Point of interest: Taking the bull by the horns
Talking about on-paper grappling edges gets tricky when both fighters are traditionally hard to control in close quarters.
Both men have solid sprawls (or at least when they intend to, in the case of Ferguson), as well as possess an impressive ability to granby roll out of danger (which is a key reason why I believe both of them make for Khabib Nurmagomedov’s hardest potential matchup).
But if you’re asking me who I think is the better grappler is, then I have to go with Ferguson. The potential problem with getting excited about that proclamation is that getting to Gaethje’s hips – much less getting him to the ground – has been a difficult and dangerous proposition.
An unforgiving clinch fighter, the former Division 1 All-American wrestler has the hip triggers to shut down deep takedown attempts while still maintaining the aggressive wherewithal to throw uppercuts and leg kicks in small spaces, consistently striking and making his opposition pay off the breaks (from either stance).
Still, even though Gaethje has undoubtedly improved since his last WSOF title defense opposite Luiz Furmino, we have seen that trickier approaches such as half-guard dives produce sticky situations that make wonder how Gaethje will fare with the guard pulls and rolling leg entanglements coming his way. Add in the fact that Ferguson can get into his submission series from a standing position, and grappling exchanges become even harder to forecast.
Whether fighters are shooting in for a double-leg or changing their levels inside of clinch space, their heads will inherently have to travel through a neighborhood Ferguson refers to as “snap-down city.”
With a “snap-down” being a wrestling term that refers to the pulling down of an opponent’s head to break their posture, Ferguson has seemingly made his money from this position, using it to transition to back-takes and front chokes alike. Demonstrating the ability to chain from position-to-position (regardless of whether or not he is using traditional or unorthodox entries), Ferguson appears to have answers from multiple spots on the mat, even when hurt and under fire.
From his back, the former interim champ does well at staying active and attacking from a high guard. And though retaining or fighting from guard has been a fleeting trend in MMA, Ferguson demonstrates how effective one can be by mixing in submissions and strikes off of crafty hand-fighting techniques that almost resemble principles of Wing Chun (I guess Ferguson uses that practice dummy for a reason, huh?).
But regardless of the confidence that Ferguson has in his game, he could still find himself in the proverbial frying pan should he get too comfortable in transit or otherwise against a competent grappler like Gaetheje – who seemingly always has his hips springloaded to launch vicious ground strikes at the drop of a dime.
Next point of interest: Turnaround intangibles