Chris Gutierrez’s How-To Guide on Lower-Leg Decimation

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If the Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight division did not know before UFC on ESPN 9 that Chris Gutierrez could ravage a lower leg with kicks, it does now. Gutierrez set himself apart as only the 10th man in the promotion’s history to score a stoppage via leg kicks. The result was nothing new for the former soccer player, who had authored similar finishes before he even reached the UFC. It was all by design.

“You can’t land the same thing over and over without mixing it up,” Gutierrez told Sherdog.com. “If you land a good shot and you land it the same way the next 10 times, most likely you’re going to get countered. It’s how you approach it and how you mix it up to land that shot, and I think that’s what I do pretty good. I hurt people, but instead of going back to it, I go to it very differently. I just don’t jump on it and keep going, because you’re susceptible to being countered, to getting caught, to getting taken down. There’s little things I do differently that allow me to continue to do what’s considered the same thing, but it’s really not the same thing.”

In this exclusive interview with Sherdog, Gutierrez discusses the tactics and timing associated with his approach, touches on his feeling compassion for an opponent’s health and expresses whether or not his one-fight move to featherweight has resulted in any second thoughts about his staying at 135 pounds.