BJJ Breakdown: Dustin Poirier's Ill-Fated Guillotine vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov

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Khabib Nurmagomedov’s second lightweight title defense against Dustin Poirier was largely a grappling showcase. In the beginning of the third round, Khabib and his fans must have experienced a hell of a scare. Dustin Poirier latched up an arm-in guillotine, and it was tight. Following two straight rounds of domination on the ground, this was only the second time in the fight Poirier exhibited some legitimate offense against Khabib’s ground assault.

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During this exchange, if you were watching with me, you’d have wondered why I started yelling advice at the screen on how to finish the guillotine.

After all, Dustin, a black belt himself, surely knew how to finish it, right? Well, unfortunately, if he had avoided some some key mistakes he could have either 1) potentially finished the fight, 2) used it to get on top and finish there, or 3) at least use it to sweep and get back to the feet.

Sadly, none of these occurred, and Khabib was eventually able to escape and work his way to the RNC finish in the third round.

This got me thinking about doing a video breakdown of the adjustments Dustin could have made. In comes Gene Sakirski.

Gene is a blackbelt under Joseph Capizzi, and he’s a bit too modest sometimes. He’s an absolute expert on guillotines, they’re one of his primary weapons from a variety of positions. I felt he would be able to adequately explain the adjustments that could have had a significant chance of changing the outcome of the fight.

And from here, I’ll let Gene do the explaining himself.

Well folks, there you have it. Hopefully you found this information useful, and I urge you to apply this when attempting your own guillotines as well! It makes a huge difference, I can promise you that. Let me know what other breakdowns you’d like to see and I’ll work with Gene some more to break them down for you!

Enjoy!

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