Bas Rutten, an ex-UFC heavyweight champion and Karate Combat commentator arrived too soon to combine his martial arts in the way he wanted. He was an excellent wrestler in his prime.
These days, Rutten looks at the myriad of techniques from his primary art of Kyokushin karate and can’t help but feel proud at the home they’ve found in modern fighting. Whether it’s in the octagon or in the hybrid striking competition of Karate Combat, they’ve become a part of the game because they’re effective.
“These guys grind their techniques in over and over again,” Rutten, who calls the action in Season 4 of Karate Combat debuting online on Saturday, told MMA Fighting. “In MMA and kickboxing, it’s all about how hard we can kick because we want to knock people out. They have these faster kicks, and now, all these faster kicks have full contact, and it looks really good.”
Rutten is a skilled striker and has been for a long time. But he was shocked by Michael Chandler’s work. He became the UFC’s latest fighter to brutally end a fight with a front kick after he caught Tony Ferguson in the jaw at UFC .
Rutten stated that if you look at just the photos of the fight, it is easy to see the effect. It was breathtaking. It could have been the “Knockout Of The Year” – leg .”
It’s extremely difficult to pull off such a technique in a high-level fight. If your opponent isn’t familiar with a certain setup, you have a better chance of winning. Rutten stated that Ferguson might have been as alert as his opponents. However, if he had not experienced a particular front kick attack, it is possible that he wouldn’t have known where to find it.
“If this doesn’t happen to you in training, the chances that you’re going to get caught with it if somebody worked on it for the fight are extremely high,” he said. “If somebody in training is throwing front kicks to the face, you start measuring the leg automatically.”
Rutten said when he first started training in the U.S. for fights, he worked with a Krav Maga specialist that went full-contact in the gym. The groin was not an exception.
“Rutten recalls that when he picked Rutten up, he was using kicks to his balls. “I was like, ‘Whoa, that’s nasty stuff.’ But then you realize, because you are kicking with kicks to the balls, you automatically read the length of the opponent’s leg between him and your cajones. Nobody got kicked in the balls
In other words, if you’re guaranteed pain from lack of preparation, you’ll make sure you don’t mess up.
MMA sanctioned fights have a lot of chance. No fighter is able to be fully prepared for everything at all times. This is part of the job. It’s why UFC 274 has so many compelling moments.
Rutten claimed that he shocked Frank Shamrock with a front kick in the middle at Pancrase to help him get his nose clean. His former UFC champion was still grousing to the makeup artist as they were getting ready for an interview on TV.
Stephen Thompson and Georges St-Pierre are the three most prominent representatives of karate to make it into the cage. They’re bringing a little bit of that perspective to every call at Karate Combat – and they can see when a fighter is plotting something big.
“If you create a setup, whether it’s striking or ground fighting, chances you’re going to catch somebody, even if he’s a high-level black-belt,” Rutten said. You’ll only catch him one time. But one time is enough to win a fight.”
