With a combined MMA record of 44–0, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Khamzat Chimaev have built reputations that make even elite fighters look ordinary. One mauled lightweights for nearly a decade. The other has bulldozed his way through middleweight contenders with a pace that barely gives opponents time to breathe. On paper, their styles look untouchable. But BJJ wizard Gordon Ryan doesn’t see mystique. He sees patterns.

“That’s the style that Khabib and Khamzat use,” Ryan said on Mike Perry’s OverDogs podcast. “Like they’re not the best wrestlers, they’re not the best freestyle wrestlers in the world. They’re not the best jiu-jitsu guys in the world. Like, if you put those guys into ADCC, they would get beat pretty easily. But what they’re doing isn’t submission grappling.”

In his view, that’s not a flaw. That’s the point of MMA. Nurmagomedov and Chimaev aren’t trying to win IBJJF or ADCC gold. They’re trying to win fights. Their game is about getting you down, making you “carry body weight,” keeping you pinned when you try to stand, and punishing you with strikes or submissions from top position.

That blend, Ryan argued, is “the most important kind of jiu-jitsu” for MMA. It’s why ‘The Eagle’ went 29–0, and why Chimaev has outlandish strike stats like 192–2 in his first two UFC fights. So, what would it take for someone to break through this unparalleled dominance inside the Octagon?

According to Ryan, the answer lies in an early Khabib Nurmagomedov fight. Not against Gleison Tibau, which many MMA fans point to as the Dagestani’s toughest fight inside the Octagon since it was still early in his UFC run. But another opponent, who used rolling reversals to deny control.

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“I forget what his name was, but he escaped and actually reversed Khabib like three or four times with granbies,” the BJJ specialist explained. “Where he would like go to heist, and Khabib would go to go into a rear chest lock and put him down and then granby out. You see, everyone tries to do one granby like DDP versus Khamzat. You saw DDP try to do one granby, and Khamzat followed and would cover his hips and keep him broken down.”

In simple terms, heists and Granby rolls are two of the cleanest ways grapplers escape bad spots and force scrambles. A heist is a “wrestle-up” move in Brazilian jiu-jitsu where you rise from a seated, guard, or bottom position to get back on top, often by driving into the legs or climbing to the back. It’s about turning defense into offense in one motion.

A Granby roll, borrowed from wrestling, is a shoulder roll escape used when someone is riding your hips or trying to take your back. You post, kick through, and roll over the inside shoulder to either slip free or reverse position. Chained together, they’re dangerous because they let you alternate between standing up when the weight shifts back and rolling through when the weight drives forward, which forces the top player to constantly reset their control instead of settling into it.

That’s why the problem, Gordon Ryan says, isn’t the moves. It’s that most fighters do them once and stop. His solution is chaining escapes instead of treating them like a Hail Mary. The idea is to mix heists with rolling escapes like granbies, then layer submissions on top.

When Nurmagomedov or Khamzat Chimaev lean back to drag you down, you heist. When they shift weight forward to re-attach, you roll. You can actually turn, peel grips, threaten leg locks or triangles, and force scrambles. And perhaps that’s the key Dricus du Plessis needs as he is now angling for a rematch against ‘Borz’.

Dricus Du Plessis aims for redemption against Khamzat Chimaev

Dricus du Plessis isn’t hiding from what went wrong against Khamzat Chimaev. Six months after losing his middleweight belt in a lopsided decision at UFC 319, he’s lining up a return for April 11 at UFC 327 in Miami, even if the paperwork isn’t done yet.

“I’m ready to go again and get back to my belt as soon as possible. Doesn’t really matter who it is,” he recently told Fight Forecast. “I would, of course, love for it to be Khamzat and redeem that loss, but for me right now, the next fight is the most important fight of my life.”

Talking about his loss to the Chechen fighter, he confessed that Chimaev fought the way everyone knew he would, leaning on dominant wrestling and banking rounds. Du Plessis admitted it wasn’t the fight he wanted to be in, or the fight fans wanted to watch. But Chimaev chose the style that shut the crowd down and secured him the title.

Now comes the adjustment phase. ‘Stillknocks’ said it’s on him to “stop him from doing that again and get him to fight my fight.” That’s where the Gordon Ryan angle suddenly feels relevant. The South African knows he can’t just hope for a wild exchange. He has to break the rhythm of those transitions, stand up when the weight shifts back, roll when it drives forward, and refuse to get stuck in that grind.