📝The Best Takedown Artist Gets Better

Merab Dvalishvili cemented his lead on the UFC’s bantamweight division. But in running through Cory Sandhagen we got a small glimpse of what people are not doing against Merab and how he can be beaten. We’re going to explain all of that below.

Now let’s get into it.

Merab Dvalishvili is a breath of fresh air. The dynamic bantamweight champion is a skilled grappler that became a fan favorite on the back of takedowns, tireless work ethic, and weird memes.

When you hear about Merab’s endless cardio you might assume he just spams singles and doubles. Merab does shoot for the legs often, but his best work comes after he climbs up his opponent to get a body lock.

What Merab does better than anyone, and I mean anyone in the UFC, is use his feet after he gets a hold of his opponent.

After Merab picks up a leg he starts stepping in, out, and around his opponents’ stance to off balance them. Sometimes this ends in a takedown. If it doesn’t it doesn’t really matter. He’s already onto the next attack.

At UFC 320 Merab showed what is effectively his entire arsenal of takedowns against Cory Sandhagen.

All of Merab’s standing grappling starts by him bending over to pick up a single leg. From there he has a few immediate attacks.

If Merab’s opponent has a more narrow stance he’ll stick his foot out to trip the support leg they’re hopping on.

If Merab has a single but his hands are open he’ll often club them to knock them off balance.

And of course Merab regularly returns to the fundamentals to walk his opponents around, run the pipe, and dump them to the floor. This either puts them on their butt or gives Merab a double leg.

What do you notice about the end of all three of the takedowns above? Where do they finish? Body locks.

Whether Merab has a front, side, or rear body lock, he gets his most impressive work done after he locks his hands around his opponent’s torso. In fact, most of his grappling seems designed to get him there.

Merab is a master of using the kosoto gake along the fence. And even when it doesn’t result in a takedown, his opponent’s reaction gives him room to step inside for something like an uki goshi or front uchi mata.

In Merab’s fight with Sandhagen, his slickest work came from the rear body lock.

And here is one clear example of Merab flowing through his multi pronged attack.

Single, double, rear body lock, foot sweep. Effortless. And that’s basically Merab’s overall takedown game.

Merab bends over to pick up single legs and start moving his feet. If he can trip you or club you to the floor, great. If not, he runs through a double leg or puts your back on the cage. Then he starts climbing up your hips to get a body lock. And from there he goes back and forth between stepping inside and outside of your feet until you fall over. The best park about this small system is if Merab ever loses control of the body lock he’ll just go back to the single and vice-versa.

This next clip doesn’t really fit in here but it’s too cool not to share here. Midway through the fight Cory made the mistake of initiating the clinch.

In some ways Cory Sandhagen was the perfect opponent to highlight why Merab is so special.

Sandhagen never tried to play guard. Whenever he got taken down, he would turn over to turtle and stand-up. But that put Merab right where he wanted to be to get more and more and more of his throws going.

The kicker is, if Sandhagen elected to play guard instead, Merab would have happily sat in his closed guard like he has in the past. Then Sandhagen would likely lose to the clock all the same. And this gets to our next section.

What could you do to give yourself a fighting chance against Merab? How is anyone going to beat him?

The men trying to beat the bantamweight champion have an incredibly difficult task ahead of them. But difficult does not mean impossible, esoteric, or even complicated really. Let’s start with the obvious first.

I don’t see anyone beating Merab on the fence. If you’re planning on fighting him there, you’re voluntarily playing Merab’s game. Even when he can’t get his takedowns going Merab is happy to grind out fights against the cage.

To that point, you can’t give Merab the body lock. Front, side, or rear; it doesn’t matter. If you want to defend Merab’s takedowns, you have to keep his hands on one leg and then try to open his hands. We’ve seen fighters have success there and in fighting Merab’s head position.

Sandhagen has never been known to have the best defensive wrestling. The fact that he stopped Merab’s takedown by starting with a simple cross face should be very encouraging.

Better wrestlers also had success starting with fighting Merab’s head position. Umar Nurmagomedov was able to get all the way to Merab’s back by attacking his head, sprawling, and circling.

Former featherweight champion Jose Aldo stopped all of Merab’s takedowns mainly by never letting them go past a single leg for long.

And even Sean O’Malley was able to slip his leg out of Merab’s clutches in their fight.

And this strategy is so simple I feel stupid writing it.

Like, of course Merab’s opponents should be fighting his head position. That’s defensive wrestling 101. But almost no one is able to do it effectively over the course of an entire fight! That’s where the next element comes in to play.

If you are not able to disrupt Merab’s head positioning with cross faces or pushing his head down when he shoots you have to keep his hands committed to one leg. Sprawl, put your foot on the mat, and hand fight so he can’t climb his grip up above your knee.

If Merab does get a hold of your hips you need to under hook him and lift him up. Then, maybe, you can tag him on the end of an exchange like Cory was able to at the end of the 5th round. Maybe.

To beat Merab you’re going to walk a razor’s edge of crisp punching and strict defensive wrestling hand positioning so you can fight his grips and head as soon he tries to shoot past your punches. At this point, it looks like the only thing that will be able to beat Merab will be father time.