I really enjoyed watching UFC 129 -it had a lot of fun fights for me. The icing on the cake, however, was Lyoto Machida knocking out Randy Couture with the jumping front kick, karate kid style. I pretty much had a karategasm on the spot.
As for the naming convention of the move, the metropolitan intellectuals over at Sherdog pretty much nailed it – the “Segalian Dragonkick of Destiny” is it’s correct correct title (cred: Nihilism). Other acceptable (but not fully correct) names include the jumping front kick, the crane kick, and foot-to-face retirement sender. Personally, I don’t care what you might call it; I could watch that kick a million times and still enjoy it.
Of course, added joy comes into play with the fact that Steven Seagal has been chumming around with Lyoto and Anderson Silva, giving them his fighting tips. The post fight interview with Seagal is kinda fun, due to his nuttiness and the fact that he must only have one outfit – black leather jacket, yellow sunglasses. (In that spirit, I highly recommend you watch “Every bone Steven Seagal has ever broken.“ Poster wolffood7 astutely points out that breaking bones must make you fat.)
But one thing Seagal does strike true about is the deceptiveness of the kick. The magnum opus isn’t the kick, but the set up. Lyoto had landed that fast rear leg knee to the body, and Randy was leery of it. When Machida did a little hip shuffle, it distracted Couture and then the coup de grace spanked Randy’s brain into unconsciousness.
With Karate back in favor, you can wax nostalgic and relive some of your misspent childhood by watching the original. Just remember to sweep the leg.
So…. Anderson Silva knocks out Vitor Belfort with a front kick to the face. It was beautiful. The timing, the distance the expression on Silva’s face … it almost made me cry. Both for the beauty of the thing, but also because my hope for a new champ got KO’d as well.
The fun thing for me was all the hoopla post fight about the kick. People were going ape-shiz like they have never seen it before, and true, its not a bread and butter thing in the UFC.
This you probably already know. What you may not know, is that Anderson learned this technique from Steven Seagal, or so says Seagal.
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First of all, is it just me, or does Seagal look like “The Eradicator” from the Superman comic books? Because the glasses really sell the look.
As for his remarks about nobody really using it, etc, also like “The Eradicator”, there may be a small amount of fantasy going on.
The way I figure it, is that the teep kick from Muay Thai is close match to this kick, and that’s been around from the dawn of time – and Anderson is *ahem* fairly well versed in that. But hey, now that Seagal has brought the front kick to MMA, perhaps we will also see elbows to the face as well. Maybe even punching of the ribs. Who knows the crazy things is store for us?
Maybe he showed some different pointers or a style of doing it? I don’t know, but it would be awesome to hang out with these guys and find out. I bet its like a rap video, but with hot girls doing ninja stuff instead of clubbing.
I originally learned the front kick in Karate, and one time I accidentally kicked an opponent in the throat in a tournament (I was aiming for the face). It’s a nasty kick. A lot of force is going straight forward, and the structure of the stances with you and your opponent is like a head on collision. The kick is a bit slower and harder to hit with; the movement makes it tricky to adjust mid way through. Unlike a circular kick, which can just keep swinging onward to whack into an opponent, it can be avoided with good head movement. Below, a kung-fu version of the kick.
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The first time I saw the kick in MMA was with Bas Rutten. I remember thinking, “I’m going to have to keep that in my bag of tricks.” I know the resolution on the pics below aren’t amazing, but trust me, it’s Bas. (See video here).
Here’s a video of Rob Mccullough teaching the rear push kick, a variation of the one that KO’d Vitor.
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Anyway, the front kick is something we’ll probably see more of know that attention has been brought to it. Here are just a few more pics to please you.
True fact: Anytime a front kick to the face happens, a leprechaun gets a pot of gold.
