Nazareno Malegarie is a talented Brazilian featherweight who’s gotten off to an incredible start in his MMA career. In his first three years as a professional Malegarie has set the Brazilian circuit on fire, compiling a perfect 18-0 record. In that time he’s earned victories over the likes of Erick Carlos Silva and Daniel Morales in cementing his status as one of the top featherweight prospects from Brazil.

While Malegarie might not be a wrestler stylistically, he has shown promise in his takedown game. He does a good job of setting up attempts by shooting off his punching and then pressing his opponents backinto the cage and digging hard for his takedowns. Malegarie also shows “power” in his wrestling game having displayed nice double legs and slams early in his career. On the mat Malegarie is a strong jiu jitsu practitioner who possesses high level technical ground skills. Showing comfort and knowledge fighting from top position or off his back, Malegarie is a good positional grappler. He does a nice job of controlling his opponent from the top– especially from half guard, and isn’t shy about utilizing his ground and pound skills on the mat. Malegarie is adept at posturing up and delivering good punches and hammer fists. From side mount, he makes excellent use of his knees and actively looks to secure the crucifix position. Always aware of submission opportunities, Malegarie is equipped with a very capable submission game and has shown the confidence to drop back and potentially give up position in order to try and finish the fight.

Although the majority of his wins have come by submission, Malegarie isn’t tentative about keeping the fight on the feet. He throws a quick jab, a nice counter right cross and has a strong skills from in close. Malegarie delivers big knees from the thai plum and does good dirty boxing work with by using his punches nicely from the clinch. Defensively, Malegarie is too stationary at times and will need to continue working on his footwork, head movement and technique. He also has a tendency to drop straight down to shoot when pressured (leaving himself open to knees up the middle), and although he’s not one dimensional in his approach his standup.