Mateusz Gamrot lands a lot of takedowns, but he does little with them. Can Rafael Fiziev take advantage?

Mateusz Gamrot is heavily reliant on his wrestling ability. The good news for him is that he has successfully been able to drag his opponents to the ground. In his UFC career, he has averaged 4.54 takedowns per 15 minutes of fight time, which ranks 10th among currently ranked fighters.

The bad news for Gamrot is that he not only struggles to control his opponents after takedowns, but he also has trouble landing meaningful shots on the floor. While his takedown rate is one of the best in the promotion, he has held his opponents in control positions for only 23% of his fight time, and he has landed only 0.31 significant ground strikes per minute. Those metrics rank 72nd and 125th respectively among ranked fighters.

Gamrot does a good job of using his takedown attempts to set up his striking, but he still mostly wins rounds by scoring multiple takedowns and controlling where he can. This sets up a very interesting dynamic in a five-round fight. He will need to work extremely hard to score takedowns against Fiziev and hope he can win at least three of the five rounds. While this is difficult, he was able to win with this strategy against Arman Tsarukyan despite being outlander and dropped in the 25-minute fight.

At distance, Rafael Fiziev will likely have the advantage. Both fighters have negative striking differentials overall, but Fiziev averages 5.06 significant strikes landed per minute compared to only 3.03 for Gamrot.

On top of that, Fiziev has performed surprisingly well against grapplers for someone who comes from a striking background. In his penultimate trip into the Octagon, he scored the biggest win of his career when he scored a fifth-round stoppage over lightweight Rafael Dos Anjos. In that fight, Dos Anjos clearly tried to impose his will by clinching along the cage and scoring takedowns.

Dos Anjos attempted 16 takedowns in the fight, but he only managed to land two. In the nearly 25-minute fight, Dos Anjos managed to collect only 6:13 of control time. Fiziev absorbed only four significant clinch strikes and zero significant ground strikes. Dos Anjos is clearly nearing the end of his run in the sport, but he employed a strategy similar to the one likely to be applied by Gamrot. 

Gamrot has a somewhat distinct style, and he fights in a way that accentuates his strengths. However, his style also is extremely difficult to employ over the course of five rounds. The takedown volume necessary to win rounds without holding position or landing strikes requires extreme cardio. It is certainly possible. However, it seems more like that Fiziev will be able to do enough defense in the grappling exchanges and excel in the striking portions of the fight.