UFC middleweight contender Gegard Mousasi has been an elite fighter for what seems like forever, competing in practically every major organization and beating some of the best fighters in the world at both middleweight and light heavyweight.
Despite his obvious talent, slick skills in every area and tremendous list of career accomplishments, Mousasi has never quite succeeded in getting over the hump and claiming a consistent spot at the top.
Why? How has a fighter with so much raw potential and polished ability always come up just short?
The Dutchman, who faces Vitor Belfort on Saturday at UFC 204, first vaulted to prominence a decade ago as a red-hot 21-year-old prospect in the waning days of Pride Fighting Championships.
The veteran Akihiro Gono defeated him in the quarterfinals of the 2006 Pride welterweight tournament that Kazuo Misaki eventually won, but Mousasi rebounded by handing Hector Lombard his last loss before the Cuban went on a freakish reign of destruction that lasted for more than six years.
After that, Mousasi cemented himself as an elite fighter by running through Melvin Manhoef and Jacare Souza in a single night to win the Dream 6 Middleweight Grand Prix.
The Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Championship followed the next year, and Mousasi even defeated elite heavyweight kickboxer Kyotaro in a kickboxing match at the K-1 Dynamite!! New Year’s show in 2010.
A UFC mainstay since 2013, Mousasi has compiled a respectable 6-3 record against top-notch competition.
Each of those accomplishments was short-lived, though. Mousasi dropped his Strikeforce title to King Mo Lawal in a competitive fight, but it was one that saw him get thoroughly out-wrestled. He went to a draw with the 2011 version of Keith Jardine, though terrible judging was a factor.
That pattern continued in the UFC.
Mousasi was lackluster in a winnable fight against Lyoto Machida and then dropped his rematch against Jacare Souza inside the distance. The Dutchman dominated the first round against Uriah Hall but ate a jumping, spinning back kick to the face and a flying knee at the opening of the second in one of 2015’s epic knockouts.
That last loss to Hall, in a fight he was expected not just to win but dominate, is a fitting encapsulation of the enigmatic, up-and-down nature of Mousasi’s career.
On paper, there’s no reason Mousasi shouldn’t be among the top two or three fighters at 185 pounds—if not the champion.
Let’s start with Mousasi’s striking repertoire. A Dutch amateur boxing champion at the age of 16 and already a professional kickboxer before his 18th birthday, Mousasi’s skills on the feet are legitimately world-class.
The jab is the foundation of his subtly aggressive game. He probes with his lead hand, gauging the distance and the timing as his opponent is slowly forced back toward the fence. It’s a punishing shot when he commits to it, which he does regularly, and the way he mixes it up with feints and forward-moving footwork makes it hard for opponents to counter.
Mousasi’s other go-to technique is the humble inside low kick with his left leg. Opponents keep their eyes on the jab, and when they plant their feet, Mousasi cracks away with the kick.
Both the inside low kick and jab come from Mousasi’s left side. Whether opponents realize it or not, the threat of these two shots subtly forces them backward and into Mousasi’s right hand. With his opponent suckered into moving in that one direction, Mousasi’s sharp, technical footwork can focus on cutting off that direction of movement.
When Mousasi commits to a power shot, it’s generally a crisp straight right hand as his opponent moves to that side. He can also throw it backing up, as he did with the counter right that floored Dan Henderson in their January 2015 meeting.
The occasional right low kick and high kick add some variety, and Mousasi has added a crisp left hook that plays off his jab in recent years, but the jab and inside low kick are his bread and butter.
Mousasi isn’t as nakedly aggressive as fellow middleweights Chris Weidman, Luke Rockhold or two-time nemesis Souza, but he’s no less a pressure fighter. He does his best work moving forward, and the subtlety of his footwork, jab and low kicks means that opponents often don’t seem to realize they’re being forced into Mousasi’s particular brand of fight.
That disconnect between his aggressiveness and the subtlety of his pressure exists because, unlike many aggressive fighters, defense is a priority for Mousasi.
He moves his head after practically every punch and exits on a different angle than the one he used to enter in order to avoid counters. His jab gives him a great sense of the distance between him and his opponent, which also helps to keep him clean.
With that said, this emphasis on defense and sheer subtlety means that Mousasi prefers a relatively slow pace. He doesn’t throw many combinations, which might expose him to more danger than he’d prefer.
Over a massive sample of data—32 fights in total—FightMetric has Mousasi’s striking defense at a cool 69 percent, and at striking distance on the feet, it’s even higher.
Mousasi isn’t a bad wrestler or clinch fighter, either. He owns a lovely array of trips and throws and can be nasty with knees and punches on the inside when the mood strikes. In the open space in the middle of the cage, his sprawl is lightning-quick, his front headlock is nasty and technical, and he makes his opponents pay for sloppy technique.
A bad shot from Mark Munoz in 2014, for example, set up the sprawl-to-back-take that led to the rear-naked choke that finished the fight.
With that said, takedown defense has been a problem for Mousasi. That’s what lost his fight with King Mo in Strikeforce back in 2010, and he couldn’t stuff Jacare’s shots in their second fight in 2014.
It’s not quite as simple as saying Mousasi is a subpar defensive wrestler, though.
As the Munoz example shows, Mousasi knows how to defend a double-leg takedown. The problem is the fence and chain wrestling. Mousasi can stuff the initial shot when he has space to get his hips out of the way, but when opponents can pin him in place and attempt one takedown after another, that’s when Mousasi’s defensive skills fall apart.
Mousasi has a slick, active and dangerous guard, and to some extent that makes up for his average defensive wrestling skills. He’s a bit too confident in that guard, though, and can be controlled by strong top players.
When he can get on top, Mousasi is a monster. His guard-passing game is outstanding, his base is unshakable, he packs serious power in his ground strikes and he’s a lethal submission artist. In fact, despite his ability as a striker, Mousasi’s single best skill set is probably his work in scrambles and from top position on the mat.
Taken on their own, each of Mousasi’s skill sets is among the very best in the division, and he backs them up with formidable speed and athleticism.
So what’s the problem? Why hasn’t Mousasi been able to turn the corner?
There’s a common thread running through each of Mousasi’s skill sets and, with rare exceptions, each of his losses: a calmness that borders on lack of interest in what’s happening in the cage.
It’s impossible to rattle Mousasi, as you’d expect from a guy who’s been fighting grown men as a professional since he was 17 years old. His natural demeanor is that of a calm, stoic fighter, and his wealth of experience in practically every combat sport only enhances that.
“He looks like he’s waiting in line for a sandwich,” color commentator Kenny Florian said before his fight with Jacare in 2014, and that sums Mousasi up nicely.
Normally, that levelheadedness is a major asset. Dan Henderson’s H-Bomb of a right hand didn’t faze him. Neither did the world-class top game of Jacare when they fought in 2008, when Mousasi knocked him out with an upkick.
On the other hand, patience and calmness can work against Mousasi.
If he’d turned up the pace and pressure just a bit against Machida, he might have walked away with a win in a razor-thin fight that was decided by just a few strikes in each round. Instead, he was sucked into fighting at Machida’s glacially slow pace, throwing just 13 strikes in the first round and never exceeding 31 in a round for the entire fight, per FightMetric.
In the rematch with Jacare, Mousasi was too content to fight with his back to the cage, and that led to him being taken down four times. He managed to stave off Jacare for a while, but spending minutes at a time on his back with a world-class grappler on top eventually ended, predictably, with Jacare submitting him.
The knockout loss to Hall was just freakish. Mousasi did everything he could to finish in the first round, and it’s hard to plan for a hyper-accurate jumping, spinning back kick to the jaw.
Mousasi’s raw talent and finely honed skill are off the charts. Even as he stands right now, he’s one of the best fighters in the increasingly stacked 185-pound division, and one who doesn’t get enough credit for his ability.
If he can ever find that sense of urgency, if he can ever push himself out of his comfort zone, he could break through and finally become the next big thing at middleweight.
Patrick Wyman is the Senior MMA Analyst for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Heavy Hands Podcast, your source for the finer points of face-punching. For the history enthusiasts out there, he also hosts The Fall of Rome Podcast on the end of the Roman Empire. He can be found on Twitter and on Facebook.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com