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Denmark’s Madsen certainly looks promising on paper, how will he perform in his UFC debut?
Not long ago the UFC announced the signing of an immensely credentialed Greco-Roman wrestler: undefeated lightweight Mark Overgaard Madsen.
I explored Madsen’s accomplishments in-depth at that time, but the basic gist is that Madsen has medaled at five World Championship tournaments and took silver at the 2016 Rio Olympics. While he never reached the top of the podium, he was a major threat for over a decade.
Fighting exclusively in his native Denmark, Madsen went 2-0 in MMA back in 2013-2014, which an insanely impressive feat considering he was still winning major tournaments concurrently, then went on to reach the World finals in 2015.
After his wrestling career wound down in 2017, Madsen retired, focusing solely on mixed martial arts.
Since January of 2018, Madsen has fought six times and dominated his way to a call from the UFC. Madsen does much of his training with retired UFC veteran Martin Kampmann and has made documented trips to the UFC Performance Institute quite recently.
Before his UFC debut against the Italian Danilo Belluardo, I sought to evaluate Mark O. Madsen as a prospect.
While it may sound strange to call a 35-year-old a prospect, Madsen has only been training full-time for less than two years, and we’ve seen what kind of development can take place in older athletes with long careers in non-striking combat sports. Fighters like Daniel Cormier, Randy Couture or Yoel Romero are certainly outliers, but who’s to say Madsen won’t be on the same learning curve?
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Mark O. Madsen Prospect Evaluation
To gain a sense for where Madsen is as a prospect, we’ll take a look at his approach on the feet, as a grappler, how he blends the two, and where there are noticeable opportunities for improvement.
MMA Wrestling and Grappling
Because so much of what happens on the feet vs. a wrestler in MMA is informed by the threat of grappling entries, it’s the natural place to start in an evaluation.
Madsen differs from most of the wrestlers covered in MMA in that upper body positions are his go-to, rather than leg attacks. This much should be obvious, given his background. There are benefits and drawbacks to this approach in MMA.
Given that his opponents are going to have to get close enough to strike with him, it’s much less effort for Madsen to crash forward and enter a clinch situation instead of changing levels and finding his way to a leg on the lead or reactively.
On the other hand, the consequences of throwing yourself to your back and ending up in a compromised position in MMA can be disastrous. While Madsen likely could finish a number of throws and attacks from looser ties, he prefers not to pull the trigger on bodylocks or arches until he has a solid bite and locked hands. In Greco-Roman, you could easily give up exposure points or even get pinned for the same reasons, so Madsen is no less used to committing to uncertain attacks in pure sport wrestling.
In preparing for Madsen, most opponents will be focused on denying him underhooks and keeping their backs off the cage. It’s extremely promising to see that Madsen has boxing attacks in place that allow him to enter into favorable wrestling situations.
Just like how the level change of an overhand masks a penetration shot, Madsen can typically flash strikes and drive forward while ducking under the hands of his opponent to get a lock around the body, collapse posture with his powerful grip, then crumple opponents to the mat.
More often than not, Madsen is barreling forward with wide shots, enforcing his physical and power advantages while simultaneously chancing that he may catch an underhook or overhook when he collides with his opponent.
CLIP: Mark O. Madsen shows off his adapted wrestling for MMA
Madsen doesn’t solely rely on brutish entries, he’s shown some slick looks. My personal favorite is the weave or roll off the rear straight entry, Madsen steps through on the punch, rolls under and circles off outside the lead foot, guaranteeing him at least an underhook and his head under the armpit, if not a full go-behind.
That’s with his right hand, rolling to the right.
Using the overhand, Madsen can fire the shot toward the left, step through and drive his head across the body, then pop up under the armpit on the opposite side while his feet are blocking on the right. It’s a brilliant maneuver, you can see it at 1:20 of the above clip.
It’s not all high-amplitude feet-to-back moves, Madsen has been able to flex his skills in other upper body positions, namely short offense off collar ties and front headlock.
Given that Madsen has been known to chuck lead straights and overhands, he runs into ducking opponents quite often, giving him the opportunity to snatch up their necks. From there Madsen likes to snap down to the knees, and either threaten with a ten-finger guillotine or go to the wrestling head pinch, a lock used to roll through for exposures not dissimilar to an arm-in guillotine grip. Madsen can use the head pinch to reverse positions or take his opponent from their knees to flat on their back.
I’ve discussed this often in the past when discussing Petr Yan, but short offense (essentially dirty boxing in MMA) off clinch entries and breaks is one of the most underdeveloped areas in MMA at the moment. Madsen has a great feel for slinging uppercuts off the collar tie, locking his hands behind the head through and underhook and slamming in knees, and just generally posting off of and manipulating hands and arms as he throws wild combinations in the pocket.
Most importantly, Mark Madsen is not limited to upper-body takedowns. While he is not credentialed in freestyle, wrestlers often start training multiple styles before choosing their focused path. I have no doubts Madsen has many years of experience as a leg grabber, and his training for MMA has refreshed those skills.
He’s got the awareness to shoot his doubles reactively, as opponents come in, and on the lead when he feels their back nearing the cage. Off the cage he has the power and often the initial positioning to lift and finish, or even switch to a single, peel them off the cage and run the pipe.
As a grappler, Madsen is still coming along, but he’s comfortable posturing up, controlling wrists and absolutely battering opponents who dare stay flat on their back.
Striking
When it’s not directly attached to his takedown or clinch game, Madsen’s striking is fairly rudimentary.
His defense largely works because of the threat of his clinch entries and intercepting leg attacks. He can back up linearly and feint or throw noncommittal strikes, that has been enough to scare off his opponent and end their advance. It’s likely that he’d be in much more trouble if they continued to press and he ran out of real estate, but Madsen could also always explode forward and tie up.
It’s not consistent, but Madsen has shown flashes of craft, slipping jabs and pivoting to stay square with his opponents, dipping under straights and exploding into hooking entries with excellent timing.
CLIP: Mark O. Madsen throws heavy leather
While it’s clearly in its early stages and lacks polish, Madsen does jab, and he even uses it with a purpose, closing in on his opponents to either unleash a right hand or continue to charge forward into the clinch.
Perhaps because of its utility for leading him into wrestling situations, Madsen is quite fond of leading with rear straights, and he’s quick to lever off into rear hooks and thudding uppercuts.
Defensive responsibility should be an emphasis moving forward, but he has great ideas offensively and pursues them with powerful enthusiasm.
Concerns and Areas for Improvement
If Madsen ever becomes a fighter who needs to get the fight to the cage, he’s going to run into some trouble.
In his second to last fight against Thibaud Larchet, Madsen often found himself wading forward with his arms out, searching for a tie-up, rather than striking or feinting his way in and earning the position.
Not all fighters are capable of this, but Larchet was often able to keep his strikes long to dissuade Madsen from fully closing in on him, then circle off the cage and take center once again.
Even when he is striking his way to the cage, the entries can be a bit wild and uncontrolled, Madsen has a habit of lunging with a power overhand with his face out, his athleticism and threat of force have been enough to freeze up opponents and keep him safe, however. If he was ever to run into a serious counter-puncher, I’d be deeply concerned.
CLIP: Mark O. Madsen still has areas to work on
While I did say that Madsen made use of leg attacks like doubles, they aren’t his strongest techniques. Madsen sometimes gets stuck between levels, not low enough for a real penetration shot and not high enough to secure the tie he wanted, forcing him to straighten up while pummeling. This usually does not lead to a dominant enough position to work from for Madsen.
Madsen himself is a bit vulnerable to leg attacks, he sometimes straightens up and narrows his stances as he marches forward launching rear hand attacks, opponents with decent enough shots can duck under and knock him off his feet reactively.
It also may be because Madsen is an excellent scrambler and can get away without any consequence fairly quickly, he just doesn’t care enough to fight with the takedowns of others in mind. This may be an important factor in his fight against Belluardo, a fighter known for his double leg.
As to be expected of a fighter barely two years into their full-time MMA career, Madsen is still learning as a grappler. While his instincts and positioning are usually strong, he sometimes struggles to lock down more jiu jitsu-focused stages and can have defensive grappling holes exploited. Larchet hit a switch on the credentialed wrestler, took his back and attacked a choke while applying a body triangle, Madsen struggled immensely to work through this situation.
Last fight: vs. Patrick Nielsen (June 9th, 2019)
With all this in mind, let’s take a look at the form Madsen will be bringing into his September bout with Belluardo.
We didn’t get to see much on the feet, but Madsen looked comfortable and effective running his feet on the double to hit the cage after dipping under the jab of Nielsen.
Most of his double leg finishes thus far have been fairly minimalist and momentum-based, Madsen showed off his control by securing his grip, lifting Nielsen and returning him with malicious intent. His back was a bit round on the lift, but that’s an easy fix.
Even more promising is that Madsen kept control of the legs on the finish and immediately hopped over to side control upon impact, then transitioned to knee-on-belly. His grappling is clearly coming along.
Nielsen looked rather hopeless on the ground, but it’s still nice to see Madsen running through smooth MMA-centric sequences in live competition.
The only sour note was when Madsen had an extremely difficult time transitioning to put in a second hook when he had the back of Nielsen. Once he settled on just keeping one leg hooked and applying what you might call a “ball and chain ride”, he was much more comfortable and effective. From there he crunched Nielsen and narrowed his base, switched off to the head to attack a ten-finger guillotine then used the resulting position to walk himself to the back, where he found the finish.
Nielsen was likely a stylistic softball where Madsen could show out and impress the UFC scouts, but I have very few complaints about his performance, all things considered.
Mark O. Madsen has been granted the co-main event slot, a logical move as the UFC heads to his native Denmark on September 28th. His opponent Danillo Belluardo will be searching for his first UFC victory.