The Film Room: Gegard Mousasi

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Gegard Mousasi will step inside the Bellator MMA cage for the third time Saturday when he defends his middleweight championship against welterweight king Rory MacDonald at Bellator 206. With over 50 mixed martial arts fights at just 33 years-old, Mousasi has experience few in MMA can match, but will the Dutch kickboxer be able to put it all together on Saturday? Let’s dive in.

The Dreamcatcher

Mousasi was on the best run of his career before leaving the Ultimate Fighting Championship for Bellator in 2017 and now he’s on a mission to prove to the world that he is the best middleweight fighter on the planet.



Mousasi is an enigma of sorts in MMA and seems to completely overhaul his style and game plan for each fight; he is as adaptive as anyone in combat sports. Notice the change of stance between his fights with Ilir Latifi and Uriah Hall. Against Latifi, he keeps his hands low and torso bent forward to stuff Latifi’s takedowns and to make his jab come up at an unexpected angle. Against Hall, he kept his hands and torso high with his weight on his back legs in order to pull away from his dangerous kicks. What makes Mousasi possibly the greatest jabber is his ability to use his jab in diverse ways. Sometimes he uses it to get inside on his opponents and set up combos and other times he uses it to stifle his their forward movement or as a standalone strike.



Since Mousasi can be a patient, plodding fighter, he often finds himself working counters, which are just as diverse as his jab. Notice on the highlights above that no counter is the same. Against Vitor Belfort, he caught a kick and landed a counter right hook, against Dan Henderson he used a back-skipping counter right straight and against Chris Weidman he used a ducking overhand right. And his stance and style are again different with each fight. Notice against Weidman how his hands are lower to stuff takedowns and against Henderson his hands and torso are high as to avoid his vaunted right hand.



Mousasi is known for his patience but once opponents are hurt or trapped against the cage, he will throw a flurry of combos looking for the finish. Again, notice the diversity in his flurries against the cage. He rarely throws the same strike twice and is mixing up his shots to the head and body with incredible speed.



Although new fans know Mousasi for his striking, those that have followed his entire career know he can dominate on the ground and often relies on his grappling when he’s not getting it done on the feet. He has fantastic transitional grappling, which can only be learned with experience and he has 12 submission victories, albeit far and few between. He also holds a submission victory over Mark Hunt and was going to compete in the 2008 ADCC championships before pulling out for unknown reasons.



Once he gets opponents to the ground, he has vicious and opportune ground-and-pound and a good majority of his knockouts came from floored strikes. He is also not against striking from his back and is known for his up-kicks. He holds a KO victory over grappling legend Ronaldo Souza with an up-kick and he is one of the few MMA fighters to have regular success with it, which makes opponents wary to jump into his guard.

Mousasi and MacDonald have very similar styles and output, so it will be interesting to see which Mousasi shows up since he rarely shows the same tricks twice. Will he try to stand and strike or will he use his size advantage to control him on the mat? Only time will tell.