UFC 294: Strange Happenings

Islam Makhachev Upsets Me, Usman Surprised, and a Hefty Prayer to Many Fighters' Nuts.

UFC 294 in “the desert” (thank you Johnny Walker) was an event filled with shocks and surprises. I had an immense amount of fun with the event, and found quite a bit to take away from.

Disclaimer: The video clips included in this article are not owned by the author. They are included for educational purposes only to illustrate key moments in the fighter’s career and demonstrate aspects of mixed martial arts techniques and strategies. All rights to the video content belong to their respective owners.

Yet Another Head Kick

The stand out performance was of course Islam Makhachev’s stunning head kick knockout of Alexander “The Great” Volkanovski. A hotly anticipated rematch between the top two P4P fighters in the sport. Islam’s performance brought to mind this article:

Islam’s success in the first fight informed a potential game plan for Rodriguez, that he was not able to execute. I’m guessing Makhachev read my article, because he followed the kicking plan to a T.

Since Leon Edwards knocked out Usman with a perfect 1-2 feint head kick, it has been all the rage. Particularly in the Lightweight division in 2023, where the 3 top Lightweights in Charles Oliveira, Justin Gaethje, and Islam Makhachev have all had high profile wins by head kick.

In Islam’s case, it was the perfect adaptation from their first fight.

In their first bout, Makhachev was able to land kicks with almost no push back. Every body kick went in without much defense from Volk, and he even hit a nice head kick that got partially blocked in the first round of that fight as well.

The problem was he did not push this advantage at all. Makhachev went to his kicks sparingly. In true “Dagestani” fashion though, he took his advantage and hammered it to death in this fight. the first strike of the fight was a nice inside leg kick that catches Volk moving back. Though it is a round kick it almost arcs up at the end of the motion.

This synchronized perfectly with his front kick to the body. He swapped between both weapons to keep Volk on his toes, not knowing which rear leg attack to expect from the champion.

Having these two weapons play off of each other allows Volk to build defensive reactions to them. With Volk expecting the leg and body attacks, Mak can exploit a hesitancy in Volkanvski’s defensive reactions. In theory, he will not know which attack to expect, and will be met with a completely new one.

He was expecting the head kick in this instance, but the double forearms guard was not enough to prevent Makhachev’s foot from dinging him in the head. Volk leaning into the kick is also not ideal. Though you can meet the kick halfway and stifle its power, Volk is meeting it at one of its stronger points of impact.

This spelled doom for him later in the fight.

I was deflated by the fight only being a round. Even if it ended the same way, I would have rather seen the fight protracted over at least 3 rounds. One reason for this is that Volkanovski looked just as sound, if not better, in the clinch positions along the fence.

He was mitigating damage from Makhachev’s knees and easily turning him round to put his ass to the fence instead. For a smaller fighter his strength was tremendous in these positions, especially against an absolute bear of a human in the Lightweight Champion.

In a thread I posted before the fight, I outlined how Volk could hammer home the advantages he exhibited in the first fight: Volk’s Striking Improvements

A key to Volk’s success in the first fight was how well he was able to catch Makhacehv with strikes after disengaging from the clinch. Unfortunately, he failed to bring that adaptation so early into the rematch, and did not capitalize upon that position here.

Volkanovski was not able to enact much significant offense this fight. It would have been ideal if he could have pushed his own advantages early, but Makhachev controlled the fight from start to finish.

One should not forget how well Volkanovski performed in the first fight, and he is undoubtably one of the greatest fighters I have ever seen. The fact that one of his stature has the skills to compete with a fighter as exceptional as Islam Makhachev, its remarkable. Makhachev is rapidly improving though, and deserves the spot as the sports P4P #1.

Front-Runners

What an interesting matchup this one was. The inactive Chechen with star-power versus the former champion who simply knows how to win, but this time at middleweight. Dricus Du Plessis gets put to the curb as Chimaev’s win catapults him into a title shot, which is strange.

Following this performance, I see the fight going one of two ways:

1. Chimaev automatically deletes Strickland in the first by GNP or Sub

2. Strickland wethers the storm early and is able to TKO Chimaev late

Chimaev came out like a bull in a China shop, and had smothering chain wrestling to bring Kamaru down and take his back. In the first round Chimaev grapples with such PACE that even if you defend his first 5 attempts to get you down, the sixth will.

In this way, he is a true athletic marvel, and reminiscent to the other beautifully forceful front-runner in Conor McGregor. Though stylistically different, they both produce beauty in the first.

Kamaru Usman is an asbolute WINNER however, and is never out of a fight. His resolve throughout his entire career is admirable, and he is never not giving his all to win.

Just as with McGregor, if you can survive the first round against Chimaev your chances of victory steadily increase. Despite the power and pace that was forced upon him early, the undaunted Kamaru Usman weathered the storm.

By the second round, it seemed like Chimaev was all out of ideas. He easily banked a possible 10-8 round in the first a la Aljamain Sterling, but was not able to replicate this success in the second. He came out with markedly less activity and was not able to establish grappling superiority until late in the round.

The second round was an adjustment period for both men, with Usman regaining his confidence after the first and Chimaev losing steam. The most damage in the round came in the form of a nice 1-2 from Usman.

By the third round, the momentum was swinging clearly in Usman’s favor. Chimaev’s takedown attempts became labored and desperate, giving Usman the opportunity to defend.

Usman began feinting the snatch single himself. Given his busted knees, the snatch single was a nice, low-effort attempt to keep his own grappling prowess on Chimaev’s mind and open up more avenues for his lovely straight hitting.

His 1-2 was doing nice work. Chimaev had little to no defensive reactions to Usman’s offense, and 1-2 was a perfectly solid weapon to counter his wide swings. Even if he was able to land, Usman ensured he ended the exchange on his terms with a powerful hit of his own. Not as pretty as his straight hitting, but just as effective in this instance.

Chimaev’s gas tank issue in the third was perfectly encapsulated by Usman’s head kick here. Though he gets a nice connection he is off-balance and falls to his butt. He scrambles up to his feet but Chimaev simply stalks him slowly.

If this was Chimaev of the first, I can only imagine him jumping on the fallen fighter immediately and taking any advantage he could. Instead he moseys like Jersey Joe doing the cake walk.

Usman’s jab has always been a beauty. Here it looks like he takes a page from his friend Adesanya’s book and uses a sticky jab, but Khamzat might actually have his hand trapped. Regardless, Usman was able to accomplish the better work in this position.

And again, he just has a lovely, accurate jab.

Though Chimaev won the fight, I had scored it as a draw. If anything, I was more impressed with Usman’s ability to hang with the force that Chimaev is at this stage in his career. As is evident, the Nigerian Nightmare has still got it, and Borz has some things to shore up before his supposed match with Sean Strickland for the title.

Short End of the Wood

Nathaniel Wood has become one of my favorite fighters since his move up to Featherweight. Though smaller than most of his opponents, his work within the clinch has been absolutely spectacular.

He came up short in this match against prospect Naimov, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Every round was incredibly competitive and Wood ended the fight as the better man. In a card rife with cheating and little consequence, Wood had his dick kick/kneed in on two occasions, had his opponent grab the cage during a TD attempt, and had his glove grabbed at the very end of the fight when he was exhibiting the most dominant offense of the fight.

Jack Slack has often said “You get one of every foul in MMA”, as most refs are too afraid to take points and will give you a warning for each foul committed. Even I was surprised however, that this ref did not take a foul for Naimov’s second low blow at the beginning of the second.

Whatever your theories as to why this occurred, Wood had his nuts kicked in (not as bad as Victor Henry’s though, yeesh). Naimov gets a nice body knee in after the groin shot in the above sequence, nice.

Wood got dropped early in the first and was defending Naimov’s grappling well, but he was still on the losing end of most grappling exchanges. His work should not be overlooked though.

In a round he was losing, Wood throws a lovely cross counter to intercept Naimov’s jab, which sends him reeling. Just a quick and lovely shot. His mechanics are generally very pretty.

Here is the much lauded clinch game. Wood is firmly at his best in these exchanges. Wood attains a forearm post along Naimov’s shoulder with a loose underhook. This frame prevents Naimov from crashing through Wood’s clinch and allows him to break away if need be. He turns this frame into some nice, short body shots, and immediately hits a LOVELY outside trip. Gorgeous work.

This was a somewhat understated sequence where Naimov cinches Wood’s hand between his arm and shoulder as tight as he can. Wood transitions between punches and frames with his free arm in order to keep Naimov reacting to his offense and give him the opportunity to get his arm back.

By the third round Wood was able to get his striking off effectively. He shows a lovely dipping feint and leaps up into a left hook. Almost like a Gazelle punch if you paused at the top. The level change got Naimov expecting a takedown and open for a strike across the top.

Wood’s prowess in the clinch is shown yet again, and exhibits an important point of MMA: Don’t sell out on the submission. If you have it, go for it, but the dreaded guillotine usually puts you in a rough spot on bottom (see: Dustin Poirer). Rather than ‘jumping the gilly’, Wood makes its threat known enough to get Naimov defending and off the body lock, which Wood can then disengage from on his own terms. Submissions are key in trying to gain a more advantageous position.

Wood again exhibits that though he has begun to control the clinch, he will only enter it on his own terms. A somewhat fading Naimov tries to grab Wood through his strikes, but Wood posts off the shoulder and face and simply says ‘no’ to the attempt.

Throughout the this round Wood was able to maintain a nice, steady pressure. One of my favorite tools in MMA is to teep the body as their back is near the cage. This often forces them right to it. This was a key weapon in Sean Strickland’s recent win over Adesanya.

Once he has his man against the cage Wood is able to throw some nice combinations. Straight hitting as the quicker man is always a good idea, especially when your opponent is being pressured to the cage.

And here was the blatant glove grab by Naimov. While a last ditch technique at the end of the fight isn’t the worst idea, Naimov’s fatigue left him on the floor rather than scrambling up to his feet.

Even with the glove grab Wood was able to land some stunningly accurate ground and pound and almost finish the fight.

Though Naimov came out on top on the judges scorecards, I truly believe Wood’s performance was enough to keep him moving forward in the division. He is always lovely and I want to see how far he can take his straight hitting and clinch game in a somewhat strange division when it comes to contenders.

A very interesting event punctuated by some brilliant technical and tactical showcases, as well as some testicular bombardments. What did you take away from this card?