MMA Brawl

Kickboxing is a really lethal form of fighting and is part of Mixed Martial Arts since the first UFC event.

Kevin Rosier was considered as a weak fighter by many but has a Kickboxing Record of 66 Wins and 8 Losses with 66 Knockouts and he’s a 3 Time WKA Super-Heavyweight Title-holder. Sadly, he has a 2-6 losing record in MMA.

Those two fights are from UFC 1 and are the most popular of his. He came back at UFC 4 and had some more fights in the International Fighting League for the big majority of them. He finally retired from MMA in 2000, after a loss against Brad Gabriel.

Maurice Smith is one of the first A level kickboxer to compete in MMA. He won his first professional kickboxing championship in 1983 for the WKC and capture the WKA crown later that same year. Smith went undefeated in kickboxing for almost 10 years before entering MMA.

Maurice Smith was introduced to the world of Mixed Martial Arts at UFC 14 when he defeated Mark Coleman by unanimous decision to conquer the heavyweight title. He finally lost his belt against Randy “the natural” Couture after defending it victoriously against Tank Abbott.

This Big Mo highlight is rather well done and covers his kickboxing, Pancrase and UFC days in chronological order.

You can picture advantageously the use of his kickboxing skills in both hybrids latest combat sport he competed in. Actually, I think that his losing Pancrase episode helped him quite a lot to fight in the UFC.

Kickboxing is a cross style between boxing and Karate and uses 4 points of contact to fight their opponents. – hands and feet-

The leg kicks coming from Karate are less lethal than the ones from Muay Thai. In Karate, they are using the feet to throw kicks while in Muay Thay, they are using the shinbone (ouch).

However, the front kicks along with low, middle and high kicks are answering the boxing stance problem and allow the fighters to use their hands better without risking a takedown attack.

Of course kickboxers are clueless about ground fighting. The most dangerous opponents for them in MMA are wrestlers and especially BJJ artists. Those grapplers are strikers’s nightmare. See Tim Silvia Vs Nogueira or Bob Sapp against the same Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu player as some of the most casual examples.

There are many successful and popular fighters coming from Kickboxing in Mixed Martial Arts: Chuck Liddell, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, Cheick Kongo, Maurice Smith, etc. This list can go on and on.

In that highlight above, you can see Cro Cop Filipovic dominating his game in Pride Championship ring. He later had some big problems in the UFC octagon, where his stand up style struggled in the cage.

Most of the kickboxers are taking the K1 route, as it’s a real kickboxing event and money is probably better than the Cage Fighting pay scale, but a lot of them fought in both championships and became champions and crowd favorite.

Physically gifted athletes had better achievement than others by skipping over styles, but a lot of them seam to lose striking power when they get into Ultimate Fighting.

Possible Damages:

• Knock out

• Head decapitation (Crop Cop on both end)

• Broken bones all over the body due to kicks and strikes

*****

The Most Pain Grinding Styles of Mixed Martial Arts