UFC 307 Preview: Has Kevin Holland's grappling improved enough to beat Roman Dolidze?

Val Dewar

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UFC 307 Preview: Has Kevin Holland's grappling improved enough to beat Roman Dolidze? image

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In 2020, Kevin Holland was all the rage. He finished off his strong year, in which he took multiple short notice fights, by finishing an aging legend in Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza – from bottom position, no less. That tied the record for most wins in a year and set the record for most finishes in a single calendar year in UFC history. From then on, ‘Big Mouth’ (officially nicknamed ‘Trailblazer’) never stopped being in hot demand.

Holland had a few high-profile vigilante incidents which grew his star even more online, but 2021 disappointed fans excited to see the exciting loudmouth go on a run; when he hit the rankings he got sent reeling. Derek Brunson and Marvin Vettori showcased Kevin’s wrestling ineptitude, and he declared his intention to take a break from short notice fights until he could fix it.

Six months later he fought Kyle Daukaus, an unranked fighter who was known for d’Arce chokes. Holland showed decent takedown defense, albeit against a lower-level fighter than Brunson and Vettori, before getting knocked out by a headbutt which turned the bout into a no-contest.

Since then, Holland has only fought two real wrestling threats, Khamzat Chimaev and Michael Chiesa. Chimaev not only caught Kevin by surprise with a takedown on the glove touch in their fight, but he is a far better grappler than either Vettori or Brunson. Chiesa is also a great grappler; he just has the unfortunate fatal flaw of constantly falling into d’Arce chokes, which has always been one of Kevin’s best chokes given his height and long arms.

So how good is Kevin Holland at defending takedowns? Frankly, I have no clue. He surprisingly has more shot attempts on his opponents than vice versa, of late, which makes sense when you consider he has been fighting Michael ‘Venom’ Page, Jack Della Maddalena, and Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson, among other pure strikers.

It has been two years since the last time ‘Big Mouth’ was taken down in MMA, and in Kevin Holland time that is a long, long time. He has fought six times since, and not one fighter has shot a good takedown on him.

So, what DO we know? Holland is an okay grappler but thinks he is better than he is. He tends more towards manic scrambles than technical getups. He has a good opportunistic submission game but often goes submission over position. He can sprawl but last we checked, he was not great against wrestlers who could chain multiple shots together, or use the fence to take him down. But again, that is two years ago; I mean, really Chimaev only shot once, so its been four and a half years since we saw a good sample size of takedown attempts on Holland. Thus is the curse of MMA analysis, small sample sizes.

But I digress. The other thing we know is that Roman Dolidze is an unusual grappler in MMA with his Caucasus grappling background but reliance on leg entanglements, which are often a weakness of fighters from that region. Dolidze is not just a submission hunter from his back though. While he does have decent wrestling to get the fighter to the mat – nothing special – his real strength comes in his ability to chain submission attempts into scrambles and reversals. What he did to Jack Hermansson, an accomplished grappler in his own right, is the most prominent example, but he flummoxed and injured wrestler Phil Hawes as well with an armbar before knocking him out.

Dolidze does also have inordinate power for such an awkward striker. His unorthodoxy is a strength in some regards, but I have a hard time imagining Kevin Holland will be troubled by it; ‘Trailblazer’ lives in chaotic striking exchanges where normal rules get thrown out the window and he has a truly granite chin given the damage he absorbed against Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson without going down.

So, we return to grappling. As I said, Kevin Holland does like to scramble, but that puts him right in Roman’s wheelhouse, where the hairy Georgian knows exactly what to do to get to his favorite position. From there, I do believe that Dolidze can manufacture a submission win. It will probably not come directly from a leg attack, as Holland is a stubborn, tough combat sports athlete, but Roman’s ability to use that to take back mount – or some other dominant position from where he can end the fight – cannot be ignored.

If Kevin stays poised and focused on a clear-cut and direct gameplan – to keep distance at all costs, to sprawl and get away, to use his long tools to poke at ‘The Caucasian’ – then he does have a good shot of winning this fight. But Holland has never shown that level of focus, saying and showing over and over that he is more interested in making money and putting on fun fights than winning a UFC title. Roman may be a flawed fighter in his own ways, but his strengths match up too well with Kevin Holland’s historic fatal flaw for me to ignore.

Val Dewar

Val Dewar Photo

Val was initiated into Steelers Nation from the moment he was born — his first memory is a game vs. New England from when "Slash" was QB — and doing sports writing has always been a dream career for him. In 2022 he broke into the industry by writing about combat sports for Cageside Press, and now has the opportunity to continue that work with TSN as an MMA writer, as well as get his feet wet on the Steelers beat.