UFC Beforemath: How to Take Down Derrick Lewis and Not Get Knocked Out

This weekend, UFC Fight Night 218 will feature the finals of the “Road to UFC” tournament and a main event heavyweight matchup between Derrick Lewis and Sergey Spivak that could be a passing of the guard. Lewis, a longtime staple of the division, has dropped two straight and Spivak is riding a 5-1 streak with his only loss coming against Tom Aspinall. This means that now we have to break the fight down. Let’s get down to business to break down the main event of “UFC Vegas 68.”

Derrick Lewis: A Meme Fighter?

Of course, we all remember Lewis’ post-fight antics. In fact, in addition to him being born in my home state of Louisiana, they are partially the reason I find myself pulling for the hard-hitting Lewis. He has produced some electrifying moments of knockout splendor in addition to providing us unnecessary detail about the temperature of his testicles and the status of his bowel movements. But with all that humor and all the memes aside, Lewis is still a very dangerous fighter.

Lewis is 37 years old, which in terms of fighting, is generally ancient. But for a heavyweight, especially one who is reliant on his power, 37 is just right. As the old adage in fighting goes, power is the last thing to go. If we’re being completely honest, power is pretty much the only thing Lewis has ever really had going for him.

The thing is, Lewis has never really needed anything else. He has massive power and it carries late into the fight. We saw him knock out Alexander Volkov in that epic last-second finish all those years ago, so we know he can put any of his opponents’ lights out. That’s never been the problem. The problem has traditionally been that Lewis doesn’t know how to lead a fight and when there’s a fighter who is just a hair tricky, he tends to fold. Against Spivak, Lewis will have to go first. He will have to lead. If not, he will get pushed to the fence, he will get taken down and he will get smashed out.

While I am proposing that Lewis needs to be on the offensive this fight and not just look to counter when his opponent decides to strike, I do want to look at some holes in Spivak’s game that Lewis can exploit. That will involve Lewis allowing his foe to lead. Spivak tends to shoot a lot of takedowns and he likes to get the fight to the ground where he does his best work.

Spivak has the tendency to shoot his head to the power side of an orthodox opponent, angling to his own left. After boxing Derrick Lewis up for almost the entirety of the first round, (1) Curtis Blaydes decided to shoot the takedown on Lewis, his bread and butter. The problem is Blaydes will shoot with his head down and to the power side of Lewis. (2) We can see in the second frame that Blaydes isn’t looking where he’s shooting and is completely unaware of the uppercut he’s on a collision course with. (3) The third frame is the perfect angle to see Lewis taking advantage of Blaydes shooting directly into his power hand. You’ll notice that Lewis throws the uppercut straight on and not really across his body—this will be important in the upcoming Spivak section. Finally, we see Blaydes (4) out cold, having eaten what was perhaps the biggest knuckle sandwich of all time.

Should Lewis find himself pinned against the fence defending the single will be natural to him. Lewis is actually quite competent at that section of grappling. It’s when a wrestler decides to chain wrestle and look for something after the single that “The Black Beast” struggles. Once Spivak gets to the fence, Lewis will probably not have any way to stop the grappling onslaught. Instead, Lewis needs to not let Spivak work and rain AGM-114 Hellfire missiles down on his foe. With the power Lewis possesses, he can either deter Spivak from hanging around too long down by his legs looking for a trip or, in a more optimal scenario, knock him out.

Lastly, Lewis needs to take Spivak for a long, long ride deep into the fight. Against Augusto Sakai, we saw Spivak tired in the second round. He was just barely less tired than Sakai and managed to grind out a win. Lewis, who has been in five-round fight camps before, can take advantage of a tired Spivak and land some big shots to put his opponent away. He needs to stay off his back for this, however. Should Spivak end up on top, he will open the gas tank disparity in his favor and it will be a long—or short— night at the office for Lewis in a bad sense.

Sergey Spivak: Mind Your Ps and Qs

Spivak has been looking for a way into the Top 10 of the UFC heavyweight division for some time now. If Lewis being 37 isn’t old for a heavyweight, Spivak being 28 is basically an infant. Getting inside the rankings this early will only bode well for the Moldovan native. Spivak, however, will have to be on all his best behavior against Lewis to come out with a victory and propel him to where a path to the title may lie.

The key to beating Lewis is to be extremely disciplined. That means no wild punches and no lazy takedowns. A lazy takedown will have Spivak sparked and out cold. Again, discipline is the key focus against Lewis and Spivak and his team will hopefully have focused on that.

The first part of this discipline will be, of course: no wild strikes. Do not get into a brawl with Lewis. Once Spivak is there, he needs to get the fight down to the ground quick. Hanging around in the clinch and the body lock will not be his best friend and can get him lit up. Instead, he needs to take the same approach as Daniel Cormier did against Lewis. When Cormier fought Lewis, he chain-wrestled and did it quickly. He didn’t give Lewis any time to process what was going on and that would play into the favor of Spivak as well. Attack the takedown and don’t stop attacking.

We have seen Spivak do plenty of chain wrestling in the past. It’s just that often, he gets caught in transition by either shooting from too far out or getting stuck along the fence for a hair too long. Spivak has gotten by in the past despite this flaw but against Lewis, any faltering like this will spell disaster.

Spivak had incredible success against Greg Hardy, although taking down Hardy is a night-and-day difference compared to taking down Lewis. The diagram above shows us just how comfortable Spivak is if his first takedown does not succeed. (1) In the first frame, we see Hardy throwing out a telegraphed, lazy jab. Spivak takes a giant step in and is looking for the single leg. Our second frame (2) shows that Spivak would get in on the leg but decide to pull up to the body lock as Hardy has his hands ready to push down. Notice Spivak’s head is to Hardy’s power side, the exact same mistake we looked at in the Blaydes section earlier. Spivak cannot do this, period. Continuing with the sequence of events, we see (3) that Spivak kept his underhook on Hardy and will use that as the foundation of the next chain in the grappling sequence.

(4) As Spivak backs Hardy to the fence, we see he’s still got the underhook and looks to toss Hardy again. This fails as Hardy kicks his right leg out, removing the fulcrum. Spivak will have to attempt a third takedown in this one chain of events. (5) Spivak will finally shoot his leg across Hardy and use (6) a sloppy harai goshi to finally (7) slam Hardy to the mat.

In the Lewis section, I mentioned that he doesn’t really throw the rear uppercut across his body and pointed out how that matters here. With the takedown being so pivotal in Spivak’s game, that note will be important. His head needs to go to the lead hand side of Lewis when a takedown is shot. Lewis throws the uppercut straight on and it causes train wrecks like we saw with Blaydes, but Spivak has shown the propensity to shoot to the power hand side on his takedowns. To see how it should be done, let’s look at one of the best takedown artists in heavyweight history: Daniel Cormier.

Looking at the fight with Cormier, it’s a perfect opportunity to see what Blaydes should have done against Lewis to not get put out cold like he did. We know that Lewis doesn’t like forward pressure and (1) Cormier will back Lewis up with the jab. Once he gets Lewis to the fence, Cormier will shoot his head to the lead hand side, the exact thing we’ve been harping on. While the takedown wasn’t the cleanest that Cormier has had in the past, (2) we can clearly see that he keeps his head away from the uppercut of Lewis to the outside. This is a trademark of AKA and Dagestani wrestlers and something we will go over in depth on the UFC 284 Beforemath.

Circling back just a hair, Lewis used the exact same rear uppercut that he ultimately offed Blaydes with in the fight with Cormier. But Cormier, being as experienced as he was, shot to the lead side and avoided disaster.

Another thing to take into account going into this fight is whatever medical concern caused Lewis to withdraw from this fight back in November. If it is still a lingering issue, that could play into fight, despite it being months later. Whatever it was caused the fight to be canceled the day of the event. That will be something to keep an eye on going into this fight when the two finally meet.

Spivak is one win away from getting that sought after Top 10 spot in the heavyweight division. With his age, he can hang around the top for a long time and even prove himself to be one of the best, but it all starts this weekend with Lewis.