Marat Grigorian vs. Ivan Kondratev: A Tale of Two Knockdowns
Photo by Anthony Dibon/Icon Sport via Getty Images
It should come as no surprise to anybody, but I am quite fond of Marat Grigorian. His legendary five-fight kickboxing series with Sitthichai Sitsongpeenong remains one of the greatest triumphs of the human spirit ever encountered in combat sports, and he remains an absolute joy to watch and analyze. Naturally, his transition to ONE Championship was an appealing move, considering the organizations considerable talent stack in their lightweight division. From longtime rivals (Sitthichai) to former victims (Superbon) to exceptional talents waiting for a signature scalp (Ӧzcan), the incumbent Glory lightweight champion would be right at home amidst this august company.
Though Marat’s ONE Championship debut against Ivan Kondratev was certainly bumpier than expected, what followed was one of the best fights I’ve seen in 2020 (despite it lasting all of two rounds) and another notch in Grigorian’s belt as kickboxing’s most thrilling fighter.
Round 1
Ivan Kondratev’s first round was nothing short of brilliant. Eschewing the calculated outside approach of Sitthichai, Kondratev stayed right in Marat’s face and boxed with the lineal champ.
Kondratev (the southpaw) utilized the outside angle and the threat of the outside angle to find his positioning against Grigorian. Here, he moves laterally as he takes the outside angle on Marat and the Armenian attempts to cut him off with an outset leg kick off his front leg. When Ivan steps in again, he feints upstairs to draw Grigorian’s guard up before hammering his body. Grigorian retracts his lead leg, but in response, Kondratev accepts the inside angle and extends the exchange before finding the outside angle once more. It was this fluid in-&-out footwork that earned Kondratev an early lead.
In response, Marat began low-kicking Kondratev’s rear leg when his opponent stepped in. Grigorian half-steps with his lead leg to present the illusion of pressure, to which Ivan hop-steps to the outside angle before initiating. Marat retracts his lead leg to transfer his weight before throwing a low kick off his rear leg. Notice how Grigorian folds his torso off-line as he throws the kick, slipping inside Kondratev’s right hand.
Grigorian began doubling-down on the rear leg kick counters, even going as far as to feed Kondratev the outside angle before stepping through to smother his opponent’s return fire. This was an effective way to punish Ivan’s pivots.
Kondratev’s work off his lead hand was lovely, and he even began adjusting to Grigorian’s offense as his opponent attempted to find counters. Part of what made this fight so special was the fearlessness Kondratev displayed against one of the most prolific lightweight kickboxers in the world right from the outset. He looked like a prepared fighter, instead of the cannon fodder onlookers presumed he’d be.
Much of Ivan’s success came from his proficient jab. He paws a lead hook upstairs as he pivots to the outside angle. He was able to play off a pivoting jab and a harder, step-jab to dissuade Grigorian’s rhythm and mute his counters. I particularly liked Kondratev switching up his lateral movement on Marat, angling to the inside before taking a longer step to the outside.
The moment Grigorian began kicking Kondratev’s lead leg, Ivan switched his entries up. He paws a rear hand at Marat’s high guard to disguise a leg kick of his own to off-balance his opponent. Then, he angles to the inside moving backward before reengaging with a jab. Grigorian frames with his lead hand and ducks his chin behind his lead shoulder. As Marat attempts to counter once more with the low kick to Kondratev’s rear leg, Ivan lands a short left hook to the body on the break. The next time Kondratev pivots, he attacks Grigorian’s body in combination.
Kondratev even started looking to turn the corner with his southpaw lead hook, an exceptional way to blindside an orthodox opponent in an open-stance matchup, since the arcing punch flanks their lead shoulder and lands on the temple. The open side angle was a reliable exit for Ivan, and he would frequently look for the outside angle shortly after exiting an exchange, catching Grigorian whilst pivoting out and resetting. Since Kondratev was pivoting with his right hook so frequently, Grigorian had a difficult time seeing the punch coming through his high guard, as it would regularly land after Ivan had already reset his angle.
There is something to be said for Marat Grigorian adapting to the ONE FC cage versus the Glory kickboxing ring he’d grown so accustomed to. The cage is much wider and there are no corners for fighters to be stuck in, so Grigorian’s typical forward pressure provided Kondratev with a lot of real estate to exit with. However, this is not meant as a sleight on Kondratev’s footwork, since he took angles off the backfoot seamlessly and pivoted with regularity, always forcing Grigorian to turn and face him.
It is telling that the few moments Grigorian was able to pressure Kondratev effectively and force him backward were often some of the most impactful for the Armenian-Belgian. As Ivan shuffles to his right, Grigorian steps forward with a jab before levering into a body shot and finishing with a body kick. Kondratev’s lateral movement in open space was quite impressive, but his punishment for not pivoting was severe in this fight. His exits narrowed the closer he drew to the fence.
As the exchanges heated up, it looked as if Grigorian’s pressure was going to wear down the underdog. However, in the final ten seconds of the first round, Kondratev landed a thunderous punch that put Grigorian to the canvas and shocked viewers around the world.
Ivan pivots with his jab to square up with Grigorian in the pocket. Marat feints a jab to step into his lead leg kick (a favorite entry of his), and Kondratev slips under his opponent’s lead hand to throw a straight. Both men are loaded up for a right hand, but in different ways. Grigorian is standing side-on from his kick, meaning his lead leg needs to plant before he can throw and the right hook from his rear hand will square his shoulders and hips as he springs into it. Conversely, Kondratev’s shoulders are already squared from the left hand. All he has to do is readjust his lead foot to a 45 degree angle inside and close the door to find his mark. Ivan’s right hand lands first and it puts Grigorian down.
Considering the prestige of his opponent, Ivan Kondratev deserves a ton of credit for how expertly he fought in the first frame of this bout. However, he made the fatal error of underestimating the determination of Marat Grigorian. Let us not forget; this man lost four times to the same opponent before finding a way to win the fifth time around. No mere knockdown was going to spoil the former champion’s ONE debut.
Round 2
Most fighters who suffer a knockdown think twice before reengaging their opponent, but Marat Grigorian is not most fighters. As soon as his knee touched the canvas at the end of the first frame, the former Glory champion woke up and reenergized.
Marat Grigorian might as well be the spiritual successor to Juan Manuel Márquez, in which adversity only seems to harden the man’s steely focus. The second round of this fight is a distillation of everything great about the Armenian-Belgian, as the knockdown he suffered only served to piss him off.
The second round was marked by an uptick in Grigorian’s aggression. He began countering Kondratev’s low kicks with rear leg low kicks yet again, while simultaneously posting on the inside of his opponent’s lead shoulder to check the counter hook. As Ivan began moving backward, Marat would concede to attacking the lead leg. It forced Kondratev into a dangerous game of choice: either allow Marat to smother his offense and attack his rear leg or evade and allow the Armenian-Belgian to punish his lead leg.
Kondratev’s jab was still a reliable tool for building offense against Marat, but the Armenian-Belgian also began extending exchanges whilst looking for more opportunities to hit the body.
Chock it up to Marat Grigorian’s stubbornness, but after a round of getting his body chewed up on the inside, the former champion started doing some of his own work, boxing on the inside. He punished Ivan’s ducking entries with the lead uppercut, and did a nice job of loading up the left hook to the body off of missed right hands.
When Grigorian began opening up his arsenal, the glimmer of hope that Kondratev kindled at the end of round 1 began to fade. The exchanges taxed the underdog more, since Grigorian’s attritional damage was beginning to accumulate. Even in Ivan’s better exchanges, the former champion utilized some veteran guile, sneaking in a few key body shots and low kicks to break the underdog’s countering rhythm. Grigorian knew that he could afford to lose exchanges if he was banking attritional damage at the same time.
To his credit, Kondratev kept trying to press his advantage through to the end. Ivan herds Marat with a left high kick before feinting a jab and taking the outside angle, hitting the body on the pivot. However, he struggled to find powerful counters to keep Marat off him as the round wore on.
As have been well-documented, the finishing instincts of the champion remain peerless and as the underdog drew closer to the fence, things quickly spiraled out of control for him. Marat began putting more combinations together, hammering the body at every turn, and it wasn’t long before the underdog crumpled along the fence in agony.
Grigorian uses his outside lead leg kick to draw out a response from Kondratev, who simply moves backward, closer to the fence. As Marat pressures behind his strikes, he once again meets Ivan on the inside, though his guard along his right side is tighter and his posture is more erect. Grigorian finds the lead uppercut once more to punish Kondratev’s ducking position, and even as Kondratev attempts to frame Marat off with his lead forearm, Grigorian punches around the guard to hit the body. Kondratev pivots right into Marat’s cage-cutting left hook to the liver, and he folds.
Fights like this serve to highlight what a truly remarkable fighter Marat Grigorian is. His staid determination in a fight is a boon at the best of times, but when opponents push back at him with everything they have, his commitment only seems to amplify. I’m not sure the Armenian-Belgian has been given his due diligence for being as smart a fighter as he is, but watching him adjust to the angular footwork of Kondratev by lengthening exchanges with a special dedication paid to attritional work was an absolute treat to watch. The man is a machine.
Final Thoughts
I came away from this fight tremendously impressed by both men. Kondratev wasn’t supposed to be much more than a stepping stone for Grigorian, but clearly Ivan didn’t get the memo. He fought courageously and wisely, investing in some serious body work early and forcing Marat’s hand in exchanges that ultimately led to an impressive knockdown. With a little more polish, a rematch between these two a few years down the line could be quite exciting.
For Marat, he remains an absolute force of nature in the sport of kickboxing. He needed to make dramatic adjustments at the end of the first round to pull the fight back in his favor, and that’s exactly what he did. Some might point to the layoff, the cage, or the new organization jitters for his timidity early, but I’d rather look at the expertise of his opponent and the ironclad will of Grigorian, instead. Maybe a rematch with Superbon arrives next for Marat, or a rebooking of Grigorian/Ӧzcan. Whatever happens, expect Grigorian to make some serious noise in his newfound home at ONE FC.