Paul's Preview: Lee vs. Oliveira (Patreon)

The UFC’s lightweight division is the gift that keeps on giving. Even if other weight classes have to deal with injured champions or lack of contenders, the 155 pounders deliver consistent action and there’s always a contender climbing up the ranks. This weekend, Kevin Lee will try and build upon his last victory against Charles Oliveira, who has quietly built up a 6 fight win streak of his own. Lee and Oliveira are ranked #6 and #13 respectively, so it’s not exactly a fight for the next title challenger. What this fight does do is give one fighter (Lee) a chance to try and rebuild the momentum he had before suffering losses against Al Iaquinta and Rafael dos Anjos, and it gives the other fighter (Oliveira) an opportunity to notch a win over a top 10 opponent and try and break into the upper echelon. Both guys have strengths that play into the other, so let’s see how a fight might play out.

Kevin Lee was once considered to be the future of the division, and between his dynamic wrestling, 77” reach, incredibly powerful rear-naked chokes, and youth on his side, he seemed like someone everyone should keep an eye out for. Lee started his UFC career in a loss against Al Iaquinta, but rattled off four wins shortly thereafter. After suffering a TKO loss against Leo Santos, he went ahead and built another solid win streak which included three rear-naked choke finishes in a row. This set up a title fight against Tony Ferguson for the interim UFC lightweight belt, and despite a strong early showing, he eventually succumbed to Ferguson’s high pace and was submitted with a triangle choke in the 3rd round. From there, his record got a bit more spotty, with wins against Edson Barboza and Gregor Gillespie sandwiching his two back to back losses.

Speaking of Gillespie, there was a lot to be excited about in his performance. Perhaps it was the move to Tristar, but Kevin Lee brought back the jab that seemed to be missing in the Iaquinta and dos Anjos fights. The last time he pumped out his jabs and feints often, he tore through Edson Barboza and snapped back Tony Ferguson’s head repeatedly. Lee has the longest reach in the weight class but he sometimes forgets and gets coaxed into exchanges that don’t favor him. In the Gillespie fight, there were tons of jabs with feinting, right straights to the head/body, and the occasional hooks to keep Gillespie guessing. After a right straight landed clean for Lee, he cut an angle and hit Gillespie with a left high kick and knocked him out cold. Lee has won a lot of his fights, but that was the first by KO (and a head kick, nonetheless).

(Gillespie had no time to react, Lee’s left high kick was waiting for him the moment his head tilted slightly to the right.)

There weren’t any takedowns in the Gillespie fight, but Lee’s wrestling is on the better end of the lightweight spectrum. Lee relies heavily on timing when it comes to completing his takedowns and is at his best when he does it after threatening his opponent with a 1,2. If that fails, his ability to explode into power doubles and rush his opponents to the cage come in handy. Against Francisco Trinaldo, Lee did a great job of using straights to the body to keep him in place, only to shoot in once he got his timing down. In the Barboza fight, Lee mixed in well-timed takedowns as well as using pure strength to muscle Barboza to the cage and slam him. Ladies, get you somebody that can do both.

(Lee presses Barboza to the fence despite an underhook in place. No matter, it’s early in the fight and Lee has strength to spare.)

(Later on in the fight, Lee times Barboza’s knee attempt to snatch a double leg and take him down early in the 4th round.)

Even a cursory glance at Lee’s record shows that he prefers to beat you down while you’re grounded or sink in a rear-naked choke. Stylistically, the closest fighters that Lee has faced to Oliveira are Tony Ferguson and Michael Chiesa, and even then those are stretches. It’s going to be fascinating to see how Lee handles Oliveira on the ground, who welcomes the challenge and has an astounding 18 submission victories to his name. The Chiesa fight showed that Lee can work his way out of dangerous submissions and turn the tables if given the opportunity (at least early on). His two submission losses can be traced to losing gas as the fight went on, since it was clear that Ferguson had winded him with body strikes and dos Anjos did much of the same. However, it’s clear that Oliveira is going to a different submission grappler altogether.

As a lankier fighter who has built up a decent record at both featherweight and lightweight, Oliveira is undoubtedly an exciting fighter. You have to go back to 2014 to find one of his matches that went to a decision (either victory or loss). Since moving back up to lightweight, Oliveira has rattled off an amazing 7-1 record with his lone loss coming against Paul Felder. 5 of his 7 victories have come by submission, and just to show some overall growth, his last two victories have come via punches (a KO and TKO, respectively). Given his submission prowess, Oliveira welcomes opponent’s takedowns and often stands in the traditional Thai stance, egging them on and baiting them with kicks.

(Clay Guida mis-times a takedown on Oliveira, setting up a guillotine choke that ended this fight in the first round.)

This forces most fighters to make a few choices, either stay on the outside eating kicks and long punches or close the distance and risk a clinch and takedown attempts. Oliveira has weapons for both scenarios, and even though his 5’10”, 74” reach isn’t the best in the division, it’s lengthy enough to give opponents pause before they rush in. Oliveira’s style does best when an opponent presses forward. Objectively his striking is average, but Oliveira is able to use the threat of his submissions to get opponents to panic. If Oliveira slaps on the Thai clinch, fighters are so worried about being sucked into his ground game that they don’t remember to block the knees and elbows that slip through. Once a couple of strikes land, they react by moving their arms to protect their body, giving Oliveira the head and neck that he was aiming for all along.  

In his most recent fight against Jared Gordon, Oliveira started off by throwing Gordon with a beautifully timed uchi-mata (inner thigh throw) and threatened him with a submission. Gordon escaped back to his feet, now aware of the danger he’s in when the fight hits the ground. Oliveira pressed forward with kicks and hooks to the body, unafraid of any takedown attempts. Gordon moved in straight with his face first, giving Oliveira a perfect target for the short right hook that dropped him immediately. Gordon bounced right back up, only to be met this time by a right uppercut. Given that Gordon is 3-3 in the UFC, it doesn’t mean that Oliveira should be considered a dangerous KO artist. However, the knockout does prove that Oliveira shouldn’t be disregarded when it comes to striking exchanges.

(Leading with your face is a bad habit, and one that even UFC fighters make. Joseph Benavidez also found this out the hard way in his most recent loss.)

Even though Gordon was his most recent win, Oliveira’s victory over David Teymur is one of his best performances. Channeling his inner Anderson Silva, Oliveira threw a reverse elbow that rocked Teymur and had him stumbling back towards the cage. Oliveira smelled blood and pounced on him, throwing hooks to the head and body until a clearly stunned Teymur shot in, setting up the anaconda choke. This was the same choke that Oliveira used to submit Hatsu Hioki, who had previously never been submitted before. By blending in sharp unconventional striking and a slick submission game, Oliveira proved that he’s finally getting the hang of his full potential.

(The fight ending sequence is right here, and anyone who’s expecting pillow punches from Oliveira is in for a rude awakening.)

The fight between Lee and Oliveira pits two contenders whose strengths mirror each other. Lee wants to get the fight to the ground where he can gift wrap Oliveira and pound him out, or go for the submission. Despite being an amazing MMA grappler, Oliveira has been submitted before by the likes of Anthony Pettis and Ricardo Lamas. If you’re hurt enough, it doesn’t matter how good your grappling is, a choke is a choke. Oliveira would like nothing more than to hurt Lee on the feet before submitting him on the ground, proving just who the superior grappler is.

Perhaps Lee can do what Frankie Edgar did and avoid plodding forward, instead focusing on in and out movements. With a superior reach and wrestling chops to stuff most takedowns, he can safely keep the fight on the feet and force Oliveira to engage him in an extended boxing match. If Gillespie couldn’t take Lee down, Oliveira will at least have trouble doing so. Edgar also made sure to use angles to move in and out and broke free from clinches with hooks to the body, pivoting and circling instead of plodding straight back. Oliveira has a lot of sneaky striking, but his fundamentals can be exploited if he’s forced to stand for extended periods. There is no doubt that Lee is the stronger of the two, and if he feels like he can muscle down Oliveira during strategic moments of the fight, he probably can do so but should be careful of this as the fight wears on. Lee does a good job of passing the guard but he should be aware of the amount of times he tripods up.

For Oliveira, he should take a page out of Ferguson and dos Anjos and attack the body. Even guys like Trinaldo and Iaquinta hurt Lee whenever they threw strikes towards his midsection, and it might even get him to shoot in on a poorly timed takedown. Given that Oliveira loves to throw kicks to bait his opponents, why not aim them towards the stomach of Lee? Front kicks, side kicks, low line kicks, anything to get Lee to panic and go for a takedown too soon. Iaquinta proved that even with a shorter reach (his is at 70”) you can out-jab Lee if you can get him to overcommit and focus first on the body and hurt him with leg kicks. Ferguson’s victory over Lee came in spite of Lee looking like he was going to get the fight stopped in the first round. The longer Lee is forced to fight, the more human he looks. It’s already been shown that if you can get Lee fatigued, he’s nowhere near as dangerous.

Given that neither guy has a spot in the top 5 means that a win would move them forward in the conversation. Lee finally looks like he’s back on track with a solid camp behind him, and Oliveira might be finding his groove. We’ll find out on Saturday who’s going to notch the W.