UFC 2009 Undisputed Guide: Defense

  In UFC Undisputed, fighters need to stay on the offense in order to control a fight and dominate their opponent, but no fighter has the cardio to continuously throw blows and shoot for takedowns. All fighters must learn to pace themselves in their fights and part of this is knowing how to defend against your opponent's attacks while conserving energy and avoiding getting tired. Clicks the link to read our article UFC Character Creation Guide or UFC Basic Controls Guide.

You need to learn how to avoid blows and defend against the attacks of your opponent to win. Keep your guard up when in a fight at all times to defend against strikes to the head and shots to the body. Activate Defense Low is designed to protect against leg kicks. Blocking with your arms will tire them out, which ultimately reduces punching power, and also reduce the damage of your opponent's blows.

Counter strikes are a very effective defense against strikes and they inflict greater damage than regular strikes. There are two categories of counters; major and minor.

To execute a major counter, strike your opponent just as he starts a striking attack of his own. You need greater speed than your opponent for this counter to work. Major counters are hard to pull off but they deliver significant more damage.

Minor counters are easier to execute, just strike your opponent immediately after his attack, when he's unable to block the strike.

Being on the defensive in a clinch is no fun, especially if you're fighting a Muay Thai fighter. There are ways to avoid getting pulled into this clinch. There are also techniques for limiting your opponent's attacks when you're defending in the clinch.

Grapple Blocking:

While in a standing position, you can execute a grapple block. Use this against an opponent who's trying to pull you into a clinch and if successful you'll block his attempt and remain in a standing position.

Clinch Escape:

To get out of a clinch that your opponent has trapped you in, move away from him and strike him repeatedly to get him to break the clinch.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighters in UFC 2009 Undisputed have more submissions when they are in a disadvantaged position on the ground. Just the same avoiding being taken down is usually better. The following techniques are designed to help you avoid a takedown.

Grapple Blocking:

This is the same technique used to block a clinch attempt. If you stuff your opponents attempt to take you down from a standing position, this technique will put you on the offensive in the Sprawl Position.

Shoot Defense: Muay Thai and Kickboxing fighters can intercept an opponent's shoot attempt by pressing the fighting technique modifier and a kick button. This throws a knee up into the opponent's face and inflicts severe damage

If you stay in a disadvantaged position for too long, the very least that will happen is that you'll look bad in the eyes of the judges. At worst you'll be at the mercy of a fighter who enjoys a significant advantage over you.

Escaping Ground Positions:

While on the defense in a ground position, you can use major transitions and minor transitions to drive your opponent back to less advantaged positions. Defensive transitions work exactly like offensive transitions.

Executing a major defensive transition from an Open Guard or a Half Guard position returns both fighters to Standing-Striking positions.

Transition Blocking:

You can block your opponents attempt at a transition using a transition block. Transition blocking augments your fighter's ground grapple defense skill and makes it less likely that your opponent's transition attempt will succeed.

Transition Reversal:

When you're on offense or defense, you can attempt to reverse your opponent's transition by as soon as he attempts the transition. If you're successful, you'll move from the disadvantaged position to an advantaged one, or you'll advance your position even further.

Submission Counter:

When you are on defense in Open Guard or Half Guard, you can counter your opponent's strikes with a submission as he throws a strike. If you do this while you're on defense in the Mount position, you transition to Mount-Down.

Stalemate:

When neither fighter is willing or able to attempt to advance his position, the referee breaks the stalemate by standing the fighters up. If you're in a disadvantaged position, you can use this to your advantage.

Anytime your opponent has you locked in a submission hold, you're in trouble. Fortunately, there are a few ways to break free before you tap out - providing you have the energy and the submission defense to hold out long enough.

Brute Force Escape:

An unsophisticated but effective way of breaking a submission hold is simply to hammer on the face buttons during the submission attempt. This causes your fighter to attempt a brute force escape by struggling and throwing strikes.

Brute force escapes have a high success rate, and they're even more effective if your fighter has a high strength attribute. However, the position that you wind up in after breaking the hold is not very advantageous.

Technical Escape:

A more skilled way to break a submission hold is the technical escape, which you can attempt by quickly rotating the stick during the submission. Fighters with high submission defense will be able to execute this technique easier.

Technical escapes are less likely to be successful than brute force escapes, but you wind up in a more advantageous position if you succeed in breaking the submission hold.