“He needs to be flopped on his attacks – that’s what Volkanovski was able to do,” the Russian said in an interview with Grigory Drozd. “So he has to be taken out of his comfort zone. Like to any lefty, you have to get behind his right leg and work on the body, transfer from the body to the head. I think that would be the most relevant technically.”
“In terms of wrestling, let’s start with the fact that Islam Makhachev works a lot with hooks – it’s such a judo theme. He works a lot with hooks from the cage, he works with hooks in the clinch – you have to understand that, his whole arsenal is based on that. That is, you have to break immediately, when he works like that, and understand what he will do with hooks. Break, and roll again”
According to Vartanian, he is headed to the U.S. later this month to sign with the UFC, and will be ready to make his debut for the organization at short notice.
“At the end of October I’m going to fly to the United States for negotiations with the UFC. This is the final part of the negotiation phase, and I want to go through training camp right away. Because there’s a tentative agreement with the UFC for me to be there in Las Vegas so I can go out and perform on short notice. So, I want to kill two birds with one stone.”
As a reminder, Islam Makhachev will return to the octagon this weekend at UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi, and his opponent will be Alexander Volkanovski, who holds the UFC featherweight title.