Preview: DWCS Season 3, Episode 8

Herdem Alacabek vs. William Knight

Alacabek is only 5-0, but he has created some buzz around his name by serving as one of the primary training partners for Alexander Gustafsson, Ilir Latifi and Jimi Manuwa at the Allstars Training Center. The Swedish standout has cut his teeth under the LFA banner. The 28-year-old has a lot of room for growth in his striking. From a distance, he throws basic strikes while looking to distract his opponent to close the distance and secure the clinch. When he avoids strikes, he ducks his head and tries to simply hide behind his hands instead of bouncing his head off the centerline. When he manages to get the clinch, Alacabek likes to pull his opponent’s head down and dirty box with hard uppercuts or knees. If he wraps his arms around his adversaries, he quickly throws them to the canvas. Once on top, he manhandles his prey with bludgeoning ground-and-pound. He looks to advance to a more dominant position and often forces his opponents to expose their back so he can slide in the rear-naked choke.

Like Alacabek, Knight has not yet tasted defeat. The New Englander has a 4-0 record and recently plied his trade inside the CES MMA organization. The former heavyweight is an athletic specimen but struggles to remain focused. In an amateur bout with recent DWCS winner Yorgan De Castro, Knight bypassed his corner between rounds, and instead of sitting on the stool, he entertained the crowd by dancing, executing backflips and performing splits. He defeated De Castro by unanimous decision. Knight packs plenty of power in his shots but leaves a lot to be desired from a boxing standpoint, as his lack of head movement leaves him vulnerable to getting picked apart from distance. His best strikes are his thundering leg kicks. “The Nightmare” is constantly looking to close the distance. He will simply bull-rush his opponents, so he can get to the clinch and trip them to the canvas. He has shown great hip control by lateral dropping past opponents to the ground. Once on top, Knight does his best impression of the “Hulk smash” by dropping his gigantic hands on his opponent. While he does not have any submissions wins since turning professional, he showed he was a threat in that department as an amateur.

Knight is an amazing athlete, but he is not polished enough to reach the UFC yet. Expect him to struggle maintaining distance, which results in his being taken down by the better wrestler. Alacabek will slowly work to mount, land some hard strikes and force Knight to surrender his back, at which point the Swede will lock in a fight-ending submission near the end of the first round. The quick submission nets Alacabek a UFC contract.