Daniel Cormier vs. Volkan Oezdemir is the co-main event of UFC 220 on January 20, 2018 at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts
One sentence summary:
David: Searching for a Fiend at the End of Jones’ World.
Phil: The 205lb belt reaches a weird new nadir
Stats:
Record: Volkan Oezdimir 15-1 | Cormier 19-1-1 NC
Odds: Volkan Oezdimir +295 | Daniel Cormier -325
History / Introduction to Both Fighters
David: Cormier is something of a neo-Nog; a great fighter on the wrong side of his nemesis’ pugilism window (and his mishap window). How that plays into our ideas of legacy is anyone’s guess. I suspect he’ll lose a fight to someone other than Jon Jones, but is that time this year? Next? It’s hard to say. Age hasn’t factored into his general athleticism, though maybe his durability might.
Phil: Should we feel sorry for Daniel Cormier? I’m never sure. He’s a man with an awesome career, who is officially the light heavyweight champion and a member of the UFC broadcast team. He has a loving family, a bright future and earns good money. But man. That belt feels like it’s only kept in Cormier’s grasp by Jon Jones’ rampant idiocy, and he’s now stuck fighting one of the oddest contenders in recent memory.
David: With his Ethan Embry-as-trucker face, I never saw Oezdemir as anything other than a good European fighter with gatekeeper potential. The Saint Preux fight still leaves something to be desired, but his continued improvement makes him a unique x-factor in a division defined by absentee landlords and veteran savvy. Somehow, he has a shot at glory. A good shot? His fists make a good argument.
Phil: Volkan Oezdemir is the UFC’s most unlikely recent success story. A fairly underwhelming but gritty kickboxer outside of the cage, the Swiss fighter managed to notch three increasingly impressive and/or weird wins since coming to the UFC. First he won against OSP in an ugly fight which most people scored against him. Then he knocked out 205’s brightest prospect and one of its hardest hitters. None of those fights really felt definitive in any way. If you showed those knockouts to someone who had never seen Manuwa, Cirkunov or Oezdemir fight before in their lives, I think their first reaction would just be: “what a couple of weird knockouts.” So we find ourselves here, where amusing confluence has combined with a complete lack of depth to give us one of the most purely puzzling title challengers in recent memory. I was bummed to see that battery charge for Oezdemir. It looks like not much will come of it, but it’s a little depressing to see these kind of stories so consistently come out of the Blackzilians. It takes a bit of the fun out of this whole thing.
What’s at stake?
David: Thanks to Jones’ behavior – all the marbles. A Cormier win leaves a stable hierarchy in place, whereas an Oezdemir victory shakes the hierarchy to its core (yet again). So a lot is at stake given the UFC ecosphere.
Phil: This really would be a terrible loss for Cormier. It’s exactly the kind of high-risk, no-reward fight which could end up as a blackly comic capstone for the UFC’s most unfairly maligned champion.
Where do they want it?
David: There’s a useful phrase in hockey to describe players who aren’t fast but seem to have a knack for possessing the puck: it’s called ‘loose puck speed’, and to the extent that MMA has a proxy for it, Cormier is a symbol of ‘loose fight speed’. He’s a great athlete of posture, and positioning but he’s not necessary fast, agile (although he certainly tries: see that dad-thrown jumping high kick against Jones), but he shuffles in place quicker than natural athletes because he’s persistent, intelligent, and not that slow to begin with. If Cormier wants to pressure, he can do that. With his intermittent kicks, overhand ridgehands, and slammability, Cormier can dish entry violence with the best of them. It’s hard to define his flaws by a pair of fights with Jones that he was competitive in. If you’re gonna catch Cormier with something, you need an outside-the-box approach supporting a strong base. That doesn’t describe Oezdemir, but might it even matter?
Phil: I think Cormier is fast in certain aspects. His foot and hand speed are tremendously underrated, as they have to carry him past fairly wide stretches of real estate to close down bigger and taller opponents. Even more than his power, I think it’s his speed and durability which have allowed Cormier to thrive in the UFC. His footwork isn’t tremendously efficient, and he’s not that difficult to hit on the way in, but he is very hard to stop. Jones was able to beat him up in the clinch, but other than that he’s been completely impossible to stop once he gets inside, when he clamps down with a vice-like single collar and punches or lifts with the high-crotch or the single leg. Meanwhile, much like Khabib his huge confidence in close enables him to land hard strikes from further out, and they share a few similarities in their upright stance and pressuring entries (although Cormier lacks Khabib’s shot).
David: Oezdemir has a fairly standard, stripped down striking game. He’s not a gangly, distance administrator the way Jones was, and can’t clip at range (Johnson) or inside (Gustafsson) with heretical pressure the way everyone else he’s fought and been competitive with has. So – except for his name – Volkan has some improvements he’ll need to make. On the surface, Oezdemir uses stance switches and calculated lunging attacks to spring violence. It’s a strategy that would normally be kind of awful but Oezdemir understands a few boxing fundamentals; such as ducking his head for entries, and switching wide and straight mechanics to puncture his opponent’s shield. He’s comfortable enough the ground to seek takedowns, and will defend them without panicking. His persistence is kind of the issue, hence the “insight” section.
Phil: Oezdemir is incredibly meat and potatoes. Even moreso than Stipe in the main event, it’s difficult to pin down exactly what he’s good at… and the inescapable conclusion seems to be that he isn’t really all that great at anything, but being extremely physically and mentally tough has carried him all the way to a marquee event. Oezdemir has an accurate left hook, some hard leg kicks, and is hard to hit. He shows excellent presence of mind, and was able to pick up on wins over Manuwa and Cirkunov in part because they took their eyes off the road, drifting lazily out of clinch exchanges or trying to wade in on him in the pocket. That being said, nothing he throws reverberates with power, and he doesn’t even keep a tremendous pace. He truly is a bit of a puzzle.
Insight from past fights?
David: When Oezdemir gets into a flow, he’s non-stop Liam Neeson style. OSP – who I don’t consider by any means a technical striker – clipped him several times while Volkan was in pursuit. Cormier doesn’t have the reach or straight down attack to imitate OSP’s sometimes-success, but he has power, moxy, and crushing grappling skills. If Cormier manages to clip Oezdemir, I have no doubt the round will end in top control city. So that’s the question – can Volkan sift through Cormier’s defense long enough to keep from getting beaten on the ground in the later rounds.
Phil: Volkan finished Manuwa in the clinch, and the time which Cormier has been hurt the worst (apart from when he was finished by Jones) was when he almost got taken out by a Gustafsson clinch knee. I don’t expect Oezdemir to be able to win this fight in the clinch, but he is absolutely not someone to sleep on there.
X-Factors
David: Cormier’s durability? He’s been hurt in a lot of fights, but he’s fought a lot of hurtful fighters too. Still, you gotta imagine the age thing will hurt just as much as a Volkan punch if Cormier is wobbly, and trying to get back to his feet.
Phil: Snap. Cormier hasn’t had a long MMA career, but he’s had a hard one both in (AKA!) and out of the cage. It’s notable that his iron chin has been visibly cracked a couple of times recently, by Gustaffson and Jones.
Prognostication
David: As much as I like Volkan’s game, you need poetry to beat Cormier – not pop. And Volkan is all pop. His speed might be a potential issue, but only in the context of an x-factor; Cormier’s fought faster strikers, and acquitted himself well. I think this fight is fairly predictable. Cormier will dictate the pace, and then finish the face. Daniel Cormier by Decision.
Phil: There’s no real reason to think that Oezdemir will win this. Cormier’s durability is something which he’s leaned on heavily, and unlike Oezdemir’s teammate Rumble, Volkan won’t go away if things start going badly for him. So there are conceivable paths to victory for Volkan to attack Cormier’s legs, or to just catch him when he’s moving carelessly inside, but Cormier is a more violent, more consistent, more athletic threat. Daniel Cormier by TKO, round 4.