Asaf Chopurov is the Future

The Caucasus fighters are learning how to take backs and use crab rides.

Denis Lavrentyev has been one of my favorite Bantamweights outside the UFC for a while. A slick Judo stylist with striking that bore clear influence from his training partner, Petr Yan, he had a unique but effective style. Wins over Victor Henry and Taylor Lapilus proved his quality, but he started MMA too late in life to ultimately put together a UFC run. In May of last year, Lavrentyev suffered only his second unavenged loss, but what surprised me most were the circumstances behind it. He got mopped up inside two minutes, dropped on the feet, taken down, and pounded out on the ground by a 22 year old with only two pro fights under his belt.

That 22 year old fighter was Asaf Chopurov, who I’ve now come to see as one of the best prospects in MMA. Chopurov is a young Azerbaijani who fights with experience beyond his years. He’s very active, racking up a 6-0 record in almost two years of professional competition, with two of those wins coming over quality opposition in Lavrentyev and Nikita Mikhailov.

While Chopurov has little experience in professional MMA competition, he has a decorated amateur record, where he went 34-1 and won the 2021 IMMAF tournament at Bantamweight. Chopurov is part of a growing wave of fighters who amassed lots of competition experience before going pro, but he got all those amateur fights out of the way within the span of a couple years, leaving him with ample time to develop further as he moves up in professional competition.

Packing so much experience into such a small window of time paid off for Chopurov, who is fantastically well rounded and clearly comfortable everywhere. While he wins fights primarily with his grappling, he’s looked comfortable striking on the feet and in transitions, with an especially sharp clinch game. Once he gets on top, he’s proven to be a serious threat for both submissions and damage, finishing all but one of his pro bouts.

Striking

Chopurov displays a good deal of poise at range, sure-footed in his stance and movement. He works actively with kicks, showing hip feints to back opponents up and conceal his attacks.

Chopurov fights smoothly out of both stances, though he’s most comfortable in orthodox. His kicks and hip feints serve to hide his stance chances, and he’ll occasionally pick up a leg as if to kick and march into a kick from the opposite stance, walking his man toward the cage while keeping them on the outside.

Chopurov is comfortable jousting at range with fluid in and out movement, but his main goal is to move his man back to the cage and start wrestling. He has an unusual degree of comfort in close for such a young fighter and is capable of herding circling fighters with diagonal steps, steadily invading space to force them backwards. Though his willingness to engage at close range can sometimes lead to Chopurov eating a wild punch, as his comfort overshoots his defensive reactions at this point.

Once his opponent nears the cage, he’ll look to cut off their lateral movement with a leaping lead hook or wait for them to lash out, where he can duck in on their hips.

Chopurov competes mainly on the Russian scene, where strong wrestlers are abundant and pocket boxers are in short supply. We haven’t had many looks at how he performs in extended exchanges, since most of his opponents are looking to wrestle or content to back out of range, but the little we’ve seen has looked solid.

While Chopurov’s defensive reactions aren’t yet skilled enough to make him a huge threat on the counter, he’s sharp about proactively drawing out strikes to counter, and capable of closing distance in combination while keeping his feet underneath him.

In his second pro bout, Chopurov dropped his opponent with a lovely bounce-back right hand off a body hook, but he hasn’t done anything like that before or since. His knockdown of Lavrentyev came off a slick combination, hopping in with a jab and flicking out a distracting lead hook to cover a deep step into the right hand that landed over top Lavrentyev’s framing arm as he retreated.

Right now his counters are limited to giving ground and returning, but his positioning and ability to step with his punches on the front foot has impressed. There’s been a couple hints of hidden depth elided by his dominance thus far, and as his competition improves and he’s forced into deeper exchanges we’ll get to see how much deeper the well goes. But it’s clear that Chopurov’s defensive reactions are his biggest drawback on the feet. He tends to stand upright and neglects to use his hips, which when paired with his comfort invading space, often leads to him eating overhands early, and he needs to take several hard leg kicks before he offers a counter or defensive response.

In the clinch, Chopurov is a strong wrestler and striker who pairs bodylock takedowns with active striking and transitional nuance.

Chopurov is good at using his strikes to find openings to improve position, and his experience against wrestlers on the amateur circuit has acclimatized him to finding space to strike against neutralizing opponents.

Wrestling

Chopurov is a varied and dynamic wrestler with consistent routes to his takedowns both at range and on the cage. In the clinch, he mainly looks to hit bodylock takedowns or hunt for the back:

An interesting quirk in Chopurov’s clinch wrestling is that he’s keen to shove his head into guillotine grips so that he can quickly straighten up and duck under to the back. He’ll even pry open his opponent’s arm to create space to slot his head in. With the cage in front of him, there’s no way for the defender to turn it into a clean submission attempt unless they can break his posture, and by wrapping up his head they expose their own back.

Away from the cage, Chopurov’s grounds opponents mainly through reactive takedowns, ducking in on their hips as they punch.

He has good drive on his double legs and while his position on entry isn’t always great, he does a good job quickly changing the angle and chaining off when he encounters resistance. As he starts backing opponents up with his striking he’ll use his rear hand to cover his penetration step. The proactive setups could use some fine-tuning, but for a fighter this early in his career they’re solid.

Like with his boxing, Chopurov has not encountered a lot of resistance to his wrestling so far. But when he’s faced opponents who could reliably shut down his first offering, his chain wrestling has looked excellent.

Chopurov will look for go-behinds if he encounters a cross-face on his double leg, and smoothly transitions between high crotch and single leg finishes, steadily improving his positioning as he destabilizes his opponent’s base.

On the defensive side, Chopurov has already had a lot of the poor decision-making common of inexperienced fighters ground out of him on the amateur circuit, and as a result he’s a nightmare for opponents looking to wrestle.

Chopurov reacts to shots rapidly and quickly looks to fight grips or pull wrestlers off his legs with a strong overhook. He’s very tough to beat in upper body situations, with great hips, and has the balance to fight out of wrestlers hiking his leg up high to finish a single leg.

While Chopurov won’t be an easy fight even for high level grapplers, there are a couple holes in his defensive wrestling. He’s more prone to making bad decisions when pressed against the cage, as he’ll often abandon his whizzer and reach across to punch, which leaves his hips open. But he’s always been able to scramble up quickly and that is a quick fix for someone who otherwise shows great tactical awareness.

The other issue is that he often assents to defensive wrestling, content merely to stop the takedowns. Elite wrestlers with great persistence may be able to neutralize a lot of his offense just by making him play defense against the cage, even if the takedowns are failing. Chopurov isn’t a very large Bantamweight, which could compound the issue against elite athletes.

But fighters who can get Chopurov to the ground don’t have an easy ride either. He’s a fantastic scrambler with cat-like hips who’s urgent about creating opportunities to escape. Like we mentioned when examining why Joaquin Buckley failed to escape form underneath Kamaru Usman, the best time to launch an escape is immediately after the takedown, before control is established. Chopurov starts creating space, building his base, and elevating his hips before the takedown has had a moment to settle.

While Chopurov is easiest to take down when he’s reaching across his opponent’s body on the cage, he’ll quickly post out and look to build up his base, then use elevators to kick opponents over if they overcompensate on pressuring into him. However, more advanced wrestlers will be better at riding and tying up his legs, so better decision-making when defending double legs on the cage will still go a long way.

Chopurov has an incredible ability to not just go with his opponent’s momentum to escape their control, but to create those momentum swings with his own actions and then exploit them. Chopurov will switch directions when he’s unable to force himself through an opening, switching between underhooks, elevators, and backdoor escapes, each attempt baiting commitment from his opponent that he can exploit with the next link of the chain.

One of the reasons he’s such an effective scrambler is that he’s focused on building hip and head height with each successive movement. Often fighters will come up on an underhook from half guard and push through pressure to belly down as their posture is crushed, funneling them into a worse front headlock or back take. But if Chopurov can’t force his way through his opponents pressure while keeping his posture strong, he’ll post out and start sitting up to build height, and it makes the next step easier whether he wants to keep pressuring in or drop back for a rollunder or elevator sweep. He often ends up sneaking out between his opponent’s legs in awkward situations because of that instinct to build height when he encounters resistance. Chopurov brings a wrestling mentality to his scrambles and it makes it incredibly difficult to lock him down in static control positions.

Back Taking

Chopurov does much of his best work on top, but unlike most grapplers on the Russian regionals, he doesn’t follow the standard cage riding mold. Chopurov primarily looks for the back, his process on top more akin to Alexandre Pantoja than most fighters coming out of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Since those circuits are chock-full of excellent wrestlers and scramblers, but often lacking in BJJ finesse, developing his back control is a great way to become a difficult matchup for his current opposition. But it will also pay off against UFC competition, as giving up the back to escape from bottom has become standard practice in high level MMA.

Once Chopurov gets a rear bodylock in the clinch, he starts looking to trip out the legs and sit down into back control.

Chopurov will keep the body lock and use crab rides to stretch his opponent’s base out until he’s ready to put both hooks in. If they’re able to get their feet on the mat and build up before he can fully take the back, he’ll follow them back up, keeping the bodylock, and repeat the process over again. The beauty of the broomstick style trips he uses is that they’re low effort and can be chained together endlessly until one succeeds.

While Chopurov is capable of finding rear naked chokes both from a standing body triangle and with his back to the ground, he’s most dangerous in back mount with his hips forcing his opponent to their belly. When his opponents drift to one side while defending the choke, he’ll look to hip in and force his way on top, where they have to post out to avoid being flattened.

Back mount is the easiest position from which to finish a rear naked choke, since the defender can’t both defend the choke and post at the same time. Chopurov has heavy hips and devastating ground and pound from the position, as Lavrentiev found out when he was immediately flattened and squashed as soon as Chopurov got on top. He also controls the transitions into and out of the position well. He’ll use half nelsons to slow opponents turning belly down while he works his way into back mount, and if they turn back on top he’ll look to snatch their neck in transition.

Chopurov has shown an excellent ability to retain dominant positions and counter attempts at scrambling out of his back control. Entering off the rear bodylock and crab rides helps - with both hooks in place, your own hip mobility is limited, but by entering from sitting down into a crab ride, Chopurov can keep his hips disconnected until he finds a good opportunity to get his hooks in. When riding on top, he’ll disengage a hook if opponents start elevating their hips, disconnecting his hips from theirs to avoid being tipped over.

He responds quickly when opponents turn into him, establishing a grip under the far arm to anchor himself and posting out with his near side so he can rotate his hips with their movement. He’ll often keep the back as his opponents stand up, but he also knows when to drop the body triangle and go back to his bodylock and broomstick sequence. Chopurov’s ability to move with his opponents and disengage when necessary allows him to stay in control and avoid ending up on his back, and his low effort entries off trips and crab rides ensure that he can get back into a dominant position while expending less energy than his opponent.

At only 23 years old, Asaf Chopurov has built a well-rounded, comprehensive skillset and scored wins over quality, experienced fighters. He’s nowhere near a finished product yet, but he’s already a difficult fight for anyone but the top fighters at Bantamweight.

While I’d still like to see him deal with fighters who can force him into exchanges or apply consistent high level wrestling pressure, Chopurov has an excellent base of skills to build on. I anticipate him making an impact in a major promotion within a couple years, and it would come as no surprise to me if Chopurov develops into an elite fighter.

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