Is this why Alex Pereira hits so hard? 

Ill save you guys 6 minutes, the answer is "CHAMA"

Somewhere in new Zealand a dude is sitting saying "Yea...but I beat him once"

Big hands, dense bones, long arms, heavy dude and fantastic technique and speed = Touch of death

Bone density Muscle insertions Muscle fibre type Mind-body connection Specific training (archery) athletic training 🗿

Jack Dempsey: Championship Fighting Explosive Punching and Aggressive Defense. Was literally delivered to me yesterday!

What I find hyper level is the fact that Alex slipped Jamal 's cross and delivered the mexican hook, while simultaneously stepped on his OPPOSITE foot!! That's next level coordination of a master there.

that pinky concept is probably the cleverest and most technical stuff I've heard about fighting. We need more of that stuff coach and you should join the UFC analysts team. I don't want to take any names, but a lot of the times what we get from UFC "analysts" is, "that's a crazy knockout" or "what a wild fight" and i could go on but coming back to the point, your analysis will be a breath of fresh air.

The scariest thing about Pereiras left hook is that he never looks like he throws it hard.

New Mythical Fighter Unlocked : Pinky Poatan😂

It's not just power (don't get me wrong, he hits with a lot of power), it's the fact that his left hook is so sneaky. His opponents don't see the punch coming and it's the once you don't see that end up knocking you out.

Alex started working at a tire shop, like his father at a very young age. He did not pick up fighting until he was 21. His power (imo) comes from flipping huge tires and swinging sledge hammers from a very young age.

Something I noticed about the foot stomp people have mentioned- this very likely added some KO energy to this equation. Why? If you watch Hill absorb this punch in slow motion, you'll see him move back from the blow (obviously), but he hits a point where he can't move back any further because his lead foot is held in place. So his brain is like a dog running and hitting the full extension of a leash getting that hard, sudden yoink. Normally you're not tied in place when getting hit and you move back dissipating some of the energy- that was not the case when Alex had his foot on Hill's lead foot. (Watch the tape, Hill is pinned to a position until Alex steps off)

I love firaz man he’s the best at explaining things. Very intelligent, always having interesting to say. And they he dives into the topic is just wow

Pinky knuckle meta unlocked

Jack Dempsey created the Dempsey roll which is similar to Mike Tysons Peekaboo boxing style

Imagine GSP vs Poatan for the 185 Championship 💀

if you watch the super slow motion his first fist to izzy lands flat but looks like the pinky makes contact first, rolling his head back. Pereira's final left hook in the sequence that really rocked Izzy just before Goddard stopped the fight, landed 100% with the pinky knuckle- mexican hook.

His hands are enormous and the leverage he’s able to get because of the length of his arms creates so much torque it’s subtle but deadly.

Man’s got a point on structure. Totally agree with you , The Bruce lee’s one inch punch and the Wingchum’s basic punch is to hit and connect with pinky area .

As for Dempsey, the drop step and hip rotation, along with shoulder shrug and what he calls "the whirl" are his fundamental elements for an effective jab / cross.

Ive always thrown with pinky and ring and I know I’ve got KO power. I’ve starched a lot of dudes, even sparring by mistake. Not to glaze myself either just being honest….but I’ve always been told top 2 knuckles. Old coaches. Everybody…specifically remember an old trainer (golden glove, very good boxer) would ALWAYS tell me I hit harder with my right than he does, but I have incorrect form when not using my index and middle. Always said “imagine if you hit correctly” lmao nope. I’ve ALWAYS rebelled against being told to punch with top 2 knucks. This video blew my mind lmao first time I’ve ever felt justified. Thank you

Appreciate his wealth of knowledge to pull information from a Jack Dempsey book and apply to this fight. What an interesting perspective.

I love the nuance and attention to detail in this discussion

I’ve said this for years and years, and people thought I was crazy when I would coach it. I originally read it in Championship Fighting, by Dempsey. The powerline to the elbow. There is better anchoring. The Falling Step is how he discusses throwing the jab… his stuff works for sure. Thx for explaining this to the new gen lol.

The Mexican hook is also called a shovel punch. Usually it looks awkward when it lands just like the one that dropped Hill but they work and fighters should throw it more often.

You're making good points sir... food for thought. Thanx

Everyone missed the fact that Pereira stepped on Jamahal's foot before throwing a punch with his lead hand. This is a very old school technique that prevents your opponent from moving out of the way and also helps with transferring power since the guy is almost nailed to the floor as your punching him.

One of the things we don’t talk enough about when talking knockout artists, is their bone structure. Perreira has massive bones. His head and hands are enormous, and if you ever took an entry level physics course you know that mass is part of the force equation with the other portion being velocity.

This was such an interesting take that I'd never heard before. Cheers

Thank you for sharing this with us for free, Firas.

Dempseys book said to aim with the pinky but land with the middle and ring finger knuckle. He called it the "power line". Demonstrated by saying go to a wall and lean against it, try supporting yourself with the pointer and middle knuckles vs supporting yourself with the middle and ring knuckles.

Thanks for the insight Firas, I’ve been fascinated by Perrieras power for a while now.

Great book!!

Funny, everyone loves to crap on Wing Chun these days but this “pinky technique” is how we were taught to punch, leading with the bottom two knuckles! Great breakdown as always, coach!

He timed it perfectly at Hill threw his straight left and never seen it coming...but if you watch the slow motion replay, the punch lands but continues its trajectory....he punched through the target with maximum force. It was beautiful.

Alex probably the most insteresting men right now cause of those sneaky low kicks and now the pinky knock out

Great video - There’s also some huge added factors that significantly increase power. Grip strength in the pinky, specifically on impact. A good way to test this is on a mattress. The second one is wrist strength and how well your wrist can take intense strain.

Great video and thanks for the Jack Dempsey book tip. Just subbed…one good deed deserves another!

Maşallah coach you always have the best breakdowns

I've thought a lot about the Dempsey thing and my thought is less that it's about hitting with the bottom two knuckles and more that if you use that as a mental cue, you will always achieve proper wrist and fist alignment. I used the cue for myself of holding pencils in my fist and stopping at the end of my punch to check my alignment. My alignment was best when I could stop my punches with the pencil held with a perfect knife grip. If there was any break in my wrist that would be less than optimal for stabbing, I knew that was bad wrist alignment. The quicker way to cue this is to tell people to hit with their bottom two knuckles. If you aim with your top two, you're likely to kink your wrist. So I think it's more of an alignment cue and less of a mechanical advantage related to the structure behind certain knuckles. Also, Theo Tanchack did a great video on Pereira's hooks. I think a great point he realized is that it wasn't hitting the chin to whip the head around, rather it was hitting the skull more centrally. I think most of his punches deliver force right through the side of the skull into the back of it, the brain stem I guess. Like if you get hit with a cross to the mouth that drops down on contact and you feel it in the back of your neck and base of your skull. But I'm kind of an idiot so who knows if any of that is worth reading.

This is one of the many reasons firas zahabi is the greatest coach of all time

a hardlife will give you a rage and strength that most can't comprehend

@tristar gym go re watch the video. Poaton stepped on hills foot while hitting him, which kept the punching leverage/force at maximal strength

Great observation thanks for the insight

Awesome explanation, the Dempsey book is awesome. I bought it for my son he learned so much from that book.

One of the coldest performances in any fight sports.

This is a great observation, It makes perfect sense, the pinky is linear to the ulna, etc...one long strike!

It’s not his pinky. It’s that he sits on his punches and uses the ground to create that added force. Look at the way he moves. Very heavy footed and stoic in his movement.

Great breakdown!

Perfect technique for gaining power. Hip torque, whiplash of the strike, the punch has it's ending point right against the opponent, and speed.

Alex has achieved a lot in a short amount of time. He’s certainly on the mount Rushmore of kickboxing and MMA. But if we are talking purely kickboxing I don’t see how anyone can debate he’s better than Giorgio Petrosyan

Keep doing these videos, their sick

I always thought that 45 degree hook/uppercut was called a “Shovel hook”?

I wanna thank you for bringing light on to the jack dempseys book, i forgot what it was called cuz i read it like in 2011 but i remember so well about what knuckles is the best to land with and after developing that technique over previously taught hittin with index and mid finger knuckles. I got wayy less wrist injuries and ive hit the bag without gloves for about a decade and my wrist havent hurt for .. i dont even remember for how long. I need to pick the book back up because i dont remember anything else i read in that book to be frank.

Never thought about the pinky like that but it does feel more stable. Crazy how Alex just grazed him and you can see Hill's eyes roll back.

Just to clarify, Dempsey (in his book) actually said that the pinky was perfectly aligned in a fist and formed the power line. He did however acknowledge that it is the weakest knuckle and that the bones behind it in the hand are also weak and that punches should therefore be landed with the three knuckles of the pinky, ring and middle finger. In order to land punches with these knuckles, he said punches should be aimed with the ring finger knuckle.

I have seen in one of kevin lee's video about how wing chun's straigh punch throw with the lower part ( pinky ) of the fist and his reasoning is the pinky is structurally connected to the body by the elbow and more than other knuckles and I think what you said about how pinky is supported by elbow bone is very similar observation. I think it is wprthwhile to further explore. Even though, Alex used that pinky punch in hook or mexican hook form, I think the fundamental statement about how pinky is aligned with body natural structure of kevin' comment and yours comment have shared turth to it.

as an Engineer, you are absolutely right, 100 % of transfer of power, with the first two knuckles there is a loss proportionate to the angle.

Fascinating. Thanks.

INTERESTING. Was always lead to believe pinky/ring knuckles are weak and should never punch with those. But naturally I always punched with those two knuckles when I was young. Thank you for this juicy info

Great video and book by JD referenced. Please let us know your findings when you investigate if Periera has been knocking everyone out with the pinky.

I remember reading that too!

20 seconds, this is the fastest I've ever been

Jack Dempsey also created a book for the US army in close combat and it could be the first quasi MMA book he shows chokes, takedowns, joint locks, headbutts everything you could imagine. He learned this because he was a hobo at 13 years old and had to learn how to fight grown men to stop being SA’ed he also worked in the mines and had to fight to make enough money to eat. A truly amazing man and boxer. Watch him fight Jim Osulivan outweighed by 40lbs and he breaks his jaw, orbital, cheekbone and 3ribs in 3 rounds with 11 knockdowns one of the most savage fights in history 🥊✊🏻💯

Very interesting, I have been trying to practice Alex' left hook since some time.

I wonder if there's a bit extra KO in the pinkie punch because it makes the hook more of a glancing hit that will more efficiently twist the skull. Psychologically speaking, we are more prone to being concussed when a twisting impulse is imparted to our heads than if a linear impulse is delivered. Perhaps the pinkie strike makes a hook more likely to deliver a sharply twisting impulse because the fist connects more tangentially than it would if the index or middle knuckle connects.

Hinting with the pinky also means he'd have a wider arc and more build up for power

Pereira uses perfect position and extreme body pre-tension (twist) to deliver such quick and powerful hook. He has good hips movement.

C'mon, also add that Jack Dempsey was Tyson's idol in boxing. He even got his haircut at one time and stood like him in the ring. In his book, Jack also gave an experiment to prove to yourself to punch with the pinky and ring finger: stand away from a wall and brace yourself against it with your extended fist. Most of the weight is carried by the pinky knuckle. Since it is delicate, we punch with the bottom three knuckles, though, usually, as when you do fist pushups on a wood floor.

I think there is a video somewhere, where Alex is talking about the power transfer to his left hook. A huge takeaway was that he leans back into his left hook, rather than sitting down on it. It is very subtle and due to his built it works almost to perfection. Looking at his posture it makes perfect sense. He like to fight tall with a straight upright posture. His weight distribution is 50/50 even- no excessive weight on the front foot. This way he seems to have no difficulty checking calf kicks repeatedly. The surprising thing to me was it really works, eventhough it goes against everything I have learned about throwing the left hook so far.

This is why Firas is a HOF coach. He sees the game in all of its subtleties

In wing chun they taught the same thing. Also tensing the wrist at the moment of impact considerably adds power to the last knuckles.

🤯 my mind is slightly blown at this concept

I think which knuckles are optimal depends entrely on the pronation of the arm.

As a grappler I know there are a ton of little details that individuals tweak because they work better for them. I'm always fascinated hearing how many details striking arts have as well. Even just the different angles people throw hooks and what bones make contact. I'm curious though, could you strike with the pinky if you weren't wearing gloves? Is this specific to boxing and MMA with hand padding or does the supporting wrist actually protect the pinky from damage if you have it clenched hard enough? Interesting assessment though I would never notice something like that haha.

Another thing of note is that in Jack Dempseys days the padding in boxing gloves were drastically different to the gloves of today which used to to consistently lead to hand breaks which i think even further confirms Dempseys point of knuckle alignment

Talking about the powerline and punching with the last 2 knuckles, which is wild. Wrist alightment, like in tma, makes a difference. I think fist orientation on hooks, vert vs hor makes a difference. With hooks, I honestly think when they scrape the face, they're most effective because of the angle that they torque the head/neck at 1:41

Hey coach, do you think him stepping on Hill’s foot helped in any way?

Seriously, Poatan is good because he does things consciously and not by default, he is always ahead of people because he builds victories

bottom three knuckles works in Wing Chun too. That's why Bruce had an affinity for old school boxing. There's crossover between both arts.

He darn sure is. Fascinating. I love that. Very good analysis and I didn't know Dempsey wrote a book. Wonder who will figure Alex out and I don't consider that loss to Izzy figuring him out. Izzy figured out he could do it, but I don't see how he did it as a model others could follow.

Sean Strickland got kod by clipping the the chin with the top two.

Read championship fighting by Jack Dempsey. He talks about the “power line”. That ends at the pinky knuckle. He talks about hitting with 3 knuckles (the last 3)

That's why in Kickboxing we were taught to turn our wrist slightly so that the main knuckles had a straight line down the arm. All elite strikers look like they are barely touching with most of their knockouts, Wonderboy is a perfect example of this, the power starts from their feet. It stems from traditional martial arts.

If you think about it, his best punch is the left hook, which is more likely to land with the pinky than a straight punch, and the direction of the forces makes it so that the wrist will bend less in that way you demonstrated.

Might be hard to argue that Alex is the kickboxing goat against guys like Hoost, Petrosyan, etc. He's up there for sure, possibly MMA striking goat or "combat athlete" goat.

Coach but you do have to condition your hand to hit with the pink and not break you hand right?

This is a learning video for me. The pinky punch is quite revealing. Thanks for the details and analysis.

People forget Alex actually throws his left hook with speed and catches his opponents off guard they don’t even see it coming cause he is so relaxed. Fighters could easily learn from him if anything. Alex and Jiri are good because they are unpredictable heavyweights

Interesting observation 🤔 thanks

the mexican hook and the 45 uppercut are my favorite

I snapped my 5th metacarpal in half when I was 16 years old landing a punch with my pinkie knuckle, punching like that leads to boxers fractures.

Would you change the traditional hook to palm down - based on this?

Since I was a kid I remember punching and hitting with the pinky felt more natural. Later, I learned, that people would say that you're supposed to punch and connect with the 2 big knuckles because the bone is harder. Very intereating video and analysis. Thanks for posting.

Damn right! The only knockout I ever had I checked my hand afterwards- pinky and ring finger knuckles were bleeding. I was shocked, but I did karate and tae kwon do as a kid so not too shocked. Because when we had to break boards, you could never break the board with any other knuckles. You only break the board when the arm naturally extends out and begins to spiral/corkscrew. That’s where your power is, and that is normally a little farther range than people are comfortable being at. But my only knockout of my life in the schoolyard and with those board breaking classes to get my black belt - pinky knuckle baby!

Bone density between knuckle and wrist of the pinky probably is something a fighter should focus on developing if they want to apply this idea.

The LOGIC of the outer two knuckles does make good sense (other than fragility).

I can can see the point of pinkie knuckle connecting 1st if it is a fully wrapped and gloved up hand. But try that without protection, bottom half of your hand will shatter if u have decent power. They call it a boxers fracture

Wouldn't landing with the pinky knuckle make you more susceptible to boxer's fractures ?

Pereira just doesn't have the list of scalps in kickboxing to support a goat claim, but he does have a solid case for being the most talented STRIKER of all time. A guy who can apply devastating strikes under multiple rulesets, and win in the biggest fights with the biggest names of his time (and sometimes lose, but largely win)