UFC 302 Technical Preview: Can Poirier Exploit a Chink in Makhachev's Armor?

Islam Makhachev has looked mostly unstoppable throughout his UFC career, but his one and only loss may provide the perfect blueprint for Dustin Poirier.

Art by Chris Rini

Is History On a Loop?

At first glance, it seems like Dustin Poirier’s destined to blow his third chance to become the undisputed lightweight champion in just like he missed in his first two attempts.

After all, Makhachev’s friend and mentor Khabib Nurmagomedov had little difficulty in submitting a younger and fresher version of Poirier.

Now at thirty-five years old with the specter of retirement looming over him, it’s tough to imagine that this will be the time that Poirier finally gets it done. Especially considering that Makhachev possesses the same deadly submission skills that swiftly ended Poirier’s matches with Nurmagomedov and Charles Oliveira.

However, even if history seems apt repeat itself at UFC 302, every matchup is unique and sometimes seemingly small technical details can cause unexpected upsets.

Islam Makhachev has been an incredibly impressive champion, showing consistent improvement despite accumulating largely one-sided wins. But no fighter is unbeatable, as both the one loss on his record and some more recent struggles as a champion have demonstrated.

In fact, it’s in those brief moments where we’ve seen Makhachev look vulnerable that a blueprint emerges for an upset.

Old Habits Die Hard

In just his second UFC fight, Islam Makhachev found himself matched up with a fellow southpaw with three times his experience. Adriano Martins was a veteran of Jungle Fight, Dream, and Strikeforce while Makhachev had just one fight outside the Russian regional MMA scene.

Given that Nurmagomedov had already established himself as a fearsome contender, it’s no surprise that his protégé got a stiffer test in his second fight than most. In less than two minutes, Makhachev found himself in what would turn out to be very unfamiliar territory: on his back with the referee pushing his opponent off of him.

In this loss, we can see some troubling issues with Makhachev’s striking footwork that served him up for Martins’ right hook.

Islam Makhachev showed an issue with letting his rear foot fall forward, squaring up his stance and making him vulnerable to counters.

But why bring up such an old fight? We’ve all seen the clip of Martins knocking Makhachev out with one punch, but a nearly 9-year-old fight should hardly be relevant for a fight taking place in 2024.

However, it’s important to note that with fighters, it’s often the case that old habits die hard. Issues that plague fighters in the beginning of their careers tend to keep resurfacing later.

Rarely do fighters ever comprehensively fix core issues and weaknesses. Rather, great fighters get better at masking them while bringing their strengths more to the fore.

Even though Makhachev has improved a lot since his sole loss to Martins, the issues that got him knocked out have still shown up occasionally in his recent fights.

Generally Makhachev has avoided making the same mistakes that got him knocked out against Adriano Martins, but his footwork issues still persist in his more recent fights.

Covering Faults

One of the ways that Makhachev has been able to mask his issues on the front foot is to settle in to more of a backfoot counter fighting approach in the standup. Being patient and waiting for his opponent to come to him rather than rushing in has helped him keep his feet under him.

On top of making less mistakes with this approach, Makhachev has also found a way to leverage his excellent timing to become an actual threat standing up.

Makhachev has been able to develop a crafty backfoot countering game that takes advantage of his timing and awareness in exchanges.

At this point it’s important to acknowledge that I’ve tried to stick mostly to examples from the closed stance (i.e. southpaw versus southpaw), and it should be obvious why: Dustin Poirier is a southpaw.