Jorge Masvidal must not only stop takedowns but also extricate himself from the grappling realm to best Kamaru Usman
Jorge Masvidal comes from a boatyard fighting background, and while he has greatly refined his game over the years, he has always been more interested in striking than grappling. Back in 2019, many considered Ben Askren to have a legit chance to defeat Masvidal due to his struggles against wrestlers. Even though he has solid takedown defense from a percentage perspective, he has had obvious trouble with those who come looking for takedowns.
Prior to the Askren fight, my stats compatriot pointed out Masvidal’s struggles dealing with wrestling-centric game plans despite preventing most of the takedown attempts.
This did not end up mattering at all against Askren. As everyone knows, Masvidal quickly knocked out the former Olympian before it was cool.
Despite the success against Askren, what Carroll brings up has some tidbits of validity. While his case that allowing takedown attempts is correlated with losing is off the mark, it is close to hitting on something real. As I argued (successfully, in my opinion) back in 2019, even when Masvidal is successful at stopping takedowns, he often gets caught in clinches and fails to extricate himself from the grappling realm. Staying off the ground is one thing, but forcing the fight to return to the striking realm is something else entirely.
Masvidal has always forced his opponents to attempt a lot of takedowns with his striking. Eight of his 25 opponents have attempted at least nine takedown attempts. However, Masvidal has clearly been more successful when not only stopping the takedowns but also avoiding control time. For example, Justin Wilcox attempted 17 takedowns against Masvidal but accumulated less than two minutes of control time.
The following table looks at Masvidal’s takedowns allowed, takedown attempts allowed and control time allowed during his career. Control time is basically defined as time spent in the top position on the ground and pushing an opponent into the cage. Masvidal’s fights against Ryan Healy and Matt Lee have been excluded since control time data are available for those fights. Fights where Masvidal allowed nine or more takedown attempts are highlighted in blue.
Masvidal’s only losses where he allowed a lot of takedown attempts without surrendering significant control time came against Al Iaquinta and Rustam Khabilov. Well, he should not have actually lost to Iaquinta, and Khabilov kept it close on strikes before dropping Masvidal in the third round.
All of this is to say that Masvidal will likely struggle against Kamaru Usman in the rematch. In their first fight, Masvidal stopped 11 of Usman’s 16 takedown attempts. Allowing only five takedowns in a 25-minute fight against Usman is actually not awful considering he averages 3.22 per 15 minutes. However, Masvidal also surrendered a whopping 16:38 on control time in the 25-minute fight.
Usman averages 6.79 takedown attempts per 15 minutes and has held control positions for 53% of his fight time. He is the only ranked welterweight with a control time percentage over 50%. Excluding his fight against Colby Covington where he chose to slug it out at range for most of five rounds, Usman has had control time for 59% of his fight time.
Tying up Masvidal on the ground and in the clinch remains Usman’s clearest path to victory. If he is interested in winning, he should attempt to duplicate his performance from last July. The champion has said to the news media that his nose was shattered prior to their first fight, which indicates he might be more willing to exchange at range in the rematch. However, that would be a very surprising turn of events. While Usman has shown a willingness to exchange at range, that has really only appeared when he is facing off against another grappling-focused fighter.
Masvidal’s wrestling game has improved over the years, and he is still bringing in high quality wrestlers to help continue that development. However, even if he is able to stop takedowns against Usman, he will likely still struggle to keep the fight at striking range. Masvidal’s only real hopes are that he catches the champion early or it turns out that Usman is willing to engage in a striking contest.