The Killing the King series is our effort to hypothetically undo the dominant champions of MMA. Back in the day we discussed Renan Barao, Ronda Rousey, Anderson Silva, and Jon Jones on multiple occasions because he just won’t lose. This series has appeared at Bloody Elbow, Bleacher Report, Fightland and here at the Fight Primer but if you haven’t seen it before it’s likely because I don’t add to it often. A large part of that was that the landscape of MMA became a lot more cut throat and tumultuous. It is hard to pin down a belt for any length of time in the men’s divisions.
Khabib 101
It is probably safe to say that most MMA fans have either forgotten who Khabib Nurmagomedov was when he got to the UFC, or never saw it in the first place. After all, the fashion is to pretend that combat sambo prepares a fighter perfectly for MMA and that Nurmagomedov slotted into mixed martial arts perfectly after acquiring his sambo accolades. But looking back at the young man who fought Kamal Shalorus and Gleison Tibau in 2012 and then comparing him to the lightweight champion of today offers a stark contrast.
In those early UFC bouts Nurmagomedov spent his time jogging backwards around the ring, bumping into the fence, and dropping on his opponent’s hips as they stepped in to attack. Against Tibau he was able to push the Brazilian to the fence, but was completely ineffective from there as Tibau’s underhooks and base proved unshakeable. In failing to attack with trips and upper body techniques, Nurmagomedov would be forced to attack a single leg. When he got the leg he would try to turn and run the pipe off the fence and Tibau would hop around him, looking unimpressed. It was a fight in which Nurmagomedov attempted thirteen takedowns in fifteen minutes and achieved nought.
Whether Nurmagomedov deserved the victory over Tibau or not is only really a sticking point for those who desperately need to believe in undefeated records and that fighters are perfect out of the womb. The important point is that Nurmagomedov started working with American Kickboxing Academy after that fight and quickly began to look more like the familiar cage wrestler of today.
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Keeping the Offensive Cycle
Most often Nurmagomedov will enter on the hips with his head outside his opponent’s right hip. This allows Nurmagomedov to grind his way to upright with the right underhook already in place. This single underhook pin was vital in the success of AKA’s first UFC heavyweight champion, Cain Velasquez.
From the single underhook pin,the best outcome for Khabib is getting his hands together in a bodylock. If he can do this he can begin to impart some force on his man and bring his trips and throws into the mix. After locking his hands Nurmagomedov will step his right foot in tight and get his right hip inside of his opponent as he rotates them off the fence.
This can work out a number of ways. Darrel Horcher—who didn’t have much of a grappling background and certainly wasn’t ready for the Nurmagomedov level competition—was thrown arse over tits into bottom position. More commonly if Nurmagomedov does throw his opponent to the mat he will end up in some form of half guard.
Against most savvy opponents, however, will turn, releasing their overhook, and placing their hands on the mat. The overhook is of course what prevents the man with the bodylock from simply shucking his way behind his opponent. Getting behind the overhook is Nurmagomedov’s specialty and places him in the back bodylock. It is from here that he can repeatedly return his opponent to the mat, force them to carry his weight, and put the hooks in to look for a finish.
The other main option from the bodylock is the inside trip, which Nurmagomedov will demonstrate from time to time but often lands the fighter in closed guard against the fence. This is hardly a bad thing, but that first bodylock throw (the “DC 2” to borrow James Krause’s terminology) tends to reap higher rewards and place Nurmagomedov in position to keep attacking.
Complicating this part of Nurmagomedov’s game is something that multiple opponents have already done though. If the issue is the bodylock a fighter just needs to prevent Khabib from locking his hands. As Nurmagomedov would often shoot in low to acquire his right underhook, many opponents would spread their feet to create base and then go two-on-one on Nurmagomedov’s left hand. Some had good success gripping his wrist, others used both hands to cup underneath his triceps and elbow.
In almost all cases when his opponent committed to fighting his hands, Nurmagomedov would rip his hand back and punch his hand through for a single leg. During his early time at AKA he was still looking for the single in earnest—trying to step over his opponent’s leg and finish a traditional single. In recent years, however, he has had good success in dropping his hands, locking them under the opponent’s crotch, stepping in to pull them off the cage in the same manner as in the DC 2, and then kicking out their standing leg as they hop around onto it.
You will recall that both Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier were fighting Nurmagomedov’s hand pretty well, until he locked his hands under their crotch and launched them. One peculiar facet of the Pat Healy fight was that Nurmagomedov locked his hands under Healy’s crotch and then abandoned the lift. This could have been due to Healy’s height or at least his long legs: making the lift less like a rack pull and more like some kind of cheat curl.
This seems like a great answer to the common counter to his A game, but it is still fairly hit and miss because Nurmagomedov doesn’t have the same degree of control over his man. The key for his opponent seems to be making sure that if Nurmagomedov changes his grip to the single leg, he should be forced onto a single leg.
Take a look at Figure x—Khabib switches his grip on Iaquinta, draws him off the fence and sweeps his hopping foot. This foot sweep works in the same way that any single leg sweep works: the defending fighter’s caught leg is taken out of the way to make room to kick his standing leg. In a traditional head inside single most fighters want to take the leg to the high ankle position to kick out the standing leg.
Nurmagomedov’s sweeps are a little more like the inside trip you will see fighters hit after attempting to run the pipe on a head inside single or high crotch. They have their man hopping one way, they draw the knee up high to their side and step down the inside of it to access the standing leg. Here is Natan Schulte hitting a nice inside trip from the single leg out of a beautiful deep half sequence.
However, Nurmagomedov has lost a number of his opponents if they can force that space between his hips and their own and put him down on the single rather than inside their space and free to kick at their standing leg. After Nurmagomedov scored two successful efforts on him, Iaquinta was able to turn his knee in and use it to keep distance between himself and Nurmagomedov, limp legging out and escaping as Nurmagomedov pulled him off the cage.
When Nurmagomedov attempted the same technique of Dos Anjos, the Brazilian pummelled his foot inside of Nurmagomedov’s thigh, accomplishing the same thing as Iaquinta’s knee by maintaining the space between Nurmagomedov’s hips and Dos Anjos’ own.
If we define wrestling as the grappling portion of the fight that is on the feet, Nurmagomedov spends much of the time in his fights doing it. But much more of the fight is spent attacking the opponent’s balance and performing mat returns than is spent looking for opportunities to shoot. This is where Nurmagomedov’s oft mentioned tenacity comes in: he will take absolutely horrible shots, get sprawled out, and drive up through his opponent to stay on offence.
Ground Work
This section of Killing the King: Khabib is the part where we add the disclaimer that this is the bit you don’t even want to be thinking about. All goes well, you never see this part. But as we noted in Killing the Queen: Ronda Rousey, you cannot fight a specialist and prepare some kind of answers for their speciality. And Holly Holm’s performance against Ronda Rousey was a perfect example: she fought a masterclass on the feet and still ended up underneath Rousey but she was so well drilled in her responses to Rousey that those couple of close scrapes weren’t really that close. In fact one of the great secrets of MMA’s biggest upsets has been that if you give the champion a hard time in getting to there area of expertise, the can end up rushing and making mistakes that they otherwise wouldn’t when they get there. With that all said, let’s talk worst case scenarios.
Just as with Khabib’s wrestling, there are actually two types of ground work that the champion engages in: out in the open and along the fence. The open mat is where Nurmagomedov performs heavy pressure passing with his rump pointed at the ring lights and his shoulder driving into his opponent’s gut. While he is a controlling guard passer and will use the half nelson to shut down his opponent if they tried to turn into him, Nurmagomedov has that magic something that Fedor Emelianenko did.
In the old days I used to refer to it as “dynamic ground and pound” to differentiate it from “static ground and pound”. Sitting on people and chucking in arm punches without offering any space is important but Nurmagomedov and Fedor both became more terrifying ground and pounders by taking calculated risks or even sacrifices. Either man would stand over his opponent or pop up to knee on belly to crack in two or three real blows, acutely aware that the other man’s hips would automatically reset and put him back in guard given the space. Not only does this take enormous confidence—knowing that you will just have to begin the process of passing the guard again—but it takes incredible conditioning to even be able to.
But hand trapping is a much larger part of Nurmagomedov’s game than it ever was for Emelianenko. Khabib has become synonymous with the mounted crucifix and has a number of ways of entering it. Sometimes he’ll just smush his hips over the top of the opponent’s inside arm from side control, other times he’ll hop up to put a knee on their throat and then pin their hand to the mat with it when they try to push it off.
When you see Nurmagomedov against strong wrestlers who will let him pass guard in order to turn to their knees, he does a good job of slowing them down with the half nelson, or spinning to the back. This is of course Jiu Jitsu 101 stuff but having what the great John Smith would call “technique speed” on this fundamental transition has carried men like Marcelo Garcia and Gordon Ryan to victories almost on auto-pilot. Except for Garcia or Ryan the spin to the back is to secure the harness and become the backpack, for Nurmagomedov it is to establish himself behind the opponent then hold on to that, performing mat returns and wearing his man down until he sees fit to try something else or the round ends.
But again it was Nurmagomedov’s mastery of the fence that elevated him to the throne. The meta game of mixed martial arts now favours the wall walk so heavily that even if Nurmagomedov takes his opponent down away from the fence, they will almost invariably push themselves back onto it and allow him to commence the nasty series of attacks that he pioneered and which are now changing the sport.
As his opponent scoots to the fence, Nurmagomedov will raise their ankles and lock his feet underneath them. We used to playfully refer to this as the “lame it out” position because Josh Thomson, Johnny Hendricks, Jake Shields and Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller had all used it to hold for long periods, applying no effective offence and “laming out” the round. In truth it isn’t a great hitting position even for Nurmagomedov, but it prevents the opponent from getting up until the squirm and turn, and Nurmagomedov is able to reach around their back for the posting hand and fold them down onto it. This is what Paul Felder dubbed the “Dagestani handcuff” and everyone from Jack Hermansson to Dan Ige to Bryce Mitchell is now making excellent use of it.
It should be stressed that in trying to undo the work of Khabib Nurmagomedov, this is about the worst spot you can get to. Out in the open, Nurmagomedov relies on raw attributes and his opponent’s mistakes to get on offence. Along the fence he can begin that offensive cycle and put his opponent in a purely defensive spot. Once you are on the mat along the fence, you have to get up before you can do anything and he’s going to slow that down and hit you at every chance. What do you win when you get back up? You’re standing up into the clinch along the fence anyway and for all your thrashing you’ve just managed to swim slightly further out from the water circling the drain.
Before we poo-poo the wall walk altogether it is worth noting that Tyron Woodley had some great success answering Gilbert Burns’ attempt at catching the far wrist.
This writer believes that there will be further developments in the cage wrestling game, but certainly cannot predict them. We have been through various phases. Tito Ortiz took opponents to the fence, Chuck Liddell got up on the fence, and it has been a back and forth battle in the MMA meta game ever since. Right now, answers to Nurmagomedov have not been forthcoming and for this reason it would be good to see some fighters try to avoid this one area of combat altogether.
For some time we have been talking about Mansour Barnaoui and his interesting approach to the bottom game. Barnaoui is by no means a jiu jitsu savant but he has a good half guard that he can reliably recover, and he uses the twist sweep to create scrambles. The twist sweep is itself a counter to pressure passing and against Shamil Zavurov—Khabib’s teammate and cousin—Barnaoui was able to sweep time and time again.
This is not to focus on the twist sweep: which is aided by Barnaoui’s lanky build and iron grip on wrist control, but rather that Barnaoui will turn himself off the fence when he is put near it. Does he want to be stuck on the bottom? No. But he recognizes that in many of his match ups, cage walking will only slow him down. And that’s the giant flaw that has been exposed in the wall walk really: it is slow and it can be made slower. Almost everyone can get up at some point against Nurmagomedov, the problem is that it takes a whole round of struggling and getting hit in the face to do so.
In A Filthy Casual’s Guide to Freak Guards we also discussed Nik Lentz and Armen Tsurukyan turning off the fence and using the butterfly guard against Islam Makhachev. Where Lentz looked for sweeps which never came and got caught up in chasing guillotines, Tsurukyan was able to use hook sweep attempts to turn to his knees and come up on scrappy singles.
With that butt high, head low style of forcing the half guard and passing that Nurmagomedov favours there was a great deal of intrigue in a match up with Tony Ferguson. A man who rarely wall walks, fights with his feet on the opponent’s hips a lot of the time, and elbows continuously to good effect from the bottom.
Being a great guard player in MMA is like turning up to a high jump meet with a beautiful scissor kick: it requires you to invest a lot of time in a less effective way of competing. It would be fascinating to see someone with Ryan Hall’s level of comfort on the bottom against Nurmagomedov—particularly as Hall likes to play his guard with feet on the chest rather than the knee shield that Nurmagomedov so regularly stands over and smashes punches through. Upkicks against a kneeling opponent are obviously sorely missed in modern MMA, but feet on the chest can be of great use and some fighters like Ben Saunders will take advantage of the legality of upkicks to the chest to wind the opponent and make space.
With all the discussion we have given to leg entanglements lately you might expect that to factor into the answer for Nurmagomedov, but it’s hard to enter on legs when the opponent won’t even show them. Much of Nurmagomedov’s passing is in that Demian Maia arse-high, head low style. But this brings us to something Davi Ramos showed in the last minute or two of his losing effort against Islam Makhachev. He turned off the fence with Makhachev in his guard, scooped his hand underneath him and caught inside of Makhachev’s leg, and slid his knees in front of Makhachev’s chest.
This is what is called “K-control” or “K-guard” and it’s still somewhat unproven at the high levels of MMA, but Neil Melanson got the idea from Karo Parisyan who used it briefly to stop Georges St. Pierre hitting him from the guard. Grappling savant and all around lovely guy, Lachlan Giles also likes the K-guard for entering on legs. The most recent quality showing it got in MMA was probably when Rafael Lovato gassed out against Gegard Mousasi and used the K-guard to invert, threaten legs, and swing back with triangle attempts all while making Mousasi’s job of finishing a little harder. The K-guard probably saved Lovato in that round.
The reason the K-guard intrigues against Khabib is that it anchors the fighter to the leg, while placing a shield in front of the top man’s upper body. It serves to keep the top fighter’s body somewhat vertical and hinders sprawling out or tripoding to smash pass. It is when fighters stand from inside the K-guard that leg attacks and sweeps become a threat. Are you going to submit Khabib Nurmagomedov from K-control? Almost definitely not. But he ends up in closed guard along the fence a lot, and if your options are 1) stay in closed guard and get thumped or 2) open your guard, scoot back to the fence and immediately get your ankles caught, why not say “fuck it, try some K-guard”?
Nurmagomedov doesn’t take breaks and doesn’t like being static, if you take K-control grips on him there’s a great chance he’ll try to stand just to make something happen and give you a bit more space than if you were trying to hold closed guard or come up on a single from the knee shield.
A final thought in this section on “fighting inside a frying pan” is the viability of the kimura. Where you will see a lot of fighters now turning their back in a standing position along the fence and using the kimura or separating the hands, you won’t see people doing it against Nurmagomedov. If you give Khabib the back body lock his elbows are flush to your sides and he’s off balancing you at all times. It’s not the best time to try out your Sakuraba impression.
Multiple fighters have been able to lock the kimura grip from the bottom against Nurmagomedov and then sat there trying to wrench it free while he puts a knee on their head and rips his arm away. The kimura as a means to turn in and begin standing still seems intriguing though. Getting the grip, forcing Nurmagomedov to lock his hands, and then using the knee shield or a butterfly hook to push away and turn to the knees towards Nurmagomedov. This is purely speculative but by getting Nurmagomedov to clasp his hands in front of his body and then turning to the knees, a fighter might be able to avoid that brutal back body lock or the wrist rides that Nurmagomedov immediately takes as his opponents got to the turtle, and begin to stand up.
Obviously, Kazushi Sakuraba used to do this a lot, but another interesting example is this instance from Matt Lindland against Quinton Jackson. Because Jackson is defending his arm, Lindland is able to go to his knees and Jackson takes the high crotch rather than trying to open his arms and grab a back bodylock. This writer has been playing with using the knee shield on the biceps of the opponent’s free arm in order to offer more encouragement to attack the high crotch on the way up. Here Lindland immediately changes off to a switch, which is gorgeous, but it’s just another idea for getting up without giving up Khabib’s absolute favourite position.
Striking