‘UFC Vegas 74’ Aftermath: Is Amir Albazi A Flyweight Elite?

Amir Albazi struck the gold mine when he defeated Kai Kara-France this weekend at UFC on ESPN 46. The fight with the New Zealand native was a close battle with no clear winner. Many thought Kara-France won the fight, but only the only opinions that mattered at the Apex that night were those of the three judges. At the end of the day Albazi was handed the win via split decision. It wasn’t a terrible performance by either fighter by any stretch. Both had their moments and neither took complete control of the fight.

We aren't here to argue about judging. What we do instead is study mixed martial arts, so today, we’re studying Albazi in his fight against Kara-France.

Staying Out of Trouble

The key when fighting a fighter like Kara-France is staying out of trouble and not biting on his trickery. Even the current champion, Brandon Moreno, was drawn into a firefight with Kara-France. He paid the price and took some damage but ultimately got out of there with a win. Amir Albazi didn’t fall into these tricks and kept safe the entire fight.

Readers of last week’s Beforemath will remember that this was something we identified in our pre-fight analysis on the matchup. First on the docket was low kicks.

As mentioned in that article, part of winning championship-level fights is taking away your opponent’s weapons to make them more one-dimensional. If you dumb down what they do, there’s less you have to worry about. The low kick is one of Kara-France’s best weapons. He used it to great effect against Moreno, De La Rosa, and when other fighters called for it. We talked specifically about checking the kick as one of the ways to avoid that. But Albazi took a different approach, pushing forward and crowding the kicker instead. Kara-France didn’t like having to kick off his back foot and, while he was 22 of 29 with the low kick, Albazi only allowed them to happen when he was at range and would push forward to make sure that when Kara-France kicked, he was on his back foot and couldn’t dig in like he wanted.

Another thing discussed in Beforemath was the importance of pivoting off the center line for Albazi. He and his team identified this as well and implemented it to keep him out of danger’s way.

In the figure above, we see (1) Kai Kara-France stepping in with a huge right hand. Albazi will see this ahead of time and implement the pivot out to the left to get off the center line of Kara-France’s strike. (2) Sliding his rear foot to the left creates the angle for that left hook that Albazi nearly lands. Anticipating the left hook, (3) Albazi continues his pivot out to the left, circling away from the power hand. While it would have been nice to land the lead hook, Albazi getting off the center line of Kara-France’s big, looping punches saved him some damage and helped him last through the fight as long as he did.

Albazi is also very good against the fence looking for the trip. In Beforemath we looked at how he attacked Francisco Figueiredo with a leg reap against the fence to pull his opponent down. Against Kara-France, Albazi pestered him all night with subtle and slick sweeps. While he was only credited with one takedown in nine attempts, Kara-France often hit the mat briefly off of Albazi’s trips only to pop back up.

Getting a sweep against the fence was big for Albazi and the one in round five, no matter how brief, was big for him to slow down Kara-France. Albazi often uses these slick trips to get to the ground and he does so here. (1) When he has his opponents against the cage, Albazi will often lock the body up. He will then (2) reap his leg around the forward leg of his opponent. (3) When Albazi pulls out the reaped leg, this puts Kara-France off balance, ripe for a pull and a takedown. (4) Albazi eventually does and, though he’s not credited for a takedown here, slowing down Kara-France and making him work to fend off the takedown and get back up paid huge dividends for Amir Albazi.

To keep Kara-France down is a tall order. Scrambly as can be, Kai Kara-France is near impossible to keep down. The one credited takedown for Albazi allowed him to rack up over three minutes of control time in round three, Albazi’s most decisive round. He managed to pull out the post of Kara-France, another thing we identified in the Beforemath article with the Figueiredo fight.

In that third round where Albazi was so dominant, he established control by taking away the post of Kara-France as he was fighting his way back to the fence to wall walk up. We see in the first frame (1) that Albazi reached in and grabbed the wrist of Kara-France. It’s subtle, but in the next, (2) we see Albazi having pulled the hand down and Kara-France falls to his left shoulder, allowing Albazi to keep position.

Adjustments Needed

While Albazi managed to get away with a tight, split decision victory on Saturday night, fighting how he did will not beat names like Moreno or Brandon Royval. Round 5 was by far Kara-France’s best round and it was clear that all of Albazi’s effort to get to the ground tired him out. With a dedicated body puncher and someone who is even scramblier than Kara-France, Moreno and Royval in specific, Albazi will have to deal with shots to the body on top of the difficulty of getting the opponent to the ground. Moreno is also a better striker than Kara-France and will create more offense, something Albazi might struggle with.

But for now, Albazi just snagged the number three or four spot in the rankings. Depending on how Moreno’s fight with Pantoja goes, it could be him versus Royval in a title eliminator. His win over Kara-France is likely not enough to catapult him over Royval, who also has a win, a more decisive one, over Kara-France. But this will skyrocket Albazi up from his seventh ranked spot and have him in discussions for a real title shot within the next year.