The Tactical Guide to Alexander Volkanovski vs Movsar Evloev
Diego Lopes brought nothing new to his second crack at Alexander Volkanovski, and the old lion made an example of him for having the pigheadedness to try the same thing twice. In the meantime, the featherweight division was able to sort itself out. The Volkanovski - Lopes rematch was questionable, but it sold because it carried some name value and the prospect of excitement. Movsar Evloev, the man who has come out on top of the featherweight pile-up has no name value, and is—perhaps unfairly—maligned for his zero finishes in the UFC.
Yet in an era where the UFC is cutting elite competitors like Farid Basharat and Muhammad Mokaev for their fighting styles, Evloev remains the undeniable bit of grit in the idea. He is that beautiful and occasionally frustrating truth at the centre of this entire enterprise: the winners fight winners until one comes out on top. Evloev’s victories may have all been decisions (some of them debatable) but in signing to defend the belt against him, Volkanovski stands up as the ideal that is supposed to govern this sport, bucking the trend in perhaps its most cynical and dishonest era to date.
Fighting’s Best Documented Mystery
In Movsar Evloev, I am reminded of the great bodybuilder, Dorian Yates. Once Yates won his first Mr. Olympia, he was notorious for hiding from public view and further competition until the same time the next year. Yates worked out with just his training partner, behind closed doors, in a full tracksuit, hiding his progress from the world. Every year he would turn up to the Olympia and stun his opposition and the judges, looking even bigger than the last time he had won.
Evloev has made his way to this opportunity on a relatively light body of work. In his UFC run he has averaged just over one fight a year. He fights so infrequently that you watch him compete, think you are getting the read on him and how he is developing, and he turns up to his next fight having adjusted his game in a completely different direction.
In his first few UFC fights, Evloev was defined by a sensational jab. Everything else he did around it looked janky but he had the keystone of a good boxing game. Then, as he developed and became more comfortable striking with better opposition, that jab got relegated to a supporting role. His fight with Lerone Murphy was lauded as a great showing of his striking but his desire to swing in combination and kick the body meant that his brilliant jab became a supporting player. You will see fighters swing freely on lower level opposition and hide behind a good jab when they start meeting other fighters who know what they are doing, but it is rare to see it happen the other way around.
Fig. 1
Evloev had the intangibles, if not the mechanics. He still suffers from the same flaw in form that allowed Muhammad Ali to get outjabbed by Ken Norton, his right hand is always down by his chest, so if his opponent jabs at the same time as him, Evloev gets jabbed himself.
This was not a huge problem because Evloev discovered and perfected the feint. Our mantra is that the feints must look like the strikes and the strikes must look like the feints. A few weeks ago the highly accomplished kickboxer, Cong Wang spent an entire UFC title fight headbanging feints at Natalia Silva in a way that looked nothing like any of her real strikes. Evloev has worked it out though: a small step towards the opponent and a slight level change. In Figure 2, Enrique Barzola flails wildly to parry a strike that doesn’t come.
Fig. 2
Figure 3 takes place seconds later. Evloev shows another, subtler feint, and Barzola thrusts himself into a jab that falls short and leaves him out of position. This sort of feinting makes it easier to get the opponent to keep his hands to himself when you step in for real.
Fig. 3
Evloev is also a major proponent of the double jab. Even in the less jab-heavy Murphy performance, he flicked the double jab to move Murphy across the cage. But a few years ago, his jab was so much more developed than the rest of his game that he was happy to poke out two or three stiff ones just to make sure he was close enough to throw his often cumbersome right hand. Figure 4 shows a picture perfect double jab into one of the better right hands of Evloev’s career: the kind of cross that old timers harp on about with head transitioning from rear to lead foot, and the punch traveling only eight inches.
Fig. 4
Going back to his fight with Enrique Barzola, it seemed as though Evloev might have been on the way to becoming a Willie Pep clone with wrestling. He was all jabs, feints, and Pep Steps. That is, stepping his lead foot back to level, sidestepping around to the left, and re-engaging with a southpaw left straight as the opponent follows. Refer to Advanced Striking 2.0 – Willie Pep for more on that sort of movement. Evloev ate Barzola alive with this look and then, when he returned to the cage nine months later, he never showed it again.
In Figure 5, Evloev retracts his left foot to sidestep to his left with his feet level (a), (b). As Barzola follows, Evloev steps back in on Barzola, leading with his right foot this time (c). Evloev skewers Barzola with the left straight (d), shifts through to throw an orthodox right uppercut (e), and pivots off around his left foot (f).
Fig. 5
Similarly, Evloev gravitated to Pep’s long right uppercut. As Evloev discarded his old parts and plugged in new ones, the uppercut survived. He lands it well on the counter off an outside slip, provided he can get the opponent jabbing with him. Figure 6 shows a counter right uppercut where Evloev slips the jab (b), lands the uppercut (c), and shifts through to throw a southpaw right hook at Nik Lentz.
Fig. 6
The uppercut is also a weapon that Evloev uses extensively from collar ties and clinches, and this brings us to Evloev’s punch-and-clutch game.
Punch and Clutch
Before MMA fighters learned to jab, nervous wrestlers learned the rudiments and were told to “jab and shoot.” This meant flashing the longest punch from beyond range and level changing for a takedown—hoping that the opponent would bring both arms up in panic. As we graduated from strikers versus grapplers to all around fighters, that stopped working so well.
Punch-and-clutch is a tactic from boxing wherein you throw a power punch, that is any of the ones that aren’t the jab, and fall in on your opponent to mitigate the sizeable window you leave for a counter.
Punch and clutch has always been a brilliant way to enter on takedowns in MMA because it forces the punching fighter to get closer in. It also demands less of him technically than a convincing jab, and the punch might actually matter. The king of punch and clutch was Fedor Emelianenko, who used his right hand to weave in on upper body clinches and his terrific morote-gari / standing double leg. Gunnar Nelson was a much less threatening wrestler but hid his deficiencies with punch and clutch.
Fig. 7
Evloev’s method of punch and clutch is peculiar because it only occasionally carries him into a tight upper body clinch by weaving him in under the opponent’s armpit. Instead he swings a big right hand, leaning well off to his left side, and then comes in low at the opponent’s hips. It is not at all uncommon for him to continue the right hand and dive onto the mat by the opponent’s feet to pick up a single leg.
Fig. 8
The uppercut comes in here when Evloev throws his loopy right hand, dips in at the opponent’s hips, and the opponent throws their hips back to avoid a takedown attempt. Evloev comes up into a collar tie and begins hammering them with the uppercut. He had a wonderful time using this against Mike Grundy.
We often call the uppercut a counterpunch that counters posture, rather than countering a specific strike. Any time the opponent’s head is forward of their hips, they are vulnerable to the uppercut, and this means the uppercut has terrific interplay with level changes, as the opponent retracts his lead leg and tries to get his lower extremities away but leaves his head hanging out. Evloev’s collar tie uppercuts are a less dynamic, mauling variation of the Chad Mendes level change to uppercut set up.
The Wrestling
This brings us to the man Movsar Evloev is challenging for the title, Alexander Volkanovski. The featherweight king is some years removed from his best days, but eighty-five percent of one of the greatest fighters of all time is still too much for most of the featherweights who have ever put on the gloves. Moreover, Volkanovski has only looked troubled by massive punchers. His conditioning, his wrestling and his ability to fight to a gameplan are still almost nonpareil. Against Evloev he also finds himself in the fun position of having more firepower. The last time Volk found himself packing the big iron on his hip was probably his third fight with Max Holloway: a performance so good that fans want it preserved in the Library of Congress as a record of Volkanovski at his zenith.
The wrestling is especially compelling in this match-up because Evloev has not been an unstoppable force, rather a slightly more sustainable one. When Evloev shoots he tends to have to come up on a single leg and chain wrestle through to a finish after much back and forth. Against elite opposition—Sterling, Murphy, Allen—it is not uncommon that as he goes through this chain wrestling, they hop and stumble their way onto the fence, and then he cannot reliably convert it into top time.
In a world where all the “evs” and “ovs” of Russian MMA are cage wrestling their way to wins, Evloev is at his best in the open mat and decidedly less of a force when facing the cage walking game that has been commonplace in high level MMA for a decade or more. When he wrestled Dan Ige at the fence, he looked middling. When he got Ige down in the middle of the cage, he battered Ige for a full five minute round, completely flat. It was even more stark because in the third round they wrestled at the fence again and the bloodied and bruised Ige did fine.
In addition to simply being a very good wrestler, Volkanovski has two tactics in that might make Evloev’s task a slog: his head-to-fence game, and his whizzer get up.
Every week we see fighters concede the back bodylock against the fence to defend a takedown, or build up to that position from the mat. The goal is then to separate the hands and turn back in. For instance, Cory Sandhagen is a master at that. The man with the back bodylock wants to either trip his opponent to the floor or step around the side of him and run him down with a mat return or lift.
Figure 9 shows Dan Ige standing with his shoulder to the fence, fighting the hands. Evloev steps around Ige’s leg, off balances him, and lifts him, dumping him on the mat.
Fig. 9
The curious thing that Volkanovski found, and demonstrated emphatically against the great Islam Makhachev, was that if he kept the top of his head pressed into the fence and his rump pointing directly towards the centre of the cage, he could continue fighting the hands but removed many of Makhachev’s offensive options. If Makhachev stepped around the side of Volk’s leg, he could not drive Volkanovski over it and run him down towards his head, or create a lift.
Figure 10 shows the moment when Makhachev did try to heave Volk back and fell almost underneath the smaller fighter.
Fig. 10
Figure 11 picks up the action as Volkanovski turns his hips over and completes the whizzer get-up we will be examining later.
Fig. 11
In many ways this position is reminiscent of Kazushi Sakuraba sticking his head out of the ring under the top rope and giving the Royce Gracie nothing to work with. In both cases, pulling the man backwards seems like a logical solution, but he is leaning into the cage or through the ropes, his weight isn’t budging easily. In fact, revisiting that fight to find a still of Sakuraba with his head through the ropes reminded me that Sakuraba did in fact adopt the Volkanovski position against the ring pad for minutes at a time to separate the hands and hunt for his kimura.
Fig. 12
When Ige faced into the cage, and did not give Evloev the chance to run him parallel to the fence and move his weight, Evloev was pushed to the limits of his knowledge to get Ige off his feet. He had similar trouble with Arnold Allen and Lerone Murphy at several points in their fights. One move he attempts is the Tani-Otoshi or “Valley Drop” that Petr Yan and Donald Cerrone both loved. Switching the feet and pulling the opponent backwards over them. But he struggled to get Ige’s weight out of the fence and Ige stumbled around the trip and back to the fence.
Fig. 13
Contrast that with a successful example of a similar trip against Sterling. This time Evloev doesn’t switch his feet, but instead “stands on” Sterling’s feet as he pulls him backwards. Aljo had his head in the fence, but then let Evloev pull him back away from it, and instead of getting back to position, began trying to back elbow him. This goes down well with the fans, but not the judges.
Fig. 14
Evloev has demonstrated one interesting answer to the Volk Position in his fights. In Figure 15 he performs an ankle ride by hooking the opponent’s leg low, pulling it out, and kneeling down on top of it. This breaks them down to the turtle briefly, but it might be more important for what happens next.
Fig. 15
In Figure 16, Arnold Allen immediately jumps up to the same defensive position on the fence, but Evloev is still sat on his ankle and has his hands locked around Allen. As Allen jumps up, Evloev slides his locked hands down to the thigh (b), then stands up with the ankle he his sitting on and double legs Allen. It was an elaborate way to change from an upper body clinch to a lower body attack.
Fig. 16
Then there is the question of Volkanovski’s whizzer get-up. Getting up on the whizzer is not anything revolutionary but Volkanovski pairs it with the reverse butterfly sweep or elevator. Sitting out from the turtle, or coming up from the knee shield half guard, Volkanovski uses the reverse butterfly sweep just to move his opponent off him, and then turns over to hit them with a stiff whizzer, which he uses to get up to his knees and threaten the front headlock.
Figure 17 shows the moment that Makhachev ducked under a shifting right hook, and took Volkanovski down. As he fell, Volk inserted the reverse butterfly hook with his left leg (d).
Fig. 17
Figure 18 picks up the action. Volkanovski elevates Makhachev’s thigh (e) and because Makhachev’s hands are locked around Volkanovski he falls to his shoulder and bases on his head (f). Volkanovski gets his left hand to the floor, punches the whizzer with his right, and begins scooting back to get his left foot out and sprawl out on Makhachev, before coming up to the feet.
Fig. 18
Currently the best welterweights in the world can’t get stop Islam Makhachev taking them down or get up from under him, and this sawn off featherweight did both.
On the Feet
The striking portion of the fight brings even more intrigue. Evloev is not, by anyone’s estimation, a notable hitter. His jab is excellent, though he got away from it in his last fight. Volkanovski had the time of his life picking off both Max Holloway and Chan Sung Jung’s jabs, countering with cross counters over the top, left hooks, and low kicks. Yet Holloway offered no wrestling threat whatsoever, and Jung was a shambling shell of his old self.
Evloev has one particularly exploitable habit that is similar to something Volkanovski does himself. Evloev loves to throw his head in and overcommit on right hands, but if he is too far to duck in and dive on the leg, he will often shift through to southpaw and jab from there. This can be a legitimate weapon: Demetrious Johnson used it extensively, and Evloev thumped Lerone Murphy with it at the fence in the fourth round of their fight.
In Volkanovski’s fights with Islam Makhachev, he surprised everyone in the grappling and then simplified his striking down to only shifting right hooks. He had tremendous success against Max Holloway with the shifting right hook when Holloway went southpaw in their first and third fights, and considerably less against Makhachev.
Arnold Allen was effective when he dropped away from Evloev’s right hand and invited him to shift through, then jabbed him as he did so.
Fig. 19
Volkanovski might not be able to draw this as reliably, as he is an orthodox fighter and Allen is a southpaw, but Evloev’s constant overswinging can be exploited in other ways. Lerone Murphy was able to hit him with his head low a few times, and Volkanovski could always take a page out of Makhachev’s book from their second fight: grab the double collar tie any time the opponent drops their head.
Or Volkanovski could copy Evloev’s own very successful answer to opponents dropping their head or level changing. Any time Dan Ige looked like he was about to drop in and punch the body, or drop his head and pitch the overhand, Evloev tried to intercept him with a jumping knee. It seems high risk, but it was also a successful deterrent.
Fig. 20
With a good amount of feinting to discourage the flying knee, attacking Evloev’s body with punches is a great idea. His defence is largely retreating on a line and Arnold Allen got to Evloev’s body with southpaw left straights, while Lerone Murphy had success throwing the old left-hook-body, right-straight-head combination. When Volkanovski fought Makhachev he used the shifting right hook to the body to set up the left straight to the head in the same way.
Evloev also has a tendency to float out of exchanges to his left, often turning and jogging off in that directions. This is the time that Volkanovski’s shifting right hook could become a kill shot: shift out to ninety degrees and intercept Evloev as he angles out.
Volkanovski’s own striking is far from infallible of course. His constant dropping of his head leaves him susceptible to the double collar tie, the knee and the uppercut. Using high kicks to stand him up can reduce his ability to get away from the jabs. Makhachev found these in moments of the first match and then ruthlessly exploited them in the second fight.
A great deal of Volkanovski’s effectiveness also hinges around his kicking game. Volk’s step-up inside low kick was the entire focus of our Advanced Striking 2.0 - Alexander Volkanovski. Against Islam Makhachev, Volkanovski’s wrestling looked terrific, but his kicking game was hampered by the fact that he did not do all that defensive wrestling work just to hand his leg back to Makhachev on a platter. Evloev was criticized for going to his wrestling late against Murphy but most of his takedowns were in fact just bundling Murphy over off a kick. In this fight we ask: can the threat of Evloev’s wrestling force Volkanovski to abandon his kicking game, or does Volkanovski committing to the kicking game allow Evloev to better threaten the takedown? It is a very fine line to walk, kicking freely but not giving up easy takedown attempts.
At the bottom of it all, we ask: how much of Volkanovski is left? Evloev does not seem like a generational talent or a potential all time great, but he is very good, very rounded, and has proven he can do it for five rounds. At featherweight, Volk has met hitters and dancers and a submission specialist, but good, rounded offence, for a full five rounds is something none of them offered. No matter how much you love Max Holloway, he has attempted takedowns in just one of his thirty-four UFC fights—he is an all timer, but does not offer rounded offence. It could be the case that Volkanovski has all the answers, and can outland Evloev, and can get up from all his takedown attempts, but can he do that if Evloev forces it on him for twenty five minutes instead of just following him around, appealing to his machismo as Lopes did?