Tactical analysis of the lightweight title fight: Topuria's unstoppable punch vs. Charles Oliveira's lethal jiu-jitsu

Every MMA fight has a considerable degree of unpredictability. Once you reach a certain level, you never know for sure how a fight will turn out. What we do know is the fighters' main weapons. In the case of the match between Ilia Topuria and Charles Oliveira , we're likely to find ourselves, at least at times, facing a duel of striking power versus Brazilian Jiu Jitsu .

Until arriving in the UFC, Ilia Topuira had won most of his fights by submission. However, since joining Dana White's company, the Spanish-Georgian has developed a polished and, above all, powerful style of boxing . With it, Topuria has put opponents such as Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway (who had never been knocked out) to sleep.

Oliveira's bjj

Now, one way to counter boxing is with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Boxing, as such, isn't designed to be used on the ground, where other skills are found, in which Charles Oliveira excels (and greatly). In this sense, ' Do Bronx' is not only a black belt in the "gentle art" but is also the UFC fighter with the most finishes .

Charles Oliveira has 16 submission wins in the UFC, many of them by way of lion kills . However, he also has several anaconda submissions and other less common ones, such as the calf slicer he performed on Eric Wisely in 2012. We've rarely seen that type of submission in the UFC.

Be that as it may, it's worth keeping in mind that many of Charles Oliveira's submissions have come after landing extremely hard blows . That is, the Brazilian hits first and submits later, something that must be taken into account ahead of his fight with Topuria.