What Takedown Offense Actually Buys a Fighter
Merab Dvalishvili, the UFC's bantamweight champion, is the clearest example. His 119 successful takedowns are the most in UFC history, and his output does not taper off late in fights, which is usually when it matters most. In bouts that went the full three rounds, he has averaged 15.6 takedown attempts; in his three five-round fights, that number doubles to 31.3 attempts. Against Petr Yan in March 2023 he landed 11 takedowns off 49 attempts, both UFC records for a single fight.
What that volume buys him is fatigue management for himself and fatigue infliction on opponents. A fighter who has just been put on his back for the fourth time in a round has spent energy scrambling that never shows up on a strike-count stat sheet, and by the numbers ESPN compiled on his game, that hidden cost is central to why he wins rounds he does not obviously dominate on the feet.
Islam Makhachev runs a lower-volume version of the same strategy. His lightweight title reign includes the most successful title defenses in the division's history, built on a Sambo foundation rather than folkstyle wrestling; he became a combat sambo world champion in 2016 and a two-time Russian national champion at 74 kilograms. His takedown accuracy sits at 54 percent on 69 attempts, fewer attempts than his training partner and predecessor Khabib Nurmagomedov's 129, but a similar result: once the fight is on the mat, it tends to stay there until Makhachev decides otherwise.
