~ Aleksandar Rakić ~

Crunch Time for Light Heavyweight's New Hope

Aleksandar Rakić is a low flying prospect in the light heavyweight division. Dominick Reyes is still the thinking man’s challenger for Jon Jones, and Johnny Walker is still distracting those who like shiny, spinning things, but Rakic made a bit of a splash for himself in June when his shin bone clacked off Jimi Manuwa’s head to score one of the nastiest head kick knockouts since Mirko Filipovic’s PRIDE days.

Of course, that knockout happened a couple of seconds into the biggest fight of Rakic’s career. Obviously not every fight is going to go that way. Saying that, this is light heavyweight, where Volkan Oezdemir and Johnny Walker managed to put together impressive streaks just by spazzing out at their opponents in the opening seconds. But the rest of Rakić’s fights in the UFC give us some interesting insight to his style and his habits.

Rakić is a kicker—a powerful and dexterous one—and those are as scarce as rooster teeth in the upper divisions. Two hundred pound men who can throw high kicks are inherently scary, but two hundred pound men who can comfortably throw kicks when takedowns are permitted pose a problem that most light heavyweights and heavyweights can spend a whole career never having to deal with. Watch any of Rakić’s fights and you will see it only takes him a couple of good low kicks—the traditional kind, on the thigh—to change the face of a bout.

While he is constantly billed as a kickboxer, Rakić has adapted to the grappling game nicely. When taken down by Clark and Barroso, Rakić was able to rebound fairly quickly and use two-on-one wrist controls to break away. Even when his opponents held onto him they were often not able to do much because if they moved a grip he would stiff arm it off and circle out. Rakić was also able to apply his top game well against Justin Ledet, landing heavy ground and pound, passing, and even flattening Ledet onto that far wrist ride that Khabib Nurmagomedov has been beating people senseless in.

Something that is a little disconcerting about Rakic’s style is his almost absent lead hand for much of the time he is in the cage. To act as though that having a low lead hand is a terrible sin and a disaster waiting to happen is often a bit melodramatic because there are so many ways to hang your hand low and still look after yourself. The part that is concerning is that Rakic seems to have no regard for the path of his opponent’s right hand at many points in his bouts.

Much of boxing is built around the line of the right hand: that path from your man’s right shoulder to your own face. The very first documented developments in the sport of fist fighting were the use of a bladed stance and the extended lead arm. You know it as that old school pose you adopt for comedic affect, accompanied by the phrase “put ‘em up.” The entire concept of stance and guard as it developed was built around obstructing that line. When two textbook orthodox boxers get set to fight you will notice that each man’s lead shoulder is normally placed inside his opponent’s rear shoulder—the goal being to establish a line up the middle with his jab inside of the opponent’s right. Obviously right hands to the head land all the time in boxing as fighters use movement and combinations to change the line or clear the obstruction, but the science of boxing developed around making them more difficult to score. Obstructions to the right hand can be the left glove, the left forearm, the left shoulder, but the goal is to hold a stance where scoring the right hand off the bat is difficult.

Rakic’s lead hand is waved in front of him and then dropped with such rhythm and regularity that it is clearly more a habit than a choice. When Rakic throws one of his biting low low kicks, his left arm is nowhere to be seen. Where having a visible guard isn’t always the answer, some kind of protection while kicking is generally a must. There is no advantage to kicking with your hands down. Every form of competitive kickboxing teaches some form of protection while kicking. You can have the lead hand up-and-out as is common in most Muay Thai gyms. Or you can have the lead hand swinging back to counter-act the force of the kick, as is popular in various kickboxing and karate styles, and in this style the rear arm arm folds across as a guard.

The purpose is, again, to obstruct the path of the opponent’s power hand, because the single tidiest counter to rear leg round kicks is to step up the inside with a right straight. In Rakic’s short UFC run he has already found himself in trouble from this fundamental counter several times—Devin Clark ran right through him at the opening bell and it seemed as though the only thing that kept Barroso from seriously hurting Rakic was Rakic being right on the end of Barroso’s awkward swings.

Much of Rakić’s most effective work in his fights has come when he has backed his opponent onto the fence. The difference between Rakić’s work out in the open against Borroso, and when he had Borroso against the cage was night and day. On the front foot along the cage there are some shades of Paulo Costa’s game: putting the opponent along the fence so that they cannot retreat from the kicks. If the opponent wants to move—which is generally the best idea when cornered—they have a 50/50 chance of moving into the kick. Watching Rakić throw in kicks along the fence is incredibly satisfying, and he also uses the right straight to the body as his opponents square up along the cage, a tactic which will always win this writer over.

But the low and loose hands have already proven to be a liability. In studying Rakić my first thought was that if an opponent could back him towards the fence with a double jab or some feints, he could be ripe for a long one-two or a double jab into right straight. This is because he so reliably drops his lead hand and shoulder seemingly in rhythm rather than in accordance with the distance between him and his opponent. Much of what saves him out in the open is his height and the distance as he leans back—both of which can be chewed up with cage position and feints.

While the line of the right straight is the main concern a lot of Rakić’s boxing is pretty reckless. His lack of a defence that isn’t reliant on leaning back saw him nailed hard by Devin Clark as he circled along the cage.

Rakić will often throw overhands with his skull a foot in front of his hips and his non-punching hand is almost always at his chest, and from Borroso to Ledet, he has eaten hard counters. He took them and carried on, but even granite chins cannot be relied upon.

One interesting look that opened up more questions about Rakić was his use of a southpaw stance against Justin Ledet. Going southpaw allowed Rakić to open up with powerful inside low kicks and threaten the body kick and high kick on the open side. Obviously, he knows his targets, because when Barroso went southpaw for a couple of seconds in their bout, Rakić’s right shin went to Barroso’s body like it was pulled by a magnet.

But southpaw could be a good look for Rakić in the future. Gokhan Saki found himself relying on his southpaw stance more in MMA despite seldom using it in kickboxing. Israel Adesanya is a switch hitter but does a lot of his best kicking from southpaw. Ultimately this links back to Cro Cop’s philosophy—if you kick a leg you can be taken down, or eat a good check and injure yourself, but it only takes one good kick to the head or body. Yet the head and body kicks tend to be far more available on the open side. Of course, the knockout kick against Manuwa was in fact a left kick on the open side, which Rakić stepped through into.

Rakić has gone southpaw in his fights often enough that it seems an aspect he is comfortable using in his game and not just something he did once on a whim. As he comes to face better wrestlers and better rounded fighters, adopting the southpaw stance and eschewing the heavy low kicks he has made his name with could benefit Rakić enormously. The barrier of the lead knees and crossed swords of the lead hands could protect Rakić from some of his defensive flaws in the pocket by creating a longer distance, sharpshooting dynamic. And the greater distance between his hips and his opponent’s—feeding the single if they duck in on his hips—could set him up better against wrestlers without having to actually improve his wrestling considerably.

On Saturday night, Rakić meets Volkan Oezdemir. Oezdemir is coming off a pretty impressive showing against Ilir Latifi, where he used his jab, the low-low kick, intercepting knees, and left hooks to take the Swede apart. Oezdemir is also one fight removed from a bout against Dominick Reyes—where he made the light heavyweight division’s super prospect look very average by taking him through every phase of the fight in each of the rounds. Barring a traditional light heavyweight freakish early knockout, Rakić will either have to show us his abilities in areas he usually isn’t tested, or prove that he has a way to funnel the fight into his minimalist—but exceptionally dangerous—set of skills.