The past, Present, and Future of MMA Striking

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It was announced recently that two of MMA's top strikers will be squaring off in the UFC. Cung Le will be coming off of a long hiatus of over one year to face one of the most explosive strikers in the sport, Vitor Belfort. This fight is almost sure to end in dramatic fashion. All of Le's seven victories have come by KO or TKO, and every fight that Vitor has won in the past two years has come by knockout. While it is obvious that both of these fighters prefer to strike, their styles are distinctly different. Vitor's attack relies mainly on his boxing, and for good reason; he has perhaps the fastest hands in MMA, and a lot of power behind his punches. Le, on the other hand, likes to keep his opponent at a range where he can use his kicks, throws punches, and generally avoid infighting, though he does have a lot of power in his hands as well.

Le and Belfort may have visibly different styles, but there is an interesting similarity between them: both fighters make use of what is often referred to in MMA as "traditional martial arts." This term generally applies to styles of karate, tae kwon do, hapkido, kung-fu, etc; basically any striking art that is not boxing or muay Thai. Le's style is rooted in San Shou, a Chinese martial art derived from kung fu, which incorporates many forms of kicks not common in Muay thai, such as side and back kicks, along with punches, clinches, and throws. Belfort's standup is primarily boxing based, but he has recently taken up Shotokan Karate, and elements of this style can be seen is his recent fights. Since he began training in Shotokan, Belfort tends to take a wider stance than he has in the past. He holds his guard a little differently as well, keeping his jab hand further from his face to calculate distance. Techniques such as these have been incorporated into the striking repertoires of a few notable MMA fighters, but these fighters are in the minority. We are, however, seeing them used more today than ever before and they will, I believe, continue to be used to good effect even more frequently in the future. Let us briefly consider the striking styles of some of the best stand-up fighters their respective divisions: Dennis Siver at lightweight, George St. Pierre at welterweight, Anderson Silva at middleweight, and Shogun Rua at light-heavyweight.

Before venturing into MMA, Dennis Siver had won the World Associations of Kickboxing Organizations championship in Germany. His striking prowess was built on a foundation of traditional martial arts. According to his profile on UFC.com, Siver began training in tae kwon do three years before winning the WAKO championship. Tae kwon do is is a very kick-heavy style which focuses on many straight kicks, such as side kicks and front kicks, as well as chambered round kicks and flashy spinning kicks. Siver's early experience with tae kwon do has helped him earn two knockout of the night victories in the UFC by way of spinning back kick. The Russian born German is now riding a four fight win streak that has seem him outstrike the likes Spencer Fischer and Andre Winner. If he is victorious in his upcoming fight with Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone, Siver will likely be in line for a title for a title shot very soon.

Let us now consider the striking style of welterweight champion George St.Pierre. While St. Pierre may be known for having some of the best wrestling skills in MMA, he actually began his martial arts career as a karateka. Because of his dominant wrestling it is easy to forget that GSP has some of the best striking skills in the welterweight division, and has has outstruck the likes of BJ Penn, Jay Hieron, and Thiago Silva. St.Pierre began training Kyokushin karate at the age of six, and today holds a black belt in that art. Kyokushin is a style of karate which, like tae kwon do, uses many spin kicks and round kicks, and mixes those techniques with strong body punches(in both TKD and Kyokushin competition punches to the head are not allowed). If you have been following the career of GSP, you will have noticed that in almost every fight George will throw a spinning back kick, scoring with it almost every time. He also uses chambered round kicks, which he mixes with his technical boxing and Thai kicks.

The UFC middleweight champion, Anderson Silva, is almost universally recognized as the greatest striker in all of MMA-with the exception, perhaps, of some crossover K-1 strikers or professional boxing champions like Semmy Schilt or Yodsanan Sityodtong. Silva is known primarily for his muay Thai, coming from the legendary Chute Boxe Academy where he studied under Rafael Cordeiro. He is a master of the Thai clinch and uses beautiful knees, elbows and Thai kicks to demolish his opponents. However, he does not, by any means, limit himself to the techniques common in muay Thai. Silva likes to mix in flashy tae kwon do style double roundhouse kicks, back kicks, and, of course, the now infamous aikido snap front kick which he used to knock out Vitor Belfort. Watch his fight against Patrick Cote to see Silva using wing-chun-esque hand movements, as pointed out by Joe Rogan during the commentary.

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Mauricio "Shogun" Rua has a similar background as Silva. He too comes from the Chute Boxe camp and is known primary as a muay Thai practitioner. Just watch his destruction of Quinton "Rampage" Jackson back in Pride for an idea of Shogun's devastating use of the clinch, knees, and Thai kicks. Watch that fight very carefully, however, and you will find that Shogun, like Silva, does not limit himself to those techniques but incorporates traditional martial arts kicks into his beatdowns. At one point, when he had Rampage against the ropes, Shogun faked a low kick and threw a high round kick with the opposite leg before the first leg even returned to the canvas. In his very next fight, Shogun had Ricardo Arona on the run as he threw a 360 degree spinning round house kick-not something commonly seen in MMA, let alone muay Thai or boxing.

While it is true that these techniques are used to good effect by some of the best fighters in MMA, they are not used by the majority of fighters. But why not? They are obviously effective if they are used by the top fighters in the sport. Is it because these techniques require so much skill that only the greatest fighters can use them effectively? Probably not, considering children and young adolescents can be seen using these moves at any local karate tournament. The answer, I believe, has to do more with the way traditional martial arts were perceived in the earlier days of the sport.

In the early days of the UFC, Royce Gracie showed the world that Gracie Jiu Jitsu was almost unstoppable against a stand up fighter with no knowledge of grappling. Every karate, kung fu, or tae kwon do practitioner he faced was taken down and submitted. After Royce's exit from the UFC, grappling arts continued to dominate. Dan Severn, a greco-roman Olympic team alternate and all-American collegiate wrestler, and Oleg Taktarov, a Russian Sambo champion, won UFCs 5 and 6 respectively. Then along came a different kind of fighter all together in Marco Ruas.

Ruas is often said to be one of the, if not the very first true mixed martial artists due to his proficiency in both grappling and stand up fighting. At UFC 7 he won his first two fights via submission, but took the tournament title by defeating the giant Paul Varelans with the use of his powerful muay Thai leg kicks. The effectiveness of muay Thai for MMA competition was well noted after this fight, and many began to mix in the techniques of muay Thai with their grappling to become complete fighters, just like Ruas. After all, karate and kung-fu did not fare well in the Octagon right? So why bother with those inferior arts.

Ruas did not remain on top for long. Other grapplers, like Mark Coleman and Don Frye, soon took his place. Shortly thereafter, though, another fighter with a well rounded style burst onto the scene and showed that mauy Thai was not the only useful striking style for MMA. At UFCs 12 and 13, Vitor Belfort chewed through the competition with the use of his explosive boxing. So, now it was evident that boxing and muay Thai are the most effective forms of striking, right? Why not mix those two styles together with wrestling and jiu jitsu? That must be the perfect formula for the complete fighter! That, at least, seemed to be the attitude which many MMA observers and practitioners adhered to for quite some time.

Even today many of the top gyms in MMA gyms teach only these four disciplines. This attitude is finally starting to change, however, as fighters like Dennis Siver, GSP, Anderson Silva, and Shogun have begun to reinvent the way striking is used in MMA. In the near future, I believe, we will begin to see more and more spinning back kicks, side kicks, and front snap kicks in MMA competition. Watch for up and coming fighters like UFC lightweight John Makdessi and little known Russian heavyweight Sheril Abdurahimov to soon make a name for themselves and for traditional martial arts in MMA.

By Matt King
ProFighting-fans.com MMA Staff Writer