In an open-stance matchup, Vartanyan leads with a shifting overhand right with his lead right foot wedged between Shabliy’s centerline. Shabliy slips outside of the punch, counters with a left uppercut, and retracts his lead right foot behind him, leaving him standing orthodox. Vartanyan stumbles out of the open side, and Shabliy shifts back to southpaw.

These two components synthesize extremely well. Since most of Shabliy’s pressure is built off his footwork, his positioning opens himself up to collapsing a wider length of distance with typically lower-percentage strikes like flying knees. If he isn’t willing to enter off of a knee, his ability to counterpunch in combination means that opponents are at an even greater risk of stepping in behind strikes. Alexandr also gets bonus points for not getting pinned along the fence and taken down off of failed knee attempts.

#2: Rear-Hand Feints

Shabliy isn’t a blistering feinter like Max Holloway or Israel Adesanya, but he is a diligent, measured one. In particular, Shabliy is one of the rare rear-handed feinters in the sport, and this is a tremendously useful tool that remains woefully underutilized by the majority of MMA fighters. Feinting the lead hand is common, because the jab is the least committal punch that a boxer can throw. It doesn’t compromise positioning or guard placement very much, it measures distance more accurately (since it gauges how close your closest hand is to your opponent), and it can be retracted very quickly without leaving a major opening. Optically, a feinted lead hand, a committed lead hand, and a throwaway lead hand all look similar to an opponent and, because the hand rests closer to an opponent, it is far more difficult (though not impossible) to respond confidently, since all three tactics resemble each other.

Therein, Alexandr Shabliy is a rare breed of a fighter who understands the value behind feinting the rear hand. The rear hand is generally a more committed punch and often requires a boxer to step in past the length of their lead hand to create a collision. When a boxer feints their rear hand, they are both giving an opponent twice as much information to react to and threatening an opponent with a committed entry that opponents might attempt to counter, leading to even more potential openings. What’s more, proficiently feinting off your rear hand allows a greater comfort in open-stance matchups, if an opponent is diligent about pawing or dragging your lead hand away. Without any ability to feint off the rear hand, open-stance matchups can be toxic for boxers reliant on building feints off their lead hand.