Islam Makhachev Fighting Style: The System That Makes the UFC Champion Almost Unbeatable
Islam Makhachev has finished five of his last seven opponents and hasn’t lost since 2015 — and the longer you study his fights, the more you realize that number isn’t a coincidence. It’s the output of a system. A complete, interlocking system where every piece punishes the opponent’s counter to every other piece.
With UFC 330 against Ian Garry locked in for August 15 in Philadelphia, now is the right time to break down exactly what makes Makhachev so suffocating to fight. Because understanding the system is the only way to appreciate why so few opponents have had answers to it.
The Sambo Base That Makes His Takedowns Completely Different
Makhachev’s grappling looks like wrestling but it isn’t. It’s Dagestani combat sambo, and the distinction matters. American wrestling is built around level changes and explosive penetration steps. Sambo is built around upper body control, trips, and body throws — which means Makhachev doesn’t need to drop his head to get a takedown. He gets you with your own defense.
The clearest example is his lateral hip throw. When an opponent braces against a level change, their weight shifts forward. Makhachev reads that forward pressure, turns his hips, and uses their momentum against them. Dustin Poirier spent three rounds stuffing Makhachev’s takedowns at UFC 302 before one hip throw sent him to the mat in round four. That’s sambo. You don’t fight it — you walk into it.
What makes the takedown game genuinely nasty is the threat it creates on the feet. Opponents know the takedown is coming. That knowledge shortens their punching distance, keeps their weight back, and makes them reactive. Makhachev’s striking numbers are good not because he’s an elite striker, but because he’s fighting opponents who are already mentally defending the takedown before it comes.
How Makhachev Wins the Striking Exchange Without Being a Pure Striker
Makhachev will never be confused with a boxing specialist, but calling him a bad striker is wrong. He’s a precise striker who throws with purpose. Every punch is either a range-finder, a setup for a level change, or a punishment shot when the opponent overcommits. The jab does most of the work.
His jab is at the center of everything. It measures distance. It gets opponents to raise their hands, exposing the body. It pushes opponents toward the cage, which is where Makhachev wants them anyway. Watch his jab in the Volkanovski fights — he doesn’t throw it in combination as much as he uses it to read whether Volkanovski is going to move left, right, or try to counter. Then he reacts to what he learns.
The body shot is underrated in his arsenal. Makhachev lands left hooks to the liver that are legitimately damaging, and they serve a tactical purpose: an opponent who is protecting their ribs is an opponent who drops their elbow — which opens the clinch entry. He’s not punching to knock anyone out. He’s punching to create problems that his wrestling solves.
When opponents try to out-box him, they run into the takedown. When they try to counter-wrestle, they find the striking. The only option that kind of worked was Volkanovski’s pace and movement in their first fight — and Makhachev still won a clear decision. Three rounds to two, most analysts had it, and it wasn’t close down the stretch.
The Cage as a Weapon: Makhachev’s Cage Control System
The most underrated part of Makhachev’s game is spatial. He doesn’t just fight in a cage — he uses the cage. The difference sounds like a cliché until you watch how deliberately he steers opponents into the fence and what he does once they get there.
His footwork is designed to cut angles and force opponents toward the fence, not toward the center of the octagon. He walks opponents down with oblique kicks and jabs, not chasing them, but herding them. Once they hit the cage, the cage becomes his ally. The fence eliminates backstep — an opponent can’t eat a body lock and simply step backward out of it. They’re stuck.
Against the fence, Makhachev’s body lock is devastating. He wraps both arms around the opponent’s midsection, buries his head in their chest, and either drags them to the mat with a trip or simply grinds them down. Opponents who try to hand-fight to break the grip get taken down from their own leverage. Opponents who try to disengage get chased down and put right back on the fence.
The other thing that makes this brutal: he’s patient. He’ll hold a clinch for 60 seconds without attempting a takedown, just burning out the opponent’s legs and lungs. By round three, opponents are fighting on fumes while Makhachev still looks fresh. His cardio at 155 pounds is exceptional, and it multiplies every other part of his game.
Submissions That Shut Down Every Remaining Option
If an opponent somehow survives the takedown game and keeps the fight standing through three rounds, Makhachev still wins. Because when he finally gets position on the ground, the submission exits are real and diverse.
His arm triangle is his signature: he used it to submit Charles Oliveira in round two at UFC 280 to win the title. The setup is a clinic. He traps an arm with his hip, creates enough space to squeeze the shoulder into the carotid, and transitions into full mount before finishing. Oliveira — one of the best submission artists in lightweight history — was caught by it. That says everything.
The d’Arce choke is his other reliable closer, used to stop Dustin Poirier at UFC 302 in round five. It comes from front headlock position — a position most fighters treat as a scramble moment rather than a danger zone. Makhachev threads the arm, gets the back of the neck, and cranks. Poirier tapped immediately, which is the right call when a d’Arce is sunk that deep.
Beyond those two: he has the rear naked choke from back control, d’Arce from turtle position, and arm locks from top position. He doesn’t hunt for one submission — he hunts for dominant position, and the submission comes from wherever that position allows. That’s what makes the ground game genuinely dangerous. There’s no one hole to plug.
What Ian Garry Must Do at UFC 330 to Have Any Chance
Garry is a legitimate top-ten lightweight with real technical skills. His footwork is some of the best in the division, his jab is polished, and he makes opponents miss at distance with subtle head movement. Against almost anyone else, those tools win fights. Against Makhachev, they’re starting points for a problem, not solutions to it.
Garry’s only realistic path is a long fight at range. He needs to keep the distance over 15 minutes — which means never letting Makhachev establish his jab first, never backing into the fence, and never letting a clinch entry turn into a body lock. Any clinch that lands on the fence is a takedown at -200 on the moneyline. He has to avoid that scenario entirely, not just most of the time.
The other factor: Garry has never faced anyone with Makhachev’s wrestling. His takedown defense is untested at this level. The jab range that protects him against strikers becomes a single-leg entry range against a Dagestani grappler. He needs to respect that distance the whole fight, which means throwing fewer combinations and accepting a point-fighting strategy against the champion.
It’s a hard blueprint. Hard enough that most analysts have Makhachev winning comfortably. But Garry’s footwork is real, and footwork is the one thing that has made the champion look beatable — briefly — in the past. If you want to simulate style matchups like this one, the TKO Tycoon game is built around exactly these decisions: how counter-wrestling, range management, and submission defense interact when two complete fighters collide.
Why the Makhachev System Is So Hard to Copy or Counter
Part of what makes Makhachev’s game so dominant is that it doesn’t require spectacular athleticism. Khabib Nurmagomedov was similar in this way — the system worked because it was airtight, not because Khabib was faster or stronger than every opponent. Makhachev took the same philosophical approach and added more striking diversity and a wider submission game.
The result is a fighter who doesn’t have a single devastating weapon — he has a machine. The striking sets up the wrestling. The wrestling sets up the cage pressure. The cage pressure sets up the submissions. You can’t defend one part in isolation because fixing one hole opens another. It’s the closest thing to a solved game plan that the lightweight division has ever seen.
Until someone figures out how to stop all three phases simultaneously — striking, wrestling, and submissions — Makhachev remains the standard that every other lightweight is measured against.
Frequently Asked Questions About Islam Makhachev’s Fighting Style
What fighting style does Islam Makhachev use?
Makhachev fights out of a Dagestani combat sambo base, blending wrestling, body locks, and submissions with accurate counter-striking. His game is built around cage control and top pressure rather than explosive finishing power. He is widely considered one of the most complete fighters in UFC history.
What is Islam Makhachev’s best submission?
Makhachev’s signature submission is the arm triangle choke, which he used to win the UFC Lightweight Championship against Charles Oliveira at UFC 280. He also has a highly effective d’Arce choke, which he used to stop Dustin Poirier at UFC 302.
How does Islam Makhachev use the cage in his fights?
Makhachev steers opponents toward the fence using jabs and oblique kicks, then establishes a body lock once they’re cornered. With the fence removing backward movement, his takedown success rate climbs dramatically. His patience in the clinch also drains opponents’ energy over multiple rounds.
Has anyone ever beaten Islam Makhachev?
Makhachev’s only professional loss came in 2015 to Adriano Martins, who caught him with a head kick early in their fight. Since then, he has gone on a lengthy winning streak, captured the UFC Lightweight Championship, and successfully defended it multiple times against elite competition.
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References
- MMA Fighting — Islam Makhachev fighter profile and fight coverage
- ESPN MMA — Makhachev fight record and statistics
- UFC.com — Official Islam Makhachev athlete profile