Islam Makhachev has been using a Russian Tie Snap technique in training ahead of his UFC meeting with Alexander Volkanovski.
Makhachev is set to return to action in February when he takes on arguably the sternest test of his career against featherweight champion Volkanovski at UFC 284 on February 11 at the RAC Arena in Australia. A win for the Russian star will be his biggest to date and will see him retain his title at the first time of asking, after earning it with a success over Charles Oliveira last year.
The Russian star will have a new-look camp without the assistance of MMA legend Khabib Nurmagomedov, who has taken a step back from the sport. However, this by no means suggests that Makhachev's camp has been unsuccessful, with training partner Chase Saldate explaining the success of the champion's secret move.
"A lot of people have seen this video, but I'm going to show you guys the one piece of secret technique that makes it work," Saldate said when explaining the move after a video of Makhachev went viral. "The one piece of technique he used was the whole entire time he would just tap my neck. Nothing hard, just slow.
"What this did was [it] got me thinking, 'why is he tapping my neck? Why is he doing that?'. While I started to think about that, he had his hand on my wrist, fake shot, swept under, landed on my head... I wasn't even thinking about grabbing the wrist."
It seems unlikely that Makhachev will use the move in UFC competition, but the Russian could adopt it given he has become UFC champion and is fighting with searing confidence. Volkanovski will be a formidable test, however, given his status as the promotion's leading pound-for-pound fighter.
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The Australian will move up to 155lb to contest the title and, despite their previous size difference, he has warned that he has found new strength from his muscular build. “The fact that I’m moving up, doing the bulking, telling myself we need to get stronger, we need to work on that takedown defence, all of a sudden I’m twice as strong as I was,” Volkanovski said on FREESTYLEBENDER.
“My defence is just on point. I’m like an absolute brick wall when people are trying to run into me and they feel it, they instantly feel it as soon as they grab a hold of me, or we grab each other. They can already significantly see the strength, so it just makes you think where I go from here. You can see in his face like, ‘this guy ain’t too big'. I’ve seen that on plenty of people’s faces. I’ve seen that on my previous fights – my last four, five fights. But that face quickly changes when I’m in the Octagon."
