Combat Sambo master, Blagoy Ivanov, will square off with boxing specialist, Junior dos Santos, this Saturday night (July 14, 2018) at UFC Fight Night 133 inside CenturyLink Arena in Boise, Idaho.
Ivanov’s first claim to fame was defeating Fedor Emelianenko in Combat Sambo way back in 2008, certainly an admirable feat. His next was more impressive: Ivanov nearly died from a knife in the heart in 2012, somehow making a full recovery and going on to fight for the Bellator Heavyweight title a couple years later.
That night ended in the first and only professional loss of Ivanov’s career — at the hands of current top contender Alexander Volkov — but the story was hardly over for the Bulgarian. Ivanov relocated to the World Series of Fighting, where he quickly captured the strap and defended three times.
Let’s take a closer look at the decorated Heavyweight’s skill set:
Striking
An inch shy of six feet tall yet still weighing over 260 pounds, Ivanov is a burly, powerful Heavyweight. On his feet, the Southpaw tends to fall into the Sambo archetype of men like Rustam Khabilov and Ali Bagautinov: willing to work with his back to the fence, throws little in the way of range-finding or distance strikes, and looks to land big with either counters or sudden flurries.
That’s a somewhat more feasible strategy as a Southpaw since the jab is less valuable. In most of his fights, Ivanov begins — or spends long portions of the fight — circling the outside and blocking his opponent’s lead hand with his own. He’ll flick out a jab occasionally, but Ivanov is remarkably patient for a big man with power.
From this position, Ivanov’s foe has a few options, but most of them are difficult ones like methodically move forward behind head movement and feints or work kicks from the outside — hardly tools in the average Heavyweight playbook. Instead, most try to barrel forward, and that’s when Ivanov steps back with a hard check hook. Similarly, another common response is to reach with the cross, leaning for over the lead knee, and the answer is again the check hook. Ivanov’s hook does damage on its own, but it’s often paired with his left hand. Sometimes, as he lands the check hook, it’s more of a club than a punch. Knocking his foe’s head into position, Ivanov then follows up with a left cross/overhand directly into the jawline.
Whether his right or left hand, counter punching on an opponent trying to sloppily close the distance is a major part of Ivanov’s approach. It’s not complicated, but Ivanov does a nice job of leaning back to get his head out of danger while slinging a punch. In addition, Ivanov will stop circling and threw a simple plant cross, which works nicely both due to his Southpaw stance and the crispness of his cross.
If his counters are not landing cleanly or the exchanges are generally close, Ivanov will mix flurries into his offense. Often times, it’s the expected left-cross right hook. Other times, Ivanov will really open up and double up on the cross. Can it get sloppy? Sure, but this is also Ivanov at his most dangerous (GIF).
It would benefit him to do it far more, but Ivanov occasionally shows off a nice left high kick. The left cross and left high kick are a famous pair, particularly at Heavyweight. Even just mixing it in rarely as he does now, Ivanov gives his opponent something to think about when blocking strikes.
Defensively, there are definite holes in Ivanov’s game. Ivanov can counter punch safely and throw clean cross (when he isn’t charging forward), but otherwise his hands tend to fall out of position and he’ll lean over his lead leg. In addition, outside of the left hand counter, Ivanov doesn’t have much of an answer when his opponents kick him.
Wrestling
Despite his Combat Sambo credentials and Judo black belt, Ivanov doesn’t often look to take fights to the mat anymore. For whatever reason, his previous three fights — all championship bouts — saw Ivanov compete at range for the vast majority of the bout.
When Ivanov does look to wrestle, he tends to succeed. Usually, Ivanov pushes forward into the clinch, where his physical strength, low center of gravity, and heaps of experience tend to coalesce well. Overall, Ivanov tends to favor throws from the over-under position, such as the Harai Goshi he landed late in the fight opposite collegiate wrestler Josh Copeland. Given the body lock, Ivanov is more likely to overpower his foe to the mat or look to step around to trip the outside leg.
His background may be clinch focused, but Ivanov is also willing to drop down into a shot. If his opponent successfully defends a trip or throw, the Bulgarian is willing to use that space created to attempt to force a double leg takedown along the fence.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Ivanov may not officially be ranked in jiu-jitsu, but both Sambo and Judo include submissions, and it’s clear from his six submission wins that Ivanov can handle himself on the mat. Of those six, three of Ivanov’s tap outs landed via the 10 finger guillotine, a different style of front choke that really crushes the windpipe. It’s a fairly uncommon technique in the cage that is quite effective, definitely making it worthy of this week’s technique highlight.
Aside from his brutal guillotine, the only somewhat recent submission win on his record of somewhat of a name opponent is his Americana victory over Lavar Johnson. Johnson historically is hopelessly bad at not getting his arms cranked on, and this bout was no exception. The Americana is a classic big guy move: smaller fighters tend to be more flexible and don’t have the weight to pin their foe down anyway. In Ivanov’s case, he definitely had the weight necessary to trap Johnson, allowing him to slowly bring his foe’s elbow down towards the hip before cranking on the hold (GIF).
Conclusion
It’s difficult to truly get a read on Ivanov. To be frank, he’s looked just decent against some fairly middling competition. On the other hand, he trucked Shawn Jordan like he wasn’t even there, and he has the credentials to be a world champion. This will be a huge step up in competition for the Bulgarian, but perhaps he can live up to the event.
Andrew Richardson, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu purple belt, is a professional fighter who trains at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California. In addition to learning alongside world-class talent, Andrew has scouted opponents and developed winning strategies for several of the sport’s most elite fighters.
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