Slacky’s Secret Post Fight Notes:

Volkov vs Rozenstruik  

Alexander Volkov managed to coax a fun fight out of Jairzinho Rozenstruik, partly by fighting into one of Rozenstruik’s strengths. Coming into the fight I had assumed that Volkov could give Rozenstruik difficulty by fighting long and straight. This is partly because Volkov is a near seven-footer who can give anyone trouble by fighting long and straight. But in addition to that, Rozenstruik’s counter fighting style is to swing looping blows over straights (where he should have been disadvantaged by Volkov’s length) and to parry round kicks and blitz up the inside. So when Volkov stayed long—jabbed and hand-fought and front kicked—he was taking lumps out of Rozenstruik as expected.

Volkov’s right front kick to the body (as seen in Figure 1) worked surprisingly well against another orthodox fighter. This was largely because Rozenstruik carries his left arm and elbow away from his body, ready to parry or swing in a counter left hook. While Volkov didn’t get to use the front kick all that much in the one round fight, he used it enough to clarify that it would become a nuisance over the full twenty-five minutes. Rozenstruik has looked nowhere near as comfortable entering off straight kicks.

Fig. 1

Yet the fight was made more competitive by Volkov’s willingness to round kick to the body and head. These are the blows that Rozenstruik commonly uses to enter on counters. Figure 2 shows a sequence that played out to varying degrees of effectiveness three times in this short fight and has been a regular occurence through Rozenstruik’s MMA and kickboxing careers.

Fig. 2

Rozenstruik catches Volkov’s left round kick on his right forearm, bringing his left forearm across to double up the block and begin the parry (a). His left hand scoops down and redirects Volkov’s kicking leg across to the other side of Rozenstruik’s body (b, c). Rozenstruik uses the wide scooping motion of the parry to swing his arm out and enter with a loaded up left hook as Volkov is all crossed up and out of position (d).

The most impressive part of Volkov’s performance was the balance he struck between aggression and composure. Rozenstruik has been dubbed “Frozenstruik” by fight fans because his bouts can turn into staring contests, but it is the serious threat of his counterpunching that is responsible for his opponents’ timidity. Yet within the first twenty seconds of the fight, Volkov had already hammered Rozenstruik with four decent kicks and a couple of jabs. He struck that golden ratio between measured feinting and legitimate, unhesitating offence that is best embodied by UFC featherweight champion, Alexander Volkanovski. When this magic balance is achieved, the real strikes make the feints more believable, and then the feints in turn make stepping in and leading a less dangerous prospect.

Volkov’s handfighting was smooth throughout as he harassed Rozenstruik’s guard before popping jabs up the centre. This made the already handsy Rozenstruik even more inclined to reach for parries and this culminated beautifully in the fight winning blow. After Rozenstruik came close with a successful entry and flurry off a kick catch, Volkov turned him onto the fence. Figure 3 shows the subtleties. Volkov backed Rozenstruik up (a), shoulder faked the jab with a slight change of level to shrug the left shoulder at Rozenstruik (b), and as Rozenstruik swatted at the blow that never came Volkov dropped the right straight on him.

Fig. 3

The co-main event between Movsar Evloev and Dan Ige was a coming of age performance for the former and standard fare for the latter. Ige’s makes his money with toughness and a willingness to mix it up with anyone, while his great weakness is a metronomic rhythm of attacking on straight lines. Once the glimmer of a first jab appears in his eye, he might as well be locked to train tracks through the opponent’s current position and up to the other side of the cage.

Figure 4 shows a typical Ige lead and the problems with it. Ige lunges in with a right hand (b) and you will notice that his head has already exceeded his centre of gravity—committing him to stepping through. Frame (c) shows how disastrously out of position this leaves a fighter as Ige charges through loading up a left uppercut (d) which he again runs through to get back into orthodox stance.

Fig. 4

The hidden issue in this figure is that once Ige has charged Evloev from one side of the cage to the other, he waits for Evloev to circle off the fence before attacking again. Each exchange in the fight was a Dan Ige attempt to score a knockout blow, but no attack capitalized on the position the last exchange left him in. It never graduated beyond a “my turn, your turn, my turn” sparring match in complexity.

These charges are so committed and reliable that Evloev was twice able to time Ige with a brutal intercepting knee to the head that any normal fighter might have simply gone down off. Notice in Figure 5 how Ige throws his right hand and, with his head well ahead of his hips, he falls uncontrollably off his back foot into a shift even though Evloev isn’t giving ground. This is the danger of the head exceeding the hips on a rear handed swing: the shift is a necessity rather than a choice.

Fig. 5

For the rest of the fight, Evloev effectively dealt with Ige’s charges by backing off and circling out. Numerous times in the bout Evlov clipped off a counter and slid out the side door, while Ige continued to charge through where he had been like it was an Aikido demonstration, as in Figure 6 wherein Ige gallop steps up into a deep lunging jab, only to be countered and spun around.

Fig. 6

Ultimately it was more of a positive performance from Evloev than a negative one from Ige. Ige is established and he probably isn’t changing much from here, so he has taken on the role of Jeremy Stephens: the physically gifted gatekeeper who forces even the best competitors to fight smart to get the win. A few months ago, I would certainly not have been confident that Evloev—a great grappler and a so-so striker at the time—could handle Ige without getting flustered and making mistakes. His cool demeanour and relatively smooth striking fundamentals were pleasing to watch, and the attention that the performance brought him on this otherwise low-key card means that his requests for Arnold Allen or even a more popular featherweight will be taken seriously.

Lastly, the big story of the night for long serving fans was that Karolina Kowalkiewicz picked up her first win in five years and it came against Felice Herrig: the last person she beat back in October 2018. It was a heart-warming victory and Kowalkiewicz’s reaction in the aftermath was one of those genuine, unrehearsed moments that cut through the cynicism a life in the fight game demands. Despite abandoning her usual coach and training with a new team, Kowalkiewicz’s identity still shone through in her work. She is still remarkably strong in the clinch and a buzzsaw with knees from there. She still takes a terrific shot. And she still has one of the few genuinely stiff right hands at women’s strawweight.

But most of Kowalkiewicz’s flaws are still glaring. She still closes her eyes when she enters and exchange, and everything after the “2” of “1-2” is a panicked attempt to throw the right hand again as quickly as possible.  Kowalkiewicz scores her good right hand, and immediately rushes a half-jab to reset into a half-right-straight that is effectively an arm punch. She sets her feet to do it and sometimes she won’t even reset with a left hand but rather throw a 1-2 and then try to coil and punch with the right hand again. The combination of closed eyes and extended exchanges where she only half punches has made her a sitting duck for counters and Herrig hit her with some left hooks that were scarily similar the one that Andrade knocked her out with.

Kowalkiewicz is a fighter who could benefit enormously from a return to basics and a coach simply shouting at her to “close the door” with her left hand on every attack. Whether that’s a big left hook, or a long jab to push the opponent back, breaking off the exchange after her right hand would save her a great deal of grief. More than that, a left hook can be a closer—punishing the opponent for firing back—or a clinch entry, if the opponent steps inside it. This would allow Kowalkiewicz to flow her first great strength, a cracking right hand, into her second: a solid striking clinch.