? If I had talked to you sometime in the last six weeks, I might know the answer to this question.
Darcey: It was nice to spend it with Stace. Thank you for the birthday…text. You said you were going to call or video call, I waited that whole day…but it’s okay. I know you’re a dick.
Tom: What actually happened to us? I’m going to act like what happened isn’t me going balls deep in another chick and bragging about it on instagram.
Darcey: I don’t know, but you must not know about me, you must not know about me. Should I say it twice? That’s kinda weird. It sounded better in my head.
Hannibal Lector: Cut him on the bias, Clarice. Serve him with a nice Chianti.
Tom goes on to say that she “was” this lovely woman, but has very specific things she wants, and she’s really not there for him, because she’s preoccupied with selecting the right filters for her twirling face-angle shots on instagram. He insists that Darcey never lets him talk during the conversations they don’t have, while a waiter with bad timing regrets his water glass decisions, and knows his tip is going to be bullshit. Darcey’s not having it, and knows he’s rerouting the events of the last six months to be about her doing something wrong, so she wants to know what his secret is, and talks to him in a soothing voice that is WAY more terrifying than mad Darcey.
“What do you want to hear?” Tom asks, because he’s still determined to make this about how out of control and unreasonable Darcey is, what with her fancy wanting interaction and silly expectations that he wouldn’t start another relationship before breaking it off with her.
“Tell her she’s insecure,” Baby Girl Lisa advises.
Darcey says she knows about the other woman he’s been posing with in stilted thigh-grab photographs, and Tom says that he met this person three weeks ago, and her name is Shannon, and he was hoping to get some exit sex. Since that doesn’t seem to be working out, he goes with, “I met someone who loves me the way I want to be loved. In three weeks.” Then what the fuck are you doing there, dude? He says, “You had everything of me in your hands, and you didn’t see it. And it was hard to listen to the Jesse thing all the time, when I was busy thinking about other people I planned to bang.” Since this isn’t already ridiculous enough, he says he’s not her notion of love, and that he loves her like a sister he wants to have sex with. Darcey thinks about what this means for her and Stacey, while Tom says he wants to be her friend.
Darcey nixes that bullshit, and says she doesn’t want to be friends. Then Tom tells her to “try not to ruin the next” relationship, and it’s easier to get through this scene if you imagine Tom has a diseased ballsack for a chin, which isn’t far off. He lets Darcey pay for his coffee, and continues throwing his Chex Mix on the floor by saying it’s a weight off of him, and when Darcey tells him to enjoy his life, he responds, “I will now that you’re not in it.” That twice a year interaction was really bringing him down before.
Tom tells the producers that he showed up to see if anything was still there, and because he wanted to be on camera one more time, and because he wanted to have sex with Darcey’s smother-titties before returning to the safety of Shannon’s thigh. Darcey is over this shit, and is ready to watch the baseball bat video with Beyoncé is a yellow dress, breaking stuff.
It’s time to revisit the platonic romantic relationship of Erika and Stephanie. As she stated last week, Stephanie is “waiting” to have sex until she’s actually bisexual, so Erika should start checking out social-distancing hers and hers nursing homes right now. Erika got to know Stephanie as someone with a risqué, fun, and sexual online persona, and she incorrectly assumed that Stephanie would clue her in if her real self didn’t match that presentation. With this in mind, Erika is certain Steph will love her big date surprise: a little artsy neon-lit joint where the last Rockabilly chick in an updo coaches women through the wet wrap construction of boob molds! Is this a thing so one day they can look back fondly on the time their tits weren’t smacking against their knees, or to create a decorative dinner mint container? I want to surprise a friend who will hate me afterwards with this, or arrive with just my cat and wide eyes and my own set of decorative paints. Or maybe I will wake up my partner tomorrow by hovering over him with a jar of plaster while whispering, “it’s time to preserve me.”
Stephanie doesn’t like this because she is wrong, and this is her first time seeing her own breasts outside of the internet. So she sits there awkwardly while everyone has their guns out for a showdown at the double-d corral, wondering why the fuck Erika didn’t see fit to, you know, ask if she wanted to have her tits in the air. All snark aside, I’m siding with Stephanie on this one. Choosing to explore the wonders of titty molds is one thing; arriving at a surprise titty shakedown is another, especially when this doubles as the debut fondling experiment. Something tells me Erika was hoping this would lead to The Sex. This is very Ed of you, Erika. But your fried egg overalls are still amazing.
Anyway, Stephanie decides to play along, and shakes the boxes of medication out of her bra to brace for breast spackle. The other titty sisters preserving their boobage opt to engage, which they will soon regret, and they ask about their relationship, and whether one of them intends to relocate to keep their romance warm. Stephanie, who is pissed off enough that she’s looking for anything to inspire grenade lobbing at Erika, says that she doesn’t think it will last very long if they’re not in the same place. Erika reminds her that she’s a photographer, and already has weddings booked that she needs to complete before moving to another country. Plus, she hears there’s a great plague coming that will leave us all under house arrest indefinitely. Also: it’s day 2. Maybe slow down on a borderline ultimatum. Erika then expresses confusion that on one hand Stephanie is very eager for their relationship to be set in stone, and on the other doesn’t want to have sex with her when they’re working with a tight three-week timeline.
“Is this coercion?” Rosemarie asks.
“Sort of,” Erika reluctantly admits. “I’m hoping it won’t count because I’m bisexual.”
“Still creepy though, and I KNOW creepy,” Ed is there with the confirmation.
Later on they ready themselves for a date, which is really a set-up so Stephanie can interrogate Erika about having a dating app on her phone. Other people would, you know, ask about the app the minute it was spotted, but the cameras weren’t there and this storyline needs Stephanie’s extensions.
Stephanie kicks things off by stating her intentions to take Erika to a nice dinner, and gives Erika a cute tiara headband thing to wear on their date. Once they’ve settled into their table and the thought of romance has dared to enter Erika’s head, Stephanie brings up the “boobie papier mache” and thinks a lot of people get the wrong impression of her, based on what she’s shown and told them. Then Steph demands to know what’s up with the app, and if Erika’s dated anyone else in the four months they’ve been thousands of miles apart. Erika says that she hasn’t and isn’t, but keeps it going for the networking side of things, and by networking she means dicks and vaginas under glass, which are useful in event of emergency.
Stephanie asks if she’d be open to deleting it, so Erika does it, but is annoyed that Stephanie doesn’t trust her and this action is required, and she hasn’t even had any swindle cake yet. Stephanie says the app just makes her uncomfortable, to which an exasperated Erika declares, “Everything makes you uncomfortable!” She says that Steph sold herself as free spirited and then arrived operating with the assumption that presents grant her the right to control her. 87% of the 90DF cast is miffed by this suggestion, and so is Stephanie. Erika takes off Stephanie’s tiara mind control device and storms off, and we get a good look at the extension cords and a sad drain on the floor when they chase after Erika while Stephanie fake cries at the table.
For some reason the producers are still entertaining the Yolanda story, which features her unwavering commitment to displaying total ignorance of British accents, despite the ability to pull up a two minute video on Youtube that would clarify this madness. Yolanda’s daughter notes that Williams appears to have a Nigerian name, address, phone number, accent, and passport, and the caps lock text he sent her reading, “HI I’M NIGERIAN” is a little suspicious. Yolanda is flummoxed, because he lives in Manchester and looks like an underwear model, and why would anyone lie about that? No one is this stupid. Stop it, 90DF. This makes Nicole’s insistence that Azan isn’t already married look convincing. Are there no actual relationships in the queue?
Later, she spends a few days trying to get a hold of him, before she receives an email threatening to release nudes she sent Williams if she doesn’t send money. Kinda like the money Williams asked her to send so he could travel to Vegas. Yolanda thinks this might be part of a rogue hacking operation, scouring the internet for instagram accounts to delete. She needs him to be real so desperately, and I’d feel sorry for her if this wasn’t already outed as an act, and I suspect she made up the email address herself and sent the threat to stretch out her screen time. Have we seen any relationship with Williams up until this point? Other than a string of heart emojis?
Finally, we’ve got Avery and Ash. They’re prepping for a three day trip to the other side of Australia, which Avery doesn’t see as a vacation, because she’s here to get answers about Ash, and you can’t possibly learn about someone by whether or not you’re capable of having fun with them.
“I have an opinion about this,” Erika interjects.
Avery is suspicious because of the shady behavior of Ash’s brother, who at dinner didn’t seem to support Ash’s statement about how easy it would be to take his child away from his mother to live in another country, permanently. Determined to not fall into the dicksand, Avery intends to confront him. They drive down into the country and Avery marvels at the beauty, before they stop in a pretty spot to have a picnic with Ash’s flower shop commitments on full display.
Ash: Yes, I am hearing you, and I am seeing you, and I think it’s good that you have words.
Avery: You’re giving me a rehearsed response. I think you’re sugarcoating the complexities of bringing Taj to America with you. Your brother didn’t seem convinced this would be as easy as you said.
Ash: This is communication, and it is open and honest and from a heart-centered place. I am confident that we can reach a positive outcome in these endeavors, if we continue to co-exist on this plane.
Avery: For fuck’s sake, I get that you’re trying to be positive, but living on planet earth means we’ve got to shovel some shit every once in awhile. Give me a truth bomb.
Ash: I’m afraid the complexity of this will cause you to bail, since you’ve previously dumped my ass. Also, here is some more jargon to plow over that rare moment of honesty, and to speed past the notion of what my ex-wife might have actually said about all this.
Avery: I need to talk to your ex-wife.
Ash: Oh damn.
Next week, Ed is shocked to learn that he’ll be sharing a room with another 54 year-old when he flew in for 19, David walks around Ukraine yelling Lana’s name and putting up missing-person posters, Ash is afraid of his ex-wife talking in plain English to Avery, and Erika is slowly wilting in the face of Stephanie’s highly developed control issues that already dominate their sexless union. Oh, and Darcey is flummoxed as to why Tom had to see her in person to humiliate her on TV, but she’s glad she got to wear that sick outfit, and for fuck’s sake will someone who actually wants to be in an instagram relationship hit her up and work out a hashtag with her already? Fuck!
Thank you, Patreon supporters, my lovely quarantine companions!
submitted by I'm back with another breakdown, this time of this weekends main event in Rochester, New York, and once again this will be very in-depth. I understand this will not be for everyone, but I tried to keep it to the essential elements that will help provide you with a greater awareness of each man’s style, the challenges they pose to one another, and the creative technical approaches each man can and may take to neutralizing those threats and imposing their own weapons. I'm hoping this will also help us both learn about aspects of martial arts that apply to other contests, not just a one use read.
Quickly recapping UFC 237, I
picked 9/12 fights correctly on the card, and my in-depth breakdown of Rose vs. Andrade prediction was correct, but off by a round. Although the finish did rob us of some answers to questions the third round surely held, I do believe Namajunas was beginning to fatigue under the pace she had set early which I did raise in my prediction section, and Andrade was beginning what would've been an increasing ability to trap her, but what a fantastic display of skill Rose showed us in those early rounds. If you want to skim that breakdown,
here is the link. I’d love to look at how what she did more closely but now is not the time.
Shout out to my sponsor ONNIT, with Alpha Brain giving me the stamina and alpha IQ to go all night long, use the code word Donks’R’us at checkout to save yourself 15%. This is as long as Mike Beltran’s beard, but I do promise all of the elements of this breakdown are relevant to the fight, and they all tie together in the end to formulate a clear picture of the fight. They aren’t just disparate observations that lead to confusion...I hope. If you find the length absurd blame the people who commented on the last one encouraging long breakdowns, it’s their fault, and I know this is simply too long. I'll try to keep it <1,500 words in the future.
As in real combat, small strategic victories often determine the outcome of the greater war, and these small technical challenges are where a lot of the creative mastery of a martial artist is expressed. In writing this I'm hoping to improve on my own ability to see this, as well as give you a look through my eyes in the form of these breakdowns. Breakdown’s like these necessitate a disclaimer that I am not a fighter nor a coach, but a mere Schmo, and welcome corrections and critical opinions from more experienced and knowledgeable pro’s. GIF’s are to illustrate the statements, click the ones you are curious about. To the 7 who care, it’s time! Onward.
Intro
This weekend marks Kevin Lee’s welterweight debut, and he’s looking to make a statement in beating the veteran Raphael Dos Anjos. Both men are coming off losses, with Lee receiving his notice of eviction from the lightweight division at the hands of Long Island’s 'Same Al' Realty pty ltd. Rapahael Dos Anjos has been sent back down the mountain after two losses to the current champion and N.1 contender, hardly a shameful recent history, but this raises concerns about his ability to compete in certain style match ups.
In this break down I'm going to begin with an in-depth look at Kevin Lee, what he does well, what he wants to do, and what his opponents found that they could exploit to give him his two recent losses. We will then take this blueprint and break down Dos Anjos, taking a look at his two most recent losses, and evaluating his ability to capitalize on the vulnerabilities Lee’s opponents exposed, and negate his obvious strengths. Throughout this journey of technique, we will eventually arrive at our destination, a conclusion of the dynamic of this match up and my personal prediction of how it all goes down when they finally collide on May 18th. So buckle up, grab a coffee or tea and keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle, the donk express is about to depart casual station.
Lee
I’m going to take you through Kevin’s offensive approach to fighting, as it follows a predictable mold that he implements to either great success or dominant failure without a lot of adaptation in most of his fights. The defensive analysis will come when we look at his losses and the blueprint to beating him.
Kevin’s offensive approach is to lead (meaning to be the man advancing) with powerful, basic jab-cross combinations and heavy body kicks, and once this power gets you moving backwards he wants to shoot takedown’s or clinch up hard in reaction to the strikes you throw to keep him off you. He will then use his gorilla strength (#noracist) to pick you up and drive you through the mat, immediately beginning to pass your guard with pressure to establish his ¾ mount and back control game, cycling between positions until he either chokes or pounds you out.
I’m going to take you through Kevin Lee’s 5 step approach to reaching your dreams...by going unconscious. In just 5 easy steps, Lee will take you from a state of perfect health to a broken state of unconsciousness on board the Lee express faster than his competitors, or your win money back, guaranteed.
Jokes aside, Kevin is not a highly creative fighter, he has the tools he likes to use, and he’s very good at forcing them on you. That is why I am beginning the breakdown with a focus on what he does and how others have solved it. Much like Andrade, Kevin is our fixed variable, the fighter we can count on following a certain approach to either success or failure. I’ve broken this approach down into 5 steps.
Step 1 – Lead with power. The crucial component of Kevin Lee’s game, the thing that glues it all together, is forward momentum. On the feet it is critically important that Kevin is able to be the fighter advancing because it forces his opponents to throw strikes to respond to his pressure, opening up take down entries and ensuring the striking stays basic, where Kevin is comfortable
(GIF).
Step 2 – Trigger takedown Once an opponent is backing up, Kevin is able to read when they will swing to deter his advance, and like many wrestlers he uses their movements as a trigger to level change and drive himself into either a double leg takedown, or a clinch, pushing you back to the cage in order to secure a body lock
(GIF).
Step 3 – Gorilla Strength #noracist Once Lee has a body lock or his hands clasped around any part of your body, there is nothing to do but take your seat in the airport lounge and prepare yourself for a Detroit airlines one way ticket to a spinal surgeon’s office. Unsurprisingly it’s a rough landing, because the pilot is trying to break your body. His ability to hoist trained fighters off the ground and slam them with shear strength is something I haven’t seem from many fighters. Not like this
(GIF|
GIF).
Step 4 – Pressure pass Now that he’s driven you through the canvas, his first priority is to pass your guard. With his strength at the fore he shoves your leg down and steps over into half guard
(GIF). It is worth noting that Kevin Lee does appear to have both exceptional pressure and weight with his top game and guard passing, one of his greater attributes.
Step 5 – ¾ mount / back control cycle We arrive at our final destination on board the Lee express, and like moving to his hometown of Detroit for the cheap accommodation, you are going to wish you never came. The Kevin Lee mount/back control cycle is like being thrown into an industrial washing machine with a bunch of anacondas and sledgehammers
(GIF). In half guard, Lee will slice his leg through into ¾ or full mount and begin to rain down punishment, giving you the choice to turn over and receive more of the same, or perhaps a rear-naked choke. This cycle is repeated over and over until you are unconscious.
So that Kevin Lee’s 5 steps to help you reach your dreams…by going to sleep (GIF).
The opponents that have been able to divert the Lee express off it’s usual route to smash town go on to achieve victory, and as we will see, once the train is off the tracks it can lose control very quickly. Like the typical bully, Lee does not react well to losing control of the fight, and if there is a way to briefly summarize Kevin’s approach to fighting, it’s control through power. Kevin wants to force you to submit to his fight under his conditions and in his comfort zone. If you take it to him, the bully begins to become much less intimidating.
Tony Ferguson and Al Iaquinta solved this puzzle in exploiting the same holes on route to getting the victory over Lee, but with some slight differences in the tactics and techniques they used to do so. This is yet another interesting insight into the creative aspect of martial arts, how you use your best tools to solve problems. Deep flaws in someones game at a fundamental level can be exploited in a variety of ways. Let’s start by taking a look at how the true creative genius of Tony Ferguson was used to do this.
The first and most fundamental hole in Kevin Lee’s game that allowed both men to control the fight and seize victory, is that, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there are two very distinct sides to Kevin Lee, with two very different personalities. There is the Kevin Lee who is moving forward and in control, and the Kevin Lee who is moving backwards. The key to beating Kevin Lee is to expose a critical flaw in his defensive striking, and that is his lack of head movement and angles as he moves backwards.
See, Lee’s top control and power pressure is very similar to Rumble’s comfort in power striking. If you can remove this comfort zone and force him into a fight he is uncomfortable with, his game kind of falls apart.
Step 1 – Move Lee backwards: The El Cucuy method First and most important is to get Kevin Lee moving backwards. The technical reason you want Kevin Lee moving backwards is two technical flaws he has in his defensive striking.
1) He never moves his head, or steps off the center line at an angle when he retreats
2) He almost always throws single strikes, especially when moving backwards
El Cucuy and Yaquinta had two different striking tactics to expose these holes, so let’s start by looking at what Tony did.
Tony began by immediately moving forward and pressuring into Lee, this forced out the big single power strikes of Lee. Now these are like a Cobra raising it’s hood and striking. They are big power shots designed to scare you to get the hell out of his face, and start moving away from him immediately, under the threat of invenimation. This Cobra’s venom isn’t really what it’s made out to be however, which is evidenced by 0 finishes in the UFC coming as a result of strikes on the feet.
So Tony’s solution was to push forward, and when the Cobra strikes, take a step back, and then continue to advance. Eventually the Cobra gets tired of constantly striking and it’s easier to pull a gold medal and… I mean a Henry Cejudo, and kill it.
Technically speaking Tony is using a pull return, and a pull counter. What this means is that Tony takes a step back when he see’s Lee wind up for the big strike, exiting to a safe range, and then either countering with a long punch like a left hook
(GIF), or stepping back into range and pushing Lee backwards with footwork or straight punches as Kevin retreats in a straight line. If you are Tony Ferguson you can always threaten an ankle pick to keep the kid on his toes
(GIF). What a crazy bastard, who does that :D.
Look at this gorgeous series of counters from Tony. I really encourage you to slow this one down on gfycat and look at what a fine margin of range Tony is playing with here, and also take note of Kevin’s reaction immediately after
(GIF). We see Tony pull and return his way around a jab-cross of Kevin like it’s nothing, and Kevin immediately moves backwards. Tony let the Cobra strike and retreat, not giving in to it’s intimidation. Now, Kevin Lee is a strong man, and there are risks to playing the pull counter game, but it sure beats the mount / back take cycle of death
(GIF). Ok, so Tony pulled back to avoid the strikes, and came back with either his own, or closed the gap with footwork forcing Kevin to move backwards. What was Al Iaquinta’s way of achieving this same end state?
Iaquinta’s solution
Well, flowing like water is cool and all, but Al doesn’t take a step back. Instead he takes a more in your face approach, and slips under the strikes of Lee, coming back with his own. But take a look here at a really neat detail of Iaquinta’s approach. Watch closely to what Al does with his feet. He slips and comes up with a 2 (right hand), but follows through and changes into southpaw, putting him in line to throw a 1-2 (Jab-cross) and land on Kevin
(GIF).
Why did this land? Because Kevin was pulling back in a straight line and Al found a creative way to expose this hole, by switching stance and coming with another straight punch that Kevin wasn’t expecting. If Al had thrown the 2, and come back with another 1-2 from orthodox, it would've taken too long, and that counter right hook you see from Kevin Lee would've landed. By switching to southpaw in the same motion he was able to throw a second power punch before Kevin Lee's rehearsed right hook came into play.
Here it is in full speed, with an extra 2 sequences that show Al exploiting the same vulnerability. Same hole from the first fight, same Al from the first fight, eh? The second sequence exposes that Kevin’s body is also very easy to hit because he doesn’t move at angles, you can do this with kicks or hooks
(GIF). So that’s how you get Lee moving backwards, but now you have Lee in a very uncomfortable position, you’ve taken him off his tracks, so he can no longer initiate step 1 of the Lee 5 steps to ultimate victory, and so he skips step 1.
The Trigger TD
Lee’s trigger take down is much easier for him to hit when you are lunging at him, because his momentum is already moving into it, so he doesn’t have to disguise it as much. Now that he’s moving backwards and getting hit, he is going to look to steal momentum back with some top control, getting into his mount/back control cycle. So he will look to use your strikes as a trigger to rush in and run you to the cage, most often a kick
(GIF). We already know Lee has Gorilla strength, and if he can take both gentlemen down this way, we have to assume he can take anyone down.
So this takes us to the next key component to shutting down Lee’s offensive gameplan. I’m giving this a stupid name, because that seems to be my thing at the moment. I’m calling this the
Goldilocks zone of defensive scrambling. Catchy, right? Well just like that story about porridge being too hot or too cold, you can scramble too much or too little against Kevin Lee. If you can find that sweet spot, just right, you can optimally defend yourself and get back up, resuming your pressure and road to victory. Iaquinta and Tony both fell on opposite ends of this spectrum at times, before finding that just right amount. Let me explain.
We know that once Lee has you down he wants to advance to his spin cycle of mount/back control. Ok, well let’s look at what Tony’s solution was to this. Tony had a much different approach to solving this puzzle than Iaquinta, because of his very different skills with a black belt under Eddie Bravo in 10th planet Jiu-jitsu. Tony was taken down towards the end of round 1 off a trigger TD, and he immediately went into rubber guard, uber-scramble mode. Unfortunately against the early strength and pressure passing of Lee, this left him in mount, the sledgehammer washing cycle
(GIF). So that porridge was too hot, his scrambling was too aggressive.
Al took a different approach. Instead of immediately trying to scramble out with creative sweeps and wild movements, he just hunkered down for the winter. His strategy was to be patient, try to stay out of the cycle and be ok with spending some time with Lee in half guard or on his back, but not give him openings to damage him. Here we can see Al relax into what many people would find a very distressing position to find yourself in under Lee
(GIF). He stayed patient and defensively responsible. Fight hands, keep forcing Lee to re-position, don't get trapped in mount, and eventually his opportunity came to safely scramble out (
GIF). Maybe a little on the cool side, but that porridge was very well made.
Why shouldn’t you scramble too hard? A= Because you can rapidly expedite Lee’s positional advancement to a dangerous spot.
Why shouldn’t you be too hesitant and patient to scramble? A= Because you allow Lee to rest and recuperate too much, undoing some of the good work you’ve done by pressuring him.
In between these two approaches is the perfect approach, the Goldilocks zone of defensive scrambling. You need to keep Kevin in a space where he is constantly trying to fight your technique with strength, further draining him to your advantage when you get back up, but not so much that you expose holes for him to pass. You also need to be patient enough to accept when Kevin has a good position, and take a moment to consider your best path to safety, but not so much that he recuperates and you lose rounds.
I can’t articulate exactly how you do that, each individual needs to find that balance within the fight. But it must be done in order to win, otherwise Lee can skip step 1 and get the take-downs anyway, riding out the fight.
Once you are back up, get back on the pressure. Over the course of rounds, if you pressure well and find that Goldilocks zone of defensive scrambling, Kevin begins to wilt quite drastically, and his take downs become more and more telegraphed. Not everyone can do Tony shit, but if you can matrix sprawl, that’ll help
(GIF). The worse you abuse Lee as he backs up in straight lines, the more desperate he will become to get the trigger take down. The more easily triggered he gets you could say. This is what we saw in the finishing sequences of the Tony fight. He was so beat up and mentally broken that in my opinion, he didn’t do a great deal to fight the triangle.
Some of what I am saying may seem disparaging and disrespectful to Lee, and in some senses it is, but only in contrast to the very best in the world. I accept that I am a Cheeto dust Schmo and my bank balance reads zero. I respect Kevin, I am just calling it as I see it, through my yellow tinted goggles.
Bully the bully
Finally, something both Al Iaquinta and Tony Ferguson did, was bully the bully. Remember Tony Ferguson pointing at the mat between rounds and telling Kevin Lee “This is my mat, not yours. Mine!”
(GIF). How about Al at the end of 5 rounds with Lee, hands by his side screaming in Kevin’s face “Same Al!”
(GIF). Look at Kevin’s reaction. That is bullying the bully. If you want to beat Kevin Lee outside of a fortunate early KO, you need to do this to him. Maybe not as overtly, but you need some form of it. Cowboy is an example of a guy who wouldn’t capitalize on this idea fully.
So that’s it. That’s what Kevin lee wants to do. We’ve seen him do it successfully, and we’ve seen how to shut it down. But this isn’t just a study of Kevin Lee. This is an in-depth breakdown of the match up, so who is Raphael Dos Anjos, technically, and does he have the abilities to implement his own creative solutions to abuse Kevin Lee’s vulnerabilities? Let’s take a look.
Q =
With this knowledge of Lee's strengths and weaknesses in mind, think why Edson Barboza was actually the perfect match up for Lee. Click the black box below for my explanation. A= Edson Barboza was the perfect style match up for Kevin Lee because Edson gives the lead to anyone he fights. The question isn't can you take the lead from Edson, it's whether you can survive what he puts in front of you as you try to back him up. That's why Dan Hooker almost died trying to lead. Edson let him lead but broke him with the shots, because Dan's goal was to strike him, not to take him down. If Hooker was a wrestler or had a double leg it would've worked. This allowed Lee to push forward, eat the shots, and get the takedowns. Rinse repeat until he broke Edson.
RDA
Now let's take a look at Raphael Dos Anjos. Due to Kevin Lee's predictable approach, I am looking at Dos Anjos through the lense of the Lee blueprint. Can he move Lee backwards? Can he find that just right balance of defensive scrambling? As such we will not be breaking down and systematizing his approach here.
This is not the easiest tape study, because Dos Anjos’ two most recent losses were against Usman and Covington. Ostensibly Dos Anjos ‘just struggles against wrestlers,’ but is it really that simple? Those two opponents are the gold standard of their respective wrestling styles in the UFC today, with respectable credentials, and one even had one of the greatest, most flawless ascensions to UFC gold, the other is from Nigeria.
It’s not that simple because both of these men are better wrestlers than Lee, and both better strikers in my opinion, and in a higher weight class. Lee is a big guy, but he doesn’t pose physical challenges that both Usman and Covington don’t exceed as natural, and even big welterweights. So now we step off the objective path of analysis, and we have to make our own way through the subjective web of personal judgments. So much of predicting this fight is about how you view those two losses contrasted with your opinion of Kevin Lee’s abilities.
How much better are Kamaru & Covington than Lee?; Was RDA’s losing effort a positive when you contrast his success vs. this higher calibre to the threats Lee poses?, Does RDA have some fundamental holes stylistically that any strong wrestler can exploit?, If not, what is the threshold of skill required?
These are not simple questions, they require your own eye to judge, with the fight being the moment of truth. I’m going to begin this by looking at why RDA lost those fights, and then we might consider RDA’s ability to use the game plan Tony & Al laid out earlier to achieve victory, or if unsuccessful, suffer defeat.
vs. Convington
Covington and Usman had different approaches to wrestling RDA. Covington had a relentless, grinding style, pressuring into RDA with combinations and pushing him against the cage. He might have put RDA on his back once in the whole fight, but honestly to me it looked like he was content with the cage control
(GIF). One concerning feature of this fight was RDA’s willingness to move backwards. We know that in order to beat Lee you need to push Lee back, but in the Covington fight we just see him falling backwards in a frustrating way. “Just move forward!” you yell at the screen.
So was that a deep fundamental tendency of RDA being exposed, or was this specific to Colby’s attack? I believe RDA backed up because Colby was going to pressure no matter what, so he would either walk forward into a clinch and get pushed against the cage, or Dos Anjos could step back and open up the space, giving himself a shot at connecting. In hindsight this clearly wasn’t enough to win, and means that Colby is simply a bad match up for RDA.
Kevin Lee doesn’t win fights on the cage. I’ve never seen him sustain a period of simple control on the cage. The cage is a very brief stop, and is where he gorilla strength slams from the body lock, en route to top control, pressure passing to half guard. Lee doesn’t just wrestle people to drain them, he is an explosive athlete, he wrestles to get you in position to beat you up, or in the worst case scenario regain momentum you are building with strikes and recover.
So I will note Dos Anjos’ willingness to move backwards and look to revisit this in the tape study of other, non-elite wrestlers, to see if it arises again, and I'll focus on Raphael’s ability to protect himself once he’s down and get back up. Can he find that Goldilocks zone of defensive scrambling vs. the most elite wrestlers in the UFC? If he can I think it’s a no brainer that it translates to Lee, moving up from lightweight without a deep technical wrestling background.
There are many examples throughout this fight of Dos Anjos breaking the clinch on the cage. Of course this was shortly followed by Covington's re-engagement in clinching, so it didn’t do a lot for Dos Anjos. But the fact that he could escape that position regularly is a good sign
(GIF). Here we see Colby hit a nice double leg takedown on RDA, and Dos Anjos immediately scrambles out, breaks the clinch and gets on the pressure (
GIF). This is the kind of small victory in a losing fight that I can pin point and learn something about RDA's ability vs. a higher level threat.
Usman
Now let’s take a look at how Dos Anjos did wrestling with Usman. We see him regularly, throughout an exhaustive five rounds of pressure and wrestling defend take down attempts, and when he goes down immediately get up to his feet. In one sequence, we see Usman drop for a double leg on the cage and slam Dos Anjos, just how Lee would. We then see RDA do a great job of moving to his hip and getting inside position so he could build his base, using the cage, and get back to his feet
(GIF). He did this in 15 seconds versus Kamaru Usman, and we would see this repeated across all five rounds. You could perhaps make the argument that Lee's top pressure is greater than Kamaru's, and so it's not fair to exactly correlate getting up vs. Usman with what he can do with Lee, but it tells us quite a bit all of the same.
There are encouraging signs of Dos Anjos’ defensive scrambling abilities on the mat, and we see him employ techniques like trying to create space by pushing on the hips
(GIF|GIF). This didn’t work vs. Usman, but it did work for Tony in his fight with Kevin Lee, because Kevin didn’t gain control of his feet. Despite the positions not being identical, this is a small detail that is instinct for Usman, but not for the inferior wrestler in Lee. Here we actually see RDA sweep Usman with a Kimura
(GIF). So we’ve seen a repeated ability to break the clinch and get off the cage versus Colby, and an ability to rapidly build his base and get up repeatedly underneath Kamaru Usman. That is a great sign, but what about the constant back pedalling? We know that he needs to move forward to beat Lee, so was this just a result of the caliber of opponent and their pressure? What do his previous fights tell us?
RDA general study
In his first round KO of Benson Henderson, we saw that Dos Anjos prefers the pull counter style of pressure as he counters the jab of Benson with a beautiful, long 1-2. He also covers distance well with his punches, which is essential to properly abusing Kevin Lee’s tendency to back up in straight lines
(GIF). In the finishing sequence of Benson, Raphael almost recklessly pressures into him with a flying knee, defends the reactive take down attempt of Benson and knocks him out with a perfectly timed left hand as he tries to stand back to his feet
(GIF). That aggression, coupled with the defensive scrambling we saw in the Usman fight, makes for a scary package.
In his soul crushing 25 minute domination of Anthony Pettis, RDA looked like a dementor from the Harry Potter series, constantly swooping in with punishment and taking the aura of invincibility right out of Pettis. Obviously pressuring Pettis isn’t that hard in terms of taking the lead, just like it’s not that hard to take the lead vs. Barboza, but it further illustrates that Dos Anjos’ ideal, and prime form, is that of a pressure fighter. The Pettis fight was ideally the kind of pressure RDA would like to establish on Lee, though it won't be quite as easy (
GIF).
So were the Covington and Usman fights just a consequence of fighting two of the best wrestlers on the roster, and in spite of the defeats some small victories can be highlighted, especially with respect to his match up? Or is RDA simply susceptible to wrestlers, or anyone that would push him back?
Well i’ve explicated Dos Anjos’ technique enough, it’s time for me to give summarize the dynamic of this match up, and a prediction of what I think happens on May 18th when they collide.
Conclusion
We’ve reviewed Kevin Lee’s approach to fighting, the 5 steps to ultimate victory. We’ve seen what Iaquinta and Ferguson found in his game that can be exploited. We took a look at Dos Anjos’ losses to Usman and Covington, and considered what light they should be viewed under with respect to the Kevin Lee match up. We also took a look at RDA’s approach outside of elite wrestler match ups to answer some questions about fundamental holes in his style.
Kevin Lee asked for Dos Anjos at 170 because he thinks he saw things in RDA’s last two losses that he can exploit. He wants to follow that blueprint. Undoubtedly Dos Anjos' and his coaches have looked at the blueprint set against Lee, and are looking to apply their own creative solutions to those vulnerabilities.
I believe Kevin Lee is going to come out with a renewed focus on taking the lead, blasting power kicks to freeze RDA up and pressure heavy early to set the tone of the contest and establish the rhythm and pacing of the fight as his own. He is, without question in my mind, the inferior striker, and will need to make up for that technical deficit by moving forward. Where is Dos Anjos at in his career? Were these last losses really stylistic challenges or is the 34 year old simply on the slide? It’s not easy to say if he has the same pop as the Pettis fight, probably safe to assume he doesn’t, but does he have enough to pressure Lee and expose his striking.
At it's most fundamental level I believe this fight is going to be decided by who can take the lead in the striking. Kevin will likely get Dos Anjos down at some stage, but I don't think he can replicate the relentless cage wrestling approach of Covington. So if Dos Anjos can get up from under Usman, he should be able to get up here, perhaps after eating some shots on his way up. Does this just repeat itself and see Kevin Lee tire out Dos Anjos and run away with another controlling victory? In that lies the key to predicting this fight.
Prediction
This is the part of the breakdown where I look into my crystal ball and prognosticate what I personally think happens.
If the Dos Anjos that got in Pettis’ face and pressured, pulled back and came in with heat shows up, we are going to see a very dominant performance for Raphael Dos Anjos in my opinion. Now granted, taking the lead versus Anthony Pettis is about as impressive as taking the lead vs. Barboza. It’s there to be had, and in many cases isn’t the determining factor in victory like it is with Kevin Lee. But what we see is that Dos Anjos has a real ability to pressure, pull and return. The weapons that Pettis was throwing were much more diverse than what Kevin Lee is capable of, and I still do not recognize Kevin Lee as a murderous puncher, and certainly not as a counter punching threat.
It’s clear that Kevin has power, but the lack of technique and diversity with how he both sets up and delivers that power makes it honestly average at welterweight. Dos Anjos has shown a stellar chin, and despite his TKO loss to Alvarez, he has never given us a reason to believe he is chinny.
In this fight I see some competitive exchanges early where Kevin Lee makes a very determined effort to establish himself as the leading fighter, with an attempt to take down and control Dos Anjos in that first round. I’m not sure I have the faith that Dos Anjos will come out as aggressive as the Pettis fight, though I'd both love and council that approach, but I do think he holds his ground and will inevitably out land Kevin Lee, naturally taking the lead and increasingly upping the pressure as he gets a read on Lee and becomes aware of the technical chasm that separates them when he's moving backwards. He is going to press, Kevin is going to try and use his strength to make up for this gap, but Dos Anjos defensive grappling is good enough that he will at worst stay safe underneath Kevin early, and at best stand up within 40 seconds, as we saw versus Usman.
Once this fight starts going down hill for Lee, somewhere around the late second or third rounds, I see Dos Anjos running away with it. After he has got up from a take down, and had the better of many striking exchanges, Dos Anjos is going to ramp up the heat on the feet and I think we see a very clear shift in this fight at some point from competitive, to one sided domination. Tony set the blueprint in terms of how fast you can break Lee down in an ideal fight, accounting for him getting a take down, and your take down defense and get up game holding strong. That was somewhere in the late second round. I think it'll take Dos Anjos a little longer here, and I expect to see the fight clearly within Dos Anjos' grasp by the late third round. Whether the fight ends in the third or fourth depends on how well RDA can stuff the shots as he ramps up the pressure. I want to say third, but I have to account for Dos Anjos being older and giving Kevin some respect, so i'm going to say
4th round TKO win for Raphael Dos Anjos.
Remember, Kevin was just dominated by ‘same’ Al Iaquinta. New weight class, new me? No, ‘same’ Lee.
If Kevin wins I would be quite surprised to see it come inside the distance, with his best shot at victory in my opinion being winning rounds with smothering heavy pressure on top with RDA being too patient and interested in taking what Lee gives him.
Final thoughts
Well, that concludes this very in-depth breakdown, the train has arrived. Hopefully if you read this far you feel like your time was well spent, and you have learnt something about this contest and martial arts more broadly. By reading about these patterns in depth, you can recognize it in other fighters, with other match ups, so this wasn't just for this fight.
I broke this fight down in my head whilst watching tape, and timestamped moments I felt were important to illustrate those points in GIF, spamming out those idea's here. I do intend on shortening these up, because of how long it takes to type all of this out, even as a stream of consciousness piece. Due to the length I can't do any editing, so I'd like to have something a little easier to get out that I can touch up. We will see how well that goes. If you are enjoying these please give your feedback about how I can improve it. More gifs, more steps & systems, more Q's with spoiler A's, less words, fewer words, not as many words... all that good stuff.
For those who care, I will be posting shorter mini-breakdowns of fights throughout the week as I check them out at
/mMaester (that's the name i'm going by, I just use this reddit account). I currently have smaller breakdowns of |Heinisch vs. Carlos Jr. | Megan A. vs. Spencer | Dawson vs. Trizano | Giles vs. Cummings | Roberts vs. Pereira | which are more geared toward picking the fight, rather than learning more about martial arts, so subscribe there if you want to check out & get notified of any of that content.
I'll also post my betting tips in a thread there closer to the event, and I do feel I have some value picks for this card, more so than the last two. Also comment below who you think is going to win and why, and any technical area's I got wrong, or questions you might have. Thanks for reading, and may the MMA gods bless you!
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