Khamzat Chimaev is one of the hottest names in the MMA world today. Also known as “The Wolf,” Khamzat’s fighting style is proof that wrestling still reigns as one of the most effective martial arts in modern MMA. Currently sitting with a 75% finishing rate in his UFC journey, Khamzat continuously dominates his competition, as evident in his recent win against the former UFC middleweight champion, Robert Whittaker. Today, we will talk about how to dominate your opponents like the Wolf.

Khamzat’s Fighting Strategy

Khamzat is a three-time Swedish national champion in freestyle wrestling. He uses his freestyle wrestling background to gain an advantage in his fights. Initially, Khamzat likes to catch his opponents off-guard by shooting a takedown through feints and making chain-wrestling attacks if his initial attempt is unsuccessful. After taking his opponent down, he maintains top control, which he gets from his wrestling expertise.

To maintain top control, Khamzat makes his opponent carry his weight to wear them out and apply different upper body controls like the body lock, Dagestani handcuff, or hooking the opponent’s legs to control their lower body. The same strategy is applied when Khamzat takes the opponent’s back or when they turtle. Above all, Khamzat uses these upper body and lower body controls to deploy a vicious ground and pound or to hunt for submissions. He does a good job of mixing the strikes and threats of submissions when on the ground.

Khamzat uses the ground and pound to create an opening for submission. As the opponent switches their focus on defending the submission threat, he then switches back to striking them down. In his first two UFC bouts, Khamzat had a record of 192 strikes that had landed on his opponents, and he had absorbed only 2 of them. In his 3rd fight, he knocked out UFC veteran Gerald Meerschaert within 17 seconds with a punch.

Khamzat’s Key To Victory

After identifying some key strategies he uses during his fights, let’s take a closer look at some of the aspects of his game that he employs to dominate his opponents. These overarching tactics provide the framework for his success, dictating the pace and flow of the fight and ultimately allowing him to unleash his devastating arsenal.

1) Supreme Wrestling

As mentioned above, Khamzat is a national wrestling champion. With his wrestling background, he can quickly take the fight to the ground. Regardless of whether Khamzat sets his takedowns from the clinch, strikes, feints, or just simply blasting from a distanced takedown attempt, he always finds a way to make it work because of his ability to chain his attacks.

Usually, Khamzat shoots a blast takedown, which can be a double leg or a single leg with a low inside head. Khamzat’s long reach and explosive power makes him a threat to shoot from a distance, surprising opponents with his ability to quickly close the gap and change levels for a takedown. If he fails with the takedown attempt, he moves up to the body lock to take the opponent down, and if they turn away, exposing their back, Khamzat immediately looks for a rear body lock control to lift or slam them down or apply hooks for a full back control.

In addition to his solid wrestling arsenal, Khamzat frequently makes trips to visit and train under Buvaisar Saitiev, also known as the greatest freestyle wrestler of all time. Saitiev is a three-time Olympic gold medalist and a six-time world champion. Khamzat does this in his camps to prepare for his fights and refine his wrestling techniques. To showcase his wrestling abilities, Khamzat had a wrestling match with his friend and fellow UFC fighter, Jack Hermansson.

2) Relentless Pressure

Khamzat’s relentless pressure with the intent to immediately end the match is what makes him stand out from the rest of the competition. Of his 8 UFC matches, 5 ended in the first round. This comes into play as soon as the fight starts; Khamzat immediately presses forward to get the center and hunts his opponents down. He puts his opponents in a defensive position by feinting and showing threats in the striking range, allowing him to set up takedowns.

Basically, Khamzat creates openings. Once an opening is presented, Khamzat attacks without hesitation and keeps his opponents under control while constantly hunting for a submission or ways to employ ground and pound.

3) Top Tier Conditioning

The physical demands of his wrestling and relentless pressure require Khamzat to maintain peak physical conditioning. According to Khamzat, his approach to training before was to go until failure. But with some adjustments, he’s now allowed to rest between rounds and recover properly between training sessions.

Recovery is essential, especially in high-level competition. Like Khamzat, wrestlers are known to have grueling practices that last for hours and sometimes twice a day. Not only does this build mobility, speed, endurance, agility, power, strength, and muscle memory for the techniques, but ultimately mental toughness which helps get through the toughest matches.

4) Elite Grappling Skills

Once he has his opponents on the ground, Khamzat lets his grappling skills do the work by controlling his opponents and looking for submissions. So far, half of his wins come from submissions. Because of his wrestling background, Khamzat has a firm understanding of the different dominant positions and the ways to transition from one another.

As expected from a wrestler, he puts heavy pressure from the top position, which allows him the opportunity to rain down strikes. Most of all, opponents turning their backs give Khamzat the opportunity to take their back and choke them.

The video above shows Khamzat grappling with the former UFC Middleweight champion, Luke Rockhold. Being in his physical prime and having a long-time experience in grappling, Khamzat was able to out-grapple Rockhold in the footage. Even at 40, Rockhold is always up for challenges to test his abilities against the best MMA and pure grapplers in the world, including Khamzat, Khabib, Nick Rodriguez, and Craig Jones.

5) Smesh Mentality

Before anything else, Khamzat believes he can beat anyone in his competition. As the saying goes, you must believe in yourself even when no one else does. He is a living embodiment of this, as Khamzat likes to go into fights fully believing in his abilities to dominate his opponents. This mentality is backed up by his hard training and sacrifices to reach the pinnacle of the sport.

It doesn’t matter if he’s up against former champions. When Khamzat goes inside the cage, his mentality is to run through and smash his opponents, leaving no space for doubts in his mind. This self-belief allows him to do unimaginable things, such as quickly finishing one of the best fighters and former UFC Middleweight champion, Robert Whittaker, in the first round of their fight.

Conclusion  

It is intriguing to think how Khamzat’s MMA journey will unfold. He has the potential to become one of the greats, and many fans of the fight will follow in his footsteps. Nevertheless, to dominate your opponents like Khamzat, you must put time into building your wrestling and grappling arsenal to be able to take your opponents into the deepest waters whenever you desire.

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