UFC 235: Can Zabit Magomedsharipov emulate Nurmagomedov and go all the way

ZABIT Magomedsharipov has been the talk of MMA forums since his UFC debut. He’s all spinning kicks and check hooks on a base of solid wrestling and sambo. If you listen to Magomedsharipov’s management, everyone under the sun has ducked a fight with him, but Jeremy Stephens is the first featherweight of real note who looks to be ready to get into the cage with Magomedsharipov and—as predictable as Stephens can be—he might give us some answers to a couple of Magomedsharipov questions.

Stephens’ issues have always been stopping his opponent from rudely stepping out of the way of his smashing power punches. A little lateral movement and caution and Stephens is often left swinging at air. Renato Moicano made Stephens look very bad when Stephens was ranked number five in the world and Moicano was practically unheard of.

But one of the habits that Zabit has consistently shown is backing straight up onto the fence. In most of Magomedsharipov’s fights he will get caught along the fence several times, and often he will concede double underhooks in this position and then use his tremendous wrestling to work back from a disadvantage. Stephens is unlikely to want double underhooks though, he’ll just want to swing haymakers.

Zabit tends to back onto the fence if pressured.

Yet Stephens has two other weapons that might frustrate Magomedsharipov: a decent jab and a punishing right low kick which cuts in below the knee. Magomedsharipov’s long stance might make him a mark for the kick, and Brandon Davis had good success feinting and jabbing at him. Feinting a man who is simply waiting to land his spinning back kick or check hook often leaves him swinging at air and good fighters can capitalize on this or use it to settle the counter fighter down.

But as soon as Magomedsharipov finds some trouble on the feet he tends to fall back on what he’s very good at: wrestling. Even if you cannot rely on Stephens to come in with smartest gameplan and test all of Magomedsharipov’s weaker areas, you can count on Stephens’ takedown defence to tell us something about Zabit.

Stephens is one of those fighters who can stop a takedown until he forgets about it. Against Dennis Bermudez, Stephens stopped all but one of the wrestler’s takedowns over three rounds, and even the brilliant Frankie Edgar had to try 15 times to get Stephens off his feet. Stephens tends to get taken down when his opponent can get him to forget about it and into a slugging match. This means that if you’re throwing a bit of everything at Stephens, you have good chances of success, but if you can’t comfortably throw punches with him and you get a little bit desperate, you’re going to have a hard time getting him down.

Stephens’ purpose in the fight game is to sort the chaff from the wheat. Even the very best fighters in the world must make some concessions to him and fight to a gameplan because of his tremendous power and durability. I have likened Magomedsharipov to a young Jon Jones—obviously talented but a bit too reckless—so this fight against a top-notch gatekeeper could well be the start of him getting down to business and learning to use his advantages and take away his opponents’ chances to get back in the fight.