King Of The Jungle: Abdulvakhabov vs. Sarnavskiy
Photo courtesy of Absolute Championship Akhmat
Absolute Championship Berkut (now Akhmat) has long been home to not just one of the deepest talent pools in the sport, but also some of the most thrilling contests that 155 has ever seen. For years, those two aspects of ACA were supported by three main names — and two have since exited relevance. The massive Kabardian Ali Bagov was finally forced to acknowledge his frame, moving up to a division where he was still elite but struggled with size parity; meanwhile, the terrific Eduard Vartanyan ended his stint with the promotion after a win over Mukhamed Kokov, which was briefly overturned before the decision to overturn it was also overturned. By mid 2020, the championship was vacant, but there was a clear #1, the man with a winning record over both Bagov and Vartanyan — a smasher of a Chechen named Abdul-Aziz Abdulvakhabov.
For a moment, the fight to get the belt officially back on Abdulvakhabov was nothing but a formality; his opponent was originally Hacran Dias, a former UFC lightweight who left after a nasty 3-fight skid, before regaining a modest amount of momentum. With a pandemic cancelling those plans, the fight turned into something more sensible — ACA found a tiger to face the lion, in Alexander Sarnavskiy. It still didn’t seem like a particularly compelling fight, with Sarnavskiy’s last step up to the level of Abdulvakhabov ending in a one-sided submission at the hands of Vartanyan; however, it wasn’t quite as blatant a feeding, as Sarnavskiy was off a dominant effort over Aurel Pirtea and had entrenched himself fairly nicely in a division with a seemingly inaccessible elite tier.
In Sarnavskiy’s second crack at that tier on September 19th, 2020, he and Abdulvakhabov delivered yet another classic lightweight battle — one that stands among Abdulvakhabov’s best against Bagov and Vartanyan, as well as Vartanyan’s 3-round all-timer against Alexander Shabliy. The favorite won in the end, as Abdulvakhabov took a relatively decisive unanimous victory, but Sarnavskiy gave him a fight that very few lightweights can.
I — Feeling Out
Abdulvakhabov is generally a relatively quick starter, as even the other divisional elites found at one time or another; a destructive athlete with durability in spades and anvils for fists, there’s very little that keeps Abdulvakhabov from getting right to work. Even his relative simplicity as a fighter aids him in this way — where a slickster like Vartanyan generally takes a bit to probe and read his opponent, Abdulvakhabov isn’t as defensively minded nor as offensively complex, so his opponent’s intentions aren’t quite as important. In his ideal fight, Abdulvakhabov simply draws his opponent’s jab and then completely obliterates them for daring to try to jab him. For Sarnavskiy, whose game is generally a longer one where he likes to jab, the issue was evident — and Abdulvakhabov was relatively swift in pressuring behind his own jab, as he started to both avoid and punish Sarnavskiy’s lead hand.
It’s fairly important to note, Abdulvakhabov’s defense to his head — while imperfect, and naturally due to his pressuring style — is actually quite solid. Here, he jabs in and proactively raises his rear-hand to catch Sarnavskiy’s left hook counter…
…and within the first two minutes, Abdulvakhabov has enough of a read on the jab to look for his favorite counter — slip to the inside of the jab and counter with the right overhand, which Sarnavskiy deftly obstructed this time by turning the missed jab into a block.
Sarnavskiy wasn’t unprepared for Abdulvakhabov’s number-one tactic, though — in fact, as seen later, he’d scouted the fight quite thoroughly. Sarnavskiy was also a body-jabber, and he started playing the jab off the left hook to the head. Eduard Vartanyan found success mixing up his targets on the jab with Abdulvakhabov as well, as that took away the Chechen’s preferred cross-counter. A body-attack complicates a slip-counter game, and Sarnavskiy got to drawing Abdulvakhabov’s attention downwards before building off it. He didn’t always get it for free, as Abdulvakhabov’s simplicity belies the depth of his overall game—
Sarnavskiy steps into a body jab, Abdulvakhabov responds by countering with his own jab and looking to chase Sarnavskiy back with a combination as he angles out. Moments later, Sarnavskiy again lands the body jab, Abdulvakhabov sees the left hook off it coming, and counters with a left hook of his own.
— but varying his plane of attack was a winning tactic when he was able to play it off his other threats.
Sarnavskiy jabs twice up high, and Abdulvakhabov responds with a high-guard and a parry. Sarnavskiy lowers his level as he was doing to jab to the body, and Abdulvakhabov looks to parry that, only for it to be a right hand to the body. Sarnavskiy then jabs again up high, before left-hooking off it to get around Abdulvakhabov’s defensive options (both the high-guard he actually used, and the parry that he could have).
Sarnavskiy slips Abdulvakhabov’s jab and counters with a left hook. Abdulvakhabov looks to slip inside Sarnavskiy’s jab and come up with a left hook, but the important thing here is the footwork. Sarnavskiy had pivoted into Abdulvakhabov’s stance as he jabbed — note the motion of Alexander’s rear foot after the jab — so Abdulvakhabov had to nearly punch around himself to hit the target. Sarnavskiy again hooked off that jab, and the pivot meant that he could land as Abdulvakhabov had to turn to face him.
With all the other components of the fight as a whole established — the jabs of both, Sarnavskiy taking the back foot, and the bodywork — the final piece that shows up later is the clinch. Abdulvakhabov has always been an incredibly physical and nasty clincher, and while Sarnavskiy did a great job fighting off his takedown attempts, “Lion” turned that into inside-offense that likely won him the round.
Abdulvakhabov shoots a long single leg that serves to push Sarnavskiy to the fence. He’s unable to finish it and comes up on an underhook, looking to control Sarnavskiy’s other wrist. Sarnavskiy is throwing knees but with his back flat against the fence, unable to really get enough power into them for it to be meaningful offense, as Abdulvakhabov is able to land a solid and clean left hand off the wrist control.
“Feeling-out process” is often just a euphemism for a slow first round where not much happens, but round 1 of Abdulvakhabov/Sarnavskiy was a feeling-out process in the truest sense; both found the tactics and areas of the fight that would eventually work to score for them, and both would build on their successes as the fight went into the later stages. The first one to do that was Sarnavskiy, who put on two of the very best rounds he’d ever had — against perhaps the most dangerous opponent he’d ever faced.
II — The Pivot
The key to Sarnavskiy’s success in the middle rounds was twofold, and one was far more obvious than the other — even if the other was arguably more important. For a fighter bred to live in exchanges, Abdulvakhabov has generally found it quite difficult to make an opponent concede to exchanging in the pocket with him; for instance, Eduard Vartanyan found that he had to be very careful in drawing out Abdulvakhabov’s counters, but when he was able to vary his looks a bit more in the rematch, there were a lot of points where Vartanyan was able to get “Lion” simply following him around the cage. Sarnavskiy wasn’t an outfighter on the tier of the inimitable Vartanyan, and he didn’t opt for the southpaw switch that Vartanyan used to take away Abdulvakhabov’s jab-counters — but he did find a similar issue in Abdulvakhabov’s game, with disciplined ringcraft and lateral movement causing the great Chechen some pause.
Abdulvakhabov looks to jab Sarnavskiy back into the fence, and Sarnavskiy responds by doubling up on a left-hook — pivoting and sidestepping with it to buy him some space.
Where this really came to benefit Sarnavskiy offensively is that he was also laterally active in the pocket — Abdulvakhabov struggled to get the exchanges on his terms, as Sarnavskiy looked like a more layered and educated pocket-boxer at many points in the fight. Abdulvakhabov found himself pursuing Sarnavskiy hard, and Sarnavskiy responded with a pivoting jab/left-hook that consistently gave him an out from bad positions as he could draw out and overload Abdulvakhabov’s responses. Sarnavskiy’s commitment to leaving the exchanges on angles also often left them completely worthless for Abdulvakhabov — he didn’t deal damage, and he didn’t get any closer to pushing the slippery Russian against the fence.
These exchanges are a bit reminiscent of the first Whittaker/Adesanya knockdown. Sarnavskiy pivots slightly with his counter left-hook as Abdulvakhabov extends on his rear straight, and uses that hook to herd AAA into the right uppercut — as Abdulvakhabov is essentially found swinging in the wrong direction. Sarnavskiy is also never pushed in quite the direction that Abdulvakhabov is looking to push him; he wants Alexander to back up to the fence, but Sarnavskiy uses the pivot in the exchange to angle back into the open.
The final piece was the one that was most noticeable, and that was Sarnavskiy’s commitment to hitting the body of Abdulvakhabov — Sarnavskiy mixed heavy and clean bodyshots into his combinations, and played it off his other threats. Abdulvakhabov isn’t the best defensive fighter but he can slip his head offline to set up the cross-counter, and hitting a counterpuncher as effective as Abdulvakahbov very rarely comes for free — however, Sarnavskiy proved such a tricky and sharp combination-puncher that Abdulvakhabov did all he could just to keep up.
Sarnavskiy’s counterpunching mostly flowed through his left hook in this fight, but he did a very nice job varying what came after; in particular, the changeup between the right-uppercut and the bodyshot off that left hook punished Abdulvakhabov for hunching down and kept him wary to straighten up and expose his body more. Sarnavskiy even found openings to turn it into a clinch exchange, catching Abdulvakhabov unaware enough to win it.
This was the biggest singular blow of the fight, and it came from many of the same tools Sarnavskiy was using throughout. Sarnavskiy pivots and sidesteps with a double left hook, aims his right hand to the body, and finishes the combination — having turned the cage position 180 degrees with nothing more than subtle motion — with a leaping left hook as Abdulvakhabov was resetting his stance off being turned.
Abdulvakhabov had some work to do as round 4 started — after getting hurt badly at the end of round 2, and Sarnavskiy keeping that momentum going through round 3. But round 1 showed the range where “Lion” was truly unmatched at lightweight, and rounds 4 and 5 were decided by a combination of endurance, experience, and one of the nastiest inside-games in the sport.
III — A Force Of Will
Sarnavskiy had a great idea on how to fight Abdulvakhabov, but it was a hardworking and incredibly active gambit — one that would exhaust nearly anyone, fighting with such an emphasis on mobility and combination-punching. To Sarnavskiy’s credit, not only did he fight incredibly well for rounds 2 and 3, he fought in a way that accounted for the fact that he wouldn’t necessarily be in full-form by the end — the bodywork was a touch that would ideally have left Abdulvakhabov breathing heavy as well, and allowed Sarnavskiy to calm down a bit.
It’s often somewhat unsatisfying to see an incredibly smart and well-done plan fall apart when met with an overwhelming physical disparity, and that was certainly a component of why “Lion” took over at the end of the fight; Abdulvakhabov being able to simply ignore the assault that his body had gone through, and pushing the pace he did through 4 and 5, was madness. However, he also didn’t rely purely on Sarnavskiy just imploding; in fact, the looks that Sarnavskiy showed through rounds 2 and 3 were still there in 4 and 5, when the exchanges happened the same way. Abdulvakhabov simply put such incredible stress on the ringcraft and movement of the Russian that he eventually found the spots he needed — and “Lion” ruthlessly took advantage of each one.
Even from the end of round 3, the trouble Sarnavskiy would have moving forward was clear. Abdulvakhabov ran into Sarnavskiy’s counter-combo but didn’t let off the gas, and the next time Sarnavskiy threw the left hook, Abdulvakhabov had shot reactively to force the inside-game again. Abdulvakhabov cut him up with elbows from the collar-tie, the bicep-tie, and even just a slick step-in one as Sarnavskiy finally got some space. Add the bodywork from the clinch, too.
At the start of round 4, Abdulvakhabov immediately did the same thing he did at the end of round 3. An incredibly high pace, keeping the jab on him, covering distance with the step-in elbow and punching in combination off using that to grab him, and reactively entering the clinch.
As Sarnavskiy tired, he started to get a bit less diligent about ending exchanges as responsibly as he’d been, and Abdulvakhabov started extending the exchanges beyond where Alexander was comfortable. Here, Sarnavskiy throws a left hook and looks to angle off, but Abdulvakhabov is able to use a small push to interrupt him and draw the high guard (as Sarnavskiy perhaps expected the elbow off Abdulvakhabov’s earlier grabs). AAA immediately starts to jab him back, and Sarnavskiy backs straight up to get smashed by a right hand before breaking the line of attack.
This is the round where Abdulvakhabov’s offense really opened up, with his nasty little shots in transition and his generally handsy smothering that takes such a toll on most of his opponents. AAA’s still not very comfortable cutting Sarnavskiy off when he does the right things, but Sarnavskiy found himself more and more trapped in messier exchanges or backed up against the fence, as he didn’t have the energy to spend anymore.
The fight came down to a relatively tight round 5, in which Sarnavskiy still managed to make Abdulvakhabov look a bit clumsy at times, despite his exhaustion and the damage he’d taken through part of round 3 and all of round 4. Adulvakhabov simply would not be denied, and the advantage he found in the clinch became harder and harder for Sarnavskiy to deny.
Sarnavskiy started like this…
…but the round ended like this — AAA on Sarnavskiy like white on rice and taking Sarnavskiy’s body apart from the inside. Abdulvakhabov was the one who got bodysnatched through the first 3 rounds, but forced his win-condition with his entire being to leave Sarnavskiy the one gasping for air and drowned in volume. The Lion hadn’t broken the Tiger, but had certainly beaten him.
Parting Thoughts
The perception of the Russian MMA circuit has long been dominated by the legend of Dagestan — largely shaped by the late great Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, that region has generally been the hotbed for UFC talent out of Russia, a charge led by UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. However, ACA continues to prove that Russia has even more to offer, even just at 155 — as Chechnya’s Abdulvakhabov and the ethnically Russian Sarnavskiy put on a show that the UFC’s 155 hasn’t really matched in 2020. While both Abdulvakhabov and Sarnavskiy are relatively far into their careers, the fight largely speaks to the depth of Russian MMA being even greater than the average viewer comprehends.
As for the fighters, Sarnavskiy fought as well as anyone could’ve expected, in a fight that he probably should’ve lost a lot more decisively. The concern with Abdulvakhabov wasn’t just his striking but the wrestling and a brutal top game, which Sarnavskiy — uncharacteristically — managed to keep completely out of the fight. It was a tremendously educated and sharp fight from “Tiger”, one that showed him to possibly be a top-10 lightweight in the world, even if being in ACA means that he won’t get that credit. For his first crack at Abdulvakhabov, making it to a tight decision is about as impressive as anyone can hope for, including the former elites of the weight-class in Vartanyan and Bagov who couldn’t.
The real story of the fight, though, was Abdulvakhabov, a force of nature that even a smart gameplan and great execution can’t circumvent. Since he lost his ACB lightweight belt to Ali Bagov, Abdulvakhabov hadn’t really been challenged at all, and it had been longer— back to the Vartanyan rematch in 2017 — that he’d been troubled on the feet. Even against Sarnavskiy, Abdulvakhabov didn’t find a solution to what was going on, but he didn’t really need to — it was a bullish way to fight a man who turned out to be an uncomfortable stylistic matchup for him, but Abdulvakhabov is simply undeniable as a physical and a technical force regardless. Abdulvakhabov retrenched himself as a top-3 world lightweight by regaining his dominion over Russia’s lightweight scene, and he remains one of the most terrifyingly skilled and extraordinarily potent fighters in the sport.