A guide to Carlos Ulberg and the lancing jab

It is rare to see proper athletes above 220lbs who have not been poached by better paying sports, but Carlos Ulberg gave up a semi professional rugby career to become a kickboxer. Now having moved to mma that athleticism is being put to good use in wiping out unranked light heavyweights in the ufc. Ulberg is blessed with explosivity and power, coupled with an impressive wingspan. While it is visible that Ulberg yearns to swang and bang, his loss to Kennedy Nzechukwu showed that leaning on his natural gifts will only take him so far. It is his jab, in fact, which has carried him to the light heavyweight top ten. While the jab is often taught as a “throw away punch”, something to flick out only as a precursor to combinations and to get a reaction out of an opponent, Ulberg breaks this philosophy. Ulberg realises that the jab is the longest reaching punch, meaning that if he can put his body behind it Ulberg can generate a lot of power across a very large distance. Ulberg uses the reach of his lead hand in order to weave together his whole style, from his footwork to his kicks to his distancing, taking advantage of his reach to set up the rest of his game.

In fencing, the first technique that an instructor will teach you is the lunge. The goal of the lunge is to cover as much distance as possible while generating enough power to launch the lead hand forward as quickly as possible. When you apply this philosophy to the jab you can completely transform how it functions as an offensive tool. Ulberg will look to pepper his opponents with the jab, stinging them with these “lancing” shots as he lunges into punches from a long range. The lunging step not only puts a lot of power onto the jab but also elongates the distance, meaning that Ulberg can get a crazy amount of reach onto the shot. This reach increase becomes even more effective when Ulberg doubles up his punches. When extending the reach of the jab a double jab can cover enough distance to move halfway across the octagon, a great way to punish opponents for simply retreating on a line. When the lancing jab lands the user is often planted in a very wide base which, while creating a vulnerability to leg kicks, creates a great platform to throw the right hand, allowing the thrower to generate more force into it. Ulberg can be confident in landing said right hand due to the fact that he can use the lancing jab as a marker as he steps into distance to throw the shot. The jab also helps Ulberg on the back foot, being flicked out to harass an opponent as he retreats or simply palming his adversary in their face.

Ulberg’s jab plays a massive role in his kicking game. Much like other city kickboxing fighters like Israel Adesanya and Dan Hooker, Ulberg will use his jabbing hand to cover the jabbing hand of his opponent. This covers the lead hand of the opponent, shutting down their jab while opening a path for your own. The threat of the jab creates a dilemma, where the opponent must let their hand stray from their body in order to deal with the threat coming to their right. This gives Ulberg the opportunity to start kicking to the uncovered side, throwing front kicks to the body and heavy low kicks while his adversary is occupied with the threat of his jab. Ulberg’s jab and run style often ends up opening avenues for his kicking game. Ulberg’s tendency to skip away and force opponents to run after him opens up low kicks, as any type of quick movement forces weight onto the front leg, making checking low kicks almost impossible while chasing down or moving away. Ulberg’s powerful jabbing forces a reaction from his opponent, meaning that many will “go Canelo”, looking to slip the jab at the end of its range, despite being out of range of a counter. Many of the “head movement doesn’t work in mma” crowd cite the threat of head kicks and knees as to why it supposedly cannot be used in mixed martial arts, but the reality is that it is no more dangerous than the threat of getting countered off throwing a right hand. The real threat of head movement is the fact that it forces you to plant your feet as you move your head off the centreline, making it progressively more awkward to lift the leg to check the more the head moves. As Ulberg’s opponent adjusts to his jab-heavy style they open up his kicking game, with Ulberg usually jabbing outside counter distance. 

Good footwork is something seldom seen in the heavier divisions of mma, even by champions of the sport. Ulberg not only uses high level footwork techniques, but uses his punches to cover them. Ulberg loves being on the back foot, but as a consequence his opponents are always looking to chase him down. If a striker ends up pinned to the fence their ability to leverage their reach is removed significantly, as the space that they can hit their opponent and their opponent can’t hit them back cannot be maintained by simply walking back. Ulberg solves this issue with good footwork, mixing it in with his jabbing. Ulberg will jab into a L step, circling to his right and out of the advances of his opponent as he retreats back to his stance off the jab. The V step can also be used to angle off as he circles the octagon, allowing him to angle to his left or right depending on the situation as he bounds back after lunging into the jab. A full commitment to a strike isn’t even fully necessary, with a simple feint often achieving the same goal with less of a risk. If the opponent is dead set on wading into range Ulberg can make use of a check hook. Alonzo Menifield got swiftly ko’d because he tried to solve the jabbing puzzle by charging at Ulberg, at which point he ran head first into the fence as Ulberg used the check hook to step away and pivot out, leaving him nowhere to be seen once Menifield charged. Ulberg had in fact put himself in superior ring position, with Menifield now pinned against the fence. The check hook is a great way to move out of the way of offence, with the added bonus if you clock the guy in the face if it does connect. Ulberg often doesn’t care if it lands though, using his hooking movement to push the opponent in the preferred direction if it does land on the shoulder. Either way Ulberg is able to effectively guide himself out of danger, while often landing a cheeky punch on the way out.

Concepts of striking are very difficult for beginners to understand, with the human body being able to find a lot of ways to throw limbs at people with the intent of causing physical harm, with some being more effective than others. In order to solve this, coaches will assign a purpose to different strikes and give you a “correct technique”, putting certain strikes in a box in order to make them a lot easier to digest. Real striking ingenuity comes from pushing the boundaries of what techniques are capable of, with even prelim fighters finding interesting takes on classic moves. While Ulberg is not the first person to ever use this lunging like jab manoeuvre, it is nice to see something that is considered as fundamental as the jab tinkered with to the point it performs so differently.