Damir Ismagulov, The Surgeon Of Orenburg
Photo by Brandon Magnus/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC
As the lightweights in Absolute Championship Akhmat can attest, it isn’t necessarily those in the west that deserve all the shine; while the most recognizable MMA fighters are almost exclusively in the UFC, a true world 155 ranking would likely have a couple long-named Russians in the top 5. ACA is the deepest of the Russian promotions — partly due to the deep pockets of their sponsor, Chechen autocrat Ramzan Kadyrov — but there’s another smaller promotion that has had a great deal more UFC crossover: M1 Global. While the talent hasn’t generally been quite as robust, multiple beltholders from the St-Petersburg based promotion have found modest success among the best of the best. Respective to his division, heavyweight Alexander Volkov has made the most progress, but talent such as Ramazan Emeev and Alexey Kunchenko look to be solid 20-to-10 hands (at worst) in deeper fields.
One such M1 import is Damir Ismagulov, a lightweight of Kazakh origin, and there’s reason to expect him to be the most impressive of them all. Six years into his career and 19-1, with his sole loss about 11 months into his career, Ismagulov has had three UFC bouts and dominated each, with his last against a genuinely talented foe in Thiago Moises. The elephant in the room with Ismagulov is how the UFC treated the last dominant M1 champion who came into the UFC lightweight division, the terrific Rashid Magomedov; the counterpuncher was stranded among the unranked with awful matchmaking, and negotiated out of the promotion off a win — and there are certainly a couple similarities between Magomedov and the thoughtful patience of Ismagulov. However, if the UFC doesn’t expend the prime of yet another prospect in nonsense bookings, the top-10 at 155 could have a terror on their hands.
Blank Slates
There isn’t a great deal of footage available of Ismagulov’s career in M1, so his development is a bit difficult to gauge from start to finish (the way one might be able to look at someone in American regional promotions); that said, the couple of fights available do show what Ismagulov liked doing against the largely overmatched fodder he faced on the way to the UFC. In M1, Ismagulov was largely a top-control specialist, and it worked terrifically; while his opposition was often quite weak, Ismagulov defeated them every bit as convincingly as a promising world-level fighter would.
One of the more obvious layups for Ismagulov came right before his crack at the title, in 6-5 Frenchman Morgan Heraud; Ismagulov had already made a compelling claim for a title shot, so it was a stay-busy fight regarding which Ismagulov claimed he had “no right to make mistakes”. He was true to his word.
Just a straightforward one-sided mauling. Every round, Heraud found himself stuck against the ropes and ragdolled, and Ismagulov’s top game was absolutely punishing. The third-round takedown was brilliant; Heraud threw a spinning kick in desperation to keep Ismagulov off him, and Ismagulov just stepped to the side to expose Heraud’s back and take the waistlock. He kneed Heraud in the head to straighten him out (as Heraud had dropped his weight to keep from being lifted), and as Heraud dropped his weight in the open, simply yanked the Frenchman over his knee to trip him to the ground. It lasted just over two rounds, and Heraud didn’t really find a moment.
As good as his wrestling was (and it was good enough to get him to the M1 belt as a primary tool), one of Ismagulov’s more comprehensive striking battles in M1 also showed some serious craft in that realm. Rubenilton Pereira was younger than Ismagulov but more experienced, and he was off a respectable short-notice performance against then-M1 lightweight champion Alexander Butenko. This was a fight in which Ismagulov played the anti-wrestler more than the wrestler, and he did very well; however, Ismagulov’s more interesting moments came on the feet.
Ismagulov isn’t the highest-volume fighter, but one thing very noticeable from even his M1 career is that his lead hand is almost always doing something. He’s constantly feinting and pawing with his left, and this serves a number of purposes. Within the first half-minute, one is already evident; Ismagulov drew out a couple counters from the Brazilian with lead-hand feints and throwaway jabs, and that was enough to convince Pereira not to react to every light movement. As Ismagulov stepped in for the long left hook to the body, Pereira didn’t pull the trigger on the entry, and Ismagulov dipped out to avoid any counter upon exit.
An even clearer example, even though neither man lands. With Pereira’s back on the ropes, Ismagulov plays havoc with his reactions; not only does he feint with his lead hand, but also with his feet (faking the step-in) and even lowering his level as if he’s about to throw the left hook, pulling movements out of Rubenilton. He draws Pereira’s attention with his extended lead hand before ducking into the overhand, and while Pereira avoids it, he couldn’t punish it, as Ismagulov was the one with the initiative the whole way.
When Ismagulov gets a bit more comfortable, the feints not only function to keep his opponent guessing on his actual leads, but to create opportunities to counter. What made it easier was Pereira’s clear tendencies on the counter, which Ismagulov sussed out very quickly; when he decided to put his heart into reacting, Pereira was largely a 3-2, and Ismagulov worked out several counters within the first round alone.
The first sequence was a function of Ismagulov remaining in his stance by hop-stepping back as Pereira squared up to blitz, which gave Ismagulov the positional edge as he ran Pereira into his own 3-2, and countering to the body is always a sign of sophistication. However, if anything shows Ismagulov’s skill at building off the reactions he finds, it is the knockdown sequence; the first subtle foot-feint draws out the 3-2, and the next time he jabs in, Ismagulov dips as he throws his rear hand down the inside of the left hook, takes the follow-up right on the top of his head, and plasters Rubenilton with the left hook as he comes back up. It took him moments to find the approach he needed, to deal with a combination he’d figured out extremely quickly.
While his opponents haven’t stress-tested it particularly well, Ismagulov has shown some craft with his footwork even early in his professional career. A very orthodox boxer, Ismagulov’s stance-switches are almost entirely to enable his kicking game in this fight; he would switch to southpaw in motion (moving laterally at range, or even on the retreat), fire the open-side kick before Pereira could parse the change, and switch back.
Nothing consistent here, just a slick bit of maneuvering. Nearly on the ropes, Ismagulov breaks his stance, seeming to put a premium on his lateral movement; as Damir bounces side to side, Pereira looks to cut off Ismagulov’s direction of exit, as Ismagulov’s tactic seems to be to goad Pereira into committing to one side before skipping out the other (Eddie-Alvarez-style outfighting). Ismagulov takes advantage of Pereira’s patience, springing into a clean left hook before taking the sting off Pereira’s counter as he exits.
The Pereira fight wasn’t perfect; as Ismagulov tired from long and tough wrestling exchanges and was forced on the back foot, it got considerably messier, even though the wrestling exchanges largely went Damir’s way. However, it was a promising performance where Ismagulov showed not just a solid fundamental skillset, but remarkable intelligence and efficiency for a prospect just over two years into his professional career. Training under Alexander Shlemenko, Ismagulov’s occasional spinning attacks were entirely expected, but his tight boxing was less expected.
It took just a few more fights for Ismagulov to get to the UFC, where he debuted against the vastly overmatched Alex Gorgees (who looked downright clumsy in every phase compared to the sharp former M1 king). There wasn’t a great deal to take from that fight, but his subsequent outings showed his skill against two functional lightweights, including one on the edge of true relevance.
A Slight Step Up
Ismagulov fought twice in 2019, defeating two fairly solid fighters (one moreso than the other); against both, Damir seemed to treat the fights as learning experiences. He likely could’ve just wrestled Joel Alvarez, considering how long Alvarez spent on the bottom in his subsequent fight against Danilo Belluardo; however, Ismagulov struck with him at length, and came out looking like one of the better-schooled strikers at 155 regardless of promotion. With the wrestling in his back-pocket, Ismagulov gave the Spaniard a lesson.
Like the Pereira fight, Alvarez ran into trouble very early from the active lead hand of Damir; he had a more particular image of what he wanted in this fight than he did in M1, but just the constant twitching and jabbing had the usual and expected effect. Here, it not only served as a disorientation measure, but set up a couple easy left hooks; the motion of Ismagulov’s lead hand would draw out a parry from Alvarez, and Damir could slot a left hook around the side of it. Nothing particularly complex, just done well.
In this fight, however, Ismagulov’s tactic was a bit more specific than his usual jabbery; he was setting up a specific attack off which to build. A gambit often attributed to former heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos, Ismagulov would jab to the body — drawing his opponent’s attention to addressing a lower attack — and the associated level change would hide his overhands. Throughout the fight, this simple tactic gave Joel Alvarez fits.
As in the Pereira fight, Ismagulov was quickly able to draw out Alvarez’s reactions to his primary play. Because of the frequent level-change of the body jab, the Spaniard decided upon the intercepting knee, but showed his hand as Ismagulov jabbed up top; 90 seconds later, Ismagulov put the body jab back into his head, and stepped forward hard as if he was about to level-change a second time. However, Ismagulov didn’t drop down; instead, he pivoted to his right (which forced Alvarez to turn to face him) and threw his rear hand as Alvarez was upright and squared from throwing his knee. Damir didn’t quite land, but the knee was no longer safe.
While the fight started with Ismagulov potshotting on the lead, he quickly revealed himself to be quite an adept counterpuncher as well, especially in combination and even when he wasn’t actively drawing an attack out. For the most part, Ismagulov could just slip the straight shots of Alvarez, counter with his right hand (often to the body), and follow with his left hook. Alvarez was nothing special as a defensive boxer, and Ismagulov’s counterpunching let him get nothing for free (and he even got cracked pulling away if he wasn’t careful).
On the lead, the character of the combinations was largely the same, but with Ismagulov building them off the overhand that he established early in the fight. The shifting combination was nice to chase Joel back, but Ismagulov also did some subtle rhythm traps that made the same couple combinations catch the Spaniard unaware every time. The second sequence takes advantage of the cadence of his bouncing; Ismagulov bounces back and forth, but the overhand comes off the “forward” bounce, so the timing is a bit like if Ismagulov had stutter-stepped into it. The third sequence shows Ismagulov throw a straight, and duck directly into the overhand as Alvarez reset. Alvarez essentially never got the timing of Ismagulov, even aside from the lead-hand feints.
One of the slicker looks from Ismagulov that wasn’t as prevalent in his previous fights was his use of the counter left uppercut, and the way he ran Alvarez into it by distorting Joel’s sense of distance. Seen previously how Ismagulov can draw out counters with his own jab, but here, he’s drawing out Alvarez’s leads with his posture; leaning over his lead hip, he appears closer than he is to Alvarez, and he uses that to draw the jab out and counter it.
Of course, dominating “El Fenomeno” is one thing, but defeating an established and respectable lightweight is quite another, and that was what Ismagulov had in front of him next.
A Fellow Prospect
Thiago Moises was a grappler, but he had also given the great Beneil Dariush all he could handle on the feet; along with his showings on the Contender Series and against the solid Kurt Holobaugh, Moises was likely a fringe top-20, if not higher. Hidden on the prelims in Shenzhen, China, in the wee hours of the morning for most of the market, Ismagulov delivered an absolute gem.
Moises was a bit more conservative than the other opponents of Ismagulov, preferring to respond to feints and entries by just covering up (at least early) rather than giving up many usable reactions. In the meantime, Ismagulov attacked targets that a high guard wouldn’t cover; he pelted Moises with straights to the body, and even found a pair of left hooks beneath Moises’ guard as he weaved under Moises’ counter…
…and kicked at will. Ismagulov looked like a surprisingly versatile kicker against Moises, even though he’d always had fast kicks off both legs. He went inside and out on the lead leg, pulled off a nice counter lead-leg kick as Moises entered with the 1-2, and even used the threat of the spinning kick to herd Moises into a bodykick through the closed side. It isn’t a particularly consistent set of skills he uses, but then again, he’s still a developing fighter, so the kicking might be worth looking out for moving forward.
Ismagulov pressured and feinted to draw the entries out of Moises, but for the most part, Moises entered of his own accord; however, he still couldn’t really get anything for free. Countering with the jab got Ismagulov the knockdown, but Ismagulov’s more consistent counter was his overhand right, and he paired it quite smartly with the lead uppercut. This has multiple functions: it could slip under the high guard of Moises, could dissuade Moises from shooting reactive takedowns beneath the right hand, and it “closes the door” or resets the exchange. For example, the exchange at :07 —
Ismagulov jabs into a right hand, and Moises blocks it; Ismagulov’s feet aren’t squared but his hips and shoulders are, so Moises looks for the counter right-hand as Ismagulov’s lead shoulder isn’t positioned to protect him. Throwing his lead hand blades Ismagulov’s hips again, and even though it missed, the uppercut concealed his jaw behind his lead shoulder in the course of throwing it; the structure of the combination essentially served as a proactive defensive measure for Ismagulov. This is what “closing the door” entails.
The Alvarez fight showed Ismagulov to be a fairly comfortable slip-counterpuncher, but he looked sharp defensively against Moises as well; not only did he move his head in the pocket, he did a great job folding behind his elbows and shoulders in exchanges, picking off specific strikes with his arms (which was even more stark compared to Moises’ less developed high guard).
The thing to watch most of all, though, is Ismagulov’s feet; he isn’t the most consistent with it, but Ismagulov’s defensive pivot is sometimes genuinely gorgeous. Against Moises, it was largely only a thing against 1-2s, where he felt or saw the jab and knew the right was behind it; however, when it happened, it left the skilled Moises looking silly, and cut the exchange off emphatically. If he’d begun to check-hook with the pivot earlier in the fight and not just in the final exchange, the fight could’ve been uglier for the Brazilian.
And finally, Moises’ attempts to wrestle were all for naught.
Looking Forward
Ismagulov’s ceiling is difficult to determine from his current record alone; he’s shown an abundance of skills in every phase, he’s early in his career, and he already looks like one of the more educated strikers at the weight-class, but the entropy of the sport (especially at a strong division) can take a toll on even the very best prospects. This is doubled in the case of fighters like Ismagulov, whose style and whose demeanor are actively unmarketable, which leads to them running a gauntlet of nasty match-ups until they inevitably fall at the hands of a bad one. For Ismagulov, bad matchups might be in short supply, at least at the level at which the UFC would prefer to keep him; he seems versatile enough to manage most, likely with the skills in every phase to not be “exposed” as many prospects are with a step-up.
If there is a liability, the clearest is likely that he’s far more susceptible to being kicked than to being punched. He’s not defenseless to kicks by any means, as a function of his strong gauge of distance, but Joel Alvarez had some success pushing Ismagulov back with punches and ending the combination with a kick to the leg. To his credit, Ismagulov does attempt to keep this sort of tactic to a minimum, as he looks to counter kicks even when they land clean; the first knockdown in the Pereira fight was off a parried kick, and he punished Alvarez and Moises for kicking with catches and counters as well.
However, the educated kicking game of a lightweight like Renato Moicano could be as bad a matchup as one could find for Ismagulov, at least among those who are somewhat credible matchups for him moving forward. There’s even some word of Ismagulov moving down to 145, where his physicality as a wrestler could only be accentuated against pressure-averse opponents (even fairly highly-ranked ones such as Yair Rodriguez, although the kicking issue could rear its head again).
While nothing is guaranteed for a prospect at a division like lightweight or featherweight, there really is reason to have high expectations for a fighter as developed as Ismagulov in a period of time as short as his career has been; with judicious matchmaking, the Kazakh could be a genuinely special fighter, one with depth in short supply at any weight-class and the ability to command a fight like few else. Even now, against much of the lower top-15, it isn’t unlikely that the unerringly stoic and unquestionably talented Ismagulov puts on exactly the show that he needs.