Last week there was an unshakable confidence amongst analysts (including myself) that Adesanya would pick Jan Blachowicz to pieces and expose LHW for the sham of a division that it is. We were wrong. Jan Blachowicz is having a bit of a career renaissance going from losing to Patrick Cummings to besting elite fighters like Israel Adesanya is nothing short of incredible and inspiring for aging fighters at the twilight of their career. The most surprising aspect to me is the prep that Blachowicz and his team did coming into this fight. I didn’t really expect Blachowicz to be able to focus on staying disciplined and fight such a tactical battle with a savvy ring general, because he hadn’t shown it up to this point. In recent fights he’s proven to be a tricky target to hit but never seemed like an unreachable target. Now of course some of Adesanya’s difficulty in this fight had to do with being the smaller man size disadvantages always play a factor in the outcome of fights and when switching weight classes different divisional metas play a part in how the fight will take place. Looking back at the last article I wrote, I believe I overrated Izzy’s skillset to a degree or at least how effective it could be when faced with larger opposition. Adesanya was rarely in trouble of being finished but Blachowicz seemed to have an answer for everything he presented. Blachowicz was able to use his size to negate the range Adesanya’s comfortable contesting at and brilliantly leveraged his strength in grappling exchanges to get the best of Izzy in each phase. It can even be argued that Blachowicz even tagged him with the harder and cleaner blows.
What I can say now after having seen it, is that Blachowicz has a functional defense even when faced with elite strikers. One aspect of his game that prevented me from picking him over Izzy was the fact that when he’d take kicks he usually wouldn’t return with a counter. In the past Blachowicz would take the brunt of the kick on the forearms and resume playing an outside game, it’s a defensive tendency that seemed like a glaring weakness if the Polish champion had to face an elite outside kicker.
To my surprise Blachowicz was determined to make it difficult for Izzy to safely land kicks or comfortably reset on the way down from them because he’d swing back with a loopy counter or stick a piece of bone in the path of Israel’s kick.
The reason Izzy had a hard time setting up kicks and struggled landing them was because of Blachowicz’s first layer of defense. Jan would constantly lean back and maintain a high guard. Strangely enough this isn’t a new trick Blachowicz came up with to mitigate Adesanya’s kicks. He typically has this reaction in all of his fights but it was weirdly effective for evading Israel’s trickiest weapon and getting him to pull the question mark kick short. In many cases when Blachowicz wasn’t looking to counter he essentially applied a one-size-fits all defense for Adesanya’s attacks, since Izzy doesn’t push past that initial missed strike it allowed Jan to pretty much cover up like a stone castle and wait it out.
Jan looked great parrying and pawing straight shots with his rear hand and getting out of the way of the southpaw double attack by meeting the kicks straight on with a lead check or a cross check.
To lower Izzy’s chances of hindering his movement with calf kicks, Blachowicz came prepared with solid fundamentals on checking them. Adesanya had interesting setups like shifting off front kick feints or roundkick feints to land in the opposite stance and punt the calf, but K-1 Blachowicz knew to draw back at the knee an tilt the shin inwards to let the kick hit the ankle and then he’d come back with a counter left hook. It was brilliant, of all people Jan Blachowicz became the LHW Chad of dealing with lowkicks.
Blachowicz would pendulum step into a short choppy outside lowkick, which ended up being weirdly effective at punishing Adesanya’s handfighting tactics and getting getting him to reposition.
Blachowicz had phenomenal timing and was able to use Israel’s tendencies against him to enforce grappling exchanges. In the clip above, Adesanya brings the left hip forward into orthodox to feint the left roundkick and close distance. The problem with Adesanya’s feint is it leaves him in proximity of Blachowicz, Blachowicz raises the cross-check in case the feint is a real kick, but he barely concedes any ground to the threat and immediately capitalizes on Adesanya’s positioning by using a knee tap to get him to the fence.
Halfway through the fight Adesanya wanted to manipulate Blachowicz’s guard and draw it low using feints because of the difficulty he was having landing upstairs. Although Izzy has great pocket exits and entries, his tendency to setup traps and draw out strikes with head movement can limit how deep he can push exchanges with boxing entries. He hasn’t quite developed the layered defense within the pocket to hang in exchanges with a patient counterpuncher for extended periods of time. Adesanya’s game thrives off of single-shots at range and getting the opponent reactive, to mitigate the risk of being countered.
Since Adesanya could not get past the initial stages of Blachowicz’s defense for the majority of the fight, it would’ve helped if he could use his jab to carry himself into range and setup longer combinations and bodywork. Instead he would look for single punches/pot-shots and then reset but even those particular strikes were having difficulty landing on Blachowicz.
I’ve done some guesswork on other reasons why Adesanya doesn’t setup longer combinations, and largely I believe it’s because, against most opponents he doesn’t need to. Naturally he’s a fighter who prefers to break down opponents and reveal their flaws by outwitting them, instead of putting them away in a violent flurry. Although, I came to another conclusion so hear me out.. Part of it is the fact that his body frame dictates he fights that way. Adesanya’s style requires lots of activity and a constant stream of output, most of which is done through footwork, feinting and repositioning instead of a high volume of punches. By constantly reseting it allows him to stay within his own aerobic limits while controlling engagements and keeping the opponent from dictating the range or pace. If he’s committing to longer exchanges with varied boxing combinations, you may not see him be as efficient with his exits/entries and it’d make it more difficult for him to reliably fend off open-space shots when he gets fatigued.
When Adesanya switched to southpaw, changing the dynamic of the fight to open-stance, it gave himself more distance to work with by always being one step outside of Blachowicz’s reach, but he’d also have to cover an extra step on his entries. Sometimes he’d overcommit on the lead left straight getting his feet tangled up in the process and it forced him to immediately exit, which also removes himself from being a counterpunching threat. It often allowed Blachowicz to come back with the counter left hook off of a parry to crack Izzy clean while out of position.
In the past when Adesanya lead with that sneaky rear straight he often paired it with rear hip feints so opponents would struggle with being able to tell whether a kick or punch is coming next. The downside is he sometimes hangs out there too long and gives opponents a clean entry to his hips.
Blachowicz was able to time the left hand and intercept the entry by ducking inside and grabbing a bodylock, he’d transition to a front headlock and land a knee as Izzy was fighting grips. Jan surprisingly had some sneaky transitional work that went unnoticed by the commentary team.
Right now everybody is raving about the Hanged Man’s jab. It’s fascinating because Blachowicz was able to outjab Izzy and use it to force him out of position, where he would have to reset.
Blachowicz was constantly able to do this while not giving up position to Izzy’s feints, he may have been twitching and overreacting to the feints but since Izzy rarely could build significant blows off of them, it allowed Blachowicz to plant his feet and land the jab when Adesanya thought he was at a safe distance.
Blachowicz was even counter jabbing with Izzy, even if it meant he had to eat one, he’d try to time the step-in and catch the up-jab in the palm of his hand. This can create hesitancy in the opponent because every time they go to jab they have to consider where they’re setting their feet or how they time their entry because they might be receiving one back.
Blachowicz was determined to just touch Izzy with the jab, even simple jabs to the chest were used to off-balance and break his rhythm. I sense this was part of Blachowicz’s gameplan because when you can’t hit the head it’s better to aim for the chest because it can stifle Izzy’s head movement and stop him in his tracks. When Blachowicz landed punches on Izzy, in a way it reminded me of Holloway vs Poirier where every time the bigger man landed, it had a thudding impact that took the recipient off his feet for a brief moment. Often Izzy would have most of his weight distributed over the front foot whether he was in orthodox or southpaw, so a lot of Blachowicz’s shots would send Izzy head over heels meaning he’d take more time to reset and once he plants for the next exchange he’s basically putting himself in the same predicament again. It also should be said that Blachowicz rarely chased after Izzy but always looked to crowd him, meaning Izzy wasn’t given the chance to use his layered directional changes to escape and turn Blachowicz onto counters. Blachowicz evened the odds by subconsciously getting Izzy to accept 50/50 head-on exchanges, a good ole fashioned shootout if you will. It doesn’t matter if you’re the more intelligent outfighter, if you’re both exchanging and in range to land, but you’re not doing anything to prevent them from hitting you, then you’ve got a higher percentage of getting cracked.
Leading up to this fight it was a rather logical assumption to think Adesanya would’ve been able to draw out the blitzes with feints because we saw he was capable of that against Whittaker but Blachowicz and his team wisely never gave Izzy that opportunity. Blachowicz was thoughtfully doubling up his jab to carry his feet into range rather than steamrolling forward behind a flurry of ugly punches whenever he got impatient.
Blachowicz was even feinting his jab to come over the top of the shoulder with a lead hook as Izzy was framing off.
It was clear that Blachowicz had been prepped extremely well, they had a good understanding of where Adesanya struggles, and Blachowicz’s gameplan didn’t go against his nature as a fighter, so it was relatively easy for him to stay disciplined in order to carry it out. When Adesanya went to his half step feints in orthodox Jan would flash his rear hand to show he was prepared to parry the jab. By doing this it limited the amount of times Adesanya was willing to jab, but when he did Blachowicz met him with these quick hair trigger counter left hooks which ultimately discouraged Adesanya from believing in going back to it.
Whenever Adesanya does a naked stance switch in front of you, it’s done with the intent to control. When he switches to southpaw he’ll handfight to setup his left kick and when he goes orthodox it’s to reset and setup right lowkicks off his jab. Clearly Blachowicz gameplanned to exploit these brief moments because he bonked Izzy with a step-up right straight each time he switches. It’s the kind of right straight where Blachowicz’s head doesn’t move offline but his feet do to take the outside angle, which takes exceptional timing to pull off. Also note how Blachowicz gives Izzy a quick tap on the lead glove to let him know somethings coming off it in the 1st clip.
Blachowicz gets Izzy biting on the bodyjab by trying to parry with the rear hand, so he loops the left hook around to crack him.
For several fights now Izzy has resorted to leaning back and looking for the left hook when opponents push forward, he quickly killed Whittaker and Costa with it. Blachowicz’s team put together a beautiful strategy for taking advantage of that, (I posted a clip of it on twitter so take a look at that if you already haven’t) but essentially everybody knows Adesanya has been susceptible to left hooks you’ve probably seen the Pereira GIF spammed a million times online. Blachowicz weaponized that threat by not only using it as a counter to time Adesanya’s entries and bonk him on exits but he established it so he could get Izzy biting on it to setup open-space double legs.
In the last article we talked about how Adesanya’s head movement is his first line of defense but I didn’t account for how that could play into Blachowicz’s strengths. Who would’ve known that you didn’t have to let Izzy lean back and clean your chin as you fall forward into the space he’s created, rather take advantage of his head being behind his base while he’s looking to counter and in a vulnerable position to defend reactive shots. Izzy has always pretty decent at fighting grips and getting underhooks but I think Blachowicz being the bigger man and having weirdly good timing on these shots helped a lot.
There was an interesting dynamic in this fight because while Adesanya was able to comfortably rain down feints with impunity to force reactions out of a historically cautious fighter in Blachowicz, it ultimately didn’t serve to setup his kicks. Adesanya was faced with this similar problem against Vettori except Vettori stubbornly came forward, stayed in Izzy’s face and didn’t know when to quit or take his foot off the gas. Romero being the opposite and the biggest example of how Adesanya can struggle to build, find openings and get off significant damage against opponents that don’t give him the reactions that he’s looking for.
I have to touch on Blachowicz’s patience and how it was unintentionally weaponized. Blachowicz’s patience is weirdly unreadable, you know he’s going to lash out at some point but I think the part that gives opponents the most trouble is the WHEN part. Adesanya had success backing him to the cage but you can’t really force Blachowicz to do anything he doesn’t want to, or at least not the man who fought on this night. While Blachowicz may at times look skittish when quickly retreating from strikes or lunging in to land his own, I’d say this was his bravest performance to date because for the majority of the fight he was unwilling to concede space to a much more intimidating and capable striker than himself.
Towards the 5th round Adesanya was slowing down a bit and looked a little lethargic from the grappling exchanges and being stuck on bottom so Blachowicz was able to sneak in lead right hands when Adesanya went to control the handfight (like we talked about earlier).
It should be noted even though Adesanya was slower, he was still building in those later rounds but it wasn’t due to his hypnotic feints, instead he had success by just committing to throwing shit on the canvas. Typically when Adesanya was leading the dance without feinting, he was able to land before Blachowicz could counter, but since he waits to bait reactions (which allows him to conserve energy) it allowed Blachowicz to get the timing for his own leads. Now, this fight was a lot closer than people like to make it out to be, If Blachowicz didn’t secure the takedowns when he did, we may be looking at a different result entirely.
Adesanya had some success sneaking middle kicks in because Blachowicz prioritized protecting the head, but strangely he just stopped going back to them.
Likewise as Blachowicz slowed down, the timing and cadence of his jab became more predictable allowing Izzy to get a read on it and respond with cross-counters.
Ultimately I think this is a fight Adesanya can win given he adjusts accordingly. He was not out of his depth here and the fact that it was his first try at a new weightclass means road bumps should be expected. His chin held up surprisingly well here, and I dont think his stock will suffer from the loss. However, Blachowicz’s story is far more interesting in this situation. Jan was never expected to make it to this point early in his career, his ceiling for potential was safeguarding the Top 15 of the the Light Heavyweight Division and becoming a stepping stone for future contenders. Despite his critics, he assembled an unforeseen turnaround and started knocking dudes out in the wake of Jon Jones’ absence and gave a tremendous account of himself against Adesanya. Jan Blachowicz has slowly become a quiet force to be reckoned with and it’s truly something to behold.
Downward Elbow 