The upcoming UFC 223 main event looks is due to feature Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Tony Ferguson on April 7 2018. These two guys have proven themselves to have the incredible ability to get the W with Khabib proving especially dominant in the last few fights.
While Khabib's takedowns have been spectaculor I think there is an overlooked fact that we actually have not seen him grapple on the ground against top brazilian jiu jitsu black belts and while Ferguson is not a specialist, I think it will be interesting to see how he is able to control Tony on the ground.
What we have seen little of is actaul pure grappling from Khabib and looking back to Fedor's days, it has been especially worrying when Sambo fighters have claimed that Sambo and wrestling was sufficient in terms of ground game for MMA. I would argue there are nuances to the ground game that arent covered. For example you are definitely not going to see a great passing game from a pure sambo player and on the bottom, sambo fighters have very basic guard retention skills.
If we look back to Fedor's days he had great trouble with Ricardo Arona in Rings and then when Bigfoot started passing he showed very little in terms of both guard skills. He had this great arm bar but when tough BJJ guys reversed the position and got on top he had very basic defenses.
In Khabib's case I think his top game is very strong and it would be difficult to easily sweep him but I would argue that all three of Khabib's last opponents were mainly strikers and I think he should watch out with Tony even if he gets his favoured half guard position.
From what i've seen Khabib's passing game is based on setting up passes with strikes but in some of the grappling videos in Naga floating around on the internet it really looks like he did struggle to pass the guard in a pure grappling environment. It could be that he does not need this skill as he is not really looking for submissions but I would be curious to see from the ground game stand point he is able to actually improve position on the ground.
In Russia & Dagestan BJJ and Grappling is still in its early days as far as I understand and although there are some good submission grapplers around, I would be curious to see what is the ground game level in some of these places where Khabib trains at back home.
While Khabib's takedowns have been spectaculor I think there is an overlooked fact that we actually have not seen him grapple on the ground against top brazilian jiu jitsu black belts and while Ferguson is not a specialist, I think it will be interesting to see how he is able to control Tony on the ground.
What we have seen little of is actaul pure grappling from Khabib and looking back to Fedor's days, it has been especially worrying when Sambo fighters have claimed that Sambo and wrestling was sufficient in terms of ground game for MMA. I would argue there are nuances to the ground game that arent covered. For example you are definitely not going to see a great passing game from a pure sambo player and on the bottom, sambo fighters have very basic guard retention skills.
If we look back to Fedor's days he had great trouble with Ricardo Arona in Rings and then when Bigfoot started passing he showed very little in terms of both guard skills. He had this great arm bar but when tough BJJ guys reversed the position and got on top he had very basic defenses.
In Khabib's case I think his top game is very strong and it would be difficult to easily sweep him but I would argue that all three of Khabib's last opponents were mainly strikers and I think he should watch out with Tony even if he gets his favoured half guard position.
From what i've seen Khabib's passing game is based on setting up passes with strikes but in some of the grappling videos in Naga floating around on the internet it really looks like he did struggle to pass the guard in a pure grappling environment. It could be that he does not need this skill as he is not really looking for submissions but I would be curious to see from the ground game stand point he is able to actually improve position on the ground.
In Russia & Dagestan BJJ and Grappling is still in its early days as far as I understand and although there are some good submission grapplers around, I would be curious to see what is the ground game level in some of these places where Khabib trains at back home.
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