Analysis: Nursulton Ruziboev vs Andrey Pulyaev

WolfTicketsAI Predicts Nursulton Ruziboev to Win

Score: 14
Odds:
Nursulton Ruziboev: -225
Andrey Pulyaev: +185

Nursulton Ruziboev's Breakdown

Ruziboev is the kind of long, switch-stance finisher who makes middleweights nervous the second the cage door shuts. At 6'5" with a 76-inch reach, he fights tall and uses that frame to deliver power down the pipe. You saw the blueprint against Brunno Ferreira in July 2023: Ferreira threw a naked low kick, shifted his weight forward, and Ruziboev fired a perfectly timed straight right down the center that turned the lights off in under a minute. That counter right hand is the single most dangerous tool in this fight.

His three signature weapons:

• Counter right hand off the opponent's entry. The Ferreira finish is the cleanest example, but he ran the same script against Sedriques Dumas in March 2024, catching Dumas coming in early and then layering in a rear uppercut to make him shell up. When opponents close recklessly, Ruziboev punishes.
• Right hand to left hook swarm. Against Eric McConico in February 2025, he dropped McConico with the right hand in Round 2, then swarmed along the fence with the left hook follow-up for the TKO. Once he hurts you, he closes the show.
• Clinch judo and kick-catch takedowns. Against Dustin Stoltzfus in May 2025, he caught a leg kick at the 3:45 mark of Round 1, elevated it, and drove through for the takedown. Later he chained a 1-2 into a duck-under, double underhooks, and back take to set up the rear-naked choke. That's a more complete sequence than just power punching.

Technical evolution is real here. The Stoltzfus fight showed a more measured, grappling-integrated Ruziboev who mixed body shots, controlled the cage, and finished on the mat rather than headhunting. He's diversifying past the one-shot kill.

Nursulton Ruziboev's Technical Vulnerabilities

• Hands drop after combinations. Against Stoltzfus he stayed in the pocket with a lowered guard after landing his combos. Against Buckley in May 2024, this exact habit got him countered repeatedly with left hooks as he committed to power shots.
• Forward-weighted entries get taken down. Buckley read Ruziboev's looping right hands and timed double legs as Ruziboev's weight pitched forward, planting him repeatedly across both rounds. His sprawl lagged because his stance was committed forward.
• Bottom-game struggles. When Buckley got top position, Ruziboev's octopus guard escape attempt exposed him to ground strikes and sharp elbows. He could not implement clean get-ups under pressure.

The good news for Ruziboev: Pulyaev is not a wrestler. Pulyaev attempts takedowns at a high rate but completes zero, with a career takedown accuracy of 0.00. The blueprint that beat Ruziboev simply is not in Pulyaev's toolbox.

Andrey Pulyaev's Breakdown

Pulyaev is a kickboxing-oriented southpaw-switch fighter out of the Storm Shlemenko camp with a Kudo black belt base. He fights at range, favors body kicks, and uses lateral movement to frustrate pressure. His best UFC night came against Nick Klein in August 2025: after eating a full round of fence pressure, he opened Round 2 in southpaw, posted his lead hand on Klein's lead hand to trap it, cracked him with the rear hand, then finished with a body kick once Klein gassed.

His signature tools:

• Body kicks. This is his money weapon. He dropped Klein with a body kick TKO in Round 2 and peppered Ateba Gautier with "numerous body kicks" across three rounds in January 2026, even closing Round 2 on a big one.
• Stance switching to open the left. Against both Klein and Gautier he switched to southpaw to create angles and free up the straight left.
• Lateral movement and range management. Against Gautier he circled left to dodge the right hand and turned the fight into a technical kickboxing affair, becoming the first man to take Gautier the distance.

Technical evolution? Limited. His most recent outing against Gautier showed the same durability and movement, but also the same defensive holes. He survives on heart and kicks, not on shutting opponents down.

Andrey Pulyaev's Technical Vulnerabilities

• Gets dropped by power right hands. Gautier dropped Pulyaev with the first punch he threw (a massive overhand right) in Round 1, then dropped him again in Round 2. This is the alarm bell. Ruziboev's entire game is built around a counter right hand down the middle.
• Cardio and slow starts. Against Klein he conceded all of Round 1 under fence pressure and only got going once Klein tired. Against Gautier he faded into Round 3. He needs the other man to slow down.
• Poor defensive metrics. His significant striking defense sits around 0.47 recently, and he absorbs strikes at a high clip. Pre-Gautier numbers had him stopping under half of incoming shots. Against a sniper like Ruziboev, that's a problem.

WARNING: Pulyaev was dropped multiple times in his most recent fight and has been hurt by right hands repeatedly. Ruziboev is one of the hardest single-shot right-hand counter punchers in the division. The KO risk for Pulyaev is severe.

Style Matchup Dynamics

This is a near-perfect stylistic trap for Pulyaev. His habit of pressing forward into exchanges and getting clipped by overhand and straight rights walks directly into Ruziboev's best weapon. Recall the Ferreira finish: a fighter steps in or throws a kick without a setup, and Ruziboev fires the right hand down the center. Pulyaev throws a lot of body kicks, and Ruziboev has shown he catches kicks and counters off them (the Stoltzfus takedown, the Ferreira counter). Every body kick Pulyaev throws is a potential ignition point for Ruziboev's right hand.

Where Pulyaev can find success: if he stays disciplined at the very end of his range, circles away from the power side, and chips with body kicks without planting his feet, he can bank points the way he did against Gautier. He has the reach (78 inches, slightly longer than Ruziboev's 76) to play a long-range game. But that requires him to never get caught coming in, and his chin has already failed that test repeatedly.

The Buckley fight is the cautionary tale for Ruziboev backers, but Buckley won that fight with wrestling and counter-hooking pressure. Pulyaev offers neither. He doesn't complete takedowns and he doesn't pressure effectively. He's more like a less powerful Dumas or Ferreira: a striker who will eventually step into range, which is exactly where Ruziboev lives.

Fight Phase Analysis

• Early rounds: Pulyaev will try to establish range with front kicks and body kicks, circling left like he did against Gautier. Ruziboev will cut the cage and look to time the counter right the moment Pulyaev commits. Given how Pulyaev starts slow and Ruziboev starts sharp (the Dumas and Ferreira first-round finishes), the early going favors Ruziboev heavily.
• Mid-fight: If Pulyaev survives, he tends to settle and find his kicks, as he did in Round 2 against both Klein and Gautier. But settling in against Ruziboev means staying in counter range, and Ruziboev's right-hand-to-left-hook swarm (McConico) is built to end fights once the opponent is hurt.
• Late rounds: Pulyaev fades. He needs the opponent to tire to win, and Ruziboev has shown improved conditioning and pacing in the Stoltzfus decision. The cardio edge that beat Klein won't be there against a fresher, sharper finisher.

Analysis and Key Points

• Ruziboev's counter right is the fight-ender. Ferreira ate it cold in 2023; Pulyaev has been dropped by right hands in his last fight.
• Pulyaev's body kicks are real but risky. They scored against Gautier, but every kick invites Ruziboev's kick-catch counter (see the Stoltzfus Round 1 takedown).
• No wrestling threat from Pulyaev. The one proven way to beat Ruziboev (Buckley's timed double legs) is absent. Pulyaev's takedown accuracy is 0.00.
• Chin concerns are stacked against Pulyaev. Dropped twice by Gautier, poor striking defense numbers, slow starts.
• Ruziboev's own bad habit (low hands after combos) matters less here because Pulyaev lacks the counter-hooking sharpness Buckley used to exploit it.

Understanding the Prediction

The model leans on Ruziboev, and the SHAP data shows why:

• odds was the dominant factor, increasing the score by 14.0. The market has Ruziboev at -225 for good reason.
• significant_striking_impact_differential added 2.0, reflecting Ruziboev's heavier, fight-ending output.
• trueskill, recent_significant_striking_impact_differential, recent_win_perc, striking_impact_differential, and recent_significant_striking_output_differential each nudged the score up by 1.0, painting a consistent picture of the harder, more proven hitter.
• On the other side, recent_striking_impact_differential and striking_defense_percentage each shaved 1.0 off the score. Ruziboev's recent absorption numbers and defensive percentage are not elite, which is the model's nod to his Buckley-style vulnerabilities.

The net is a confident lean toward Ruziboev, driven mostly by the odds and his striking impact edge.

Past Model Performance

WolfTicketsAI has a strong track record on Ruziboev: it correctly called his Stoltzfus win (0.60) and Dumas KO (0.73), and it correctly tagged Buckley over him (0.52). That's three for three involving Ruziboev, which is a vote of confidence in this read.

On Pulyaev, the record is mixed. The model correctly predicted Gautier to beat him (0.78) but missed badly on the Klein fight, picking Klein (0.70) before Pulyaev's Round 2 body-kick TKO. That miss is worth flagging: Pulyaev has shown he can flip a fight when the other man gasses. The caution is real, but it required Klein to gas himself with reckless fence pressure, something Ruziboev is unlikely to do.

Conclusion

This is a striker-versus-striker matchup where one man owns the single most dangerous punch in the room and the other has been dropped by right hands in back-to-back-relevant exchanges. Pulyaev is durable and game, but durability against Ruziboev's counter right is a losing bet, and he lacks the wrestling that's the only proven path to beating Ruziboev. Expect Ruziboev to cut the cage, time a body kick or a forward step, and land the right hand that ends the night. WolfTicketsAI's pick stands firmly: Nursulton Ruziboev by KO/TKO.