In part one of Takedown Taxonomy, we looked at the basic, high-percentage takedown entries in MMA, breaking down their mechanics and optimal uses. Those entries will suffice for the majority of your wrestling needs and should integrate effectively into most fighting styles. But there’s always more than one way to skin a cat, and familiarity with tricky, less common takedown entries can be an ace up your sleeve.

Some of the advanced entries covered here are situational or dependent upon certain stance matchups. Others are ways to finesse an entry for fighters who lack the striking and comfort to create clean routes onto the hips. Whether you’re a clever striker looking to set up sneaky takedowns, or a wrestler who needs takedowns at all costs, there will be something in here that can integrate well into your process.

Outside Reach

In our previous discussion of outside step entries, we mentioned that shooting in on the hips of an opponent in the opposite stance is often awkward due to the distance and footwork involved. Although the clashing of the lead legs should, in theory, make it easier to reach the leg, it can be tricky to find clean entries in open stance for fighters who prefer the quick finish of a well-timed double leg over long chain wrestling sequences.

It may seem that the only options are to either bite the bullet and commit to single legs, or expend a lot of effort trying to set up awkward shifting double legs. But there is another way to exploit the near lead leg of an opponent standing opposite you. While penetration becomes messier, the leg is close enough to reach out and grab without penetrating onto the hips. It doesn’t carry us right into a takedown the way clean penetration does, but the shallow entry also takes less commitment, so we can keep harassing the lead leg until it’s time to shoot.

Open Stance

What I’m referring to as an outside reach is an entry where the lead hand makes contact with the opponent’s lead leg while there’s still room between the fighters’ hips. It involves a shallow step forward, a slight level change - not enough to immediately tip off an incoming shot - and a reach outside the opponent’s lead leg.

Unlike a double leg or a single leg, the shallow, one-handed grip on the leg does not put you in a position for an immediate finish. An extra step is needed to penetrate further and transition into a finish. But where the outside reach provides additional value is as a transitional tool. Since it’s not a full, committed entry, it can be seamlessly woven into feints, repeated over and over to frustrate an opponent and conceal the true entries, and even initiated simultaneously with a punch.

Merab Dvalishvili uses these entries liberally, and they’re one of the reasons he’s able to attempt a thousand takedowns every fight.

Dvalishvili will change levels and chuck a big overhand at his opponent while grabbing for their leg. If they focus on defending the takedown, they eat the punch, and he can bail easily with no wasted energy. But the overhand also attacks his opponent’s positioning, convincing them to straighten up and pull their weight over their rear foot. Then, without the ability to hip into him and counterbalance the takedown, Dvalishvili can run his feet forward, circling toward the leg for a high crotch, or stepping across for a double leg.

Reaching for the leg is simultaneously a takedown attempt, a setup for a big rear punch, and a weather vane to check the opponent’s response. It offers built-in, rote synergy between the entry and the punch, allowing you to repeat it over and over, forcing the opponent to guess which is coming and punishing them for choosing wrong.

Dvalishvili is a very rote fighter who tends to force attacks rather than creating subtle openings, but his constant use of the outside reach and overhand right means that he doesn’t have to worry about his opponent’s response in order to exploit it.

Every gesture toward the leg threatens both a big punch and a takedown, or even both at the same time. The opponent can never stay comfortable defending punches or takedowns, forced to expend precious mental resources on avoiding the space between them. But for the attacker, the attempt exposes and costs little, flowing in and out of transitions or making the opponent react to feints as he desires.

Since the open stance matchup provides a clear lane for the rear hand between the shoulders, there’s a lot of room to modify this entry depending on what our rear hand is doing. Overhands pair well with reaching into a double leg or high crotch, as the weight transfer of the overhand sinks the attacker’s weight down outside the defender’s lead hip.

But a straight rear hand opens up a classic MMA takedown, the knee pick:

Once the opponent has seen the rear straight a few times, we step forward and shift weight as if throwing it again, but target the chest instead of the head. The lead hand lifts the defender’s lead leg, and the threat of the rear hand moves their weight backwards, lightening the leg. The rear hand mashes into the chest and shoves the defender back, and we run forward until they topple over, unable to step their lead leg back to recover their base. With the right setup, it’s a quick and easy takedown that takes very little effort or energy.

The finishes covered so far can all be initiated from an upright posture, changing levels only after selling a punch and making contact with the leg. Entering shallow is ideal for transitional attacks, but we can make a quicker and more committed bid for the leg by throwing away the rear hand earlier and taking a deeper level change.

This was one of Glover Teixeira’s most consistent takedown entries:

As Teixeira throws his rear hand, he bends his knees and gets low, reaching outside the lead leg to secure the entry. His opponent’s vision is occupied by the punch and they remain upright while he ducks down onto their hips, stepping his rear leg through to attack an inside step double leg or high crotch.

If the rear hand is timed when the opponent steps in, it can be a powerful intercepting tool as well:

Chris Weidman times a rear straight as Tom Lawlor steps in with a lead hook. The natural fold in Weidman’s hips as he throws his rear hand takes him underneath the hook and puts him inches away from the leg. He quickly snags a grip outside the lead leg, his head already underneath Lawlor’s elbow, and Lawlor has to scramble to recovering his positioning, which gives Weidman time to finish clean.

Reaching outside the lead leg is mostly useful in open stance matchups, since the lead arm rests directly in front of the opponent’s lead leg, and the shoulder configuration leaves the chin open for the rear hand. Against an opponent in the same stance, the reach would have to occur with the rear hand, which sits much further from the opponent’s leg, and it loses synergy with a simultaneous punch.

Outside reach entries in same stance matchups are rare in MMA, but Frankie Edgar managed to build an effective system around them, so this next part will mostly be a case study on how Edgar made them work.

Closed Stance

This entry is more common in wrestling than in MMA, so it may be illustrative to first go over how and why it works in a wrestling context. In MMA, strong wrestlers generally expect to get clean shots that they can finish quickly. But in an Olympic wrestling match, you’re facing one of the world’s best defenders of takedowns, who is focused solely on stopping your takedowns and scoring his own. A perfect entry is often off the table, and getting a grip on anything that allows you to apply leverage has value.

The outside reach allows you to attack outside a leg like you would when shooting a double leg. But not only does it require less commitment than a double leg, it also leaves the opposite hand free to do something else.

World champion wrestler, Rahman Amouzad, uses an active left hand to feint around, handfight, and control his opponent’s head. Occasionally he’ll surprise them with a knee-pull high crotch, sticking that left hand in his back pocket to get underneath his opponent’s defense as he reaches inside their leg. The natural response to the high crotch threat is to withdraw the lead leg and circle away from it. But that response enables his outside reach:

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When wrestlers transition to MMA, they often find themselves lacking their most familiar takedown setups. In many ways it’s easier to shoot on an upright opponent in an MMA stance, but the longer distance involved and the presence of striking place additional constraints on a wrestler looking to shoot. Early in their careers, strong wrestlers tend to have an easy time overwhelming opponents, but as they move up in competition, they need to start creating opportunities to make their takedown attempts count.

One of the hardest parts of wrestling in MMA is finding clean entries. A fighter who can get to the hips quickly gives himself a huge edge: takedown finishes become more decisive, less energy is expended, and the opponent has to start worrying about every slight level change.

It often seems like a golden age of open-space wrestling has come and gone in MMA, with many grapplers now preferring to pressure opponents back and only commit to takedowns on the cage. Effective open-space wrestling requires navigating distance and reading reactions in a way that can be very challenging, but the rewards are high.

Takedown Taxonomy will map out how open-space takedown entries work. We’ll lay out the core skills and tactics that create openings, then categorize the most common penetration options and how they change across stance matchups. For each entry, we’ll look at the highest-percentage finishes and consider which styles get the most out of them. In the upcoming second part, we’ll go in depth on more niche, advanced entries.

Since every fight starts on the feet, effective wrestlers must know how to use their striking to set up the takedown.

Priming The Takedown

A wrestling-based game in MMA requires a lot of energy management, as shooting over and over for a 15 or 25 minute fight is exhausting. There’s often a real cost to taking poor shots and struggling through laborious chain wrestling finishes that becomes self-evident the deeper a fight goes. On the other hand, a perfectly timed takedown entry can feel almost effortless, penetration leading directly into the finish with little time spent tensing the muscles or bearing the opponent’s weight.

Whether a fighter finds it worthwhile to invest in developing clean entries and timing for his takedowns is, to some degree, a matter of style. An excellent chain wrestler with a devastating top game might not need to worry about timing his shots perfectly, since he can expect to stay on top of anyone he drags to the mat and severely diminish them by the end of the round. But most fighters who tend to use their wrestling offensively benefit a great deal from effective setups, from generalists who mix up striking and grappling, to back-taking specialists who don’t tend to deal much damage on top.

In wrestling, the layers of defense one must clear to finish a clean takedown are the head, hands, and hips. When striking is added to the mix, the head stops being a reliable defensive tool due to the more upright stances, but distance is added as another layer a wrestler must navigate. When faced with a shot from far away, most fighters will look to give ground or circle away, letting distance do the work for them. Move a little closer and they’ll start using their arms to downblock or frame the attacker away. If the shot gets underneath their arms, a savvy defensive wrestler will throw their hips in to halt the shot’s momentum while they recover their arms.

Executing a perfect takedown entry is all about anticipating these reactions and setting traps to get around them, convincing the opponent to expose his own hips, or putting him in a position where his defensive reactions are less accessible. Laying the groundwork for a successful takedown entry involves gathering information on the opponent’s responses through feints and safe, probing leads, feeding them different looks to see what they do. Once you know how someone will react, you can draw it out of them and exploit it.

The classic way to set up a clean takedown entry is to draw out a counter punch and shoot underneath it. There’s no better tool for gathering information and drawing committed responses than an educated jab, and it’s no coincidence that wrestlers with strong jabs tend to have an easy time getting in on their takedowns.

Georges St-Pierre made a career off flustering opponents with his jab, goading them into overcommitting on the counter, and sailing into a smooth finish underneath it. If we can convince our man to lash out and shoot underneath, we can bypass all his defensive layers at once. His aggression closes the distance for us, at least one hand is outstretched and occupied punching, and his hips are in no position to counterbalance the takedown when committing to a punch.

A perfectly timed reactive takedown often finishes itself. You can clasp your hands behind your back, ram your shoulder into the hips, and - if the timing is perfect - the opponent should fall from the collision alone. But clean reactive entries rely a great deal on striking comfort, especially in close range. They are the gold standard, but fighters without the eyes to stand comfortably in punching range and read their opponents will struggle to implement them.

One of the simplest and most effective setups for a leg attack in wrestling is to circle away from the leg you want to attack and draw it forward. This is often easier in wrestling, since when you’re tying up in close range, you can more easily sense your opponent’s steps and even feel their subtle shifts in weight. But in MMA, we can use striking footwork to our advantage to lay traps and draw out a forward step.

Chris Weidman responds to Mark Muñoz’s attack by backing up and circling off with an L-step. To continue attacking, Muñoz has to turn on the spot to face Weidman and take a big step forward to reach him. But as soon as Muñoz steps in, he ends up serving his leg on a silver platter to Weidman’s high crotch entry.

The beauty of using striking footwork to set up takedown entries is that it can trick opponents into thinking you’re out of position and generate an aggressive advance. Many fighters will routinely step out of their staggered stance to circle, using L-steps, stepping across themselves, or just squaring up to skip sideways. Whenever you leave the safety of your stance, you open yourself up for strikes. So by stepping out of stance just slightly too far away for the opponent to hit, you can get them eager to clobber you, before resuming your stance and snatching the leg as they try.

You can get as fancy with footwork setups as you want, even drawing the rear leg forward if an opponent is looking to switch stances:

Scott Holtzman has been frustrated by Mateusz Gamrot constantly backing up and circling off when pressed, so he starts bringing his rear leg forward and squaring up to herd him along the cage. Gamrot reads this and sets a trap, circling into a kick, then stepping back into the opposite stance and showing an L-step out the other way. Once Holtzman takes the bait and brings his right leg forward, Gamrot pounces on the ankle, before climbing up to a high crotch and doubling off to finish.

Another way to lure unsuspecting opponents into a deep takedown entry is by stepping back into the opposite stance. Backstepping is a common striking tactic in MMA, often employed by slick strikers, allowing them to both give ground and change the stance engagement at once. But just as it can set up a sneaky hook off the new lead side, it can also disguise a level change.

Chad Mendes had one of the best reactive double legs in MMA history, and he hit most of them off a backstep into southpaw. By stepping his lead leg back as his opponent enters, his upper body appears to rapidly retreat, encouraging them to lose their stance chasing after him. But he’s closer than he appears as his right leg stays in place, ready to change levels and yoink his pursuing opponent to the mat. This is also a great option for wrestlers who prefer to shoot and strike with opposite lead legs, which we’ll discuss more in part two of this series.

Obviously, convincing one’s opponent to offer up their own hips is ideal, but it won’t always be possible to snag such an easy entry. Some well-rounded generalists may be able to wait for the perfect opportunity to commit to a shot, but the more one’s game relies on wrestling, the more he’ll need to take risks and commit to a takedown when the opening is merely good enough. To that effect, it can be useful to dissuade the opponent from standing in a way conducive to takedown defense.

A defensive wrestler ideally wants to meet a takedown in a low, staggered stance, weight rooted on the front foot so they can quickly throw their hips in. They also want their hands low enough to downblock. Any weapon in the arsenal that punishes these responses can increase our chance of success in finding a clean takedown entry.

The classic example is the level change uppercut. Fake a move for the legs and let the opponent duck down onto an uppercut, and next time he’ll think twice about changing levels so quickly.

Al Iaquinta foils Khabib Nurmagomedov’s attempt at a single leg takedown, but finds himself stuck against the cage after pulling his leg out. Worried about another shot, he extends his hands and crouches low. Instead of trying to shoot on an opponent prepared to defend, Khabib takes the free real estate and hits Iaquinta with an uppercut and a front kick - both weapons that encourage him to stand tall and open himself up for the next shot.

Traditionally, boxing is the natural counterpart to wrestling, and most wrestlers in MMA tend to develop their boxing skills over anything else. However, we’re increasingly seeing an archetype of fighters who rely on their outside kicking game to score, while using their wrestling and clinch skillsets to snuff out punching range. Kicks don’t flow into takedown entries quite as easily as punches, but they can be invaluable to controlling an opponent’s stance and posture. A couple heavy leg kicks will get opponents picking up their leg or holding weight on the back foot, making it easier to burst forward with a takedown.

Similar to uppercuts, kicks are also useful to stand opponents tall. A fighter in a crouched posture is vulnerable to high kicks, and as soon as he abandons it, the takedown opens up. Even the threat of a high kick can take the bend out of an opponent’s legs and prime them for a level change. Khamzat Chimaev in particular is a fan of this, initiating many of his takedowns in the first few seconds of a fight, right after kicking high to get his opponent’s brain out of takedown defense mode.

All these tactics share the same goal - manipulating the opponent’s positioning and capitalizing on their reactions to open up the hips. How exactly that looks will differ depending on the individual style involved, but developing synergy between striking and wrestling is crucial for any fighter who wants to hit takedowns, as each makes the other more effective and impactful.

Split Step Footwork

The rest of this article will categorize and discuss discrete entries, but I wanted to give this its own section as it’s particularly important to MMA wrestlers. The split step is a common way to initiate penetration in wrestling, with a few advantages over a standard penetration step. It allows a wrestler to change levels directly from a closer range than a knee-over-toe shot. Zaurbek Sidakov’s split step high crotch is one of the best examples of the move in action.

Instead of pushing off the back leg and stepping forward into the takedown, the split step involves a slight hop, with both feet coming off the ground at the same time. The front foot goes forward and the rear foot back, with the rear foot hitting first to propel you forward as it hits the ground.

The reason split steps are so useful to initiate takedowns in MMA is that getting low enough to shoot is much more difficult from an upright stance. You can step forward and bend your front leg at the same time, but that mucks up your positioning, sending your momentum into the ground. To maximize momentum and attain strong positioning on entry, the level change and forward movement should ideally happen in two distinct motions, sending the momentum straight ahead. But dipping low enough to shoot directly forward is an obvious tell.

When the timing is perfect and the distance slight, you can afford to sacrifice some positioning, as it takes far less momentum to knock over an opponent squaring up and drifting forward, and you avoid giving them the opportunity to put weight on you. But when shooting from far away, every mistake is more costly.

Split steps are a great tool for initiating shots from outside punching range. Not only is it the quickest way to transition from an upright striking stance to a crouched athletic stance ready to burst forward, but the movement also gives you a burst of forward momentum. From the perspective of the opponent, you get much lower and much closer at the same time.

The split step single leg has been the trademark technique of fighters trained by the great Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov since the debut of his son, Khabib. Most Nurmagomedov-trained fighters rely on shooting from afar more than working inside and setting up cleaner entries, confident that their incredible chain wrestling will suffice once they get in on a leg, and the split step consistently gets them a grip on the leg. Before Khabib started fighting in the walled Octagon and running opponents onto the cage, nearly every takedown he secured was from the same move, setting up outside punching range, and using a split step to simultaneously drop low and propel forward.

But the ability to transition directly from an upright striking stance to a wrestling posture without taking a perceptible step is useful for more than just long-range shots. For fighters with more comfort on the inside, it can set up a lightning fast reactive takedown. A fighter with a fold in his rear hip, dipping down as he feints jabs, is at least somewhat recognizable as a takedown threat. The opponent may not know when it’s coming, but he knows their weight is coiled to spring into a takedown. But the split step can take you right from a posture that doesn’t signal a takedown threat into a takedown while skipping over the telegraph entirely.

Here are a few reactive takedowns entered off split steps. The attacker moves after the opponent begins punching, yet each one reaches the hips before the punch completes, changing levels and bursting forward simultaneously. In each case, the split step takes them straight from an upright striking posture into the shot with no lag time.

It can also be used to enter into a shot when your feet are otherwise out of position:

Josh Barnett feints forward, causing Daniel Cormier to step out of stance and bring his feet together, putting him in a poor position to counter or defend. But as Barnett leaps forward with a lead hook, Cormier’s split step takes him right underneath into a staggered stance and Barnett runs into his high crotch.

The beauty of using split steps to enter into takedowns is that they can double as a striking tool, using the same preliminary motion to initiate both strikes and takedowns. Widen your feet more and you get a deeper level change, perfect for shooting on the legs, while keeping it shallow allows quicker forward drive, perfect for entering into a rear punch or kick.

In my article on Muay Thai star, Tawanchai, I covered how he uses a split step to initiate both his round kicks and his rear teeps, forcing opponents to guess and punishing them when they pick wrong. It works similarly for rear hand punches and takedowns, as demonstrated by Sanda great, Mohsen Mohammadseifi:

Mohammadseifi uses split steps to feint on the outside and propel himself forward into his rear hand. Once his opponent is conditioned to react to punches, he takes a deeper split step to get low and penetrate onto their hips. When the defender expects a punch, it takes a moment longer to react to the level change, and by that time it’s too late.

The split step is an effective tool to get low and drive forward, but it can lead into a wide range of entries. Next, we’ll categorize the primary penetration options and examine their use cases, setups, finishes, and stylistic synergies.

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The DQ loss to Sterling should have been a mere speed bump in Yan’s rise - when a rematch failed to materialize due to a Sterling injury, he proved he was better than ever with a win over a game Cory Sandhagen. Finally slated to fight Sterling once more, the title was once again as good as Yan’s. He already proved he had what it took to dominate Sterling, what’s one more time? But it wasn’t to be. Sterling learned his lessons from their first fight and put on the performance of a lifetime, securing the first round with higher output, maximizing his control on the ground to dominate the middle rounds, and holding out late against a resurgent Yan for a split decision.

After the second Sterling loss, everything seemed to spiral out of control. Another split decision loss to up-and-coming contender, Sean O’Malley, that most viewers saw for Yan. There were calls of robbery, but for the second time in a row, Yan’s workrate let him down, as he failed to distinguish his offense and left himself playing catch up after early hesitation. But the worst was yet to come for Petr Yan.

Yan was on a two fight skid, but his elite talent shone through in both losing performances. A couple different bounces in a couple different rounds, and he could easily be making his fifth title defense. But Merab Dvalishvili would soon put that fantasy to rest. Dvalishvili not only handed Yan his third consecutive loss, he bullied Yan around the Octagon, overwhelming him with pace, pressure, and offensive volume. Not a single judge saw Yan winning even one round.

His first fight with Dvalishvili could have put Yan right back into title contention, but instead it thrust him into a slower rebuild. He wouldn’t fight until nearly a year later, winning a decision over Song Yadong that felt too close for comfort. His next couple fights against Deiveson Figueiredo and Marcus McGhee felt like lateral moves at best, but he turned in more commanding performances that still lacked the devastation and damage of his earlier run.

In the meantime, Dvalishvili kept busy cleaning out the Bantamweight division ahead of Yan. He won five straight after their fight, capturing the title from Sean O’Malley and defending it against Sandhagen and Umar Nurmagomedov. Yan found himself in the position Aljamain Sterling once occupied, coming into a rematch against a nightmare matchup that made him look helpless in their first contest. And just like Sterling, Yan turned in the performance of a lifetime, delivering a classic Yan beating against all odds.

To understand what made Yan’s performance so special, we must first discuss the factors that make Dvalishvili such a difficult fight for him to navigate. Yan is one of the craftiest pressure fighters in the sport, but he’s always been better at covering distance and keeping up with a retreating opponent than forcing them backwards. Yan is a defensively-minded striker and his primary methods of defense involve using his forearms or extended arms to cover his chin. So his counters mostly arrive delayed, rather than simultaneous to his opponent’s offense, and he prefers to give ground and re-engage over planting his feet and countering on the spot.

Yan’s willingness to throw up a high guard and retreat has caused problems with fighters who can seize the initiative from him - Sterling was able to busy him with enough empty volume early to throw off his offense, while building setups to take him down later. Anyone who struggles with initiative is going to have a hell of a time beating Merab Dvalishvili.

Dvalishvili attacks primarily in bursts and blitzes, but his endless cardio means that the bursts never stop coming, and his opponents never get a chance to rest or comfortably set their feet. He maintains a long distance, feinting back and forth outside immediate jabbing range, and covers it by launching himself head first into long right hands.

Dvalishvili’s willingness to throw himself off balance makes his rear hand quite a bit longer than it appears at the cost of his own stance. He’ll also throw in a couple basic mixups to keep opponents guessing, initiating it with a lead hook or hand trap, and running through into southpaw with a left hook as opponents backtrack.

It’s easy to see why Yan would have trouble advancing against someone like Dvalishvili, but what truly ties Dvalishvili’s game together is the way his striking sets up his takedowns. The motion of his long right hand also doubles as a penetration step for his takedowns, and because he’s covering so much ground with it, he can very quickly get in on the hips in great position to finish.

When Dvalishvili’s opponents see him bending his knees and heaving himself toward them a hundred miles an hour, there’s no way to tell if he’s looking to punch them in the face or grab a leg. You have to respect the right hand, or you’ll eat power punches all night, but if you straighten up or back away from it, he’ll duck in on your hips and knock you over like a bowling pin. It’s a natural response to such a long right hand to move away from it and start shifting weight backwards, but that allows Dvalishvili’s momentum to run through you if he shoots, as the feet need to remain firmly planted to hip in and halt the shot’s momentum.

This simple mixup makes Dvalishvili one of the biggest open-space takedown threats in MMA, and he can spam it over and over again until his opponents exhaust themselves physically and mentally trying to defend. This might seem like the same old “wrestler with an overhand right” setup, but you’re underestimating how much distance Dvalishvili closes with his and how that threat compromises his opponent’s positioning.

In their first fight, Dvalishvili’s cleanest takedowns, where he was able to strike directly into a finish without having to work through a long chain wrestling sequence, came mostly when he made Yan react to the threat of his right hand. Yan would throw his guard high, then get caught with his posture upright and with weight on his heels.

In the rematch, Yan built his approach around avoiding that position, making Dvalishvili struggle through every takedown attempt he could muster.

Yan needed a way to prevent Dvalishvili from backing him off at will and apply more consistent offense at mid-range. He found the perfect tool early in a dipping jab, spearing Dvalishvili with stinging jabs while maintaining a fold in his rear hip, or proactively ducking low after landing.

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Effective infighting is rare in Sanda since clinch striking doesn’t score. If one tries to crowd his opponent with punches, simply grabbing an underhook or overhook will negate any points from then on, turning the exchange into wrestling or stalling. But Chengjin managed to manipulate clinching range in a way I’ve not seen previously in Sanda, hitting effectively in transitions, but also leveraging frames to keep his opponents where they could be hit and hurt.

At long range, Chengjin is a southpaw with a slick one-two and fast open side kicks, hidden behind rhythmic bouncing. But as the distance tightens, his more unique qualities show through. He appears to be a converted southpaw, possessing a dexterous and unusual lead hook.

Instead of sitting down on the lead hook and rotating his hips into it, he thrusts it out in more of a stabbing motion.

The stabbing hook doesn’t hit as hard as a full power rotational punch, but it lets Chengjin sneak it through at awkward angles and double up on it in quick succession, since the delivery eschews exaggerated hip motion. It’s one of his most useful tools for applying volume, continually occupying the opponent’s vision and threatening to interrupt them if they settle into an exchange, while at the same time setting up his bigger strikes. Since Chengjin is a southpaw, the hook comes from a blind angle outside the shoulder, and stabbing with it gives him a lot of control over the angle, so he can direct it over the shoulder if their chin is hidden.

Chengjin’s left hand is used more sparingly, typically as an intercepting counter or set up off a quick leg kick.

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While I enjoy just about any combat sport I can get my hands on, most of my time is spent watching MMA or Muay Thai, so those are the typical arts you’ll see me reference. But for the discerning martial artist, there’s endless value in studying a variety of arts, as slight differences in ruleset or culture can produce unique material for adapting to a more open ruleset. If you watch enough outside the combat sports orthodoxy, you’ll quickly find that a lot of techniques which at first appear ineffective actually work quite well when honed to proficiency, and that can often only happen under a ruleset whose specific constraints allow them to flourish.

So today I bring you three weird fighters from sports you probably don’t watch a lot of, but I’m certain you’ll find some value in their unique styles. We’ll look at a Russian karateka who uses his Karate skills to box up MMA fighters in the pocket, a top Kun Khmer fighter who relentlessly hunts his opponents’ rear legs, and a Malagasy Moraingy specialist who fills 30-second rounds with creative and unorthodox combinations.

Alexander Matmuratov: Karate Parries & Deflections

When we think of Karate fighters in MMA, the image that comes to mind is that of a fighter standing far away in a long, bladed stance. The driving principle behind that is the idea of Ikken Hissatsu, or to kill in one blow. Originally a figurative dictate to strike with commitment and make every blow count, the metric eventually became a target and its influence grew to shape competition format. The end result is the point Karate we’ve all become familiar with, where the fight is stopped and reset after a clean blow is landed.

A sport without exchanges doesn’t produce effective fighters on its own, but in ironic fashion, the primary design principle that held point Karate back as a complete striking art also turned out its most important import to the world of continuous fighting. Once point Karatekas started rounding out their skillsets, and MMA fighters of other backgrounds began incorporating point Karate drills and tools, it became clear that a specialty in avoiding all contact until the moment of impact is incredibly useful.

But as effective as the point Karate meta proved for distance management, it’s also homogenized their competitive contests. Most styles of Karate traditionally teach many stances, with a variety of purposes and foot positions, but the principle of one touch death incentivizes fighters to get as side-on as possible and disregard anything but their longest, straightest weapons. Instead, boxing has taken over as the main influence in pocket fighting, with even Karate-style fighters tending to abandon Karate’s unique inside weapons in favor of boxing techniques.

Alexander Matmuratov is a Russian Karate stylist who goes against that trend. While he’s integrated Karate techniques well into a broader skillset, he operates at length in the pocket and he does so with an unmistakably Karate flare. Matmuratov’s original art was Shotokan Karate, but he later diversified, training in Combat Sambo and ARB (Russian Military Hand-to-Hand), and winning championships in Koshiki Karate, a style of point Karate with continuous exchanges.

Matmuratov makes effective use of the old point Karate staples - he uses in-and-out bouncing footwork to set up entries and disengage, pairs a chambered round kick with side kicks and hook kicks, and knocks foes out with spinning kicks. But what’s most interesting about Matmuratov is where he diverges from the point Karate competition meta and borrows from the old textbooks.

He cycles through different positions within his stance, all more square than the standard point Karate fare. His typical stance sees his lead foot pointed directly forward, enabling quick kicks off either leg. But he’s ready to step diagonally into the opposite stance or draw his lead leg back square, where he can rapidly change directions and side step effortlessly.

Standing more square than a typical MMA stance allows Matmuratov to flow quickly into that squared up strafing stance, juking out opponents and circling away as they try to walk him down. He can also play with what weapons he’s showing, stepping into the opposite stance to open up a rear kick to the open side or close a shoulder to his chin as his opponent attacks. When he wants to spring forward, he’ll bounce into a wider, set stance and hide it in the motion of his footwork, often taking a split step to propel himself into a lunging rear hand.

You’ll often see fighters adopt a squared up stance as their back nears the cage, but much of the time it’s an involuntary result of running out of space, and few use it to its full capabilities. Matmuratov’s comfort in attacking from that sort of stance is fairly unique. With his feet level, long straight punches become more difficult without a front foot to transfer weight to, but both sides of his body end up about the same distance to the target. He can throw both hands with the same speed and power and without an exaggerated weight transfer, the blows are difficult to read.

Matmuratov often attacks in blitzes, walking his punches forward with square hips and shoulders.

Stepping forward with his leg opposite the punching hand adds power to the punches even without boxing-style hip rotation. Since he’s walking forward rather than rushing blind, his attacks out of the blitz are responsive too. He’ll pump out a few soft punches to draw up a guard and send a hard hooking blow outside it or smash the body. He’ll also anticipate counters and look to send a knee or kick to the ribs underneath them. Matmuratov’s hands serve to block and disrupt the opponent when he isn’t punching, and he’ll change levels and dip out the side if he anticipates a return.

While Matmuratov does a good job mitigating the openings his squared up combinations leave, there’s still a lot of inherent risk to stepping through combinations involving multiple shifts. A key aspect to making it work is picking the right time to leave stance, where the opponent isn’t in a strong position to counter, especially as a shorter fighter who usually needs to close distance to reach his man. Matmuratov’s most consistent entry to his blitzing combinations is to change levels underneath a jab and enter to the body.

Getting underneath the jab gives Matmuratov a short window of relative safety where he can step in and follow the punch as it retracts. By the time they recover, he’s gotten off a few blows and crowded them, smothering their opportunity to counter. Part of the reason it’s such an effective counter is that it’s unexpected - a fighter who just dipped beneath your jab is typically looking for a big right hand or left hook upstairs, but rattling off a combination to the body while plowing forward isn’t anyone’s first guess, and it allows him to set up further surprise shots upstairs.

The square stance of Matmuratov enables him to get in underneath the jab and rattle off a few quick punches before the opponent can counter. If they retreat or throw up a guard, he can keep working with quick, short punches. While these punches lack the fight-ending power of a hook with full hip rotation, his forward momentum and shoulder rotation get some juice into them, and over time they’ll wear down on an opponent’s gas tank if not curtailed.

Matmuratov’s marching footwork also plays in perfectly with his front kicks. In MMA, front kicks are typically used as a long-range tool by fighters trying to hold ground or avoid exchanges, but they’re useful for closing distance too. During Matmuratov’s blitzes, if an opponent backs farther away to recover some space, he’ll flick the ball of his foot into their tummy rather than risk rushing onto a counter.

The front kick flows right out of his stepping punches, as if a punch falls short, he’s already stepping forward, positioning his rear leg on the open side for a powerful kick. He can link exchanges together by stepping through into a front kick as his man disengages, then planting his kicking foot down right in front of them and resuming his flurry. The front kicks also cover his own exits, as he’ll occasionally step back to a level stance and intercept his opponent with the kick as they follow.

But the most interesting aspect of Matmuratov’s skillset to me is his defense. He’s a difficult man to score clean kicks on - not only does his square stance allow him to quickly pick up a leg and point his knee outwards to check, but he has a deep bag of crafty counters to punish kicks. He’s proficient in the Karate-style cross catch, the mechanics of which we’ve gone over previously.

It’s against spinning kicks where Matmuratov’s cleverness really shines, however, as he consistently hits one of the coolest counters I’ve seen in combat sports. When faced with a spinning back kick, Matmuratov simply powerbombs his opponent on their head.

When he sees the spin coming, he dashes outside the kick, drawing his rear foot and shoulder forward to crowd it and letting it fall onto his lowered arm in a scoop grip. He then grabs inside the shoulder to keep his opponent’s shoulders level and prevent them from bellying down. Finally, his far leg bumps their planting leg out at the thigh and he tosses them straight at the mat. Bumping high on the leg is key to getting good elevation, just like in a well executed Thai-style sweep but instead of pushing them over an invisible table, he’s chucking them at the ground like Kevin Nash.

There’s a lot of neat little tricks in Matmuratov’s game, but his unorthodox defense in the pocket is by far the coolest. The big problem with using a Karate style attack on the inside is that it is, by design, a very upright style. They tend to punch with a straight back and momentum that goes in a straight line, without the innovations made by boxing in rotational weight transfers and hip fold that naturally take the head away from return fire.

Without smooth hips folds, a fighter needs to be skilled in anticipating the openings he’s leaving and covering them with his arms if he’s to operate at length on the inside. But a high guard is tricky here too, since it doesn’t mesh well with the chain punching sequences, and leaves a lot of gaps for small gloves to sneak through. Instead, Matmuratov has found a way to incorporate traditional Karate deflections into his attack, covering the exposed parts of his head with forearm or shoulder, or even just swatting his opponent’s blows out of the air.

Matmuratov’s square stance leaves his shoulders relatively level, which means there’s some daylight for strikes on both sides of his face. But as the shoulder rotates into a straight punch, the punching shoulder briefly covers the chin. Matmuratov is conscious of this and will pattern his punches in a way that covers openings. When I say he defends punches with his own punches, it sounds like the sort of nonsense Koji Oishi infamously employed against Nick Diaz when trying to boop his punches straight out of the air, but Matmuratov does it in a much more sensible way, throwing away punches just to get shoulder or forearm in front of an oncoming attack.

Matmuratov will often end combinations or start engagements with an awkward swivel jab, or a corkscrew hook with his shoulder internally rotated. Whether the punch lands or not is immaterial, as the purpose is to get his shoulder in front of his chin, covering against an orthodox rear hand or southpaw lead hook, and with his minimal rotational weight transfer, he can answer with several blows in the time it takes his opponent to recover from their more committed weight transfer.

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Poirier’s massive first round in their second fight was kicked off by his shifting combinations, set up by his subtle rear hand lead. I covered the tactic in my article on Magomedrasul Gasanov:

One of Poirier’s trademark moves is shifting forward behind his rear hand to track a retreating opponent and wallop them with his new rear hand out of an orthodox stance. But he doesn’t just throw the rear hand and go automatically, he’s constantly flicking it out to bait and draw and check the opponent’s reaction.

He’ll flick out his rear hand and duck in at times, then when his man responds by backing up, he’ll fill the space with a forward shift and blitz them down:

The key here is that the noncommittal rear hands disguise his intentions and give him lots of information on how his opponent will react. Poirier’s comfort in the pocket is astounding, but it’s bolstered by his ability to anticipate reactions he’s already seen through less committed offerings.

While Holloway hadn’t entirely bucked his tenancy to give ground straight backwards, he was aware of the opportunities it presented Poirier and resolved to take them away this time. He proved much more willing to plant his feet and counter, ducking down underneath Poirier’s shifting combinations and running him onto hooks. One of the trickier ways he stymied Poirier’s forward movement was with an intercepting body kick.

I’ve been critical of some aspects of Holloway’s kicking game in the past. Despite his versatile repertoire, awkward mechanics and weight transfer on his round kicks, as well as a tendency to throw with his kicking hip pulled back limit their utility as a consistent, fight-controlling weapon. But he’s always used them well as ancillary tools, and his body kick proved an excellent way to control the initiative against a fighter looking to push him back in bursts.

A common archetype in Muay Thai is a kicker who stands in a square, narrow stance and uses quick, precise, scalpel-like kicks on the counter. If you see a Thai in a wide, set stance with weight on the front foot, they’re typically more of a thudding power kicker, but standing square and narrow keeps the weight distributed to quickly pick up a leg on a moment’s notice.

Holloway’s movement and footwork bear closer resemblance to that sort of kicker (like View Petchkoson, pictured above) than the heavier, more sure-footed and rhythmic steps of a more traditional open-side kicker like Superlek or Sitthichai.

One important key to kicking on the counter is moving efficiently while at the same time keeping the weight distributed to quickly bring the leg up on a hair trigger. Holloway’s weight distribution tends to be very even, prioritizing ease of movement over ability to deliver power or employ defensive head movement, and that even weight distribution kept him in position to time his kicks.

Another key to kicking off the backfoot is that it often comes off a hopping pivot. Holloway will shift his weight slightly onto the kicking leg as he backs up, then suddenly take a slight hop, the ball of his planting foot pushing off the ground and elevating slightly, then rotating in the air before touching back down in its post-pivot position. A hopping pivot allows one to cheat slightly on the weight transfer and get the kicking leg up immediately, which is important when using it to intercept an advancing opponent, as any delay can mean running out of space.

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When Jack Dempsey was sparking out bigger men at the height of his boxing career, he fancied himself a natural puncher. A man fortunate enough to have been bestowed by fate gifts in the art of smashing up faces and separating heavyweights from consciousness. But in his retirement, he started reverse engineering his mechanics to teach them to others, and found that his thought process changed. Thinking through each step reminded Dempsey just how much expertise and labor went into constructing the puncher he became, and he came to see the art of punching as something that is taught rather than a quality inherent to a fighter.

Outliers who push the edge of the spectrum certainly make it hard to deny that power can be a gift. Every so often, a fighter comes along who seems to strike with the fist of god himself, capable of otherwise impossible feats of brain damage. What else could possibly explain Melvin Manhoef, a natural Middleweight who needed only 18 seconds to topple Mark Hunt’s legendary chin - a chin that made it through the early 2000s K-1 Heavyweight gauntlet without ever losing consciousness, surviving clean head kicks from fighters like Mirko Cro Cop along the way.

No amount of training and instruction can turn someone into a Manhoef-like puncher, but neither was Manhoef slumping elite fighters night after night. Freakish power does not bring along with it a freakish ability to apply that power. The science behind delivering power can be learned and improved by anyone, but an elite athlete who becomes a student of the game separates himself both from those who rely on their natural gifts and those without any.

Ilia Topuria is a phenomenal athlete, but he was not simply bestowed with the touch of death and marked by destiny to wilt everything in his path. The biggest punching threat in MMA, the one most likely to fell his opponents because he will both find their chin and find it hard, is something Topuria learned to be. Even in early fights, it’s clear that Topuria and his trainers invested a great deal in developing mechanics that allow him to transfer enormous amounts of weight into thunderous blows without losing his balance, the subtlety to put fist straight to jaw, and the timing to create collisions at the perfect moment. Topuria is what boxing historian, Kyle McLachlan, would call a composite puncher - one whose mechanical and tactical nous is integral to his ability to wallop, in the vein of Sugar Ray Robinson or Joe Louis.

Now that Topuria just secured his fastest career knockout over one of his toughest competitors in Charles Oliveira, let’s look back at his path of devastation and examine the skills and subtlety that left some of the greatest fighters to ever compete lying in broken heaps beneath him.

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Trindade’s run through the Grand Prix solidified him as one of the best Featherweights in the world, as he dispatched Kento Haraguchi and Chadd Collins brutally, each inside a round. While he fell to Petchpanomrung in the finals, the 24 year old gave a great account of himself, taking Petchpanomrung to a competitive split decision.

Their first fight made it clear that Trindade was destined to challenge for Petchpanomrung’s Glory Featherweight championship before too long, and with a full camp dedicated to the fight and five rounds to distinguish himself, their rematch would be a more formidable challenge than any Petchpanomrung has faced since his 2023 loss to Chadd Collins.

Trindade took another fight in the interim, facing YA-MAN in an open gloved kickboxing match and battering him with his trademark left hook. The fight was called off in the third round after three left hook knockdowns in as many rounds.

After the win over YA-MAN, Trindade found himself right back in with Petchpanomrung, this time over five rounds for the Glory title. Trindade looked like a world beater in his recent run minus the Petchpanomrung fight, but the fighters he ran through - YA-MAN, Collins, and Haraguchi - were aggressive bangers willing to sacrifice defense for offense and walk onto his power. Petchpanomrung was a different challenge, his defensive aptitude uniquely suited to defusing Trindade’s powerful combinations.

Like the typical Thai outfighter, Petchpanomrung has had his roughest fights against swarmers who can get on top of him and stay there, bullying him in chaotic exchanges and denying him the clean reactions he likes to execute. From his famous knockout at the hands of Muangthai in his Muay Thai days to his difficulties with Chadd Collins, whose swarming pressure overwhelmed Petchpanomrung’s defensive radar but got him clobbered by Trindade, Petchpanomrung is near unbeatable when given space to work, by can be made uncomfortable through continual encroachment.

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Anderson Silva was born to be a swarming pressure fighter, but cruel circumstance forced him to dance. When watching his earliest fights, it becomes clear that what “The Spider” wanted to do most of all was trap his opponents in a corner and go absolutely feral on them. Early Silva was a blindingly fast striker with whips for limbs, throwing out all sorts of different weapons his opponents had never seen before. He would stalk them to the ropes aggressively, square up to trap his confused foe, then unleash his entire arsenal while yanking their head around or stiff-arming them in place.

So why isn’t that always the Anderson Silva we remember? As good as he was on the inside, wrestling was an uphill battle for him. If his opponents flinched away as he closed in, they were in for a world of pain. But if they timed his forward step with a takedown, Silva would collapse as soon as someone touched both of his legs. An aggressive, pursuing Silva was a reactive takedown artist’s dream, as he’d square his stance, extend his arms out, and walk right into them, or throw his weight past his feet punching. There was little keeping wrestlers off his hips, and once they were there, Silva’s response left much to be desired.

But even when Silva became the slick hit and move stylist that dominated the UFC’s Middleweight division for years, elements of that square, swarming Muay Khao remained. He spent most of his time bouncing around in a bladed stance, poking with his jab and his long range kicks, but his hurting weapons still came mostly out of the square stance, either through backstepping counters or putting his former A-game into use during brief flurries against the cage.

The benefits of a square stance for aggressive clinch fighters are fairly straightforward - its power for corralling an opponent and tracking their lateral movement is the reason Thailand’s Muay Khaos tend to have some of the squarest stances you’ll see in striking. But Silva’s willingness to square his stance moving backwards had some interesting and rarely-seen utility in getting to his clinch as well.

Silva liked to give ground not by stepping his rear foot back first and following with his lead, as is traditional in boxing. He would step back first with his lead foot, taking it all the way back into the opposite stance. It allowed him to take large swaths of ground, but it also squared his shoulders, making it easier to grab on with both hands.

As his opponents closed in behind their lead hand, he’d extend his own and take it on the shoulder, looking to control the head while switching stances backwards. His stance switch lines his rear shoulder up with the opponent’s rear hand, letting him once again catch the punch on his extended arm and secure both hands around the head. When Silva found opportunities to pressure opponents against the cage, he’d flow into the clinch more naturally, squaring his stance to present both arms for grabbing.

Once Silva had both hands around the head, fans knew they were about to see something special. Silva had a varied and multifaceted clinch game that made use of many positions, but he’s almost single-handedly responsible for popularizing the double collar tie in MMA due to his devastating offense from the position.

The Double Collar Tie

Silva may not have been the first MMA fighter to employ the double collar tie, but the position quickly became synonymous with him. His first UFC title fight came only a few months after his debut, when he was still relatively unknown to American fans. But that didn’t last long, as Silva turned in the most violent yet beautiful clinch destruction the MMA world had ever seen, mashing Rich Franklin’s midsection into paste with his knees before going upstairs to finish him off.

From that moment on, crowds and commentators alike would go wild whenever Silva locked his hands around a head, assuming a finish was imminent. It quickly became known as a near instant loss condition - if you found yourself in Silva’s clinch, and you couldn’t escape right away, it was all over.

But before Silva’s double collar tie became one of MMA’s most famous weapons, it had its origins in his early swarming style. It was largely a reactive tool used to control his opponent’s response to his aggression. Silva would pressure toward the ropes, square up, and shock them with a barrage of straight punches. When they panicked and tried to duck in on him, his forearms were outstretched, ready to lock the head and batter them with knees.

It also doubled as his primary method of defending takedowns, sticking the forearms between himself and his foe as they dove on his hips from ten feet away, and daring them to rise back up with his knee cocked to drive through their jaw. But as Silva grew more experienced and the takedowns he face grew less telegraphed, he relied on it less as a defensive wrestling tool and developed more nuanced routes to the hold.

In today’s game, the double collar tie sees much more widespread use, but it’s rarely the killshot that it appeared in Silva’s heyday.

So what changed? Have modern fighters learned how to deal with the position, or was Silva doing something back then that they still haven’t caught up to?

It’s a bit of both. It is true that Rich Franklin’s poor clinch awareness made him the perfect canvas for Silva to paint a masterpiece. But Silva faced other fighters who knew what they were doing in the clinch and his responses were nothing short of masterful. The level of clinch skill in MMA has improved tremendously, spurred on by Silva himself as much as anyone, but even in the modern game there are very few who use the double collar tie with the nuance and skill of Anderson Silva.

Positional Basics

While MMA fans typically know it as the “Muay Thai Clinch,” the double collar tie sees more sporadic and situational use in Muay Thai. It’s primarily a transitional position used by very tall fighters, as the double forearm grip necessarily leaves space for a savvy opponent to start breaking the grip, meaning that a well prepared clincher needs to anticipate and punish counters instead of hunkering down and clinging to the position.

The double collar tie offers strong control of an opponent’s posture, allowing an attacker to weigh down on their head and crunch them into knees or throws. Because it’s a double inside grip, it also offers superior leverage for turning and steering as opponents struggle to escape it. With the forearms creating a frame and holding the opponent in place, the attacker can bring his hips back to throw powerful knees without losing position.

The hands should meet at the crown of the head, rather than the lower on the neck, offering superior leverage to crunch the defender’s posture down. The elbows and forearms wedge into the collarbone, locking the defender in place and steering them as they push or pull. As the defender struggles and rotates their hips and shoulders to wiggle inside the tie, the forearms follow to redirect them and maintain the hold, pushing across the attacker’s center line if necessary to close the gap between the elbows. Head position within the double collar tie can vary - when throwing knees the head will often need to come up, but tucking the head in tight in between attacks can help shield it from wild punches and tighten up the position.

Footwork is also of critical importance for maximizing the position’s potential. Prolific Muay Thai fighter and historian, Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu, asked the great Muay Khao Langsuan Panyutapum why knee fighters are worse in today’s Muay Thai, and he responded that everyone is flat-footed nowadays, where Muay Khao used to move around on their toes.

Staying on the toes facilitates greater mobility, allowing rapid turns and micro adjustments in positioning, keeping the attacker ready to change the angle at all times and respond to the defender’s attempts to wiggle their shoulder inside or break the grip.

This was something that Silva understood in a way that few other MMA fighters have:

As Rich Franklin Pushes forward, hoping to collapse the distance and force himself between Silva’s elbows, Silva stays on his toes and bounces as he turns. He’s on his toes to begin with, allowing him to react immediately to the shift in weight and pressure, and he cranks down further on Franklin’s head with each bounce as he turns out along the cage. Staying on his toes allows Silva to find the holes in Franklin’s positioning - initially he has his left leg back and Franklin turns to hide behind his hip on that side, but Silva quickly switches his feet to knee the open side. Note also how Silva’s left forearm tightens and passes across his body to stay inside of Franklin’s shoulder as Franklin turns side on.

Another element of Silva’s double collar tie that still sets him apart from modern fighters is the technique and efficiency of his knees. It’s still rare to see MMA fighters throw sharp knees in the clinch, and you’ll see a ton of hipless “stay busy” knees, or soft knees to the ribs that land with the inside of the leg. Silva was far more precise and vicious, choosing his targets carefully and throwing knees meant to damage.

The technique on Silva’s knees was as vicious as it was beautiful. He didn’t lift his knees straight up, but rather drove his hip into them for devastating power. They tended to land with the hard part of the knee just below the kneecap, and he’d adjust his hip based on distance. If his hips were far back, he’d drive the knee straight up the middle, often targeting the vulnerable solar plexus, and at closer ranges his hip rotates out and back in to add power, tilting to get the hard part of the knee on the floating ribs. Salvos of body knees directed the attention downstairs and hid sudden large steps back that opened room to knee the head. As opponents panicked and exposed different openings, he’d take what was given, switching his feet to knee the open side as they squirmed in desperation.

Anyone content to sit in Silva’s double collar tie without a plan to escape was dead in the water, a sitting duck about to be brutalized with a never-ending series of knees to their liver, sternum, ribs, and nose. But opponents with calculated responses didn’t have an easy go of it either, as Silva had preternatural awareness in the clinch and remained prepared to counter their attempts at foiling him.

Dynamic Control & Punishment

It’s a consistent principle across all combat sports that balance follows the head. If you can stuff your man’s head down so he’s looking at the ground, or push it out out of alignment with his hips, his ability to do just about anything is severely compromised. A head in alignment with the posterior chain is key to finishing a double leg takedown, throwing a proper punch, or applying any leverage in the clinch.

One of the main benefits of the double collar tie for control is that it applies leverage directly to the point on the opponent most critical for balance. Since it’s a grip that necessitates some space and gives the defender room to pummel inside, that balance-breaking ability needs to be used to its fullest extent to maintain control.

It’s true that Rich Franklin wasn’t well prepared to counter Silva’s clinch, but every time he tried to get something started, he’d find himself yanked off balance, forced to catch his feet as Silva peppered him with knees.

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Jean Silva is the UFC’s newest star at Featherweight and so far he’s appeared the total package. He’s active, amassing five wins in a little over a year with the promotion. He’s exciting, finishing every one of those wins and peppering his fights with flashy, high-octane moments. And he has the personality and theatrical flair to avoid falling through the UFC’s ever-widening matchmaking cracks.

Silva’s personality isn’t just an act for the microphones either. Jean Silva is constantly amusing himself in his fights, as he points at his opponents, gestures around like a maniac, or plays the “made you look” game. But anyone fooled by the silliness is in for a rough time, as the antics sit atop a bedrock of ferocious killer instinct and a carefully constructed approach to fighting.

Stylistically, Silva takes a lot of familiar elements and blends them together into a fairly unique game. The deep influence of traditional martial arts like Karate and Tai Kwon Do on MMA can be seen in his approach to distancing, as he likes to fight outside jabbing range and goad opponents into walking onto intercepting counters. But his first martial art was Muay Thai, and it shows in his ancillary tools as he makes crafty use of elbows and knees, making him much more potent on the inside than the typical fighter of his mold.

The most peculiar part of Silva’s UFC run is that he’s fought nothing but southpaws thus far - five of them in a row. It’s proven a happy coincidence for him however, as the primary weapon in Silva’s arsenal is a cracking left hook. His comfort at long range and punishing counter hook make him a stylistic nightmare for southpaws used to controlling an orthodox opponent’s lead hand and coming in straight.

The Distance Trap

When Lyoto Machida first pioneered the art of standing far away, it was a revolutionary fusion of Karate and MMA, the likes of which we’d never seen before. By now the tactics Machida used to frustrate opponents and convince them to rush onto his intercepting counters have percolated down so thoroughly that they’re regularly employed by fighters who aren’t otherwise Karate-coded at all.

Jean Silva is one such fighter who likes to set up an extra step away from his opponents, outside their immediate jabbing range. Fighters used to gathering information with their jab tend to struggle with this distance, as their primary range-finding tool is removed and they’re forced to guess at the distance or figure out a new way to close distance. If the opponent proceeds as usual, they need to take two steps to reach Silva, and the first step tips him off to counter on the second.

One of the trickier aspects of fighting as far back as Silva does is that there needs to be a reason for opponents to close the distance. Often fighters who look to stay all the way outside and draw opponents onto them skew tall and long for their divisions, as they can hit from further out and skip back when a return salvo is launched, forcing engagements on their terms as they rack up safe points from outside. An alternative is to get really good at kicking and not getting kicked.

Silva doesn’t have the size or length to safely needle shorter fighters with jabs, but his slick, efficient kicking game allows him to command the fight on the outside and force opponents to close distance, where he’s waiting with coiled power. His time in Muay Thai gave him smooth, mechanically sharp kicks that he can fire without a labored weight transfer to tip it off. He mixes up his kicks to the body and head, and has even shown an unusual fearlessness in kicking fighters looking to take him down.

Silva looks to punch off his kicks often, launching a right hand as his kicking leg touches back down. Kicking tactics in MMA have lagged well behind boxing tactics as the striking talent has grown, and it’s still rare to see MMA fighters put their punches and kicks together fluidly. Punching as the kicking leg retracts is a common tactic in kicking sports, as it punishes some of the more reliable counters to body kicks. Since MMA fighters tend to stand a good deal farther apart than in other continuous striking sports, punching off his kicks also gives Silva a method of closing into his punches without exposing himself to counters.

Silva’s Muay Thai experience left him with sound defensive responses to kicks that make it even more difficult for opponents to compete with him on the outside. Often you’ll see highlights of fighters with Muay Thai experience (like Rafael Fiziev) slipping head kicks by leaning back at the waist, and the reason this is a common tactic in Muay Thai is that kicks to the arms score, so there’s an incentive to make high kicks miss entirely instead of blocking with the arms.

He’s proven very difficult to hit clean with kicks. In body kick battles, his mechanics and speed give him an edge, and he can reliably read and sway back from head kicks. His wide stance accentuates this, keeping his rear foot farther away than his head appears and giving him lots of room to pull it back out of range. Most fighters trying to kick with Silva offer only naked kicks, unable to build off their threat to exploit his defensive reaction, so he’s able to score comfortably on the outside and goad them onto his counters.

Open Stance Hand-Fighting

The way Silva handles the hand-fighting in open stance engagements also makes him an unusual opponent for southpaw strikers and a tricky fighter to close distance on. The bread and butter of many southpaws is controlling the opponent’s lead hand to land their rear down the pipe. The lead hand control cuts off the orthodox fighter’s jab and keeps the southpaw safe as he steps in to land his left. With the lead hand controlled, all his attention can be devoted to his opponent’s rear hand as he feints and sets traps to land his own, allowing him to draw out and punish it.

Of course, these tactics are open to both fighters, but southpaws bank far more practice hours in these sorts of engagements and tend to build their approach around them, while orthodox fighters find themselves there far more rarely and may not even have high level southpaw training partners. Watch any Conor McGregor fight and you’ll see this in action as his shorter opponent reaches out to meet his extended hand, feeding McGregor access to hand control and giving him valuable distancing information at a range where they can’t yet touch him.

Silva doesn’t fall into the trap of playing patty cake with fighters who are longer and more experienced at it. Against southpaws, he’ll go for the occasional hand trap and rear straight, but for the most part he’s content to let his opponent lead the hand-fighting while keeping his lead hand tight. His opponents often grow tentative, reaching out for a hand that isn’t there, or watching him take a short step back once they touch it, knowing he wants them to step forward again and commit.

Controlling a fighter’s lead hand is a good way to seize initiative - you don’t need to time your attacks as precisely if you can secure an advantage before engaging. But Silva would rather compete on pure timing and bet that he can time his entries and counters better than his opponents, keeping his lead hand tight and coiled to strike. By denying the handfight, he can often get his southpaw opponents stepping into him blind and make them pay.

Silva’s patient approach played a big role in his knockout of Melsik Baghdasaryan. Very little happened in the roughly four minute fight, but as Baghdasaryan failed to find entries on Silva, continually reaching out to control Silva’s lead hand only for Silva to pull it back tighter or step back, he grew more willing to step in and open himself up to counters. As soon as Baghdasaryan was willing to step in and attack without the safety of hand control to cover his entry, Silva was waiting to smack him with a counter hook. Only a minute later, Silva landed another lead hook, circling his hand around distractedly while inching closer, drawing Baghdasaryan into reaching out to cover a hand that was already hooking around his outstretched arm, setting up a right hand that felled him.

When Silva leads, he often does it by setting traps with his footwork or entering off-rhythm instead of through touching the lead hand. By pulling away from the hand-fight, he denies southpaw opponents their familiar tactile sense of distance and ability to anticipate through touch, and changes how the entries occur to terms they’re typically less comfortable with.

This Left Hook Kills Southpaws

When orthodox strikers fight a southpaw, they often get lured into the distance game, neutralizing their lead hand and fencing with their rear. The collision of the orthodox and southpaw’s lead legs naturally forces a longer default distance, which can prove awkward to fighters not experienced with that dynamic.

But for the savvy orthodox striker who can avoid getting locked into the rear hand battle, the left hook offers some distinct advantages against a southpaw.

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The Caucasus regional scene has long been a hotbed for world class MMA talent. While their best often fail to make their way stateside due to a mix of visa issues, high pay at home, and the UFC’s growing reluctance to fork over money for elite talent, the ones that have made the transition prove the strength of competition over in Grozny. The strongest promotion in Russia, Absolute Championship Akhmat (formerly ACB/WFCA before the two promotions merged) has built talent like Petr Yan, Zabit Magomedsharipov, Askar Askarov, and Magomed Ankalaev who later excelled in the upper echelons of the UFC.

The talent on the Russian regionals is concentrated heavily around the lower weight classes, however, as athletic big men are tragically few and far between in MMA and the rare ones typically wind up snatched by western promotions early in their career. The UFC was quick to sign an 8-0 Magomed Ankalaev only two fights after winning the WFCA Light Heavyweight Championship, for example. Fighters below Middleweight tend to stick with the Grozny promotion and it’s easy to see why. Eduard Vartanyan has one of the best resumes around at Lightweight, and he was offered a spot on Dana White's Contender Series for pocket change shortly after winning an ACA Grand Prix that payed out $800k.

Magomedrasul Gasanov is the first truly elite fighter ACA has seen above Lightweight in a long while. A 20-2 fighter on a 16-fight win streak, Gasanov captured the ACA Middleweight title in 2022, dominating Abdul-Rakhman Dzhanaev. He’s since defended it four times against quality competition, running through every credible challenge in ACA’s Middleweight division.

Gasanov’s style involves the dominant wrestling, cage riding, and devastating ground and pound we’ve come to expect from the Nurmagomedovs. But his elite riding game is a recent addition to his skillset after moving to Khabib’s team. Earlier in his career he trained out of Gorets FT, a camp that produces conservative, defensively-minded strikers like their former UFC standouts, Rashid Magomedov and Ramazan Emeev. His work on the feet bears heavy influence from Gorets, with a focus on flicking jabs and Rashid-like lead leg kicks.

There are some contradictions between the Nurmagomedov game and Gasanov’s patient, jab-heavy striking, but for the most part it fits together quite well. He uses his lengthy, noncommittal attack to probe for openings on the feet, draw out reactions, and frustrate opponents, lining up the chance to set up a takedown and dominate.

Defensive Pressure Fighting

From his stance alone, one can tell right away that Gasanov prioritizes defense and survaviability on the feet. His lead hand is extended to flick at opponents, snap into a frame to deflect right hands, or tie up the lead hand of a southpaw. His weight is loaded on his rear foot, positioning his head back of his lead hand and allowing him to probe with it while maintaining enough distance to see shots coming. The rear foot-heavy stance also leaves his lead leg light to quickly throw up kicks with it.

The lead hand of Gasanov is his most effective and versatile tool on the feet. Constant feints, throwaway punches, and probing touches dull reactions and draw out wide swings that he can back away from. He’ll change levels off the jab and pair it with a lengthy lead hook to catch opponents looking to parry.

Gasanov’s own rear hand is held in front of his chin ready to parry incoming jabs, and his rear foot heavy stance leaves him poised to fold over his rear hip at a moment’s notice if the opponent follows up on their jab. His lead hand also proves effective against southpaws, where his handfighting takes on a new importance and allows him to sneak jabs inside the lead shoulder.

He’s a fairly versatile kicker from long range, operating mostly with outside leg kicks and step-up lead leg body kicks. One of his favorite hurting weapons is a front kick to the face that he’s rocked a few fighters with:

This isn’t the sharp, ball-of-the-foot-to-chin front kick of an Anderson Silva, instead Gasanov is just sort of lumbering his leg in the air and thrusting it forward. But it lands pretty consistently, and its delivery is hidden by his use of outside leg kicks and his bouncy footwork. He’ll throw it with a similar preliminary motion to the leg kick or hop back and bounce into it, shaving a bit off the opponent’s reaction time.

But more important than the front kick itself is how Gasanov uses its threat to enforce his pressure. He likes his cage wrestling so he needs a way to back opponents up, but discomfort in the pocket prevents him from walking them down and forcing exchanges. Instead, he needs to pressure long, keeping feints in their vision and convincing them to back up without exposing himself.

Once he’s established the kicks, he’ll start picking up his rear leg and shifting forward to southpaw. This plays off the threat of his leg kicks and front kick, and opponents will typically respond by giving ground. Gasanov just has to march forward to fill that space and he’s one step closer to an easy takedown entry.

He’ll often follow up with a round kick off his left side to cut off opponents trying to circle out, or stick a right hand onto the shift to catch them backing up.

Gasanov’s defensive temperament makes it difficult to answer back with kicks when opponents try to contest him on the outside. His light lead leg consistently checks leg kicks, and he has a knack for deflecting body kicks and getting around the back:

He’ll backhand the kick after it lands and parry the heel aside, forcing his man to step across his body and exposing an easy takedown or dominant position in the clinch. Since he’s so active with kicks himself and answering back is a risk, he’s consistently able to control kicking range, even against respectable kickers like Shamil Abdulaev.

Most of Gasanov’s time is spent either feinting around at long range in the center of the cage, or pressuring for a takedown. That doesn’t leave a lot of opportunity for the other fighter to do clean hitting, especially since Gasanov’s wrestling threat makes pressure a tough ask against him. But even when opponents take the front foot, Gasanov’s defensive skill opens up reactive takedowns as he makes punches miss, though mechanical flaws prevent him from maximizing those chances.

The sequence above is a good representation of the strengths and weaknesses of Gasanov’s approach. He pulls out a combination from Artem Frolov, framing and sliding back as he jabs, then ducking in on the hips underneath his rear hand. However, he’s focused primarily on getting away from the right rather than setting up his takedown, and ends up bending down at the waist and having to pivot into him to secure the takedown. He still manages to get Frolov to the cage and chain wrestle his way on top, but it misses the instantaneous nature of a reactive takedown scored with the attacker in good position, where the shot’s momentum takes the defender off their feet before they can respond.

Part of the issue with his shot mechanics is the contradiction between elements of his style we mentioned earlier. His striking is very upright, he likes to reach out with his lead hand to deflect right hands and lean back to avoid jabs, which doesn’t translate perfectly into an ideal penetration step. But the mechanical issues with his shots go beyond just that, letting in a lot of jank that doesn’t need to be there.

In comparison to his deft lead hand, Gasanov’s rear hand is downright sloppy. He’s capable of firing off a decent straight right down the middle, but as soon as the punch needs to arch even slightly, he’s throwing himself forward, losing his feet, and/or winging a wide punch disconnected from his hips.

Gasanov is obviously a strong lad, and while he’s not speedy, he’s hurt a few fighters with some of the ugliest nonsense you’ll see in MMA. Right now Gasanov isn’t a huge power threat on the feet, but if someone could teach him how to sit down on his power shots rather than leaning forward, there’s a knockout puncher waiting to be born. The mechanical issues are especially odd because his straight right is pretty much fine - he can torque his hips into it and even land it with precise timing on the counter occasionally, but as soon as his elbow comes out he’s doing his best Ronda Rousey impression.

Despite Gasanov’s janky rear hand, it starts looking a lot better when it’s used as a setup tool. He accomplishes a lot of his pressure by initiating forward shifts from long range, and his long rear hand is one of his most reliable setups.

He’ll toss out a long, noodled-armed blow from all the way outside and let himself fall forward into southpaw while weaving into a left hook. It covers a ton of ground, and the extreme commitment on the first punch usually convinces the opponent to back up. Once they’ve reset their positioning and gotten ready to counter, the weave takes him underneath it and his left hook is there to surprise them as he pops back up.

The same entry also works great for setting up takedowns, and the threat of the level change further opens up his weaving left hook. Gasanov will sometimes sell the takedown threat by ducking low and tapping the leg, then pop back up to land his hook as the hands shoot down to defend a takedown.

Gasanov’s overall process looks somewhat similar to the new generation of Nurmagomedov fighters who stay all the way out behind their rangy kicks, or all the way in with their wrestling. However, he does more work with his hands and is more insistent on pressuring opponents toward the cage.

The clip below summarizes Gasanov’s pressure game well:

Gasanov approaches Ibragim Magomedov cautiously, probing at his lead hand and feinting level changes. When Magomedov threatens an attack, he backs out and reengages, marching into southpaw behind a kick feint to close distance and further back Magomedov up. Once he has a good position with Magomedov circling along the cage, he controls the lead hand and uses an overhand to cut him off, shifting forward into a high crotch for the takedown.

Strangely, Gasanov really likes to hit high crotch shots in these positions, with both hands around one leg and his head outside the hip. Typically a double leg would be ideal with an opponent circling away on the cage - the direction of movement is the same direction they need to go in order to slip his inside shoulder out of alignment and fight his positioning on the high crotch, while a double leg would capture both hips and block further movement. But as we’ll see when we look at his wrestling, Gasanov often prefers to chain wrestle through less than ideal high crotch positions over going for both legs.

Transitional Dominance

Like most fighters of his ilk, Gasanov excels in the clinch, but his work on the inside isn’t the standard Dagestani wrestler fare. His inside work revolves less around hunting for bodylock takedowns and more around capitalizing on transitions and punishing opponents with strikes. Consequently, he spends a lot more time fighting for grips on the head than most takedown artists.

The new breed of Abdulmanap-trained fighters like Umar and Usman Nurmagomedov shy away from Khabib’s all-out pressure game, relying more on an all the way in or all the way out style. One of the downsides of this style is that they can struggle to proactively establish the clinch if their opponent doesn’t run onto it. Gasanov eschews this weakness with his comfort at the edge of his punching range and his eye for discrete clinch entries.

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But even great southpaw kickers must develop their boxing to excel against the elite. The biggest thing going against Muay Thai converts is that the structure of Muay Thai makes standing against the ropes a strong position, but accepting that position can get them hurt quickly in Kickboxing. Muay Thai’s narrative scoring system sees the fighter in retreat as controlling the bout. This aesthetic preference, as well as the primacy of kicks and knees to the body in Thai scoring means that a fighter with his back against the ropes is generally doing well. Squaring up on the ropes actually makes it difficult for an opponent to land kicks, and that’s what a pursuing fighter will likely be looking for in Muay Thai. Punchers can be trapped in the clinch, and any level changes to the body can be met with a knee or elbow.

However, standing square on the ropes in Kickboxing leaves the kicker a sitting duck for vicious combinations. Body punches become especially dangerous - a southpaw kicker can just slide back a bit or fire off their kick if the opponent changes levels in open space, but once they step onto the ropes they become a mark without elbows or clinching to take them away.

Boonlong’s first foray into Kickboxing rules against a top Bantamweight in Shiro is a good example of the common challenges Thais face in kickboxing:

Boonlong is one of the hardest pound-for-pound kickers in the world, but his boxing is rough. In Muay Thai, he walks his man onto thunderous kicks to the body and arms, prioritizing maintaining kicking range at all times over staying off the ropes, where he eventually falls into the clinch, turns off, and does it again. He managed to hit Shiro with clean, powerful kicks, but his constant attraction to the ropes made it easy for Shiro to swarm and hurt him to the body, leading to a first round knockout loss.

If a southpaw kicker wants to maximize his potential in Kickboxing, the best thing he can do is add boxing skills that allow him to avoid the ropes and dictate the terms of exchanges without abandoning kicking range.

Petchpanomrung’s Main Weapons

Petchpanomrung Kiatmoo9’s dominance at Featherweight over nearly a decade shows just how formidable an elite Thai southpaw becomes when he adds boxing skills to compliment his existing weapons. Monstrous hitters like Yodsanklai can use their southpaw kick as a clubbing tool, mashing their opponent’s arms and bodies to physically force them backwards. Petchpanomrung, however, needs to implement his kicking game and maintain distance with a bit more finesse.

That finesse served Petchpanomrung well as he’s left his prime, allowing him to compensate for diminished speed and explosiveness. In his late career he’s become known as one of those fighters who can suck the wind out of even the most potent offensive arsenal with superior fundamentals. It can produce less than thrilling fights as his challengers often struggle to get clean work going, but it makes it very difficult for Petchpanomrung to be forced outside his comfort zone. His recent win at the GLORY/RISE Featherweight Grand Prix over a field of fresher talent shows that despite his mileage, his defensive style has held up remarkably well.

While Petchpanomrung is known for his left kick, he has a wide range of ancillary skills supporting it that keep him at the right distance to kick the midsection consistently. The teep is the classic tool for strong kickers to maintain their range in Muay Thai, and Petchpanomrung uses his sparingly but to great effect.

Neutral space benefits Petchpanomrung, as he’s almost always the sharper long-range kicker and can set up as far back as he needs. A quick teep acts as a powerful entry counter, foiling opponents who want to step inside and punch with him. When timed right, it feels like running into the tip of a spear and acts as a universal counter to anything the opposing fighter wants to do - their punches fall short and their kicks get them knocked off balance while perched on one leg.

But the teep is a multi-purpose tool as versatile as an educated jab, and bouncing back an advancing fighter is only one of its uses. It pairs brilliantly with his round kicks, either setting the range for a powerful kick or reinforces kicking range after he attacks.

A common reaction after eating a powerful kick is to press forward as the leg retracts, but by teeping as soon as his kicking leg plants down, Petchpanomrung can ward them off and reinforce his preferred kicking range.

Just like the jab, the teep also facilitates safe closing of distance. Shooting straight out from the hip, teeps are one of the longest tools a fighter has, and closing distance behind the teep means advancing behind the longest weapon that allows one to maintain his stance. Where a sound advancing jab can cover the chin with the extended hand, an advancing teep protects the lower body, the raised lead knee threatening to block kicks and knock a kicker off balance.

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When Shavkat Rakhmonov was 3-0 in as many UFC fights, it was still difficult to know exactly what to make of his style. He kicked off his ru…

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Figueiredo’s power and his craft in applying it makes him a dangerous fight for just about anyone. But Yan in particular tends to do his best work pressuring his opponents, driving up the pace, and playing with their reactions inside punching range to extend exchanges. In order to play his A-game effectively against Figueiredo, he would need to get close, and getting close risks giving Figueiredo the opportunities his skillset is optimized to take advantage of.

We eventually saw some typical Yan buzzsawing, but early on in the fight he took a more patient approach that better exploited some of Figueiredo’s downsides. Figueiredo’s stance leaves no questions about what he wants to do - with his feet spread farther than shoulder width apart, his lead hand extending out from his body, and his right hand around nipple-high, his primary goal is to shove his rear hand through his opponent’s jaw as hard as he can.

But the wide, deep stance that leaves him perfectly optimized to shut the lights out whenever opponents give him an opening also hangs his lead leg out in front of him. Yan began exploiting that immediately with side kicks to the knee, chipping away at the stance and base that allows Figueiredo to wallop with such consistency.

These low side kicks come up so often because they’re one of the safest ways to poke at an opponent without stepping into them. They attack the nearest possible target with the longest possible weapon, and Figueiredo’s wide stance only made his lead leg an even closer target.

The beauty of these kicks is that they can put a knee out if they land just right, but even if they don’t wind up hurting, they still directly attack the weight transfer necessary to deliver power. To land his rear hand, Figueiredo needs to step forward with his lead foot and transfer weight onto it, making him a mark for a hard kick to the knee. By constantly showing the low side kicks early on, Yan kept him hesitant to commit weight to the lead foot and limited when he could comfortably initiate his power punches.

Yan also attacked the lead leg with more powerful outside leg kicks, but the threat of the side kicks allowed him to step into those leg kicks without fear of a counter. There’s three basic ways to defend a leg kick - either pick the leg up to check, draw it back to make the kick fall short, or step in deep with weight on the lead leg and counter. Figueiredo’s wide, set stance and heavy rear hand makes him a constant threat to step down the middle of the kick and blast a counter, but his stance isn’t optimized for any other method of defense. The low side kicks, however, present a linear threat that can’t be easily jammed and encouraged Figueiredo to keep his lead foot light.

Yan paired the low side kicks with constant foot feints, taking small, choppy steps in with his lead foot to throw off Figueiredo’s timing. Between the side kicks and the feints, Figueiredo had little success timing his outside leg kicks and Yan was able to land them for free early. Yan was also immediately ready to counter off his leg kicks, using a lead hook to reset his stance and ward Figueiredo off following him back with counters.

The lead leg body kick has always played a role in Yan’s fights, but he typically uses it as a distance closing weapon. He’ll step up with his rear leg and throw the body kick at a retreating opponent, planting his kicking foot down right in front of them and continuing on with punches as he eats up space. He threw a few of those against Figueiredo, but his lead leg was mainly used for another purpose - attacking Figueiredo’s rear hand.

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Max Holloway is the man who made Alexander Volkanovski’s crown, picking up the Featherweight title after Jose Aldo’s lengthy reign and Conor McGregor’s brief interlude. Holloway was unable to defeat Volkanovski during their three fight series despite a close effort in the second fight that could have easily swung his way. But many thought Holloway could present Topuria issues that an ageing Volkanovski failed to, his otherworldly durability and volume testing the power-punching champion’s motor, heart, and ability to adjust in a way we haven’t yet seen.

And for two rounds, Holloway did just that, giving as good as he got, pushing Topuria to his limit, and bringing out the best in him. It was shaping up to be one of the best fights I’d ever seen, but then it was time for Topuria to shut the lights out.

In all of MMA, there’s no fighter more difficult to beat by simply landing the big shot than Max Holloway. He’s taken the best shots from hitters like Jose Aldo, Dustin Poirier, and Calvan Kattar only to ask for more, seemingly disappointed that they couldn’t crack even harder. Durability is a young man’s shield and once it goes, it rarely comes back. But although the greatest chin in the sport had been tested more as of late, Justin Gaethje even dropping Holloway in his last fight, it still held up. Banking on a finish against Max Holloway would be foolish.

But Ilia Topuria isn’t the average monstrous puncher. He isn’t even the average puncher among the elite, instead appearing in a league of his own. He transfers weight into picture perfect power shots in a way few else do in MMA, but he’s just as good at putting himself in position to land those punches, creating the conditions necessary to deliver his power. Against Volkanovski, Topuria proved that he could maximize the impact of his power and make excellent decisions around when to deliver it. Against Josh Emmett, he proved he could box patiently when smashing wasn’t the path of least resistance. But against Max Holloway, Topuria wove the two together, using the subtleties of his boxing skillset to keep himself safe, limit Holloway’s volume, and keep the score close, while picking choice moments to sit down on howitzers and make them count.

To understand Topuria’s style, we first have to start with his stance, for much of his success comes from his ability to maintain it under fire and play with his positioning within it. Topuria shifts his weight around a lot, but he approached Holloway mainly from a rear-foot heavy, bladed stance with a slight fold in his rear hip.

It resembles a classic boxing stance, wherein the rear weight distribution provides some extra distance to see punches coming, and the natural hip fold affords a measure of proactive defense. His lead leg is kept light, allowing him to feint and step with the foot without fully committing his weight. As a result, he was often able to see Holloway’s intercepting strikes coming and pull back or avoid pressing onto them.

Topuria had the arduous task of facing Holloway as the shorter fighter, meaning he would have to close distance to land his strikes on one of MMA’s best long-range operators. He had a number of tactics that got him through the gap safely, but it started with his consistent and shrewd use of feints.

His feints were both varied and convincing, looking identical to his real entries. Constant foot feints with his light lead leg sold half-committed steps into range, and he would at times fully weight the leg while shifting weight onto his lead foot to provoke a bigger reaction. Body jabs paired with level changes, while slight weight transfers from rear foot to front foot sold his right hand. Topuria’s feints not only had Holloway hitting air trying to time intercepting strikes, but they allowed him to keep the pressure up without forcing a pace he couldn’t maintain. When Holloway would find some space and circle off, Topuria would follow and get right back on him with the feints, scarcely giving him room to breathe.

Like many of Holloway’s opponents, Topuria invested in calf kicks early and often. Holloway is tricky in that his broad style leaves openings to leg kicks, but it’s proved difficult to take advantage of. His outward-facing lead foot generally keeps his leg stable even when punted hard, and his long lead hand is always ready to lurch forward with a jab or lead hook to punish kickers. He also just seems to have extraordinary durability in his legs, able to absorb repeated clean connections without looking worse for wear.

Still, for a shorter fighter like Topuria, getting some kind of kicking offense going was critical in staying competitive at all ranges against the longer Holloway.

There was a battle going on between Topuria’s rear leg and Holloway’s lead hand. But while Holloway got his counters in, Topuria generally gave better than he got here. His rear foot heavy stance left him lots of room to step in and transfer weight into powerful kicks, and his constant feints hid his weight transfers into the kick fairly well, often delaying Holloway’s counter until it was too late.

Early on, Topuria looked to close distance behind level change feints and his jab, putting his right hand behind them once he’d entered range. While he found success with it, Holloway started getting the read on his entries and timing the weight transfer on his right hand:

Holloway would see the jabs and level changes signalling the entry, then back up slightly and counter with his lead hook. As Topuria transferred weight from rear foot to front foot on his right hand, his hips and shoulders open, letting Holloway’s lead hook slot in and killing his entry while Holloway circled off.

But this is where the flexibility of Topuria’s stance came into play. He had to get close in order to land his best weapons, and spending the whole fight crowding Holloway is not only dangerous, but entails fighting at a pace nobody aside from Holloway himself can sustain. Every time he took that initial step in, he gave Holloway another data point to process and work out how to keep him outside his ideal range. But he made sure the data he did give Holloway was varied and full of noise.

Topuria would played with his weight distribution, shifting weight periodically onto his lead foot and folding over his lead hip. Every shift from rear foot to front foot sold the threat of a right hand or leg kick, and repeating the motion helped dull Holloway’s response to that threat.

Where the double jabs into right hands started getting predictable, Topuria began entering into range with his weight loaded on the front foot more often, surprising Holloway with a quick lead hook or right hand.

Being able to smoothly adjust his weight within his stance also proved invaluable for Topuria defensively. An issue with rear foot heavy stances in MMA is that it can often lead to getting stuck on the rear hip. MMA fighters tend to use giving ground as their first and most comfortable layer of defense, and with the weight already loaded at the back of the stance, there isn’t much room left to pull. But Topuria rarely found himself stuck in one place. When he was caught on the back foot he would simply fold more deeply over his rear hip, underneath punches, and being able to use both hips seamlessly took him safely inside and outside of Holloway’s jab.

A big part of Holloway’s success against Justin Gaethje came from using his jab to poke and prod, prompting a big defensive motion that took Gaethje out of position and opened him up to harder strikes. But Topuria’s varied hip movement made it difficult for Holloway to predict where his head would be next, and his positioning remained intact with each movement, allowing him to transition to the next without getting stuck in one place.

The most reliable tool Topuria had for closing distance proved to be a simple rear hand lead, without any preceding strikes. The trick here is that it was hidden by all his feints and hip movement. Every time he folded over his lead hip or jutted forward in a false entry, Holloway grew a bit more desensitized and the rear hand became easier to land.

Topuria would subtly advance behind short foot feints. Then he’d step forward as if to feint once more, only to let his lead foot drift further in, widening his stance and speeding up the motion halfway through as he launched into the right hand. Holloway would stay in place and stare at what he saw as yet another feint until it was too late. The rhythm change was key to making this work consistently - Topuria’s initial step appears almost lazy, but it lulls Holloway while getting him close enough to turn up the speed when it’s too late for a proper reaction.

The downsides of leading with the rear hand so often are obvious, but they were heavily mitigated by Topuria’s subtlety in disguising it. But the advantage is that the distance is taken all in one motion. Holloway excels at using his jab and lead hook to intercept and turn an opponent’s attempted entry into his own opportunity. They need to jab at least once to fill the space between them, then Holloway slots his counter in as they take the next step, and follows them with a swarming combination as they exit. But when Topuria was able to trick him into reacting late to the right hand, there was no such easy pattern to pick up on the counter.

Leading with his rear hand allowed Topuria to take large distances and back Holloway up to the cage where he could do much of his best work, even hitting a takedown off it in the first round. But he also used it as a combination starter, surprising Holloway with the quick right and smacking him with power shots as he backed up or circled out. Wrestle-boxers throwing overhands from outside the pocket is perhaps the most quintessentially MMA strike there is, but what was remarkable about Topuria’s use is how well he maintained his positioning.

Let’s look at a similar example from Holloway’s fight with Gaethje as a reference:

Gaethje feints with his lead hand, but his step in is fairly predicable and gives Holloway a good idea of what is coming at him. Gaethje’s overhand falls just short, his momentum taking his weight past his lead foot. With his stance lost, he drifts forward and collapses into Holloway’s knee, bouncing off it like a stunned Looney Tunes character.

Now lets see how Topuria improves on it:

Topuria launches a committed right hand from outside the pocket. But instead of falling into it, he skips forward just as his weight is about to drift past his lead foot. He goes from strong stance to strong stance, quickly taking even more distance on Holloway and landing in position to transfer his weight into a strong lead hook. Holloway is caught with his own positioning broken down, trying to bail on the exchange but left surprised by Topuria’s rapid closing of distance. Note also how Topuria expects Holloway’s counter hook and keeps his right arm extended in front of his chin to block it, just lovely stuff all around.

Hopping in off a long rear hand is a tactic commonly seen in Kickboxing and Muay Thai. It’s often favored by upright kickers who use long range punches to set up their kicks. Since the weight needs to be kept relatively centered to kick effectively, overcommitting to the rear hand kills the positioning necessary to follow it up with a kick. Instead, the rear hand is usually kept light, without heavy weight transfer, and the hop in closes distance for a more powerful kick or knee.

Two of the finest strikers you’ll see in Giorgio Petrosyan and Saenchai make frequent use of this skipping straight to close distance into knees, but you’ll also see it employed by Israel Adesanya in the Octagon.

I was amazed by many aspects of Topuria’s performance. But to my eye, the most impressive feat may have been his ability to integrate the smooth hip movements and weight transfers of a power-punching boxer with the weightless distance closing footwork typical of experienced strikers in kicking sports. We’ve seen him box brilliantly before, but we haven’t seen him needing to close so much distance against a tall, lanky opponent like Holloway. Strong pocket boxers with active hip movement often struggle with mobile opponents in the large, open MMA cages, as the committed weight transfers can give opponents an escape route. Not only was Topuria more than prepared, but his approach to closing distance was uniquely subtle and something I haven’t quite seen from a puncher like him in MMA.

Topuria also made liberal use of split steps to close distance with his rear hand, another tactic often seen from upright kickers. We covered the split step in Tawanchai's Power Femeu Style:

To understand why his rear-leg teep produces such devastating impact, we have to step back for a moment and return to the round kick. Tawanchai will often throw his body kick off a split step. The split step involves taking a very shot hop off the ground and widening the stance, bringing the lead foot forward and the rear foot backwards simultaneously.

The split step leaves Tawanchai on the balls of his feet and ready to immediately spring forward into an attack. Often he’ll use it to catch his man by surprise - he’ll lounge around in a narrow, upright stance with his feet almost together at long range. With his feet so close together, he can’t immediately strike and his opponent is encouraged to move into him, but as soon as they get close enough he uses the split step to transition directly into an athletic stance from which he can immediately kick.

Split steps are useful for upright kickers since they allow them to suddenly adopt an athletic stance and drive forward without usual tell of stepping and transferring weight. The split step becomes a useful method of disguising strikes behind similar preliminary motions, as the rear hand, round kick, and teep can all come out of the same movement.

Topuria used the split step to suddenly launch into his right hand while his weight was held over his lead foot. With Topuria leaning forward over a heavy rear foot, an opponent isn’t typically worried about a big step forward. Stepping forward would usually involve first shifting weight backwards to free the lead foot up to move, which acts as a tell for the opponent to adjust their distance. But a short hop allows him to keep his weight steady while widening his stance and launching forward off his rear foot:

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By now everyone knows the jab as the building block of any good style, the most versatile tool in the arsenal of a crafty puncher or a slick speedster - as valuable for setting up hurting work as it is for controlling distance and position. But in the early days of boxing’s history, the lead hand straight was seen as a hurting tool akin to a fencer’s lunge. More a rock smashed through a window than a stone skipped across a pond.

Even the softer sort of jab doesn’t feel fun to take, and there are still fighters who jab to hurt. But nowadays, the jab is seen more as an antecedent to power punches or longer combinations. If your man starts showing you the double jab early, you expect he’ll likely put his rear hand behind it at some point and try to ring your bell, unless you’re fighting Devin Haney. You might even use the rhythm of his jab to time the power punch you expect behind it, catching him exposed. But if he’s trying to ram his rear hand through your face, you’re probably not expecting a jab to follow it. The jab both disguises and signals more committed, hurting blows, but the jab itself is not signaled in the same way.

The lack of a signal that precedes the jab in the same way the jab precedes power punches is a big part of what makes the swivel jab so tricky.

Put simply, a swivel jab is a jab thrown with the trunk rotation and footwork of a lead hook, and it can pretty much take on as many variants as the hook itself. The weight is loaded on the lead leg, often with a fold over the lead hip as if gearing up to uncork a big hook. From there, the weight is either pulled back over the rear foot, using the front-to-back weight transfer to sit down on a powerful jab, or flung forward at the opponent.

Note also that you can cover a good amount of distance while still transferring weight to the back foot through a short hop-step in which the trunk movement takes place before the feet touch down. These mechanics produce a jab that’s difficult to see coming and has an unusual amount of weight transfer behind it.

Swivel jabs commonly follow a rear hand, as the weight transfer of the rear hand loads the lead hip to sit back into a lead hook or jab:

This loaded jab almost always comes as a surprise given its lack of signal. We expect the jab to precede a right hand, but when an opponent falls short with their rear straight, we expect them to leave it at that or try a lead hook. The lead hook as a combination finisher is shorter than the jab and it comes in on an arc, so all we have to do is get out of range and keep our rear hand up by the ear, right?

The surprise factor makes the swivel jab a great tool for covering distance. When an opponent falls short with their rear hand, it’s easy to feel safe and confident on the end of it. A fighter might rock back onto his rear foot or even lean back at the waist, believing an extra couple inches will pull him out of range for anything that comes his way. Both these common responses make it slower to transfer weight into a counter, and that’s where the swivel jab is so useful for closing distance. The rear hand gives the opponent a false sense of distance and safety, often prompting a reaction that makes countering difficult, and the long jab penetrates while taking you closer to the target.

Another benefit of getting back on the jab after opening up with the rear hand is that, like the lead hook, it closes the stance back off and limits exposure to counters.

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It was that grappling skillset that got him the win over Benoît Saint Denis at UFC Fight Night 243, as he spent the first round on top of Saint Denis, bloodying his face and closing up his eye with devastating ground and pound.

The first thing Moicano did in the fight was effectively take away Saint Denis’s main weapon, his open side body kick. As soon as Saint Denis looked to establish the kick, Moicano parried it across his body and immediately secured a bodylock takedown.

Parrying the kick aside after it lands is a common counter in combat sports, but it’s usually done to set up strikes, like so:

Adrian Yañez sweeps the kicking leg aside, crossing up his opponent’s feet and leaving him out of position, while he drops the leg and springs into a lead hook.

When fighters use the parry to enter into a shot, they’ll often perform it the same way, by dropping the leg before their entry or sweeping it by. But while that opens a big enough window to get off a strike or two as the opponent recovers their positioning, it’s less reliable for securing a takedown, giving them a chance to get back on two feet or downblock and meet the entry in better position.

What I really liked about Moicano’s parry is that he didn’t let go of the leg until he’d already filled the space between himself and Saint Denis:

Moicano parries the kicking leg outside, but he doesn’t fling it past or drop it, instead holding onto the heel and keeping it just outside his hip. Keeping the heel holds Saint Denis at an angle that exposes his back. Moicano doesn’t let go of the leg until his right leg steps forward and his arm wraps around the waist, filling all that space so Saint Denis has no room to turn and secure strong grips in the clinch. Saint Denis ends up having to sell out on reaching back for a whizzer from a bad position, throwing himself upright and giving Moicano leverage to settle into a trip as he spins.

But by far the most impressive part of Moicano’s performance came once he achieved top position. Throughout his UFC run, Saint Denis has done an excellent job of using butterfly hooks to quickly escape bottom position.

Here’s a great example - Saint Denis breaks Matt Frevola’s posture with a head & arm grip and as soon as Frevola pulls out, he looks to step over the leg and begin passing. But Saint Denis quickly digs an underhook, grapevines Frevola’s far leg to block it from posting, and uses the underhook’s leverage to power a butterfly sweep, scissoring out the far leg as he tips Frevola over. Note also how Saint Denis times his underhook right as Frevola reaches his right arm up to the head, looking for a punch or elbow. By timing it right as Frevola shifts his weight into the blow, he’s able to stick Frevola’s weight past its center of gravity, allowing him to quickly hit the sweep.

Saint Denis’ butterfly guard posed a major threat to Moicano, whose likely path to victory involved getting on top and staying there. But Moicano was more than prepared to deal with it, using strong positioning and distance management to deny Saint Denis the posture to break his balance and the connection necessary to maximize the leverage of his butterfly hooks.

Two important concepts for butterfly guard use are posture and hook connection. It’s not always possible in MMA to enter with perfect posture due to the nature of grappling with strikes - seated guards aren’t seen very often, and the bottom player will generally be building up from a worse position off their back. But Saint Denis has proven proficient digging underhooks and using them to shift his opponent’s weight off him while he improves his posture to tip them over with his butterfly hook.

It’s also important to maintain the connection of the butterfly hooks to the inside of the opponent’s thigh. If that connection is lost, it becomes much more difficult to manipulate the top player’s weight, and much easier for them to switch their hips and improve their positioning.

Let’s look at another example where Saint Denis has to work a bit harder to get his back off the mat:

Saint Denis digs his underhook and looks to create distance with his hooks. Thiago Moises elevates his hips, breaking the connection of the hooks to his inner thigh, and drives in with his head to prevent Saint Denis from posturing up. Driving his head directly into Saint Denis’ chin gives him lots of leverage to force Saint Denis down, but it also opens up some space. Saint Denis gives a slight push with his hooks again, drawing Moises into elevating his hips and driving with his head, then Saint Denis uses that space to pummel a second underhook. As Moises drives him flat, Saint Denis uses the momentum to rock back and get underneath him enough to kick him off to the side, using his new underhook to keep Moises’ weight from settling back on top of him while he stands up.

Here we see that when the top player can kill Saint Denis’ hook connection while preventing him from posturing up enough to stand, he’ll need to retreat to his back and regroup. But as long as he keeps his underhook in strong position, he can work back up and take another shot at it.

Moicano did a brilliant job killing Saint Denis’s posture and hook connection without giving him a chance to regroup and improve his positioning. Friend of the site, Open Note Grappling pointed out that Moicano would move his head to Saint Denis’ underhooking shoulder when he dug his underhook. With his head on the opposite side of his own underhook, Moicano can distribute his weight more evenly across Saint Denis’ body and put weight on Saint Denis’ underhook, keeping his posture down and his shoulders on the mat.

This is conceptually similar to our discussion of underhook positioning in Rahman Amouzad & The Iranian Underhook, where Iran’s far-side head positioning allows their underhook to better control both sides of their opponent’s body, but leaves them more vulnerable to being stalled out and having weight dropped on the underhook. But in this case, the weight distribution is entirely working against Saint Denis, since he’s on the bottom.

Moicano would flatten Saint Denis out by keeping weight over his underhook, pinning his shoulder to the mat. But when Saint Denis was able to leverage the underhook and start getting some elevation, Moicano would quickly raise his hips, plant his feet on the mat, and execute a quick hip switch to break the hook connection. With the hook connection broken, Saint Denis could no longer elevate Moicano and had to either force his way up with the underhook, or rock back to regain the connection like he did to Moises. But Moicano used the space created by Saint Denis’ attempts to elevate him to quickly pummel his own underhook and flatten Saint Denis out before he could posture up enough to escape.

After fruitlessly trying to elevate Moicano a couple times, Saint Denis realized that he wasn’t going to succeed in getting underneath him. Instead, he started using his butterfly hooks to create enough space to get his feet on the hips and kick off. It was a good idea in theory, as creating space is always useful for guard players in MMA, but Moicano once again had him beat on the small details.

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Rahman Amouzad Khalili looks poised to take over the role of Iran’s biggest Freestyle Wrestling star over the next decade now that their ace, Hassan Yazdani Charati, is nearing his 30’s.

At only 22 years of age, Amouzad is already a world champion and recently won Olympic silver in Paris. He put up one of the most impressive showings of the Olympics en-route to the 65kg finals, dominating Zain Retherford, Islam Dudaev, and Ismail Musukaev without giving up a single point, before losing his final match in similarly dominant fashion against Japan’s Kotaro Kiyooka.

Like most Iranian standouts, Amouzad is an underhook specialist, using his heavy right underhook to apply pressure and pace. The way he uses the underhook is fairly orthodox for an Iranian wrestler, but unique flavor can be found in his unorthodox handfighting and the ways he gets to the underhook.

Underhook Basics

The main benefit of an underhook is that it provides leverage for the offensive wrestler to get underneath their opponent and drive them backwards. The underhooking shoulder locks into the armpit, holding the defender in place and blocking them from circling in that direction. It’s a great way for powerful wrestlers to leverage their physicality, but success with the underhook is no less dependent on technique and positioning than a low single.

The underhook’s value as a pushing tool is clear in Freestyle, where a point is awarded for wrestling the opponent off the mat. Step out points make underhooks one of the lowest risk scoring maneuvers in wrestling. Most attacks on the legs or upper body carry risk of ending up in a bad position if they fail, but underhooks require very little commitment compared to their reliability in scoring step outs. And these low risk scores have a compounding effect, forcing the opponent to take risks and open themselves up to counters as they accumulate.

In Amouzad’s matches, it’s not uncommon to see him rack up two or three points from low risk push outs before a single committed shot has been attempted on either side.

Amouzad will use the underhook to apply methodical pressure, herding his man toward the edge of the mat and cutting off their escape with his feet as they try to circle out. If he finds a moment during the upper body battle where they’re off balance, however, he’ll run them out of bounds more furiously, running his feet and driving them off the mat in short, choppy steps to generate power.

The underhook’s strength as a pushing and driving tool also makes it a naturally useful pulling weapon. When using the underhook to pressure a wrestler near the edge of the mat, they need to push back in hard to avoid being forced out. This push reaction can then be exploited, using their momentum against them to drop back and let them fall onto an upper body throw or leg attack.

If you watch an American underhook instructional, they typically demonstrate it with the attacker’s head on the same side as their underhooking hand and a sharp perpendicular angle. But when you watch elite international wrestlers who score primarily off underhooks, you rarely see that positioning from them. Instead, they favor a more offensive style of underhook with the head on the opposite side. Iranians in particular have become associated with the opposite side head positioning, with many of their standouts scoring most of their high percentage attacks from there.

Figure 1 shows the difference between the American same side head position and the Iranian opposite side head position.

The Iranian style has a number of advantages. It opens up attacks to the far leg, allowing the attacker to drive across their opponent’s body without being blocked by their own head, setting up knee taps or ankle picks. The more square alignment also makes it easier to pressure forward while moving laterally to cut off the defender’s escape routes, which makes it stronger for generating push reactions to exploit. I also find it easier to maintain than the American style, as the underhooking shoulder and opposite side head sort of lock the defender’s head and shoulder in place, where if the head is not on the far shoulder, limp-arming out becomes much easier.

Keeping the head on the same side as the underhooking hand provides a more secure defensive position, as the head blocks the opponent’s level change. With the head on the opposite side of the underhook, opponents can duck under the underhooking elbow if the spacing and pressure isn’t tight.

You’ll see Amouzad adjust his stance and pressure based on where his opponent’s posture is. If they’re upright, he can power through the underhook and drive freely underneath them. This is best done right after the initial entry, where the defender hasn’t yet settled into the position. But a savvy opponent will quickly look to get low and put weight on the underhook so they can pressure back and avoid being straightened up.

When wrestling on the underhook against a low stance, Amouzad eases up on driving with his underhooking arm and instead pressures more with his head. He’ll post his head on the opposite shoulder and use his head to drive forward. If he were putting all of that force behind his underhook and driving up with it, the defender could exploit his momentum and duck under the elbow as his underhook drives up. In the above clip you can see Tumur Ochir try to duck under the underhooking elbow, but since Amouzad is pressuring with his head rather than driving fully behind the underhook, he only falls forward very slightly and is able to recover his hips in time to stop the shot.

A final principle that you’ll see Iranian wrestlers employ again and again is the importance of forcing uneven upper body exchanges. The main goal is to secure a deep underhook while denying their opponent strong upper body ties to maximize leverage and offensive options. When Amouzad enters his underhook, his hand on the opposite side immediately looks to control the opponent’s elbow, with his own elbow and forearm blocking inside to prevent them from taking their own underhook. He’ll often even seize the far elbow before securing his underhook to make sure he’s the only one with an underhook as they come together.

But the battle for tilting exchanges in their favor doesn’t end if their opponent does achieve their own underhook. In over/under situations, the Iranians are great at improving their own underhook while neutralizing the opponent’s.

The positioning battle in over/under largely revolves around elbow and shoulder position - a high shoulder and outwards-facing elbow allows you put your whole body weight behind the underhook, while a low shoulder and an elbow facing the mat means you’re carrying the opponent’s weight mostly with the small muscles of your arm, shoulder, and lat. When Amouzad finds himself in over/under situations, he’s always working to deepen his own underhook while maneuvering his body weight over the opponent’s and peeling down with his elbow and forearm, forcing their underhook lower on their forearm where it’s weak, and tilting their elbow downwards.

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Any reliable system must start with a sound handfighting process, as the hands are the first layer of defense. Dominating tie-ups requires first getting around the hands, and anyone wrestling an Iranian is going to be on the lookout for their underhook. So not only do they need reliable routes to the underhook, but they also need a variety of tactics that account for and deal with their opponent’s likely counters.

One of the simplest and most common entries to an underhook is to punch the arm inside an opponent’s collar tie. Amouzad has quite a few unorthodox entries, but he still makes extensive use of this basic one:

With his opponent on a left collar tie, Amouzad touches the elbow or shoulder to feint a move to the outside, then whips his shoulder inside their collar tie like he’s throwing a shovel hook or pitching sidearm. As he does that, he drives off his right leg and rotates his right hip inwards, allowing his shoulder to rotate enough to slip inside the elbow. He throws his head upwards to clear his opponent’s head and brings it to the opposite side, stepping in deep with his left leg to square up and establish control of both sides of their body.

Amouzad’s unique and unorthodox handfighting makes his underhook entries difficult to stop. He has a lanky figure and uses his unusual reach for his weight well to disguise his intentions. He approaches with his arms wide, palms turned up toward his opponent and arms waving up and down like a magician trying to distract his audience from the trick.

Often he’ll use rapid arm movement to confuse his opponent, similar to the concept of “milling” in boxing, in which the hands are rotated rapidly to disguise straight punches.

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Japan’s Olympic Wrestling team just had the greatest performance in the program’s history. They won a whopping 8 gold medals (2 in Greco, 2 in men’s Freestyle, and 4 in women’s Freestyle) for a total of 11 medals altogether. While the exclusion of Russia from this year’s Olympic games certainly helped, especially in the 74kg weight usually dominated by Zaurbek Sidakov, several wrestlers who have previously represented Russia ended up competing under different flags anyway, such as 74kg gold medalist, Razambek Zhamalov, who brought home the gold for Uzbekistan.

Japan is usually one of the top three countries in Freestyle wrestling, along with Russia and The US, but this year’s dominance is unprecedented for them. While watching their Freestyle matches, the main thing that stood out to me was their handfighting dominance. The Japanese wrestlers all executed a fairly similar system, employing many of the same primary scoring attacks and setups, though each added their own individual flair to it. Their comfort and ease in mid-range tie ups made it very difficult for opponents to find positions they could score from and allowed them quick access to reliable setups, while also defusing their opponent’s pressure.

Handfighting Basics & Distance Management

A wrestler’s head and hands are his first two layers of defense for keeping his man off the hips - a simple matching of levels and frame with the head, or a stiff-arm can keep even the most explosive shot from finding its target. In sports with striking involved, getting past these layers tends to be fairly easy. Striking necessitates a higher stance, leaving the head unavailable to block, and a quick feint or punch upstairs can draw the guard up, freeing up the hips for attack. But nothing’s that easy in wrestling, where stances are built to get underneath an opponent and the hands are focused on denying them takedown opportunities while creating your own.

While the handfighting in wrestling is often high paced and difficult to follow at first, for the educated striking fan there will be some recognizable similarities. Pay attention to what the hands are doing as wrestlers first make contact, and you’ll see many of the same tactics used in striking - feints, probing rhythm breaks, even parries. Every wrestler has different ties they favor and different positional goals, but ultimately the objective is a familiar one: finding and maintaining their ideal distance, setting up attacks, and denying opponents the ability to initiate.

Japanese and American wrestlers both tend to wrestle high-paced, grueling styles in comparison to the more patient and defensive Russians, or the explosive big-move Cubans. But the way they implement their pace and pressure differs greatly. In general, American wrestlers like to pressure with physicality, pushing with underhooks, snapping the head down with heavy collar ties, forcing their opponent to bear their weight and tire out.

Japan’s pressure, on the other hand, comes more from mobility. They stay active with buzzing hands, constantly feinting level changes, re-adjusting ties, and taking angles. It creates a sort of pressure applied not just to the body, but to the senses. Moving around in a wrestling stance is tiring enough, but constant fakes and motion pull opponents in and out of alertness on split-second intervals, dulling the senses to committed attacks.

The sort of heavy collar tie pressure that Americans are more known for operates best at close range. A collar tie uses a hand on the back of the head or neck to pressure the opponent’s head, and with it his balance, through a bent elbow straight to the floor. The closer the tying elbow is to one’s ribs, the more leverage they can get on the snap, and the better defensive value in closing off their own hips. It offers a way of slowing down an opponent while wearing on them and setting up offense.

In contrast, Japan’s wrestlers all have a fairly similar ideal distance and that’s a short step back from a tight collar tie. They operate best when they have a bit of space to move around and their opponent has to step in or reach out to find their head.

Japan prefers to enter on wrist control grips, looking to keep the match at mid-range while blocking their opponents from closing distance into tighter ties. They were very diligent in clearing any ties their opponents secured, looking to peel off collar ties to regain their desired range. In the first few clips above, you can even see 57kg gold medalist, Rei Higuchi, almost parry Spencer Lee’s collar tie attempts, slapping them off before they even reach his neck. If they lose the wrists, they move to a post on the bicep or shoulder with an extended arm, keeping the mid-range frame that affords them the mobility and space they work so well with while denying their opponent’s attempts to establish tighter control.

One of the primary downsides to this kind of looser, more mobile style is that it doesn’t afford constant control of the head and posture the way heavy collar ties do. But Japan’s wrestlers still make liberal use of snapdowns. Their snaps just come in motion and through handfighting transitions, rather than constant head pressure.

Level change feints and snapdowns play off each other, punishing the opponent for either staying too upright in anticipation of the snap, or too low to defend the shot. Snaps are also used often by the Japanese wrestlers to break opponent’s collar ties, briefly threatening their balance while they circle away from the tie.

They would enter on the hands and quickly move up to the head to throw the opponent’s weight down, disguising the snap behind handfighting. They also played them well off their constant lateral movement, controlling the opponent’s posture with the dual threat of snaps and level changes. It lead to several lovely sequences where a Japanese wrestler would threaten a snapdown or front headlock to set up a shot, taking an angle outside their opponent’s defenses as they tried to address it. Or alternatively threatening the angle first, prompting a level change from their opponent that they could exploit with a snap down. The above clip shows Akari Fujinami and Hayato Ishiguro hitting these snap to angle mixups.

The primary goal of Japan’s wrestlers was to drag their opponents into wrist ties and beat them with greater experience and superior process in those exchanges. The constant tying up of hands and blocking or stripping ties conditioned opponents to expect it and reach out in return to avoid surrendering the grip. But when the opponent reached out, they would time a level change underneath it, giving them access to their high percentage single leg attacks.

Rei Higuchi destroyed eventual 57kg bronze medalist, Aman Sehrawat, with this simple but effective strategy. He would strip his ties at range and constantly tie up the hands, frustrating the Indian who was looking to work into close range ties that he could use to physically pressure Higuchi. Once Sehrawat freed up his right hand for a moment, he would automatically reach out to take a grip on Higuchi, but Higuchi would change levels underneath it and penetrate onto the legs unimpeded.

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If you look at Jack Dempsey’s book, Championship Fighting, he spends a lot of time on the left hook but scarcely mentions the offensive applications of a right hook, save for throwing it to the body or as a sneaker on the clinch break. The punch is largely reserved for infighting in boxing, where one can step inside of his opponent’s stance and move them around, finding angles around the protective lead shoulder or using the head as a wedge to physically pry it open.

The glove size and relative lack of defensive acumen in MMA should make the rear hook a much more viable and versatile strike, but there have historically been other barriers preventing its widespread adoption and tactical development. For much of MMA’s short existence, striking has been built largely around rapid closing of distance. MMA fighters have long relied on giving ground to avoid punches, lacking the comfort and eyes necessary to stay safe in chaotic exchanges.

The elite were always well ahead of the pack in terms of thoughtful striking, but the rank and file fighters mostly maintained this discomfort on the inside, and as a result fights often involved two fighters standing outside punching range and attempting to rush through the gap to get their offense off before the opponent. The overhand, then, was the weapon of choice over the rear hook. Not only does the arching angle of an overhand better attack the parts of a retreating opponent not covered by the lead shoulder, but it’s a much longer strike, able to reach as far as you’re comfortable throwing yourself off balance.

It’s only within the past decade or so that the average prelim-level fighter has developed enough comfort in exchanges that most fights are now more about the logic of successive exchanges and adaptations made between them than about figuring out how to run in from kicking range.

Esteban Ribovics is a great example of these developments in MMA striking and the right hook is one of his favored tools. Ribovics has been fighting for about nine years which would normally put him right around the middle of his prime, but he took several years off from 2017-2019 and 2020-2022, so he likely still has a lot of room to grow.

What caught my eye about Ribovics is that he’s an aggressive, all-out action fighter, but there’s quite a bit of craft in the way he goes about things. His bravado and pugnacity in exchanges means that he’s very open to his opponent’s offense, but to capitalize on it they have to put themselves in position to get hit hard. He spends a lot of time trying to force the fight into a phonebooth and hammering away once he gets there - combine that disposition with a penchant for hooking, and he provides a great study of the right hook’s potential in MMA.

Ribovics is a quick starter and often opens his fights with rapid flurries of hooks. These tend to be most successful when he has his man on the cage with no room to back up - their stance squares as their back hits the cage, removing the lead shoulder blocking the path to the chin and allowing wide right hooks to slot in around their arms.

Ribovics’ footwork in these flurries is interesting too. He’s often fairly careless with his feet and ends up squaring up, relying on his overwhelming offense to scare opponents out of pitching back at him. But now and again he’ll show off some slick setups. His knockdown of Loik Radzhabov above was particularly neat - he enters with a flurry of body and head hooks that square him up and get Radzhabov bending over to avoid the onslaught, but then he subtly steps into southpaw and loads his right hip for a body hook that lands as he’s backstepping right back into orthodox, putting him in position to chase Radzhabov with a leaping right hook as he flees.

His most recent win, a 30-second knockout over Terrance McKinney, came by adding a head kick onto the end of his rush:

Ribovics noticed that McKinney tended to back straight up when faced with combinations and it didn’t take him long to exploit it. He used McKinney’s jab as a trigger to switch to southpaw, then run in with a flurry of hooks, shifting back into orhtodox and finishing with a kick. McKinney ran back to what he thought was a safe distance, only for the headkick to catch him unaware.

It’s not all balls to the wall aggression with Ribovics though, he can set some traps and punish opponents for trying to make him pay.

In Edwin Haislet’s seminal manual on boxing tactics, he devotes far more time to talking about the left hook, but calls the right hook “one of the most dangerous counters in boxing,” pointing out that it’s especially useful against an opponent who’s overreaching and off balance. Ribovics has a good eye for counters and a hard hook is always poised to smack anyone stepping in on him.

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