The UFC 267 preview series will continue with the next matchup between Islam Makhachev and Dan Hooker. Honestly, this fight feels like a higher level version of what I just talked about in the Li Jingliang versus Khamzat Chimaev preview. At it's core, this is the unstoppable prospect against the respected veteran. The only difference is that this fight takes place in the top 6 of the divisional rankings instead of number 11 against unranked. Either way, let's get into it and start with Islam Makhachev.
If you're not familiar with Islam Makhachev, this is a fighter who has been billed as the successor to Khabib Nurmagomedov for a few years now. Makhachev has trained with Khabib and his dad for years and they know each other very well. It doesn't take hours of film watching to realize this either as there are a lot of similarities in their styles. Islam heavily uses his wrestling as Khabib did, but Islam is a little more refined on his feet. While his striking is a little more technically sound than Khabib's was, Islam isn't nearly as powerful and doesn't present the same relentless pressure Khabib did. At least not in the same way. Again, I am not a fighter and do not train, so take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt. It seems to me that Islam is a little more comfortable on his feet than Khabib was (even though Khabib improved tremendously by the end of his career) and because of that, he doesn't feel the need to immediately charge after his opponent to drag him to the mat. He feels comfortable in pressuring in a more deliberate type of way and getting the takedown once it presents itself. Islam does have one loss on his record that came in his second UFC appearance in 2015, but that hasn't stunted his growth as a title contender at all. I made the Chimaev comparison earlier (mostly because I did that article first, in reality it is Chimaev who would be compared to Islam, not the other way), but the difference here is that Islam has quite a few wins over some pretty solid fighters. Drew Dober, Thiago Moises, Arman Tsarukyan, Gleison Tibau, and Nik Lentz are varying degrees of solid to good fighters, but not really the true top contender someone has to go through in order to get a shot at the title. That's what makes this fight a little odd. At same time, Hooker is the most dangerous opponent Makhachev has ever faced and could be the win that gets him a title shot. Normally, you will see a fighter need at least a few wins over a ranked opponent before getting a title opportunity, but Islam could be an exception to that with a win here. To discuss this dynamic any further, we need to get into Dan Hooker.
If you've been an MMA fan for any length of time, you likely know who Dan Hooker is. However, there's always new fans and I'm not going to be the one to gatekeep the sport, so if you don't know, Dan Hooker is one of the people who embodies everything fans love about the sport. The fan favorite has had a tough go of it over his last handful of fights. He won a crazy split decision war against Paul Felder before losing a tough 5 round battle against title challenger Dustin Poirier. He then fell victim to a knockout loss in the UFC debut of Michael Chandler, but was able to turn in around with a win against Nasrat Haqparast last month. While he hasn't always come away victorious, Hooker has shared the cage with some of the best fighters in the world including Poirier, Chandler, Felder, Edson Barboza, Gilbert Burns, and Yair Rodriguez to name a few. This really high level experience is something Hooker has that Makhachev doesn't and is always a factor in fights even though it is difficult to quantify. Hooker is one of the toughest guys in the division and he won't go away quickly, so even if he loses, Makhachev will have to push the full 15 minutes.
Now, to get into this matchup specifically. I know I said how improved Islam Makhachev is on the feet in the striking department, but it's not really any secret that he would prefer to get this fight to the ground. Standing for 15 minutes against Dan Hooker would not be a good idea for him or most others in the weight class. This won't be an easy task though because Hooker has 80% takedown defense, which is pretty good. Obviously, stopping a takedown for Makhachev isn't your ordinary takedown, but there is reason to believe that at least a solid portion of this fight will take place on the feet. Hooker even showed off some offensive wrestling against Haqparast, but I wouldn't expect to see any of this here. Makhachev does need to be careful when he does shoot because we have seen Dan Hooker do significant damage to opponents on multiple occasions with knees up the middle. A lazy or blind shot could result in a step-in knee to the chin, which even for the toughest guys, isn't always possible to walk through. Hooker also presents some issues because he is especially long for the weight class and uses his kicks very well to keep his opponents at a distance a lot of the time. I'm giving a lot of information here that would suggest that Hooker has a lot of advantages over Islam, which he does, but it's not like he's undefeated or anything, so where does that leave Islam? Obviously he wants to wrestle and Hooker has lost to wrestlers before. We saw Michael Chandler relentlessly pressure Hooker from the jump, which really prevented Hooker's kicks from being a factor. The problem is that Chandler was able to knockout Hooker out before we saw any wrestling exchanges, so it's hard to say how those would have played out. I think it would be wise for Islam to take an approach similar to Chandler's, but at the same time, Islam doesn't have nearly the power Chandler used to put Hooker down and finish him. If it isn't clear, I believe this fight is way closer stylistically than most people are giving it credit for.
However, there is an added layer to this. Hooker took this fight on about a one month notice. He did take it in the immediate aftermath of the Haqparast fight, so he did have a camp for that, but even that was limited due to the COVD restrictions in his native Australia. I won't go into all of the details surrounding it as I already have a post on it and it has been talked about and outlined a million times by everyone at this point, but in short, Hooker has had a hard time being able to train in Australia and get to the United States. He arrived for the Haqparast fight on Thursday of fight week and has been in the US since. He trained in Las Vegas for this fight and hasn't been home since late September. He did say in an interview with Ariel Helwani that the UFC was going to bring his family over to be with him, but I don't know how long that took to set up. The short notice of this fight throws a wrench into things for Hooker, but I still believe he has a very real chance to win this fight. I would say he is significantly better fighter than anyone Islam has fought and presents some unique counters to Islam's strengths.
As before, I won't make a pick here, but I will have a post on Saturday morning with my picks for the entire card. With that said, what do you guys think? Who gets the win here? Is this enough to put either of them into a title fight? Thanks for reading and I have more previews on the way.
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