The Tactical Guide to Israel Adesanya vs Jan Blachowicz

The number of “double champs” in the UFC’s recent history might distract from the fact that going up a weight class in mixed martial arts is no small feat. MMA does not yet have the intermediary weight classes that exist in boxing for fighters to grow through, collecting silverware en route. In the UFC a jump up in weight class means you either commit to gaining some serious mass or you come in assuredly smaller than your opponent—who is almost guaranteed to be drying themselves out like a raisin just to make the top limit on the scale.

It speaks to the regard that MMA fans hold Israel Adesanya in that at the time of writing some major betting sites have his opponent—UFC light heavyweight champion, Jan Blachowicz—as a two-to-one underdog. But whether you believe Adesanya’s striking is simply “levels above” Blachowicz’s or you delve into the minutia of their fighting habits, it is difficult not to see this as a tough match up for Blachowicz.

Jan Blachowicz’s chances in this fight are mostly thought to be his power and his ability to land that power in spite of some of the goofiest striking form you will see in MMA. Perhaps it is a result of his top-heavy build but Blachowicz seems to be able to generate a terrific thud on swings that look to come mostly from the shoulder. The blows that Blachowicz used to crack Luke Rockhold, Corey Anderson and Thiago Santos coming out of the clinch simply couldn’t have much leg drive behind them and those men still came away grimacing. He also does a decent job of catching opponents as they come in—as when he starched Corey Anderson mid kick, or stumbled Luke Rockhold towards the end of the first round with a counter uppercut that evaded most fans even on the slow motion replay.

The difficulties Blachowicz will face in this fight come down to the amount of time it takes him to get his reads even against very straight forward strikers, and the massive defensive overreactions he often makes. Oddly the latter trait is something that has become even more marked in recent years. Blachowicz has reached for punches time and time again against opponents as varied as Cannonier, Anderson and Reyes. Almost anything thrown at Blachowicz—unless he’s completely certain he can time a counter—sees Blachowicz retreat and reach to parry.

This seems like it might be one of those “belt and braces” situations: like lifting the lead leg to check a middle kick against a southpaw—you get a bit more bone behind the block and you protect yourself if it turns out to be a sneaky low kick. Except parrying punches and retreating serve conflicting goals. When you retreat out of range you make counter attacking trickier, but you have safely removed yourself from the opponent’s path. Retreating out of range is a terrific way to start getting a read on an opponent and forcing him to cycle through his favourite methods of leading. Parrying blows means committing a hand in order to either palm or knock an opponent’s punch off course, with the goal of staying in range to take advantage.

A great deal of Adesanya’s game is overwhelming the opponent with feints, jabs, and hip pumps that are indistinguishable from legitimate kicks, so retreating with the arms out like a cartoon mummy seems like one of the very worst habits a fighter could bring into a bout against the middleweight champ.

This is likely to be even more of an issue as Blachowicz—while a heavy kicker in his own right—responds to his opponent’s kicks by simply absorbing them. Luke Rockhold and Dominick Reyes would punt Blachowicz’s arms and he—without returning—would consider that a successful defence. Worse still, when they front kicked, he would eat the kick until he didn’t like it and then start reaching down to it. The one thing that almost anyone can tell you about Adesanya is that he is an avid front kicker and one of MMA’s most successful question mark kickers—turning over the front kick or round kick to the body and making it into a high round kick. The obvious contrast of Blachowicz’s overreactions to kicks and Adesanya’s misdirection through kicks would be considered too on-the-nose even if this bout were unfolding on an episode of Hajime no Ippo or Baki.

Then there is Blachowicz’s tendency to lead with his face and run after opponents. While Thiago Santos is the only man to have stopped Blachowicz in his tracks, this habit is especially noticeable against southpaws. While Jan has a decent jab, he throws it in the slop bucket the moment the opponent puts their right foot forward. But rather than trying to sneak down the outside of the lead foot and shoot right straights—the classic southpaw 101—he instead lunges in with wild right swings. Against Dominick Reyes, every lead made by Jan was begun with an overarm swat.

Even against orthodox fighters, Blachowicz loves to invent bizarre new ways to swing his arms. He often leads with rear handed uppercuts only to charge through afterwards. These are the kind of habits that are generally disastrous against quality counter fighters, but have also allowed Blachowicz to catch many of his opponents by surprise. These kind of face-led charges are a real concern against Adesanya however, as he stopped Robert Whittaker and Paulo Costa with counter hooks as he drew them forward on straight lines.

Blachowicz’s chances improve considerably if he can get Adesanya into a straight trade of blows. Jan’s last opponent, Dominick Reyes, tried to get in one punch too many on the Pole and found himself looking at the ring lights as Blachowicz simply took his shots and clubbed back with alternate hands. But we are talking a trade of blows, not Blachowicz swinging wildly after Adesanya’s head and eating counters, and this circles us back around the to problem we discuss each and every time Israel Adesanya fights: ringcraft.

When he is out in the centre of the cage, Adesanya can retreat, pull his head back while flinging out counter hooks, and angle off into either stance on either side of his opponent. When he gets close to the fence, Adesanya will direction change, hip fake, and circle out the side door before his opponent can get stuck in with blows.

And every time we examine an Adesanya fight we come to the conclusion that the man who isn’t Adesanya should want the fight by the fence and do everything he can to make it happen there. This is because when he is against the fence Izzy’s stance flattens out. If he gets stuck there he cannot adopt the long stance and pull his head away, and retreat is not an option. At this point we always reiterate that kicking the legs is the best idea along the fence because—while knocking Adesanya out with a perfect hook or high kick as he circles against the cage is entirely possible—it is best to prepare for an opponent who will do the correct thing, and when it comes to ringcraft Israel Adesanya does the correct thing a dishearteningly high percentage of the time.

Blachowicz is the polar opposite though. To conjure an image from the great Douglas Adams, Blachowicz might well be the world’s only “holistic fighter”—he makes all the wrong decisions and somehow the right conclusion arrives to him anyway. Take his fight with Dominick Reyes as an example: Reyes spent the bout circling away from Blachowicz’s lead leg, looking to stretch out Blachowicz’s right hand and counter over the top. So what did Blachowicz do? He led exclusively with long, swinging right hands, and chased Reyes with step up left kicks that Reyes was actively circling away from whenever they landed.

And yet those kicks still gouged out what looked like a gunshot wound on Reyes’ right flank before he was starched in the second round. Yet you have to imagine that doing the same thing against Adesanya—who circled off Paulo Costa’s kicks, snatched them up, and then countered in rapid combinations—would be a horrible idea.

Low kicking is also the best course of action against Adesaya out in the open. When he pulls away and retreats, his trailing leg is always the last thing to leave striking range and his extended stance means that when his weight is leaving that trailing foot it can be tapped out of line, opening up the opportunity for a follow up. The few times Robert Whittaker and Paulo Costa got Adesanya retreating and threw a low kick, they landed. Of course Adesanya’s magic is in convincing his opponent that low kicks are a waste of time and that they might have him in one punch if they can just get to his chin… which is always just a little out of reach.

Even if a follow up cannot be achieved, regularly throwing hands and running up into low kicks should result in Adesanya’s movement slowing over time by 1) bruising up his legs or 2) making him stay in position to check or retract his lead leg—both of which make big head movements and footwork tougher to perform.

The worst case scenario in this fight is that Blachowicz approaches it in the same way that he did his fights with Anderson and Reyes—if he stands and stares at Adesanya. Paulo Costa tried to wait on Adesanya but found that he couldn’t score counters and that Adesanya didn’t agree to partaking in the staring contest. Adesanya will feed feints and pound in front kicks from southpaw, and play the double attack of calf kick and jab from orthodox. Jabbing with Adesanya—that is palming, parrying or slipping Adesanya’s jab as Blachowicz throws his own—would be a good shout, but is complicated by the frequency of Adesanya’s feints and the threat of the low kick. The last thing Blachowicz wants is to be blading his stance to jab and eating the calf kick or having his knee buckled in as happened to Costa several times.

Blachowicz might be well served to raise the lead leg and try to wedge his way in. This is what Jorge Masvidal did against Donald Cerrone and Diego Ferreira did against Mairbek Taisumov and Anthony Pettis. Exaggerate every step into range as a high knee raise, and jab on the way down. It’s not the best way to sneak in a knockout blow, but it’s a way to slowly and steadily chew up distance while taking away some of the nastier kicking connections. It’s a case of simply repeating that shelling up and closing until Adesanya lingers long enough for a trade. Maybe Adesanya still sparks Blachowicz in the trade, but that’s the kind of kickboxing match that Blachowicz probably stands the best chance in. It is also a method of closing in off kicks that doesn’t require the technical smoothness of a catch or a parry and return.

Then there is the clinch. Unlike boxing and kickboxing, MMA gives you the option to physically push into a clinch and move the man to the fence on your own terms. Adesanya has been largely faultless in his wrestling since he arrived in the UFC but this shouldn’t be seen as an excuse to not even try. Adesanya’s wrestling is largely based on using the wall to prop himself up and then pummel his way out. It’s solid, sound stuff, done well. But some of Blachowicz’s best magic has come from hitting on the break with sneakers. Against Rockhold most notably, but in many of his UFC bouts, Blachowicz has come out of the clinch swinging and—by perhaps being the world’s hardest “arm puncher,” he has done some damage in this way. Entering clinches, working the cage wall, and hitting hard when Adesanya begins to escape could be a great way to score power blows to the head if Blachowicz cannot hinder Adesanya’s movement enough to land out in the open.

Furthermore the clinch is not a foregone conclusion. Adesanya has gone up in weight to compete in kickboxing and did well there, but that was largely his finesse. While some are obsessing over whether Adesanya can handle “light heavyweight power,” the more pressing question might be how much difference is there between a chubbed up welterweight Kelvin Gastelum trying to take him down and the certifiably gigantic Jan Blachowicz. Blachowicz didn’t look too dazzling when he wrestled against former heavyweight, Nikita Krylov and that was a scrambly match, but against Luke Rockhold—a very strong wrestler at middleweight—Blachowicz was an immovable lump.

Ultimately, Jan Blachowicz seems up against it in the stylistic match up. His slow starts, his reaching for strikes, his refusal to do anything about his opponent’s kicks, his bum rushes—all seem tailor made for Israel Adesanya. But these giant, glaring flaws in Jan Blachowicz are nothing new. In fact it is hard to work out just how this unusual, awkward fighter turned his 2-4 start in the UFC into an 8-1 run over the last four years. But the belt is around his waist and cleaner technicians like Dominick Reyes lay in his wake. Maybe there is a place for the magic of the hanged man’s rope in MMA, or maybe power and true, unflinching grit can simply never be counted out.