Introductory Note on Evaluating Prospects

Decision (Unanimous)... Decision (Split)... Decision (Split)... Decision (Split)

When reading through a fighter’s record, most fight fans’ evaluation often doesn’t go much deeper than this: a list of wins and losses with methods of victory and defeat. Upon seeing a fighter who has gone to decision in six of eight outings we tend to render our own decision - boring, low level, passive, featherfisted.

On the one hand, who can blame us? Week in and week out the UFC mashes together a couple dozen fighters with hastily pieced together promotional material screaming at us, telling us why this card is a can’t-miss event. The duration of live events is in excess of six hours - only the most dedicated MMA fans could have time to watch and appreciate every fight. There are over six-hundred fighters on the UFC’s roster; how can we possibly care about all of them? Scrolling through results the following day and just looking for clips of the finishes on Twitter or Reddit is a shortcut that is necessary to quell our fear of missing out and maintain interest without overload or burnout.

Fighters who rack up finishes see their popularity increase exponentially as clips spread on social media. The UFC’s promotional strategy has increasingly been to lean into this, continually forcing fighters into the action-fighter meat grinder, hoping to produce the next viral moment.

The upcoming UFC 279 event is headlined by a fighter who has rocketed to the top of his division in terms of both ranking and popularity in an absurdly brief timespan. Just four years into his professional MMA career, Khamzat Chimaev is a top five fighter and headlining a pay-per-view. Undoubtedly he can thank his four quick finish wins that started his UFC career for this meteoric rise.

But what about the record posted above? That’s the UFC record of the unranked featherweight Canadian prospect Hakeem Dawodu, who has a tough bout against Julian Erosa on the UFC 279 undercard. Dawodu serves as just one example that shows that the shortcuts we use to filter through the noise of the regular UFC grind sometimes cause us to miss the incredible displays of skill, resolve, and intelligence that play out in fights that go the distance.

Furthermore, to properly evaluate a prospect, we should want to see them pick up decision wins. Bouts that go the distance let fighters demonstrate that they have the endurance and focus to fight fifteen minutes, that they can make adjustments between rounds and listen to their corners, and that they have a process to win fights. Seeing a fighter with a process should get us excited. Hakeem Dawodu fits the bill.

The Process Part 1: Attrition - Legs

A fundamental part of Hakeem Dawodu’s game is his leg kicks, especially as counters to his opponent’s strikes.

Dawodu’s first order of business is to attack the legs of his opponent. He’s good at setting up his kicks with footwork and feints, but where he excels is as a counter kicker. That is, whenever his opponents plant their feet to throw you can expect Dawodu to disrupt them by kicking out their base. On top of that, he’s phenomenal at countering kicks with kicks. Immediately after missing a kick, the opponent is vulnerable with most of their weight on one leg, making kicking them at that moment particularly devastating.

These kicks serve a variety of purposes in Dawodu’s strategy. Leg kicks are primarily a long-range weapon that Dawodu can use to maintain a high volume of strikes. Being able to fill the time between close-range skirmishes with consistent action can swing close rounds in his favor. Damaging his opponents’ legs also reduces both their ability to move well and throw mechanically sound punches. The effect of leg kicks is cumulative which can allow Dawodu’s offense to snowball.

We’ll see later how Dawodu builds off the threat of his kicks to augment his offense in other areas.

The Process Part 2: Attrition - Body

Dawodu’s linear kicks drain his opponent’s endurance and his jumping switch front kick allows him to quickly pursue them while they are desperate for respite.

The next part of Dawodu’s process is frequently striking the body. Front kicks to the midsection provide a fast, long-range, and difficult to defend way for him to sap his opponent’s strength. Paired with the threat of his low kicks, he can keep opponents guessing the trajectory and targets of his kicks. The jumping switch front kick provides a way to cover a lot of distance, especially against a retreating foe.

With all of these long-range weapons, it becomes imperative for opponents to try to close the distance with Dawodu. However, this is just part of the process. Dawodu is not an outfighter who would want to maintain distance at all cost. When opponents get within boxing range, Dawodu starts incorporating stinging body punches.

Dawodu uses body punches to convince opponents who feel stranded in open-space that boxing range will provide them no easy reprieve.

Between his leg kicks, front kicks, body punches, and knees (see below), Hakeem Dawodu is a fighter with an almost obsessive commitment to attrition. Body punches punish fighters who are overly reliant on a high guard. They are also easy to transition into underhooks to aid Dawodu’s defensive wrestling or to stifle overly aggressive opponents in the clinch. As Dawodu primarily prefers to be the one moving forward, he also uses his left hook to the liver to cut off escape routes.

The Process Part 3: Safety Valves

An important part of any fight strategy is a contingency plan. A safety valve is a fail-safe that automatically opens when pressure reaches an unallowable level. Similarly, when things start to go wrong, fighters need to have several tools that they can fall back on to relieve pressure.

Dawodu’s jab serves many purposes, but one critical to his process is punishing fighters attempting to swarm or close distance. Seeing how Dawodu racks up damage on the outside, it’s no surprise that many opponents choose to respond by trying to force the fight into a pace or range that is uncomfortable for him. In these moments, they are often met with a quick jab, backing them off and giving Dawodu the chance to reset.

The jab is an important defensive tool, creating a consistent obstacle in the way of opponents looking to close distance.

Despite all his jabs, front kicks, and pivots, Dawodu cannot avoid the clinch forever. Rather than deal with this threat purely reactively, Dawodu turns the clinch into an advantage. He will enter the clinch proactively on opponents that want to close the distance. He grabs underhooks, get’s his forehead underneath their chin, and forces them to the cage. From there, he will either work elbows and knees if he can establish proper control, or just release some of the pressure in the fight by stifling offense briefly.

Another safety valve for Dawodu is the clinch, especially against fighters who start to find success at range.

The Process Part 4: Combinations

This is what everything in Dawodu’s game has been setting up: an offensive array that mixes together his individual threats so that the sum is even greater than the parts.

Dawodu’s process culminates in diverse combinations that combine punches and kicks at all three levels (legs, body, and head). After establishing his threats, he can play off his opponent’s reactions to make successive strikes harder to anticipate and defend. The above compilation contains an incredible depth of violence, but after first looking at how Dawodu utilizes each tool separately, it should be clear how each tool is amplified when they are strung together.

Some of the most frustrating fighters to watch are those that appear to spend all fight building to a climax that never arrives. It leaves spectators feeling like the contestants never got out of first gear. A fighter with an intelligent process transforms the fight into a compelling narrative where earlier events foreshadow the dramatic finale. In the case of Hakeem Dawodu, seeing his combinations gradually come together gives a satisfying resolution to the story.

Summary

The simple way of summarizing Hakeem Dawodu’s process is that he first breaks down his opponent with a high-volume leg and body attack. He then steadily mixes in beautiful combination work to put a stamp on the fight. It sounds simple, but MMA is a chaotic sport with numerous styles and a dizzying amount of variables to consider.

Sometimes the opponent runs away on the outside trying to set up single bursts of offense like Yoshinori Horie. Other times the opponent is a slick southpaw boxer with a fast jab and crafty setups for his one-two like Julio Arce. A relentless pace wrestler and checkmate grappler like Movsar Evloev is yet another problem to solve. A good strategy can prove totally inept if the fundamental tactics and moves stop working. The devil is often in the details.

Often what separates a very good fighter from a great fighter is the ability to adapt. Hakeem Dawodu has spent an hour and forty-five minutes over eight fights inside the octagon. Seven of those fights have made it to the third round. By this writer’s estimate (and most of the official judges), he has won every single one of those final rounds. His record may not look like much at first glance, but Hakeem Dawodu is a fighter worth our excitement.

Wrap-Up

Having spent four years of his prime fighting in Muay Thai and kickboxing, “Mean” Hakeem finds himself in a difficult position in the UFC’s highly competitive featherweight division. His talent is evident, but at thirty-one years old he needs a launching pad into the top of the division before the younger prospects claim those spots and bar him from entry. As much as analytical fans will continue to enjoy his round-winning style, without some highlight reel finishes it’s unlikely that the UFC will give him a winnable matchup against one of the aging fighters lingering near the top of the rankings.

Let’s hope that the steady commitment to his process will begin to bear fruit in the form of violent finishes that attract the attention he deserves.

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