Mean Street Coffee now available at BadGuyInc.com Chael Sonnen talks calf kicks on this episode of Beyond the Fight. LOSE WEIGHT NOW! www.amazon.com... www.podcastone... Click here to subscribe - www.youtube.co...
Don't forget the superfight in 1988 between undefeated American kickboxer Rick Roufus and Muy Thai champion Changpuek. Rick was a big favorite. Changpuek got knocked down several times early but ultimately chopped Rick's leg to shreds and stopped him when Rick could no longer stand up. Rick had to be carried out of the ring on a stretcher. That fight was the 1st time an American audience saw the devastating effects of low kicks.
@@marvefleksnes6763 Yeah I saw that. He was pissed that his brother got beat so bad. As far as Rick goes, he went on to study Muy Thai and even became a respected Muy Thai trainer later in life.
My Ridge wallet is here to stay, that's for damn sure. One of my friends bought it for me as a gag gift. I have done everything I can to destroy it because it looks so stupid, but no luck. It's like herpes. I can't get rid of it
Benson Henderson = one of the most slept on technicians of all time...loved watching him fight. Also used to throw the leg kick to the far leg, wait til that catches on..
How Conor’s camp didn’t know about the calf kick is beyond me.... richest fighter in the game and his coaches don’t know about a technique that’s been a big deal for like two years now.
Agree. He was failed terribly by his coaches, they've become a bunch of yes men. Kavanagh gave some lame explanation that "oh, of course we train them but because you can't spar them at full power, we underestimated the threat." He basically admits completely f'ing it up, not near enough people talking about it though. Also (Khabib's point) a sign that Conor is not being tested properly by his sparring partners, they should've been highlighting that vulnerability for him. Goes to show, money alone doesn't make a good team.
They talked about it, they did know about it and were practicing checking it in camp. But because they wear pads and your training partner isnt trying to kill you, you lose respect/forget how painful and debilitating they can be And Conor said Dustin's kicks were still hitting a tiny bit of the muscle, even though he thought he was checking them. Also said Dustin was southpaw, making it slightly more difficult to check them for that stance and that he checked them effortlessly for regular stance
@@IllBeDARNd yeah, there is still a meaty part of your shin coming from the outside. Some peoples feet turn more outward, so coming from the inside, they have to twist their leg further. Not to mention you dont always feel it immediately, sometimes it starts numb. Wierd.
@@chriswindham1822 I phrased what was in my head poorly... I’m certain they were aware of its existence. But Conor’s bewilderment at how effective it was against him was shocking to me. It suggests that they haven’t been properly preparing for it. Which is bananas because with his wide/heavy on the lead leg style it’s right there for opponents to jump on. Did they just think Conor wouldn’t get hit by it in any of his future fights? Did they think he’d be able to weather it better than others have? Just seems like a really big oversight.
Both ways hurt but definitely better to turn your leg out and take the shin to shin than a calf kick. This kid in my class loves calf kicks and I was checking them today that way and my damn shin hurts but my calf wasn’t dead.
I remember when Aldo fought Faber, Faber got his leg destroyed. Everyone thought Conor would also get destroyed from leg kicks when he fought Aldo, but of course we all know how that ended (or should I say 'started' 13secs in). So Conor never really had to fight a guy that leg kicked...until Poirier.
Ruas chopping down Varlans was the coolest thing ever adding the size difference between the two. The next few weekends in my friends basement having beers we would try to kick each other in the legs trying to see if that worked and how painful it actually is. Not easy when you dont know how to properly kick or know where to place it. The first time I caught a good one was life changing. I instantly understood why that worked on such a huge man like Varlans. If they tell people it's the charley horse from hell it would give people a better idea what it feels like.
The calf kick is checked by lifting your leg and turning it from the hip to the outside, so that the attacker kicks the upper half of the front shin bone (tibia). That can be quite painful for the kicker. However, if the kick lands to the outside and hits your calf muscle, this is where the trouble begins, because there is a big nerve that goes all the way up to the hips, the peroneal nerve, and if that's stressed often enough, your leg just gives out. That's what happened to Conor, because even though he was checking some of the kicks, he was checking them with the wrong part of his leg. Sometimes people get kicked there and the next time they put weight on that leg, the neural coordination is all messed up and they roll over the instep. Painful and dangerous. A somewhat recent example of this is was when Sean O'Malley got kicked by Marlon Vera.
The sport evolves studiously. I said this before and people may dislike it. In the space of 5 years the sport has evolved alot. Even conor mcgregor cannot keep up with it. Now a days you have fighters who have amazing wrestling and striking that the difference is not that much. I.e remember when GSP fought josh koshcheck. Everyone thought josh wrestling was superior. Well now compare josh wrestling with usman and even colby.
Arthur Morgan ik the sport is evolving fast do you remember the striking technician Anderson Silva, now I'm saying this as massive Silva fan Isreal is ten times better at striking his feints foot work and ability to evade his opponents and understanding his distance is ten times better than Silva will ever be, but I still love Silva tho.
For an interesting perspective, calf kicking/shin kicking has been a well known tactic for hundreds if not thousands of years. In the UK, in Gloucestershire they tried re introducing shin kicking tournaments. There is also something called "purring" from Northern England where the idea was to kick eachother in the shins until one quit, with the tradition it was invented for sword fighting when someone was in armour. The objective was to disable the opponent when their hands were engaged with sword and shield, and if possible cast them to the floor so that their armour dented and their breathing was restricted. Benson Henderson may or may not be aware of this.
The counter to a low calf kick is to head kick off the front leg if you time it well it’s a ko shot or will at least scare them, if you can time it perfect it’s devastating
Hi Chael, I know this post is a year old but to put the record straight, nobody in MMA invented the calf kick. In Okinawan Karate not only did they use the calf kick, they had and still have the best defense against it! In the Naihanchi or Tekki Katas the defense of the calf kick is shown as Nami ashi where the leg being attacked, the foot is swept up and inwards towards the groin. In Te, Ti or Tode early Okinawan Karate, the foot, ankle,lower leg, knee, thighs 360, groin and hips were prime targets. Motobu Choki was renowned for striking those areas and defending them! By sweeping this way you not only do you protect the calf, you also attack the attack by presenting the solid end of the tibula and a flexed solid knee.. this one action protects the groin with the shin, the calf with the strong end to the tibula and the thigh with a good solid knee to the side.. pretty damn effective! For every poison made you try to have an antidote right!? Everyone thinks that all the flash high kicks in Karate came from Okinawa, they did not... All Okinawan kicks were from the waist down. It was Funakoshi Gichin’s son Yoshitaka or Gigo as he was known who gleaned all the high kicks ie roundhouse, back kick, side kick from the French Savate. ALL low kicks are the original kicks of the Okinawan styles.
Hey Cheal, I’ve to correct you here. The Low-Kick placed to the calf originates from Kyokushin Karate and has been used in K-1 Kickboxing by a few fighters mostly from that style. Especially Kyokushin fighter Nicholas Petas used the “Calf”-Kick frequently together with other Low-Kicks. Anyways, thank you for the great videos! 🙏🏻
Mirko Cro Cop beat Hidehiko Yoshida basically on the mind games of Yoshida thinking Cro Cop would go high kick and Cro Cop was able to knock him out via almost only leg kicks.
Keith Hackney in UFC 3 used a side kick at the knee to keep opponents away. Its unbelievable we had to wait fifteen years for Jones and Conor to use it before anyone else had the nuts to try it.
I could only imagine Bob’s face when Uncle Chael was beating the living crap out of him. He’s lucky Chael injured his foot. I guess Bob is the only man on earth to get over on Uncle Chael.
I mean, you can still check it if you turn your leg out and block with your shin. Most of the time thigh kicks are also blocked with the shin instead of the knee. Yes, kicking the knee hurts and can potentially break your leg, but kicking the shin is painful enough as well.
I'm 35 and I've been in martial arts for over 25 years. I always kicked the calves in sparring and fights. I never understood why it isnt used more frequently. Gaethje has been doing it for a while now too and he seemed to have made it popular again. I said this when I was 16 (about to fight a guy from school who had been bullying me all year) "he wont be able to move if I land 2 low kicks."... guess what, 2 leg kicks later I had him on the ground giving up. He couldn't wall for a week. I had been training with 5lb weights on my legs and 3lb weights on my wrist, all while skateboarding and sparring. No one, and I mean no one can take calf kicks by a trained fighter.
It should be called the nerve kick or more precisely the “peroneal nerve” kick. The peroneal nerve runs along the outside of the calve and is a branch of the sciatic nerve which supplies movement and sensation to the lower leg, foot and toes. If you watch the ending of the Dustin vs Conor fight, right before Conor falls you’ll notice his foot buckle because his peroneal nerve temporarily lost its ability to send the signal from the brain to the lower leg which caused his foot to buckle and he fell backwards. That’s when Dustin took advantage of his handy work and landed enough punches to temporarily KO Conor.
Nobody has said this but Conner was checking it by turning his calf towards it. He didn’t even realize that’s where he planned for. That’s why he said I thought I was checking it.
It also seems like it would be tough to keep your mind on a calf kick because it is such a short throw and if your worrying about a calf kick your paying attention to less immediate dangers that can get you knocked out.
Pat Berry whole career came from leg kicks. He had more finishes from leg kicks than anyone. I believe I've heard his kicks are the hardest in mma history
Pat Berry, Pedro Rizzo, and Edson Barboza deserve serious respect for their incredible leg kicks and their ability to end a fight with them. Douglas Lima has ended one fight with leg kicks and he's a complete beast as well.
Pat Berry's leg kicks were awesome (and I don't call much awesome but they were). I don't think anyone he fought could take them until he got to the UFC. Plus he could do the Techno Viking
Detailed low kicking to the calf and ankles is nothing new in predates MMA by a great deal. It is extremely an effective but many are Reinventing the wheel in claiming it as new. Good stuff though
the counter to the calf kick imo is a reactive steep kick. think muay thai style light on the front leg. masvidal would tear someone up throwing them off balance if they tried to calf spam him
Pat Barry's first 4 fights in MMA in 2008, win legs kicks, head kick, leg kicks, and leg kicks all in the 1st round. Jose Aldo kicked Faber with calf kicks WEC April 24, 2010.
In sanshu calf kicks are more popular than thigh kicks give the nature of how sanshu fighters catch any kick that go s to there finger tips. Akop Stepanyan vs Justin Wilcox. That fight showed how effective the calf kick is in mma. Great fight overall.
Pedro Rizzo has or had one of or the best kicks I've ever seen. Seen him drop fighters with just one. One kick and they were down, and a few stayed down.
@@thxDornalEvery time I used kicks in a fight I had shoes or boots on. Toe kicking vastly increases range and cause the force is consecrated in a smaller area it does more damage.
Dustin landed 19 leg kicks and Conor checked maybe 2 of them. There is a way to defend the calf kick while deliverin some pain for the kicker. First is the obvious one, turn your leg so it's shin to shin. Second, seen mostly in Mooo Thai fights: lift your leg and try to block with your heel. Now shin on heel will hurt like a mf compared to shin on shin.
I think “Bob” the wrestling dummy in the Smith Field House weighed a lot more than 90lbs. Maybe it’s just because I was a weakling back in 1996, but that thing was heavy.
that is so godamn true. Conor even said in the press conference that "in Thailand they use sticks to harden your chin". I mean really? Like this is some kind of sorcery only known by ancient masters there. Like you said, the ignorance on this topic is insane.
@@ericharden6832 no hate, but I don't know what kind of muay thai you've been studying or watching then because where I train going over leg kicks was pretty much all of week 1 or 2 and I think plenty of other true practitioners could agree with me on that
@@aidan9055 they kick the thighs in Muay Thai. They don’t do calf kicks though and that’s mainly because of their square stance makes it really easy to check calf kicks with a slight turn of the shin.
Stupid question. Is Conor better off trying to get a title through the FW division? That was his first belt and the pathway to it. Yes, I know it was also Poirier's path (but not to a belt). It might be less dangerous in terms of receiving a KO, and he may have more of a one-punch KO type ability in that division, see the Aldo KO.
@@andresvelasco2767 Certainly it's a hard cut. I guess to me it is mostly a matter of what is doable. If he has peaked and is on the way down, maybe LW champion is as high as he was going to end up, and that's it. But to have gained the LW title in the first place and matched it with Mayweather speaks to his overall ability. Maybe he still has the ability to regain the FW title, and maybe that's worth doing. If you can gain the title in a division, usually you go up and find it harder. Covington is not worth considering, terrible match up for Conor IMO. He got beaten by Khabib and close to beaten by Mendes. He got the 2nd highest PPV number in history against Dustin Poirier. It wasn't due to Poirier's ability to draw an audience. People would practically pay money to see Conor shadow box. I don't think the opponent matters a great deal. So I think if he ran through the FW division, maybe take on Cejudo at FW, work his way up to Holloway and Volkanovski, it would get his confidence back. If he regains the title, then look to the LW division and take favorable match ups there.
Dana White: I'm pleased to inform you that Conor McGregor will be fighting soon Me: Okay, great Uncle Chael: $$$ Uncle Chaels unpaid college intern: Why you keep doing dis to me man
In all fairness, Dustin tweeted that it would be a boxing match. I think he panicked a bit because Conor was sniping him and so he decided to change levels and compensate with calf kicks (which Dan Hardy previously said could be the kryptonite for Conor). And yes, I actually rooted for Dustin and I'm glad he won. But I was hoping for more of a boxing match, as in, more rounds 😅
Imagine in the future for every single fight in the UFC, both fighters just start calf kicking back and forth until one of them falls down lol. the UCKC would be the organizations new name.
You can check a calf kick by turning your shin into his shin. It's not pretty but shin on shin contact is better than getting the calf muscle mashed. Anyone throwing a calf kick that hits shin will think twice about throwing another.
That’s because Conor did try to check them, but not fully because of his stance. They both said it. Porier said that Conor was checking them, but not enough. Sometimes Chael doesn’t listen well enough.
Checking calf kicks is pretty simple...You just turn your leg outwards so your shin is what gets hit. Not sure what Chael has to gain for saying that he doesn't know how to check them
