1. Tom Duquesnoy
Division: Featherweight
Record: 10-1
Age: 21
Years Pro: 2
Camp: Multiple
Why, exactly, does Duquesnoy deserve this kind of hype? There are two overarching reasons. First, the Frenchman is a ridiculous physical talent, with off-the-charts speed, balance, hand-eye coordination and the ability to pick up seemingly any skill in a brief period of time. Second, Duquesnoy is a true native of MMA, and the real strength of his game comes in the transitional spaces between phases and his ability to make those transitions happen often enough to give him an advantage.
Strangely enough for a non-Russian, Duquesnoy’s initial training was in sambo, which, according to him, was the result of watching Fedor Emelianenko’s fights in Pride Fighting Championships as a child. That Sambo base has given Duquesnoy an unerring sense for how to shift between striking, wrestling and grappling and makes his already-imposing skill sets even more dangerous. Duquesnoy whirls heavy punch-kick combinations at range, takes clean angles and pivots and is developing a nice counter game in the pocket, to boot. He packs brutal power in his shots, and could develop into a top-flight striker if he chooses to emphasize it. Although he was taken down several times in his last fight, he is a fantastic scrambler and is almost impossible to hold down on the mat. You can get a sense for just how good his defensive wrestling can be with this sequence: Duquesnoy’s opponent is in deep on his hips and drives forward, but the Frenchman cranks down on a hard over hook in mid-air, which allows him to hip out and scramble back to his feet as soon as he hits the mat.
Offensively, Duquesnoy hits nice lower-body takedowns but does excellent work with trips, hip tosses and throws in the clinch, all of which he chains nicely. Duquesnoy is at his best on the ground, however, with a vicious arsenal of punches and knees to the body from top position and in wrestling positions like the ride. He passes guard quickly and smoothly, with freakish ability to move in the scrambles, and he can find submissions in a wide variety of positions.
Physically and from a skills perspective, Duquesnoy has it all, though he may need to drop to 135 pounds in the future. He also has the little extra competitive edge, a blend of nastiness and charismatic swagger you look for in future stars. Moreover, he is dedicated to getting better, and has spent large portions of 2013 and 2014 traveling the world in pursuit of high-level training. He spent large chunks of time at Nova Uniao, Xtreme Couture, Jackson-Wink MMA and Black House, to name only a few of the gyms he visited; that experience can only help. I fully expect to see Duquesnoy in the UFC by the end of 2015.
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