THAT old line about it taking a lifetime of work to become an overnight sensation has never looked more accurate. Khabib Nurmagomedov toiled most of his life in complete anonymity, thanklessly drilling, sparring and competing under the demanding eye of his father, Adbulmanap. Yet this week it is being reported that 26 million people across Russia watched Nurmagomedov fight on television at UFC 242, while pay-per-view projections in the United States are over that now rare million buy mark.
The fandom is everywhere now, and people who couldn’t tell you who Pat Healy or Gleison Tibau were, are chanting the “27-0” mantra as if the first 16 against nobodies mean as much as the last seven against the elite of the lightweight division. But the “0” is still all important: nobody competes in the UFC’s lightweight division without losing at some point, it is the deepest division in MMA, in the most talent rich organization, and everyone stumbles at least once on their way to that belt. Yet Nurmagomedov still refuses to honour this tradition. Rumours of a Gene Tunney-esque early retirement abound, so with only a little time left on the clock let us consider what is left for Nurmagomedov to do?
The One We All Want
Tony Ferguson might not have the casual appeal of Conor McGregor but if you know anything about fighting, you know that Ferguson vs Nurmagomedov is about the most compelling match-up in the history of the sport and many fans would crawl a mile through broken glass to see it actually happen. But it is also a cursed fight: it has been booked four times and fallen through each time due to a number of freak injuries and mishaps doled out evenly between the participants.
Were you drawing out a perfect gameplan to unravel Nurmagomedov, it would hinge on evasive footwork, avoiding the fence, building off the jab and focusing on outscoring Nurmagomedov in the opening rounds and dishing out the punishment as he stopped lunging. You would need an incredible talent with incredible discipline to pull that off. Tony Ferguson isn’t that: he is absolute chaos. From performing salsa steps to pirouetting into body shots, a lot of what Ferguson does makes little sense, but his underlying base of irresistible pressure is one that raises some interesting questions against Nurmagomedov.
The champion’s takedowns succeed at a far lower rate when he is shooting towards the centre of the cage instead of onto the fence and Ferguson’s constant aggression will go a long way towards that. Ferguson’s use of body kicks to wind his opponents and his weird but effective boxing suggest he’s more than capable of giving Nurmagomedov hell on the feet, but it is Ferguson’s ground game and wrestling that make this match-up.
Ferguson rarely wall walks and is not the kind of man to immediately scoot back onto the fence when taken down. Instead, he will attack constantly from his back, hammering the opponent with elbows and forcing them onto the defensive, even from a disadvantaged position. Not only was he able to get up from underneath the smothering Kevin Lee in this way, he was eventually able to submit Lee with a triangle choke—something which happens so seldom at the highest levels of the modern MMA game that there were only three triangle choke wins in the UFC that year. Ferguson might have the most exciting and dynamic bottom game in mixed martial arts and that alone is enough to make the Nurmagomedov – Ferguson match up the most important fight in all of MMA right now.
Welterweight Dreams
On the opposite end of the spectrum to Tony Ferguson is Georges St. Pierre—one of the most methodical and thoughtful fighters who ever lived. St. Pierre’s marvellous jab and wrestling carried him to the most successful welterweight title reign in UFC history. Most importantly, St. Pierre always came into his bouts perfectly prepared for the opponent he was facing. It was always the jab and the double leg, but the details would change: sometimes he’d be the bull and other times he’d be the matador.
St. Pierre has been in a sort of active retirement since 2013, but returned to the cage for one night only in 2017. In that fight he went up to middleweight for the first time in his career to fight then middleweight champ, Michael Bisping. In spite of a size disadvantage and a career as the wily technician, St. Pierre played the role of the aggressor, cut the cage on Bisping, skewered him with the jab and walked him onto back kicks. The biggest shock came as St. Pierre—criticized as a tedious decision fighter—dropped Bisping with a picture-perfect left hook and finished with a rear naked choke to secure his first finish since 2009. Perhaps it was a last hurrah for St. Pierre, or perhaps he is an even better fighter when he is allowed to compete on a superfight schedule rather than the twice-yearly grind of being the UFC’s poster boy.
But St. Pierre is, of course, a welterweight. He bulked up to middleweight in his last performance and gave himself ulcerative colitis in the process: vowing never to fight at that weight again. Winning the middleweight belt and then saying “no thanks” to ever defending it put even more strain on the relationship St. Pierre had with the UFC, so the three big questions are: can he cut to 155 pounds, would Nurmagomedov take the “money fight” at 170 pounds, and would that money be enough for the UFC to ignore all their previous issues with St. Pierre?
Should Nurmagomedov want more accolades and the UFC want another assured ratings success the current welterweight champion, Kamaru Usman might be a suitable match up. In many ways Usman is the welterweight equivalent of Nurmagomedov: his entire game is working opponents to the fence, taking them down along it, and then doing this over and over when they wall walk up. In actual fighting terms that one might turn into a tedious kickboxing match, or Nurmagomedov might find himself on the wrong end of the size equation and unable to get his usual game going, but slapping two belts on a poster with Khabib is guaranteeing a must-watch event in Eastern Europe and Asia.
The Future of Lightweight
If Nurmagomedov takes the Ferguson fight and then one of those “money fights” he might well hang it up, but the lightweight division continues to be the deepest and most exciting in MMA and he will never be short of up-and-comers. This weekend’s fight between Justin Gaethje and Donald Cerrone might well provide us with our next contender.
Gaethje is a smothering pressure fighter who relies on his massive punching power and his thudding low kicks. His aggression and constant forward movement could keep Nurmagomedov back by the fence and shooting towards the centre of the cage rather than the fence, and Gaethje is no slouch in the wrestling department. However, in spite of a strong wrestling pedigree Gaethje has been made to tire by the occasional takedown attempts of Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier and can be troubled by a good jab, which Khabib has shown on one occasion.
Cerrone is probably the fighter most fans would give least chance against Nurmagomedov due to his tendency to completely collapse when put under pressure. On the other hand, Nurmagomedov is not a smothering brawler or volume striker, he’s a wrestler through and through. Cerrone has always been tough to take down and harder to control once he is on the mat. In fact, Cerrone has a few of those rare submission victories from the bottom against respectable opponents. Factor in Cerrone’s heavy emphasis on kicks and knees to the body and he could be a more compelling match-up for Nurmagomedov than many would give him credit for. This is another fight that was booked a couple of years back and ultimately fell through.
If Nurmagomedov hangs around beyond that, or the shake ups and drama of MMA prevent those fights from happening, a couple more interesting match -ps at lightweight are Gregor Gillespie and Kevin Lee. Lee is another blanketing wrestler in a similar style to Nurmagomedov, but he excels at guard passing and moving to back control, where he usually finishes with a body triangle and a rear naked choke. Lee is hit and miss and most recently competed up at welterweight, but his wrestling base, length, and awkward striking add some intrigue while his lacklustre conditioning puts a ticking clock on affairs.
Gregor Gillespie is considered the future of the lightweight division along with Khabib Nurmagomedov’s teammate, Islam Makhachev. There is a sense that he has it all and will very soon burst into the top ten, but that there is no need to rush. Gillespie is an absolutely relentless wrestler but doesn’t use the fence nearly as much as Nurmagomedov. Instead Gillespie’s game is a more active, mobile one. Think less sitting on the ankles along the fence and more crab rides and guard passes. Gillespie is also putting together a servicable striking game, has an eye for a counter and hides a cracking right hand well. It’s a little way off yet but he could definitely turn into a real contender to Nurmagomedov’s crown.
