Fighter On Fighter! Breaking Down ‘Stylebender!’

Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Middleweight kingpin, Israel Adesanya, will face off with high-flying knockout artist, Yoel Romero, this Saturday (March 7, 2020) at UFC 248 inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Few have risen to the top faster than Adesanya. It obviously helps to have an extensive and decorated professional kickboxing record, but Adesanya made incredible leaps with his defensive grappling and general transition to mixed martial arts (MMA) very quickly. All his growth culminated in a master class performance against Robert Whittaker at UFC 243, as he captured the title just 18 months after joining UFC’s roster.

The road does not grow any easy for “Stylebender,” however. He’s taking a real risk in calling out Yoel Romero, who has pretty much found a way to hurt all of his opponents at some point or another (plus that whole Olympic wrestling background). It’s a bold move, but only by taking chances like this is such a skyrocket to stardom possible.

Let’s take a closer look at Adesanya’s skill set:

Adesanya is able to get away with throwing shorter combinations because he feints and reads opponents so well. He understands how they’re moving and where they’ll be, which also makes it easier to land up flashy techniques like a jump spinning back kick or question mark kick.

One of the common ways Adesanya scores is to present his foe with a seemingly easy target, pull back, and counter. By leaning forward (sometimes with his hands by his waist), Adesanya brings his head forward but keeps his legs back. The second Adesanya see his foe’s shoulder twitch, “Stylebender” can yank his head back out of range, watch his opponent come up short, and return fire.

Notably, Adesanya always retreats without breaking stance, which makes it easier to fire back a counter right hand.

Adesanya’s knockout victory over Robert Whittaker was counter fighting excellence.

Outside of the left hook/block he used to secure the angle and drop Whittaker twice (analyzed in the video above), there are a couple other habits to note. For one, Adesanya’s complete faith in his distance: Whittaker tried to capitalize on Adesanya’s aforementioned pull counter by sending high kicks up after his combinations. That’s smart strategy, but thanks to Adesanya’s range control, the kicks came up just short.

Secondly, Adesanya showed some real slick preparation against Whittaker’s stabbing side kick to the lead leg. At one point, Whittaker went to dig into the quad, but Adesanya brought the leg back (removing the target) and fired a snapping high kick that Whittaker just managed to block (GIF).

Adesanya’s back-and-forth war with Kelvin Gastelum was also hugely informative. It highlighted a pair of pretty invaluable traits: the ability to adjust and smart strike selection.

The first round did not go well to Adesanya. His strategy seemed to be to focus mostly on counter punching, but Gastelum is incredibly fast. It’s difficult to counter punch a faster man — Gastelum was able to score his heavy left hand too consistently, and one even hurt Adesanya.

Adesanya adjusted in the second by shifting into a more offensive strategy. He began really stepping forward with power kicks, smartly ripping his right kick into the Southpaw’s lead leg and mid-section. He shifted back to his fundamentals, relying heavily on the right kick to do damage. As a result, his counter punches began to land with better consistency, as Gastelum’s speed was diminished by the body/leg work. Plus, Gastelum was more likely to lunge forward when getting blasted by kicks, whereas earlier he was able to slip his way into the pocket.

Another range tactic in Adesanya’s arsenal that is more common among excellent kickboxers is hand trapping. He’s quite willing to reach out and jam up one of his opponent’s hands, which can lead to a lot of different offensive opportunities for Adesanya. Often, he’ll occupy a hand then blast a kick, but he’ll commonly grab the wrist and use that moment to take an angle. Against Brad Tavares, Adesanya repeatedly used hand traps to land elbows (GIF), a favorite strategy of Jon Jones.

Defensively, Adesanya is hugely confident in his range control. His usual reach advantage largely limits his foe’s options, meaning he only has to be prepared to defend against a handful of techniques. It’s much easier to pull off beautiful slips and rolls (GIF) when his opponent can only hope to reach him with straight punches and maybe a kick. 4 oz. gloves mean that it’s always a risky to fight with hands low, but Adesanya’s defense is still pretty great.

Wrestling

Adesanya’s wrestling abilities have grown with remarkable speed. His first two UFC fights showed some decent fundamentals and the correct scrambling mentality, but he was still taken down multiple times by fighters nowhere near as talented as Kelvin Gastelum and Derek Brunson, neither of whom found any success trapping Adesanya on the mat.

Adesanya fights tall, and as such, it’s easier to get deep on his hips, which is generally a very bad sign for takedown defense. However, Adesanya has proven to have very strong hips, one of those invaluable assets that’s difficult to explain technically. It’s quite noticeable though, as Adesanya was able to circle his hips back and sprawl even when Gastelum secured a strong grip below the butt.

Length helps quite a bit in lots of regards. It may be easier to get on Adesanya’s legs, but he’s going to bounce on one leg and be difficult to pick up into the air. Plus, he’s likely punching his opponent in the face mid-takedown attempt, which complicates things plenty.

When Adesanya has been put on his back, he’s shown the right mentality, which can largely be boiled down to, “don’t stop moving.” As his technique has improved, that’s resulted in better scrambling and submission attempts against Gastelum, but even his debut showed the foundation of such skill. Against Rob Wilkinson, Adesanya successfully forward rolled out of the back clinch. That’s an actual technique, one that counters the opponent’s forward momentum and attempt to hang on by throwing them forward, and Adesanya showed real guts to pull it off (GIF).

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Adesanya hasn’t done a ton of jiu-jitsu inside the cage, because his focus has been on defending takedowns and scrambling back up quickly. However, the bulk of his mat work came against a talented wrestler in Gastelum in the fifth round of a crazy war — and it was still strong technique (GIF)!

In one prolonged exchange, Adesanya first countered a takedown attempt with a high-elbow guillotine, forcing Gastelum to fall to his back to defend. Adesanya did fall victim to Gastelum’s excellent arm roll and wind up on his back soon after, but he immediately threw up a triangle choke. He was able to secure a good angle, but his lock was over his own foot rather than shin, which does alleviate the pressure a bit. He wasn’t able to finish the submission, but forcing Gastelum on the defensive with submissions late in the fight was still a promising sign for Adesanya’s overall grappling ability.

Conclusion

Despite the quickness with which Adesanya climbed the Middleweight ladder, he did not have an easy road to the title. Gastelum and Tavares are tough outs, and Whittaker is one of the most skilled men on the roster. Adesanya has thus far been able to stay a step ahead repeatedly, but he’ll have to be especially one his toes against his most dangerous foe yet.

Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 248 fight card this weekend right here, starting with the Fight Pass/ESPN+ “Prelims” matches online, which are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. ET, then the remaining undercard balance on ESPN at 8 p.m. ET, before the PPV main card start time at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+.

To check out the latest and greatest UFC 248: “Adesanya vs. Romero” news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archive right here.

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Andrew Richardson, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu brown belt, is a professional fighter who trains at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California. In addition to learning alongside world-class talent, Andrew has scouted opponents and developed winning strategies for several of the sport’s most elite fighters.