Dominick Cruz thinks Islam Makhachev could learn something from Merab Dvalishvili’s grappling style.
Cruz argued that while Makhachev (28-1 MMA, 17-1 UFC) was able to control Jack Della Maddalena on the ground for over 19 minutes in his welterweight title-winning performance at UFC 322, it wasn’t the most crowd-pleasing performance.
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On the flip side, UFC bantamweight champion Dvalishvili’s 37 takedown attempts in his title defense over Cory Sandhagen at UFC 320 was more exciting for Cruz. He explains why.
“I was always focused on trying to make it as exciting to watch at the same time as winning – mixing two things together,” Cruz told MMA Junkie. “Merab has found a way to do that with his grappling style a little bit more than Makhachev has. If you watch Merab’s style of grappling, his is like a takedown rally – like 33 takedowns or something. And the guy who’s getting up would say, ‘I’m really good at getting up.’ No, his style is exciting. He’s letting you up and you don’t even realize it. He’s letting you up just to stay behind you. … When you get tired of going down and up, now he’s on top of you beating you up. In between that, he’s landing a lot of big punches, too. He’s mixing in the striking with these takedown attempts. You get the top guy who’s riding you out, or you get the takedown artist. I personally like watching a takedown artist more than a guy who rides somebody out in top position in wrestling.
“Makhachev, he’s the guy that rides you out. He gets one takedown and you don’t get up again. He just burns the clock and makes it look dominant and easy. But when you watch Merab, he is doing something like that but it is crazier to watch, it’s fun to watch. While he is staying safe, while he is grappling, he’s also on his feet showing you an assortment of different takedowns and an assortment of different punch entrances to set up the takedowns. That’s cool to watch to me, and it’s a different wrinkle on the grappling than you see from Makhachev. When I watch Merab, he’s using more tools so it makes it a little bit more interesting to watch because it almost looks like the guy has a chance, but realistically, he’s pinned to their back while they’re on their feet.”
Cruz clarifies that he personally enjoys Makhachev’s style, but gives his take on how he thinks he could be more entertaining when grappling.
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“The key for Makhachev to make it a little bit more exciting, for the fans to be more pulled in – I love it because I’m a high-level grappler,” Cruz said. “I understand what he’s doing and how difficult it is. I have nothing but respect. I think it’s amazing to see how he can do that to people, make things look easy. But I understand also for the general fans, they want to see damage and more stuff. That would be the next progression for Makhachev, it’s figure out how to stay that heavy on top while ground-and-pounding and creating damage at the same time.”
Dvalishvili (21-4 MMA, 14-2 UFC) will look to notch his fourth title defense of the year when he rematches Petr Yan (19-5 MMA, 11-4 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC 323 (pay-per-view, ESPN2/FX/Disney+, ESPN+) main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Why Dominick Cruz prefers Merab Dvalishvili’s grappling over Islam’s
