Coach Conversation | Volkanovski vs Topuria

Kyte: At a time in the sport where everyone is pretty solid everywhere, generally speaking, what is the one thing that each of these competitors do better than anyone else? What is the one element to their game that stands out the most?

Madden: We’ve talked Volk before, and I would say the best trait for him still stands. To me, he’s got a very diverse toolbox, but the big things for this fight, and this matchup in particular, are the number of looks he’s going to be able to give Ilia.

What I mean by that is the footwork, the feints, the range control, the hand control, his ability to target at all different levels. We all know at this point — nothing we talk about with Volk is new and I don’t necessarily think he’s adding a ton of new wrinkles to the game at this point; maybe some stuff with Craig Jones.

His striking is pretty well established, but the amount of looks that he can give to his opponent is one of his best traits, and that’s a product of Joe Lopez and his time with City Kickboxing, their system of lateral footwork, feints.

I do think that ability to use all those tools is going to play nicely into this fight against a power puncher like Ilia. The diversity in his game is going to be his best trait on Saturday.

Kyte: And then what about with Topuria?

Madden: Well, we all know he can finish someone with any punch that he throws, but from a striking coach’s perspective, you can have the power, you can have the explosion, but if you don’t have the eyes and the timing to execute that, it doesn’t matter.

I’ve seen a lot of guys that have tremendous punching ability, but they don’t have the setups, the footwork, the eyes to see the openings in terms of when to throw that stuff, so it has little bearing if they can’t land the big shot.

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So, to me, Ilia’s best trait is his ability to see in the pocket — to see the openings he’s creating, to see the target he’s hitting, to see the shots that are coming. His level of composure in the pocket when he’s punching, to me, is really incredible.

Kyte: Okay, can you pull that apart for me a little bit as someone that has zero experience with the striking arts?

What is it that you see? What is it that you’re looking for? What are the things he’s reading when you say, ‘His eyes are his best trait?’

Madden: On the offensive side of things, he does a really great job of throwing his initial strikes to create openings, and then reading the defense of the opponent to follow up afterwards.

When he fought Damon Jackson, he landed that beautiful left hook to the body, but he threw the uppercut before that, and he read where Damon’s guard went — which is up, which is the natural reaction, as it should — and he’s educated enough to know the body is available after that.

Something that we see a lot, even at the highest level, is head-hunting, especially against the fence. So when I see someone body hitting against the fence like that, setting it up with an uppercut in the pocket, that is education to me. That is someone that knows where they’re going next, who is reading the opening, and is not just punching in combination to try to finish someone.

Kyte: Not just a button-masher.

Madden: Yes! They’re not thinking, ‘I’m gonna throw six punches, some of these are bouncing off the guard, and I’m hoping one or two get through so I can finish this guy.’ He knows exactly where he’s going next, the reaction he’s going to get from the opponent.

He saw the opportunity and he took advantage of it, and that level of composure is pretty incredible.

On the defensive side, it’s the same thing, and I would reference the Josh Emmett fight with this, where he would throw a punch and had a really great ability to anticipate and see what Josh’s next strike would be after that.

I’ll say this: Josh is primarily a puncher, too, and that played into Ilia’s favor; if we know someone else is just going to trade punches, that limits the amount of things coming back in your direction to the right hand or the left hand, but regardless, Josh throws hammers and you waiting for him to punch and then reacting is almost too late with someone that is that explosive.

Ilia was throwing things to get Josh to throw certain things back, and then to see that and have the ability to defend and counter off of that shows a different level of understanding when it comes to striking, spatial awareness, and just reading the opponent.

And most of that comes down to being able to use your eyes, read your opponent, and see that space.

Kyte: How much of that is an innate thing and how much of that is coachable? Everything is coachable to a degree — you can teach anybody anything, but the uptake, synthesis, application of it varies wildly and is probably the differentiation point between getting it and utilizing it, and ‘You’ve shown me in the gym, but I’m gonna keep head-hunting.’

Madden: Your physical traits too, right? I could teach those same things to different people, but if you’re not fast enough to react to strikes coming at you, it doesn’t really matter.

I think it’s a combination of his physical gifts — he is a fantastic athlete — his ability to learn quickly, the amount of repetitions he’s doing, and coaching.

When you see guys get to this level of the sport, it’s a combination of a lot of things. I’ve seen a lot of guys that have a great mind for fighting, that can dissect things and do them in practice, but they can’t execute them in the fight for whatever reason. He seems like he has the physical and mental abilities, the ability to learn and implement these things quickly.

We can’t let him get off, and that can be tough over 25 minutes. You have to have multiple layers of defense because if you’re just circling the outside of the cage for 25 minutes, he’s gonna find you at some point. So mixing in the wrestling, kicking him from long range, using the feints, multiple layers of defense will help Volk get the job done.

He has the tools to dictate where this fight goes and the nice thing about someone like Ilia — I don’t want to say he’s one-dimensional because he’s not, but his offense is more specific, so Volk knows where the danger zone is, and as long as he can stay out of the danger zone, he can win.

Kyte: So, before we get to Topuria, is there a value to seeing Topuria go five rounds with Emmett, even though that’s a very different fight stylistically?

Is there a way for Volk and Joe Lopez to just look at it and say, “Let’s weaponize what we do well in terms of pace and pressure because we know we can go 25 hard — we did it with Makhachev.” Is there a way to stick in there without compromising the other pieces?

Can you say, “The thing we’re gonna use to win this fight is actually our conditioning and pace?”

Madden: One hundred percent, and that’s something I would expect see on Saturday — one of Ilia’s recurring defensive tendencies is that he gives ground, especially to someone with a blitz, and we know Alex can blitz really well.

I would fully expect to see him push Ilia back, using these blitzes, allow him to give the ground, put him against the fence and go to work there. Grind him in the clinch, take him down against the fence, make him get up, take him down again — I expect to see that.

He has the ability to win the fight in either direction. How many five-round fights has he had now? How many times has he gone the distance in those five-round fights? How many times have we seen him tire over five round? Not often, if ever.

Kyte: This is his ninth consecutive five-round fight.

Madden: That’s insane! That is insane.

To Ilia’s credit, he didn’t tire in that Emmett fight, but he was a lot more measured — a more measured start and he built that pace over five, and that was smart, but if you do that against Volk, you might be down a couple rounds going into the championship rounds with a guy that has a big gas tank, leaving you with a big problem to solve with 10 minutes left.

Kyte: So, for Topuria, how can he get this done and create a change of the guard at the top of this division?

Madden: It’s gonna come down to the punching again. It’s gonna be not getting reckless in this fight.

FREE FIGHTS | Ilia Topuria vs Josh Emmett | Alexander Volkanovski vs Yair Rodriguez | Merab Dvalishvili vs Marlon Moraes

I see Volk giving him a lot of looks, so Ilia needs to not get reckless, not headhunt too much, and slowly cut the cage to get Volk to a space where he can start to hit the body and the head. I see the uppercut being a great punch for him in this fight, the body shot being there, as well, but he has to cut the cage off and he has to make that space small so he can punch in combination when Alex is trapped in front of him.

That’s definitely easier said than done, but the fact that he has 25 minutes to accomplish that plays into his favor. We saw in the Emmett fight that Topuria has the ability to carry that power through 25 minutes and that’s not true of everyone that has that kind of punching power. He has the full 25 minutes to finish this fight, and I wouldn’t count him out, even if he’s down four rounds going into the fifth.

He just has to get Volk to a place in the cage where he can start to unload, which goes back to what I think is his best trait — his eyes. Let’s see if he can set some traps against Volk. Let’s see if he can get him to overreact on some strikes, put him in a certain position with the jab and the right hand, and put that big left hook that he has behind it.

Patience is gonna be the name of the game for Ilia — setting up and finding that clean shot — but he needs to get Volk in close first and cut that cage off.

Kyte: If there were one thing that was going to significantly impact how this fight plays out — that swings it in one direction or the other — what would it be?

Madden: For Volk, it’s what we just talked about — I’m very interested to see his performance, his confidence coming off a knockout loss.

There are two ways you can look at this: the last fight for Volk, they came out and talked about it, Eugene (Bareman) talked about it — short camp, we did it for the pay day — and you can chalk up that loss to that and say, “That’s not who I am. I am better than that.”

Or you can own it and say, “I made some mistakes here and I need to do better the next time around.” I tend to believe that Volk is that kind of person and they have a full camp to make the adjustments, get everything right.

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Kyte: For me, the record hasn’t been great for champions over 35, under 170 pounds, but Volk feels like he could be the exception because he’s a savage. But this is where everything starts coming together: you’re coming off the knockout loss and we’ve seen it can happen, and you’re doing the quick turnaround, and you’re 35, and the holidays were in there, so could you do the hard work?

As I’ve been writing about this and as I’ve been talking about this fight, every time I want to do the “there are a lot of reasons to be skeptical about Volk here,” I go to July where he absolutely clobbered Yair Rodriguez, making it clear, once again, that these cats at ’45 aren’t on his level.

It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if he comes out on Saturday and is just like, “14-0? Don’t care. 14-1 — here you go!” But it also wouldn’t surprise me if he comes out and we go, “He’s been great for so long, but every great starts to plateau” and is no longer running away from guys.

He’s talked to me about “I want to keep building the mountain higher so these f****** can’t reach me,” but, at some point, you stop being able to build that mountain higher and one of these kids goes, “I can climb that high.”

Madden: That’s exactly it, and that time is different for everyone, but that’s where the Over 35 conversation comes into play.

Father Time is undefeated in this game, so we’ll see. Both outcomes are very real possibilities on Saturday night.

Kyte: That’s what we love it! What about Topuria — what’s his X factor?

Madden: It’s the experience.

We did talk about his time in the UFC so far — six fights, six very diverse opponents, so he’s seen different skill sets, different problems, but six fights is still six fights, and Volk has 16 fights in the UFC. Now let’s talk about how many of those fights are title fights, five-round fights under the championship lights?

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Kyte: Josh Emmett.

Madden: Yep, exactly.

There will always be times where we talk about experience and the less experienced person wins, but, in general, experience is there for a reason. You want to be able to have those benchmarks, those reference points — fighting 25 minutes multiple times, understanding the pacing of those fights, winning close rounds, losing close rounds; all that stuff.

Not only that, but let’s just look at strength of schedule. We talked about Ilia’s and it’s certainly not weak, but I would say it’s weak compared to Volk’s.

Kyte: It’s a good strength of schedule. The last three guys he’s beaten are Josh Emmett, Bryce Mitchell, and Jai Herbert on short notice, up a division; good wins. Volk’s last three wins are Yair Rodriguez, Max Holloway, and Chan Sung Jung in championship fights where all three of those dudes got it.

Topuria is 14-0 overall; Volk is 12-0 in the UFC featherweight division, and even if you go back to the first couple of those, it’s Mizuto Hirota, a good veteran; Shane Young, a tough out from CKB (at a 150-pound catchweight); and Jeremy Kennedy, who was undefeated at the time and is still very, very good.

Madden: That’s exactly it. Strength of schedule matters. Experience matters. When you’re fighting at this level of the sport, for that long, it matters.

Kyte: This could be the confluence point. This could be the moment where there is a little dip for Volk and Topuria has a little rise and we have a new champion. It can happen and this is why we watch.

Madden: It can happen, but I’m definitely a coach likes to deal in probabilities and higher percentage things, and with the experience difference here, that definitely leans heavily in Volk’s favor, in my opinion.

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