The Clinch Mauling & Ground Devastation of Shavkat Rakhmonov

An in-depth look into the clinch excellence and smashing ground & pound tactics of Welterweight's newest star.

1. Striking

   1. Stance & Primary Weapons

   2. Pressure Tactics

2. In The Clinch

   1. Entries

   2. On The Cage

   3. Over/Under

   4. Overhook System

   5. Hand-Fighting

3. Ground & Pound

   1. Principles

   2. Splitting Legs

   3. Outside The Legs

   4. Straddling Legs

   5. Half Guard & Riding

4. Weaknesses

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 run with a first round submission over Alex Oliveira that showed little aside from a penchant for punishing knees, following it up by smashing an old, shopworn Lightweight on the ground. He was finally given an opponent coming off a solid win in Carlston Harris, only to end his night early with a spinning hook kick.

Rakhmonov started finishing fights in every phase of the game as soon as he made his way to the big leagues, but the trail of broken, overmatched opponents left in his wake largely gave him fights that belied his true skillset. Neil Magny, for instance, made Rakhmonov look like a veritable Dagestani smashing machine, taking himself down quickly in each round before Rakhmonov could even do the honors.

Given his early fights, you’d be forgiven for seeing Rakhmonov primarily as a lights out wrestler with a thing for spinning kicks. But against Geoff Neal, Rakhmonov finally found an opponent who could give him enough work to drag out his A-game and reveal how deep his skillset goes. And what we saw wasn’t an unstoppable wrestler in the Dagestani mold, but one who bears more resemblance to a Jon Jones type - a rangy, stalking distance striker who excels primarily in clinch striking and ground and pound, but without the offensive wrestling to easily get on top of elite competition.

One of the difficulties of playing a clinch-first game in MMA is that, if you can’t burn rounds on top of your opponent, you’ll either need to continue closing distance and potentially walking through fire, or find a way to rack up damage while ensuring the clinch never breaks in the first place. Rakhmonov has some crafty, albeit imperfect, routes to the clinch, but where he truly shines is in maximizing the chances he does create and suffocating his opponents on the inside.

Striking

Stance & Primary Weapons

If you watch a lot of ACA, or other striking sports like Sanda and boxing, you’ll know that Central Asian fighters tend to be very bouncy. They commonly move back and forth in exaggerated bounces, leaping in with one or two punches at a time, and excel in the transitions between striking and grappling.

Rakhmonov offers an interesting take on the old formula. As a Kazakh, he’s clearly got a lot of the Central Asian bounce within him, but he bucks the trend in some important ways. The biggest point of divergence can be seen in his stance, which is atypically square for an MMA fighter.

A bladed stance offers a number of advantages in MMA, both offensively and defensively. By rotating the lead shoulder inward and pointing it right at the opponent, bladed stances both offer built-in protections from right hands and add a bit of effective reach. With the rear shoulder pulled back, the rear straight becomes a much more fearsome punch due to the extra distance and rotation involved in throwing it. One of the main advantages of a squarer stance is that kicking off both legs becomes quicker and easier, but Rakhmonov spends most of his time throwing the type of spinning kicks that benefit more from a bladed stance anyway.

So what is Rakhmonov’s square stance doing for him? The internal rotation that makes a bladed stance so useful for punching also makes it difficult to cut off the cage with seamless lateral movement. If the feet are positioned in a straight line, it’s difficult to quickly move perpendicular to that line without stepping out of stance. Even the uber-aggressive Conor McGregor learned to throw his left hand across the plane of his body, as opponents were so consistently able to circle outside of his lead foot as their back neared the cage.

Standing more square and staggered allows Rakhmonov to physically occupy space in front of his opponents, strafing side to side as they flee from his clinch. A rear shoulder pulled back can rotate through to ram in a harder, cleaner punch, but one held forward can much more easily reach out and grab on at a moment’s notice, and Rakhmonov is always ready to drag opponents into clinch warfare.

While Rakhmonov can at times appear disjointed on the feet, the tenor of his striking bears some resemblance to Thailand’s Muay Khaos. Many of Muay Thai’s best clinch fighters weren’t mindlessly aggressive pressure brawlers, but rather patient, stalking fighters who slowly ramped up their aggression over the course of the fight, more akin to persistence hunting. The great Dieselnoi Chor.Thanasukarn famously preferred to let his opponents show their hand first, doing much of his clinch and knee work on the counter. While the individual tools Rakhmonov employs can be janky, he fights with the composure and poise of someone who knows they will get to their spots eventually and maximize their chances once they do.

Rakhmonov spends lots of time fencing at long range, using his jab to needle away at opponents and gather information. He likes a hard, spearing jab powered by a push off his rear foot and a heavy drop of his weight onto the lead. But in more recent fights he’s started modulating the speed and power of his jab, flicking it out to goad opponents and draw out their reactions.

A spearing jab is always useful for long fighters who like to operate outside the pocket to keep opponents at bay. But the newer flicking jab he showed off against Neal offers some additional possibilities for occupying his man’s vision while he closes into the clinch.

Rakhmonov is a fairly conservative striker at range, especially against orthodox opponents. He likes to test the waters, play around on the outside, and avoid committing too hard early on. He primarily relies on distance to defend strikes, so he’ll regularly give ground, bouncing in and out to draw out and stymie attacks. His square stance doesn’t leave much room to hide his chin behind his lead shoulder, and as a result he does a lot of leaning back at the waist to make his opponent’s rear hand fall short.

He doesn’t shy away from a bit of flash when the situation calls for it, however. One of his most consistent looks is a spinning hook kick that he’s used to great effect in several fights. On one hand, having a spinning kick as one of his highest percentage strikes is indicative of his lack of subtler, more consistent weapons. But to his credit he’s been able to turn the spinning hook kick into a fairly high percentage move with clever setup.

The key to Rakhmonov’s ability to land his spinning kick clean is that he invariably precedes it with a spinning back kick to the body. While the spinning hook kick lacks the wheel kick’s ability to cut off movement by attacking on a wide arc, its tight trajectory pairs brilliantly with the back kick. As we recently covered in relation to Muslim Salikhov, the spinning hook kick looks exactly like the back kick for most of its motion, before at the last moment flicking upstairs and smashing the heel into the temple. Opponents are first treated to Rakhmonov spinning around and trying to ram his heel through their intestines, before seeing the same spin only for the kick to suddenly curve upstairs.

Against orthodox opponents, there’s really not a whole lot else to be said about Rakhmonov’s distance offense. He’ll pitch a few inconsistent counter uppercuts, but for the most part his rear hand doesn’t get much involved. Against southpaws, however, he’s shown a much craftier and more diverse repertoire.

With the extra distance inherent to an open stance matchup, Rakhmonov’s bouncing footwork is even more effective at goading opponents, who are more inclined to lash out with their rear hand and expose themselves to counters. Rakhmonov’s own rear hand is a lot more consistent with the open center line on his rear side, especially on the counter.

One of the clearest ways for opponents to avoid Rakhmonov’s desired phase is to aggressively push him back, but against southpaws he’s been able to defuse aggression with counters. If his opponent isn’t careful to bring their feet with them when they lash out, he’s more than comfortable taking a short hop-step back and letting them fall onto his right hand. Against Neal, he showed off some particularly slick uppercuts to the body, a great way to make anyone think twice about coming forward.

He rarely throws round kicks against orthodox fighters, but against Neal, Rakhmonov debuted a head kick that stunned him multiple times.

This is where Rakhmonov’s square stance benefits him, as he barely needs to move his lead foot to throw the kick. Fighters who stand wide and bladed often throw question mark kicks to hide the tell of their lead foot turning outward so their hips can rotate into the kick. But with Rakhmonov’s lead foot already pointed out far enough to swing his hips into the kick, he can just flash his rear hand and pivot on the ball of his lead foot without needing to align it first.

It’s worth noting that Rakhmonov’s last two fights came against southpaws after four straight orthodox opponents in as many UFC bouts. It’s possible his new weapons came from improving his skills in a way that bears fruit against later orthodox opponents, but his toolset is so radically different in these sort of matchups that he does seem more comfortable with the open stance dynamics.

Pressure Tactics

There are three main things a pressure fighter wants to do to his opponents - force them backwards, cut off their escape routes, and rack up the damage and/or points once they’re trapped. Depending on the ruleset, those three intentions can vary in importance. Pressure fighters in Muay Thai typically fight opponents who are happy to give ground due to a scoring system that prioritizes retreat, so the game becomes more about overwhelming and staying composed while moving forward. Pressure fighters in a small kickboxing ring can give ground without losing his spot, only needing to force his man to take a couple steps backwards to position him back on the ropes.

But the large UFC Octagon with its lack of tight corners makes different demands of pressure fighters in MMA. Keeping a fighter on the cage is more difficult without physically pinning him to the cage, as the open corners present escape routes. Forcing the opponent backwards becomes more important given the Octagon’s large surface area, as every escape means retreading all that ground.

Rakhmonov is not especially adept at forcing his man back to the cage, but he excels at maximizing the chances he gets, keeping them in front of him with great skill once their feet cross the black paint. Rahmonov cuts his opponents off with fluent lateral movement, but his ability to enforce his pressure isn’t just tactical, his temperament plays an crucial role.