Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Justin Gaethje Breakdown- A Legend Cements His Status
ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - OCTOBER 25: Khabib Nurmagomedov of Russia celebrates his victory over Justin Gaethje in their lightweight title bout during the UFC 254 event on October 25, 2020 on UFC Fight Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
Ahead of UFC 254, Justin Gaethje was slated as the toughest possible challenger for Khabib Nurmagomedov, and for good reason. The dynamic challenger possessed tremendous outside footwork, a measured pressure game, fight ending power, leg kicks, and a deep wrestling game that was sure to present some resistance to the undefeated King of the Lightweights. Most importantly - Justin Gaethje came into the unification fight with tremendous coaching behind him in Trevor Wittman and the Elevation Fight Team, who developed an intelligent gameplan for Gaethje to follow based on his own strengths and the successes of prior Khabib opponents. Yet - with his toughest, most violent challenger standing just 25 feet away from him, Khabib stood stone-faced, staring directly at Justin Gaethje without the slightest care in the world, ready to showcase his talent and put on the yet another sublime performance in his legendary career. The mark of a truly great fighter is not found in the immense amount of skill, talent, and athleticism that they possess. Rather, it is found in their ability to consistently execute, perform, and dominate at the highest level of the sport fight-in and fight-out. Khabib Nurmagomedov embodies this better than any fighter I have ever witnessed.
Early Problems for The Highlight
Justin Gaethje came into this fight looking to replicate some of the successes that Al Iaquinta found in his denial of Khabib’s open space takedowns, while adding in his own superior head movement, counters, kicks, and outside footwork. One of Al Iaquinta’s most notable tactics against Khabib was to fight out of an extremely crouched stance, which allowed him to lower his head, hands, arms, and hips in order to quickly defend any of Khabib’s takedown attempts in open space.
Watch as Gaethje repeatably crouches into his stance as he walks towards Khabib.
While the extra crouch in the stance of Gaethje allowed him to place all four lines of wrestling defense (head, hands, hips, forearms/arms) lower than Khabib’s base, it made moving laterally extremely difficult. If you have ever tried to move left or right while sitting in a crouched position, you’ll notice it is remarkably tougher than standing with only a small amount of bend in the knees. Movements are slower, the legs tire out extremely quickly, and it is very hard to create enough to distance to draw an opponent into rear-side attacks. Against Tony Ferguson, who did not present any threat of grappling, Gaethje was about as up-right as you could get, and his lateral movement shined as a result.
Gaethje uses an L-step to drive himself out of range, where he then uses a cross-step to get outside of Ferguson’s lead foot. When Ferguson enters, Gaethje has a clean angle from which to counter and then escape from. Notice how he is essentially stood-up the entirety of the clip.
The benefits of L-steps and cross-steps for outside footwork cannot be understated. They allow fighters to quickly exit out of range, get outside of the opponent’s lead foot, and then attain an angle from which to counter opponents entering in. Against a relentless pressurer like Khabib Nurmagomedov, the use of these footwork tactics were of utmost importance. Gaethje looked to find a balance between both the success he had using cross-steps against Ferguson and the benefits of the crouched stance, but he could never find a healthy medium.
In a similar position and situation to the clip above, Gaethje looks to tie in the crouched stance and his lateral movement. However, he cannot create any space to get out of punching range and his cross-steps are now too slow and allow Khabib to turn and pressure with him, which eats up precious space that Gaethje cannot afford to give up.
With Gaethje’s outside footwork hindered due to the takedown threat, could he implement a measured pressure game instead? Gaethje’s ability to pressure was contingent on him backing up Khabib to the cage with feints. Feints are an energy efficient, extremely safe way to push someone back without putting oneself out of position for a takedown or counter. But - feints have to have an active threat behind them in order to work. Israel Adesanya vs Yoel Romero is the most extreme example of this, where Romero simply did not react to Adesanya’s feints because he had no reason to believe it was anything but a feint. Khabib did his homework on Gaethje and initially reacted to his feints by circling out and away from Gaethje’s main threats (leg kick, right straight), but quickly wised up to him.
Gaethje uses a step-in feint to push Khabib to back and circling out and away. They repeat the process. Notice, Gaethje is never throwing strikes behind these feints or throwing strikes with a similar motion to the feint.
With Khabib quickly realizing that at the range Gaethje is trying to fight at + the feints having no threat behind them, he no longer needs to hop out and circle out on feints. Now, whenever Gaethje is feinting, Khabib takes a single step-back, before ramping up the pressure back up.
So, with both his outside footwork and measured pressure approach failing within the first minute of the first round, Gaethje essentially had two main options here.
Start to be more static in the crouched stance and try to counter Khabib as he steps in with a cross or lead hook, but risk getting jabbed up in the process (basically, what Al did)
Or, make it a dirty fight. Do not try to out-position him on the back-foot, rather take every miniscule opening to kick, throw caution to the wind whenever Khabib takes a step inside the pocket, and trust in your instinctive takedown defense to keep you safe.
Gaethje chose option 2 and Khabib displayed his brilliance in a way we had yet to seen before.
Nurmagomedov Shines
Ahead of UFC 254, very few could have predicted the amount of success that Khabib Nurmagomedov had on the feet. Gaethje is an adept counter-puncher who plays a pitch-and-catch game with an active guard + head movement, is a great pocket boxer with a knack for comfort in lengthy exchanges, and is a great kicker for MMA. However - Khabib came into this fight better prepared on the feet than he ever had before, utilizing level change feints to open up dipping strikes, rhythm manipulation in his steps to catch Gaethje off-guard, which dulled his counters and forced him into bad positioning, and consistently mixed in feints and non-committal punches in order to overwhelm Gaethje’s defenses.
Before stepping into his jab, Khabib dips his level, forcing Gaethje to crouch and extend his arm as a frame in order to defend a potential takedown. Khabib follows it up with a 2, constantly eating up space in the process. Knowing who Justin Gaethje is, he instantly wants to retaliate with a counter.
This exchange was the basis for Khabib’s entire strategy from here on out. Khabib knows that his jab can force Gaethje into a crouching position, which eliminates his ability to quickly move laterally to open up angles from which to counter, escape, or kick from. Gaethje is forced to take a linear step back, plant, and then throw while still being straight-on with no positional advantage. Khabib can see the punch coming and hide behind his shoulder before putting the pressure back on.
When you watch Khabib Nurmagomedov box, you are never thinking that this is the apex of punching mechanics. But, in many ways, having awkward mechanics helps him more than it hurts him. Take, for example, the level changing feint into straight above, where his feet are out of order and he cannot full turn over his straight, but the level change feint masks all of it. Or how Khabib will fully square his hips and trail his rear leg to square after he throws his lead straight, which is mechanically wrong, but when Khabib fully squares his hips at his opponents when entering in, they aren’t thinking “we can counter this guy, he’s wide open”, they are thinking “I am about to get taken down, abort mission”. The use of awkward mechanics is never encouraged in a good gym, but when a fighter has a clear and coherent process behind them, it is hard to find any fault in them.
Khabib jumps into the pocket with a leaping lead uppercut, with Gaethje again static and forced to plant into his counter. This is incredibly risky to do, but with Gaethje cornered and the uppercut protecting his chin, Khabib took a calculated risk. As well, hopping inside frightens Gaethje and forces him to quite literally run out of the pocket, taking away his offensive options and forcing him to the defensive.
With Gaethje forced to stay straight-on in his positioning while countering and forced to skip out with no offensive threats when placed near the cage, Khabib started to implement a bit of rhythm manipulation in his steps in order to catch Gaethje off-guard as he circled away. Normally, the steps to a jab pattern goes something like this: front foot goes forward, back foot comes forward, both set in place, now we can jab. Khabib constantly changed this pattern however, jabbing off the front foot, back foot, and in between steps as he walked Gaethje down.
Here, Khabib is walking forward, out-of-stance, and tosses out a jab on his back foot before his front foot even lands. Gaethje is not expecting it, therefore cannot counter. Gaethje is forced to shell up and place frames on Khabib, which lets him eat up even more space.
But now, Khabib settles into his front foot before shooting off a jab. Gaethje is again forced to crouch and looks to at least try to slip the punches he was not ready for. Khabib easily reads his counter after the slip and Gaethje is so out of position with Khabib that Khabib gets a little front kick in.
Khabib goes back to shooting the jab off of his back foot, catching Gaethje again looking for a break in the action.
Between steps now, Khabib fires off a jab that catches Gaethje trying to circle away, before doubling it up. Notice how Khabib stays non-committal on these jabs, meaning that he keeps his weight back and planted, in order to make sure he can evade any Gaethje counter or shoot in should the opportunity arise.
Every time Khabib starts to pursue Gaethje and work towards the cage, Khabib keeps the jab coming on a different step as a constant threat. As a result, Gaethje can never figure out the rhythm of Khabib and it effects him in a few ways:
It compounds on the pacing issue that he is already facing trying to deal with Khabib in general. Constantly having to be ready for a jab out of nowhere is incredibly taxing and takes away any break in the action.
The jab hits him while his footwork is out of place. As a result, he can never find the only option for a counter that Khabib has not taken away (those from a straight-on angle), since his feet are not planted correctly and his weight was not ready to be transferred into a counter.
Gaethje had to concede pressure without Khabib having to expend large amounts of energy. Khabib did not need RDA-level pressure footwork to cut the cage off, he just needed to force Gaethje to be on the defensive and he could make it a claustrophobic fight for Gaethje.
Khabib also employed a counter jab in order to stop Gaethje’s shifting and weaving entries in their tracks. However, using a counter jab as a tool to stop shifting pressure can be extremely risky, especially if the shifting fighter can cover the distance. As evidenced in his fight with Dustin Poirier, an errant counter jab in attempt to stop a shift walked Khabib right into a overhand right in round two. But - Khabib has acutely aware of this risk and kept his counter jab both active and non-committal to force Gaethje to move his head while still allowing Khabib to pull out of range if need be.
Khabib pumps his jab out at the first sign of a shift from Gaethje, which stops him in his tracks and forces him to constantly adjust his base and head.
This was Khabib Nurmagomedov’s best performance on the feet of his entire career, bar none. From the craftiness of his counter jab to his rhythm manipulation to dull counters and tire Gaethje out, Khabib showed out on the feet like few believed he could.
Justin Gaethje: Adjustments
In what I could only imagine was the apex of a frustrating fight, there were a few moments of hope for Justin Gaethje. Gaethje came out for the 2nd round with some key adjustments on the feet that led to success:
He stopped feinting himself out of range.
He began to disregard the crouched stance, allowing his outside footwork to shine again.
As Khabib was hop-stepping out of Gaethje’s feints all night, Gaethje could never find the range he needed to be at. Coming into the 2nd round, Gaethje began to stop throwing feints before his strikes, rather, he began to hop into his lead hook and catch Khabib as he tried to exit.
Almost completely stood up now, Gaethje regained the mobility that he needed. Here, he takes a sidestep to the left into a hop step, which covered a ton of distance and forced Khabib to turn and follow. Gaethje had a perfect angle from which to counter kick from and he nearly kicks Khabib’s leg out for it. Continuing the pattern of sidestep into hop step, Gaethje maneuvers his way to the inside angle, where he can jab at Khabib as he tries to follow.
Even without the crouched stance, Gaethje still had some issues with his lateral movement. Gaethje was routinely forced onto his heels and out of good positioning by the slightest amount of pressure past the black octagon lines. Gaethje’s issues largely stemmed from mechanical problems when he is placed on the backfoot and the lack of composed footwork after kicking, which we will get into later on in the article.
If Justin Gaethje was ever going to win this fight while outfighting, it was going to be because he could prevent Khabib from lining up his takedowns by constantly forcing him to turn on the spot and follow. However, with the threat of a takedown omnipresent, Gaethje felt that he had to try the crouched stance and hedge his bets that it would still allow him to quickly move around the cage to set-up his own offense. That line of thinking ultimately failed, but it truly shows the level a fighter would have to be at to beat Khabib. They would have to find a perfect mix between takedown defense, stance, set-ups to prevent their kicks from being caught or being drawn into a single leg, athleticism, power, etc. There are only a handful of fighters who you could trust to do those things in the history of MMA and even fewer who you would realistically give a shot to win.
Wrestling and Grappling
The questions surrounding the wrestling exchanges coming into this fight were some of the most intriguing when analyzing this bout. Could Khabib get an All-American down in open space? How does the cage wrestling play out? Can Gaethje wrestle for an extended period of time anymore? Some of these question we will never know the answer to, but Khabib displayed the best open space takedowns in his entire career and clearly showed that, once again, wrestling bears > wrestling humans.
Gaethje throws a kick, but lacks the footwork after the kick to calmly make his way out of range to set-up counters. Khabib takes advantage of this, shifting into a double leg takedown as Gaethje is out of position. This is a ridiculously clean entry, with all 4 lines of defense bypassed, good drive in his legs, and the kinetic chain still in tact. The head outside allows Khabib to drive his head in and pull his right hand in, to fold Gaethje over.
With all 4 lines of defense bypassed, there is only one line left: scrambling. It initially looks like Gaethje is going to attempt a leg pass (or funk roll) by dropping to his left shoulder, underhooking the right leg of Khabib, rolling through to get under Khabib’s base, and then coming out of the backdoor, but he promptly stops when he realizes where he is. Going for a leg pass is a great last line of defense, if you anywhere except along the cage. The cage does not give the proper room necessary for the roll to completely get through and runs the offensive wrestler right into the cage, which offers extra time for an opponent to get to one of multiple counters.
Lentz gets in on a similar looking double and Chandler immediately drops to his lead shoulder, underhooks the leg, gets under Lentz’s base, and tries to build up so he can exit. While doing so however, he runs Lentz right into the cage, which is essentially a barrier for the roll. With no where to go, Lentz sits into a crucifix. You can see why Gaethje decides otherwise.
Gaethje is sat along the cage now, looking to escape Khabib’s leg mount. If you have ever been in a leg mount, you will find that is relatively easy to escape in a pure grappling context, but with the addition of the cage to hinder the movement of the hips and legs, it makes it much more difficult. Khabib circles towards the cage, pulling Gaethje’s post out in the process, which drops him to a shoulder and makes getting into the leg weave pass much easier. Khabib tripods up to float over Gaethje’s base, circles into the leg weave, and then circles into his underhook to move into the mount.
Leg mount is a staging point for Khabib to gain initial control of a wrist (which, should his opponent turn to turtle up, makes his riding game much easier to get into) and to move into his tripod style of passing. Khabib, while likely being the strongest 155’er on the planet when grappling, is not a big proponent of using crossfaces or any pressure based passing style. Khabib likes to float above the guarder’s base in a tripod (either has his head, feet, or knees staged on 3 separate points), which lets him constantly flow into kneecuts or leg weaves as well as use lateral movement to point the guarder’s hips in the opposite direction of the pass. Most importantly - floating above a guarder’s base allows them some space to move, which often means that:
Opponents try to turtle up (Khabib enters into his rides)
Opponents try to escape (Khabib is always ready, they drain their gas tank or get punched).
Outside of Khabib, some of the other best top game players in MMA like Ali Bagov also use posture and tripods in conjunction with ground and pound. Bagov is one of the best (only behind Khabib) in MMA at posturing just enough to keep control, but also just enough to encourage movement on the bottom. When he strikes down, his opponents often overreact with too much movement and let him easily pass or they turtle to allow him to ride.
Showcasing another multi-use of purpose of his jab, Khabib uses it draw out Gaethje’s leg kick counter, where he can immediately shoot upon it’s retraction. Khabib did not get as clean a entry on the hips as his previous successful takedown, but angled with Gaethje on the way down. While Gaethje was still reeling, Khabib used his own momentum against him, sitting into a duck under as Gaethje tried to angle away.
Gaethje completely disregards any framing, which allows Khabib to work higher into mount and take away any of Gaethje’s drive in potential escapes. After freeing his left arm, Gaethje attempts to fight Khabib’s hand and tries pushing off Khabib’s shoulder, instead of working to push Khabib’s knee back down or establishing some sort of frame. The threat of an armbar scared Gaethje off and convinced him to pull out his right hand from underneath Khabib’s leg, instead of digging it in deeper to create some space. With the triangle fully on, Gaethje tries to stack his hips on Khabib’s to relieve some pressure, but Khabib curls his back, spins on it, underhooks the leg and now has a proper angle from which to squeeze.
Concluding Thoughts
Any man who enters into a locked octagon with Justin Gaethje with the intent to fight the man and leaves without a scratch on his face or a labored breath is a special person. In his systemized integration of wrestling tactics, BJJ, and Judo, Khabib Nurmagomedov revolutionized grappling within MMA forever and, for my money, is the best MMA grappler the sport have ever seen and likely will have ever seen in the close future. Most importantly, Khabib always took the sport on his own terms. He wasn’t goaded into a pointless rematch with McGregor, rather he fought the best in the world time-in and time-out, and retired on top the game, undefeated, 29-0, in the toughest division in the sport’s history.