Not being sassy, legitimately curious cus I don’t know his full history - what are his grappling credentials? I know he’s a BJJ black belt and did greco roman wrestling since youth. Thing is, there’s a ton of black belts and dudes who have trained one thing or another since childhood, but people refer to Ilia’s grappling like he was a decorated olympian or bjj champion. Additionally, Greco isn’t exactly a mat wrestling style, so having great upper body takedowns and clinch work like Greco Olympian Hendo does not automatically mean your overall wrestling is impenetrable in the way that someone like Khabib seemed.
Does he have real credentials or do you just mean he’s a great grappler? It’s not a super important distinction cus you don’t need accomplishments on paper to have the skills, but he’s being talked about like a grappling wizard who crossed over to MMA late in his career instead of a dude who started MMA at 15 and started showing solid striking by like 20 years old before his UFC run. You can see the progression in his early fights.
From what we’ve seen, he’s definitely a great grappler. Worth noting his first handful of mma wins were by sub, but most of his opponents had losing records, so that’s gotta be contextualized. It’s possible his striking has eclipsed his grappling, or at least, there’s no reason that his grappling HAS to be his greatest strength. So far he’s looked more impressive on the feet than the mat, and we haven’t seen a ton of his grappling cus HIS STRIKING has been so effective.
The only person we’ve seen him commit to all-out grappling against was Zalal, and what happened was he gassed himself out after 2.5 rounds of thoroughly out grappling Zalal while attempting a lot of subs. Against Mitchell, he got taken down and kept there for a bit, then subbed Mitchell after rocking him on the feet, on top of beating him up on the feet for most of the fight. Mitchell claimed to be terribly sick before that fight, so that might explain why a grinder like him looked SO gassed, but who the fuck knows. Either way, Ilia broke him on the feet, stuffed takedowns, hurt him standing, then tapped him out.
Against Max, he scooped him for a big takedown, and as any reasonable person expected, Max popped right back up. Not sure why some thought it was gonna be grapplefuck city if Ilia got him down, since as good as Max’s TDD is, it’s really keeping him down and doing it consistently that’s the major challenge. My hunch is that Ilia didn’t want to exhaust himself with takedowns knowing he wasn’t gonna be able to keep Max there for long.
My whole point is, do not be surprised at all if it turns out that he gasses after scrambling all night with an elite wrestler, or ends up giving up positions and looking very human on the mat. KOing Volk and Max is infinitely more impressive than dominating but gassing vs Zalal, or subbing a rocked Bryce Mitchell, though Bryce is a great grappler so that’s a still a great feat.
