Charles Oliveira vs Justin Gaethje Preview: Attrition and Initiative

Introduction

With combat sports, expecting excellent matchmaking can be a case of diminished returns depending upon the quality of a roster or how a fighter’s specific style allocates itself to an opponent for the most excitement possible. That is to say, the best fights a contest-oriented sport like Mixed Martial Arts can offer may be less common than you would hope. It doesn’t mean that good fights don’t happen nor is there a deficiency in excellent pugilists - it just means that when there is an extraordinary bout on the ledger between two driven, purposeful fighters, there’s a level of anticipation that, simply put, just doesn’t exist for all those other fights. There are the fights that deliver mesmerizing displays of human grit and ability; these very special fights are why we watch these sports. And when a bout is made where that kind of magic is possible, then there is an undeniable chill when you think about the possibilities.

The upcoming bout for the UFC’s Lightweight (155lbs) Title between the incumbent champion, Charles Oliveira, and perennial contender, Justin Gaethje, fits that bill accordingly because these two are, without hyperbole, among the most experienced and versatile offensive specialists in the entirety of the sport. In any fight they’re in, these two are primed to deliver blistering action at any moment. Of Gaethje’s nine contracted bouts in the UFC, four of them are among the greatest battles in the promotion’s history and all but two of his career fights have gone the distance. Oliveira’s patented submission record is one thing, though he has proven to be one of the sport’s greatest finishers and consistent action fighters - his last two bouts in particular standing out. These statements are mostly statistical, but that alone doesn’t suffice to explain how good of a matchup it is - nor does it encompass how difficult it is to predict an outcome or fight dynamic.

And that just makes it all the more fun to do that sort of guesswork, right?

The Fighters

I’ve written about the current iteration of Oliveira in more extensive detail elsewhere, but I do think his transformation over the years is worth talking about. Were you to go back to 2016, Oliveira definitely brought an intensity and danger to his fights; he was aggressively game and was lethal on the mat. However, Oliveira had an unrefined process. Though his body composition concealed his strength and power, Oliveira fought with only one direction - forward - without really knowing how to fully enforce himself on his opponents.

He fought with a static guard, threw many strikes without setup, and marched forward without thinking about where he was in relation to his man. This meant, against fighters with greater depth, he had to work at an unsustainable pace to push them back or rely solely on his grappling pedigree to make ends meet. Anthony Pettis and Ricardo Lamas, fellow opportunists themselves, exploited his defensively-void standup and proved to be too much on the mat - both tapping him. Paul Felder, in a manifestation of grit and poise, survived Oliveira’s grappling offense, and knocked him out cold on Oliveira’s own turf. Without ancillary techniques to help him in the fight that enforced his striking with his ground game, Oliveira was going to remain as just an action fighter at best.

And then, granular changes started to occur. Oliveira still remained fairly aggressive and prioritized finishes - but how he got to them was refined. What really seemed to click was drawing his opponents into traps and punishing them.

Much of that can be attributed to his kicking game. In Muay Thai, it’s common for strikers to bring their lead leg off the ground consistently - usually as a threat and a setup at the same time because the lead leg can throw teeps and front kicks off of knees. Even if a kick itself isn’t thrown, an opponent isn’t too keen to step in on them because of the knee threat. As a result, it becomes easier to pair it with other kicks off the rear leg, particularly to the body or to corral the opponent to where they have less space to move.

The bigger development, however, was Oliveira’s counterpunching game. Previously, the Brazilian might as well had not used any punching mechanics whatsoever, but, by the time he was facing Kevin Lee, Oliveira’s lead hand, in particular, was reinvented.

Whilst most of his success Oliveira had was when he converted his punches into frames and vice versa, what really stands is Oliveira’s check hook and counter uppercut. He doesn’t often commit to the latter outside of a threat, but both are among the easiest punches to use off of a jab - said jab that Oliveira is using with purpose to control exchanges and gauge distance for his counters.

Once Oliveira pairs his innate timing for counters with his clinch game, he becomes more difficult to hit and even more dangerous on the lead because he’ll often convert punches, successful or not, into frames to control the proximity of engagements*. He might jab into a single collar tie to pin his opponent or throw a straight right to create an opportunity for a body lock. It’s when Oliveira establishes all these tools together in tandem, he becomes an immaculately varied problem for just about any lightweight - being a dangerous finishing threat at every range alone is issue enough, but with the tools to wear you down or punish errors, he’s transformed himself into someone no one can take lightly from the opening bell.

*For more on Oliveira’s clinch game, you can consult this article.

Admittedly, grappling and wrestling is not my niche and assessing how strong Oliveira is in those phases is best left to someone else, though I can point out two particular patterns. One, Oliveira loves to create takedowns off of a reactive body lock, sometimes turning them in order to complete the takedown. This tactic is typically done if the opponent is pressed to the fence or pushing him backwards. Two, if Oliveira can’t necessarily create takedowns, he’ll get craftier by attempting to take his opponent’s back or by attempting a leg entanglement.

With a growing predilection for refined, attritive pressure and transitional attacks in all phases, Oliveira has gone from just a mainstay action fighter to his division’s top fighter. He didn’t change who he fundamentally was - he refined himself to become an immense force of nature. In a weight class as deep as lightweight, being able to get to the top is an achievement in itself. Staying there though? That’s the real challenge.

Justin Gaethje has been billed as one of, if not the, most exciting fighters in the entirety of mixed martial arts - his run through the World Series of Fighting showed the development of one of the most destructive forces MMA had ever seen. Gaethje had an instinctual gift for pressuring his opponents and beating them down if they were too impossibly durable to finish with a single thudding blow.

Gaethje’s leg kicks are infamous for a reason, though what’s understated is how he uses them. When your opponent takes a step, they are required to often reset their stance to generate any kind of power or balance. Kicking the legs doesn’t just cut down the ability to move, it can punish it. Once the opponent starts to stand their ground more, that’s a cue for you to counter them either with punches or with kicks. And Gaethje has always excelled at understanding this - most of his kicks are in reaction to his opponent’s proactivity.

Once he arrived in the UFC and encountered better pocket boxers, Gaethje developed a competent defensive high guard whereupon he could launch counters back with enough venom to catch the attention of his opponents enough that they would forget just how dangerous the kicks were to begin with. This was further extenuated by Gaethje’s natural inclination for handfighting; he would keep touching or parrying the opponent’s forearms and use them as an easy bridge for his punches or as a distraction.

It wasn’t until being finished in two of the most intense wars the sport had ever seen against Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier that his rampage was finally stopped.

And then, Gaethje’s entire style changed: he developed a game on the outside, drawing opponents in and shocking them with horrific counters. This was atypical and fascinating; most fighters tend to have a set archetype and didn’t deviate too much; Gaethje still had an aggressiveness to him, but it was engineered to punish the pursuing opponent than to pursue them.

Inherently, Gaethje was already a skilled counterpuncher, ergo this change wasn’t as drastic an adjustment as it could have been. In fact, many of the principles remained the same: Using the same tools on the outside - kicks and handfighting - he could force his opponents to follow. Once they entered range, that was the trigger for him to set up a counter.

This isn’t to say that he abandoned many of his aggressive tendencies: If the opponent refused to pursue, he’d employ improved upper body feinting - namely shifts and weaves- to make his way inside and set them up for a power shot. And he was still adamant about hammering their legs if they gave him too good of a chance.

I think it stands to reason that we have seen two versions of Justin Gaethje - and that premise alone means that the day he is able to merge the strengths of both and mitigate the weaknesses, there is going to be less than a very small handful of fighters who can best him.

The Matchup

As stated, you are not going to find many stylistic matchups, on paper, that offer the same intrigue as this one right now. In many regards, this is as difficult a fight to call as Oliveira’s last two were. But, whereas the fights with Chandler and Poirier were fights that were going to come down to margins of error, this one is a bit more complicated than that. In short, I think this fight will come down to initiative, attrition and ringcraft just as much as it will margin of error.

Generally, Oliveira’s successes are going to lie in being able to come forward, attacking the body, and constantly trying to bring this fight to the ground. Gaethje’s successes will lie in how much concussive or attritional damage he can deal whilst keeping his back as far away from the fence as possible.

Let’s get this out of the way: Oliveira cannot afford to be placed on the backfoot in this fight. If he is, he will be in far greater danger than the other way around. And it isn’t necessarily hard to back Oliveira up either - even basic pressure and aggression can see him pinned to the fence.

Many of Chandler’s successes off blitzes and punching off of frames are indicative that a systemic cagecutter is a potential nightmare. In other words, Gaethje’s pressure iteration would be the more problematic opponent than his outfighting iteration.

Oliveira is not helpless on the backfoot, however: He is still very willing to stand his ground and attempt to throw back or a reactive body lock. And, as the Poirier fight demonstrated, he’s incredibly willing to use his clinch game as a smothering and intercepting tool - which may well be the game changer if he starts mixing in his takedown attempts into clinch entries because of Gaethje’s sprawls.

The clinch is to be an incredibly interesting phase of the fight, however. Gaethje, behind a single collar tie, is incredibly willing to fight in the clinch and is thereby more effective than Oliveira’s last two, especially when it involves punching over the opponent’s forearms off of (or even faking) the handfight or clinch breaks. Oliveira does like to establish ties himself, though Gaethje’s inclination for being able to find shots when he and his opponent are up close (e.g. his trademark collar tie uppercuts) may make Oliveira take more damage than desired. Still, Gaethje’s occasional passivity might lend itself to some issues if Oliveira works his ribs, especially from the front head lock.

Gaethje hasn’t necessarily fought many wrestlers in his run, though he’s shown urgency at fighting for wrist control and granby rolls to escape dangerous positions, though it is incredibly worrying how much he can give up his back in the process.

His sprawl and constant attempts to control his opponent’s grips means he might be difficult to time for a reactive shot, but a clever back-taker like Oliveira is primed to take advantage of that. It wouldn’t be surprising if this was Oliveira’s fastest route to victory.

Though he might find his resets on the backfoot punished by kicks, Oliveira does have a few ways he addresses kicks. In some bouts, the Brazilian will attempt to catch or time a blitz to force his opponent to reset. Although Gaethje has improved his upperbody defense whilst kicking, a well timed rush can force a retreat. This will be easier said than done, as Gaethje is by far the best kicker in the entire division.

Let’s suppose Oliveira does get to come forward and has to contend with the counterpunching of Gaethje’s outfighting iteration? I think it goes without saying that Gaethje will force Oliveira to work harder to get him to the fence than Dustin Poirier, but Gaethje’s spatial management on the backfoot leaves room to be desired.

When Gaethje pressured, his greatest issue was that his initiative was often too much - he relied upon dealing an enormous amount of damage at a high energy expenditure. Against opponents that could outgun him in the pocket or wage the attritional gambit with him, he ran into a roadblock. Outfighting, no doubt, was an attempt to capitalize on his innate timing without running out of steam. Despite his complete demolition job of Tony Ferguson, his loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov indicated there was a new problem: In exchange for a safer style, Gaethje now had too little initiative.

There’s something to be said about Gaethje’s lack of throwaways, especially a jab, in open space or his willingness to wait for his opponents to come to him. This isn’t an issue if, in the case of Ferguson, the opponent can be reckless with their entries and struggle to outposition you, but against more aggressive opponents who recognize how to use the entire cage, it means you’re conceding too much. If anything else allowed Nurmagomedov to best him, this issue stands as one of the biggest - the moment Nurmagomedov recognized Gaethje was looking for specific moments instead of constant control, he stepped forward and made Gaethje’s feet an utter mess.

And, if he doesn’t address a similar issue versus Oliveira, he may well be in trouble again if he is dedicated to outfighting alone, because Oliveira’s front kick game will be enormously problematic - and everyone fighting Gaethje should be attacking him to the body (and everyone who has tried kicking him there has usually succeeded). If Oliveira pairs both his kicking game with his body punching (particularly his lever punching), he’ll have the opportunity to really work Gaethje over.

Still, on the backfoot, Gaethje does have a few options. For one thing, Oliveira is still incredibly vulnerable in the pocket. Defensively, the improvements have been there: His lead arm can craft frames as he’ll pull his head back behind his shoulder and his rear hand is consistently positioned to catch shots near his forehead.

Although his hand positioning keeps him safe from single strikes, fighters who can feint or draw out his counters can get to him in longer exchanges, mostly because his head is still incredibly static and open off the centerline to counters, including on entries. Gaethje doesn’t necessarily throw a number of jabs, but he does have an effective one at catching his opponents off guard and Oliveira has proven to be extremely vulnerable to counters.

Gaethje may not necessarily fire gatling gun combinations like a Dustin Poirier could, but seeing Michael Chandler touch his way in with a series of level change feints lends some credence to my theory that Gaethje can do the same and attack Oliveira from a different angle off a shift. I’d add that some body work to set up head shots may pay dividends as well.

I think the point here is that both fighters, regardless of approach, have multiple ways of enforcing their game and just as many avenues for finding their way back into this fight; this is the sort of contest that is going to come down to the margins and who can maximize upon the best version of themselves to win.

Attrition is an important matter here, if only because Gaethje has proven to be a consistently dangerous fighter even while under heavy duress and exhaustion. Although Oliveira enforces an exponential pace and has the tools to wear down his opponents to finish them, there’s still some question of what happens when he can’t do that in an exhausting battle of attrition. This isn’t exactly the fight that seems primed to last past three rounds, though there’s no doubt in my mind that the more debilitated and fatigued fighter is going to struggle more in that fight.

At the end of the day, however, initiative is what I feel the biggest factor here is. Oliveira’s sense of initiative is immediate and urgent: If he can back you up, he will. Gaethje, comparatively, is more of a reactive fighter who can be proactive - but it's contingent upon what his opponent is doing or which version of him is fighting.

That is, whomever can control the initiative of the engagements and capitalize on the other’s flaws with initiative will be the one to win this fight.

Still, Gaethje’s previous fight with Michael Chandler seemed to indicate that there is some attempt to combine the strengths of his two styles together. Admittedly, it may well be because Chandler was willing to fight right in front of Gaethje, but the latter’s willingness to pressure and not concede easy ground in neutral space while firing more on the lead ought to give more confidence to his name, especially since he is still one of the better adjusters in the entire division.

Conclusion

This is among the best matchups Mixed Martial Arts has and can make in recent memory and, by this point, I hope I’ve illustrated why. Not only are these two of the best fighters in the world - these are two of the must-watch fighters on any roster. It’s incredibly difficult to root against either man, let alone feel confident in an outcome here.

Justin Gaethje is one of the most promising lightweights the division has ever seen whilst being one of the most serviceable to both hipster and casual fans alike. He will bring the violence and has ushered in some of the greatest bouts in recent memory. Charles Oliveira’s transformation into one of the most multi-dimensional fighters in the division who can survive and come back against the likes of Michael Chandler and Dustin Poirier is one of the most inspiring narrative arcs the sport has going for it right now.

Ultimately, this is the definition of a near-even fight on paper. It seems primed to deliver either a decisive finish from a general weakness or a potential all-out war. Considering how these two fighters are, I don’t personally think it will go past the third round. As for who wins, I cannot confidently pick one fighter without seeing a route for another.

Still, I will tentatively take Justin Gaethje to knock Charles Oliveira out in the second round. For me, Oliveira’s defensive weaknesses in the pocket and on the backfoot are enormous issues - and. in a firefight of ‘take-one-to-give-one’, that dynamic is probably going to favor the harder hitter. That is, if Oliveira found himself stunned in his last two, then I can absolutely see it happening again. Gaethje has the ringcraft, durability and ancillary skills to be more demanding to back up and back down more than Chandler or Poirier respectively were individually. As worrying as Gaethje’s ground game could be (Khabib Nurmagomedov being the best grappler in MMA by some amount doesn’t exactly relay enough data to really know how good it is for sure) and that Oliveira absolutely can wear him down in a competitive battle standing, the amount Oliveira may have to work for to get him there seems, at least on the surface, a bit more than his challenger’s if you ask me.

Nonetheless, this is one of the best fights of the year - and I think I speak for everyone when I say I cannot wait to see it.