WHAT?! Wing Chun Defeats MMA? Let's Watch (MMA vs Ving Tsun) 

I don't wing chun is for sports...i think it's dirty and for street fights

Yea, as a bjj guy it seems like the mma dude in the video learned all his „grappling“ from watching ufc highlights not actually learning them. It seems like he has ideas about what to do, like of an armbar or sidecontrol, but he dosen’t actually know how you do these moves or get into these positions. Btw how does your wing chun training look like? Just interested because I started out with wing chun, went to takewandoe, then to muay thai and now and probably staying for a long time at grappling/bjj. To be honost I had bad experiences at the wing chun place. Like the people were nice and all, but it felt like they were all kinda deluding themselves. We never really sparred at all, only did the same slow choreography’s and never anything more than minimal resistance. In spite of that, the coach and the people that have been there for a while, genuinely feel like they can fight or are in anyway competent, wich I just can’t see. Like how tf would anyone know how to drive if they only look at the theory of it, never actually putting themselves in a test drive or training to actually drive. Anyways I’m just interested in what other peoples experiences with it are like, because it seems like it can vary a lot. Sry for my big ass rant lol :)

Yeah as a brown belt in bjj and mma fighter I can confidently say that “mma guy” has very little training in both stand up and ground game. Not hating on him I’m just saying what I see.

I agree, if WC guy was more proactive on taking advantageous positions he'd be more dangerous. Also, agree that his hands gotta be higher.

@@ethanmanjhi4007 I would bet there are "dirty" moves in just about any style. I agree that things like eye gouges (of which there are several kinds in Wing Chun) don't belong in sport, but there are several core principles of Wing Chun I'd like to see more of in the UFC. Ambidexterity is a great example. Most MMA fighters live in one stance. They're trained to switch primarily in the context of creating unpredictable attacks, but occasionally you see fighters who switch much more often. Those who can do it fluidly with high frequency tend to dominate center octagon position. If anyone would just treat UFC like Moneyball, they'd have clear stats proving a stark correlation between ambidexterous footwork and octagon control. I'd never claim Wing Chun is the only way to develop that ambidexterity, but I can confidently say that any MMA fighter who trains Wing Chun for a year will improve their ambidexterity.

I think as a fighter, wc guy is much more experienced. Mma guy is not good at stand up or grappling.

@@Hawidaku I agree that MMA guy is not disciplined. Movements are slow, and he's giving WC guy access to his back in multiple occasions.

@@danmatakizawa Slow, predictable and easily frustrated. You could see the WC guy realize this early in the fight and gain confidence. MMA guy had no idea how to adapt.

He won via ground and pound?

He doesn't show good wing Chun, but at least he isn't completely incompetent in fighting. The mma guy is clearly even worse as a fighter. I say that the wing Chun guy doesn't show good wing Chun, because I am a wing Chun practitioner and I know what I'm talking about... Maybe he is way better, but he didn't want to use it much, otherwise he could hurt the opponent... And I really admire the respect he had for the opponent, he wasn't really trying to hurt him at all. Actually both fighters had that mentality.

Yeah. But that only happebs because they do not spar! I have done an experiment before (3 times!) that kind of prove my point. First, You get any number (above 1) of guys that are crazy enough to go with the experiment, then you give them a ruleset from any combat sport (i have done it with Boxing, Kick Boxing and Muay Thai rules), have them do some light workouts and then give them the necessary equipment for them to spar (boxing or MMA gloves, mouth pieces, cups, etc) and make them spar under the ruleset that you gave them around 5 times a day, around 4 days a week, for at least 2 weeks; but keep in mind that sparring and streching are the only things that you are going to make them do. It is important that you do not allow any of them to inmediately spar again after they finish a sparring session, instead tell them to think about what they did and what they could have done, but *do not* tell them what they did wrong. Probably nobody on this commen section will do such a crazy thing so i'll give you the results that i got every time: People that knew how to fight even without any training, without teaching them what a Jab is, without teaching them a proper boxing guard, how to clinch properly. Even without teaching them any of that, they always got decent/good enough at it in only 2 weeks. Just by sparring a lot. So imagine having that plus any martial arts training. No wonder that the most succesful styles are the ones that spar and fight the most (Boxing, Muay Thai, Judo, BJJ, many forms of wrestling, Shuai Jiao, kickboxing, etc...)

I do wonder if people will pay attention to that reply. I consider such knowledge, really, really important. Unless you're some fighting genious, you will need sparring. And even if you are indeed a fighting genious, you will need sparring to get certain things down.

@@jestfullgremblim8002 yeah I agree, definately sparring IS key; even wild animals spar with eachother to practice fighting and hunting skills. However even when wild lions or wild tigers spar they don't injure eachother, they cannot risk injury when they have to literally fight to survive. Sparring is 100% necessary, you just gotta have good sparring partners

@@stephanwatson7902 true true, that's why you, a trained fighter must be supervising them.

@@jestfullgremblim8002 well I know how to fight and spar, but I'm certainly not a trained fighter

This video is rubbish. There are far better videos. Wing Chun vs Karate they fight real fights against a karate school

@@808frontline Please provide links as I would love to check them out. Thanks

Yip Man and Bruce Lee weren't fake

@@nelsonmcatee3721 all I know is Joe Lewis was a heavy weight full contact kickboxing champion and he challenged Bruce Lee then quickly became Bruce Lees student. Joe Lewis has both video recordings and written testimony saying that Bruce Lee was a beast and in hi words could shell shock a man with his front hand.

For all those wing chunners looking for more power in their strikes, and stronger, more robust overall body structure, you need to look into effective martial 'zhan zhuang' - like that taught by Yao Zongxun lineage of Yiquan kungfu, for example. This is what your 'goat stance' is supposed to be providing you with. You find zhan zhuang 'standing post/pile' training in Gao baguazhang, and Chen taiji. It's an ancient Taoist yoga for martial arts, but can also be used for general health cultivation also. Perhaps you remember your teacher saying the goat stance alone should be trained for at least 18 months, or something like that? Well, in my experience, this is the reason why - because your punching will lack that powerful whole body connection that people like Tyson has with his hooks, and that someone like McGregor seems to have. In Western boxing, powerful punchers are often treated as mysterious gods - because some people are just born with good whole body connection to the ground that facilitates such striking from an early stage of their training (in Chinese Kungfu, this is called 'hunyuan skill'). But Zhan zhuang / goat stance training offers that power to everyone - it just takes at least 2 years practice for at least 1 hour daily. That's why you're likely hearing this for the first time! 😅 People just don't have the time, dedication, and suitable teacher to point out correct structure and its development. But good teachers are slowly making their way out of China to the west these days. If you meet one, you are a very lucky person! Also, take note of how the wing chun guy in the vid here generally applied constant pressure to his opponent - forcing him to try random attack strategies before he could test potentials. That is wing chun spirit - to constantly march in and 'suffocate' opponent as if in a phonebooth - with the intent of gaining a 'bind' situation (that's what it's called when swords lock on a battlefield), from which they can then work trapping and elbows, etc. Elbow is in fact wing chun's reliable core KO strike - and so that's the intended game-finisher. In the above vid, the MMA guy kept good enough distance under the pressure, so didn't get trapped much, and perhaps they agreed to not use elbows, anyway. But you can see how the wing chunner's pure intent to constantly march forward was apparently the ultimate winning factor. The MMA guy did seem generally less experienced, but he eventually appeared to feel suffocated and gave up.

pfffff 💀

Lmao. You will always get people saying "that's not real wing chun" tho. And i kinda support them

Yeah Right it's usually the other way around

It's because we have professional settings like the UFC, One Championship, etc to show us what high level MMA skill looks like. You can compare low level fighters in unsanctioned sparring matches to the MMA athletes in high level events and see how their skills match up. Thats not the case with Wing Chun. What does a high level WC fighter actually look like? That's why people always blame WC as a style over the practitioner. I personally like WC and think it has some good concepts that actually work in a live environment. But WC on its own is limited and not a complete fighting system.

@@georgeraphael5181 you say wing Chun isn't a complete fighting system. So tell me what is a complete fighting system. If you say it isn't a complete fighting system, then I can say nothing is a complete system either... Boxing, bjj, muay thai, and all the others aren't complete either. It also depends on the wing Chun lineage... For example, wing Tsung lineage from Leung Ting has ground fighting (some basics at least) and anti take downs, sparring, etc.

I generally agree. I wonder at what point in their respective journeys they are though. The red gloves is literally all over the place from a foundational technical perspective and look like they have trained under 6mths. No idea on the wing chun proponent.

True - it's the fighter over the style. Because as soon as the fighter sees something useful from another style, and which overlaps with their own style in a useful way, then there isn't really any style existing anymore, really. There's just insightful fighters.

@@Erime although training methods often dictate how effective a person's use of a styles technical repertoire can be. In turn this affects technical knowledge, teaching ability and curriculum. I think ideology and pedagogy are very important factors. It's why some styles consistently turn out capable combatants as the norm and some as the notable exceptions. I think both people in this clip look very unskilled: time *may* be a factor, so might individual approach but surely they aren't the only ones.

@@catscradle1921 agreed. By style I mean the overarching fighting 'philosophy'/strategy and its accompanying motifs or 'signature moves'. At the end of the day, though, it's whatever works, isn't it - and that can include putting in time on certain skills, and sparring, of course. I was just watching a video about Michel Pereira in UFC - who does some flashy capoeira, but started out in karate and jiujitsu. And someone in the comments said it's his solid muay thai that ultimately wins his matches 🤣. I think his general style and strategy is that he enjoys fighting and stays fluid, personally - and, yes, he's put the time in and explored all areas of MMA skills - probably with a great coach/peer group, also.

@@Erime absolutely.

Yep. Quantity can totally mess with someone psychologically by itself.

He should have went for a takedown after that.

what do you mean with change sides?

@turtle_enthousiast good MT or kickboxing combinations sometimes would switch to southpaw stance to deliver kicks, cross, hook or intercept opponent lateral movement. That creates angles and width in your combinations. Bang MT does that regularly

@@katze97 thanks for the explanation. i had no idea👍

Oh! I get it now. Thanks for this! Always wondered! Heard the term since college but never knew til now!

I think Xiaodong only has in issue with wing chun/taiji masters who claim they can beat any MMA fighter with their chi powers. I think even he would respect people who put in the physical work and learn how to actually fight.

i'm sure he has been beaten by tai ji guys before, he was a sanda fighter before and plenty of taiji people have trained at his gym and some of them are really good wrestlers.

@@emilianosintarias7337 One Taiji even can win against Xu Xiaodong's student just for wrestling match, there's a video on that, it can't even move his student as they wrestle and just being lead into submission..

@@emilianosintarias7337 Yup, most Kung Fu styles were developed for mid-range combat ((probably to be implemented after losing your primary weapon)), which inevitably is a blend of grappling and inside strikes utilizing hands, forearms, knees, head, hips, shoulders, feet, elbows, and very little if any blocking, which would make sense assuming your opponent was probably still in possession of their weapon or had managed somehow to snatch yours, and blocking large edge weapons is pretty much a non-option.

@@mmurmurjohnson2368 Only in movies it all happened, watch how Xu xiaodong's student humiliate those taiji guy who can't even bring his opponent upside down and after minutes passed, he gasp and run out of stamina, Xu xiaodong's student just played him like a stuff toy.

It’s similar to the old school boxing stance. I heard they kept the hand low to protect the body because old school boxers didn’t go for head shots all the time because they didn’t wear gloves.

This really is a low level statement. As if you just sparred for the first time, got hit and figured out to keep your hands up. The low elbow position and guard enhances your techniques due to the elbow/waist connection. The more you raise your hands the weaker your techniques become. Also people tend to punch straight whenever they raise their guard whilst they should maintain an upward angle so the force is redirected to the ground and doesnt get stuck in their shoulder. The Wing-Chun guard is more of a concept than a fixed position meant to block strikes. The guy in this video kept his training position instead of using it as an active guard. He only did single direct attacks. No effort to bait his opponent at all.

That is because it is ving tsun and not wing chun, they have a lower stance.

@@MrCincin13 ving tsun is a spelling used by different vietnamese lineages of wing-chun as well as some ip man lineages like wong shun leung and moy yat. The techniques of these lineages vary, this means you can't specify certain technical aspects like stance or guard to the ving-tsun spelling.

@@florisvanlingen Everywhere that I have seen a club or gym or a dojo or whatever you would call it, that was named ving tsun, had a lower guard compared to wing chun clubs.

In the slo-mo you can also see that he blocks it at the very tip of his foot, making the lever as long as possible. In karate, I've been taught to either do that, or hammerfist the knee (which I'm skeptical of, but with gloves maybe less so if you're accurate with good timing).

Feliz Año Nuevo!

@@FightCommentary feliz año nuevo to you Jerry! I hope you had a great holiday 😁

Agreed, but I read that stalking and not pressing the issue are staples of Wing Chun, break posture to chase your opponent and your triangular structural power envelope falls apart, it's better usually ((but not always)) to maintain it, especially if your opponent's super intent on striking you. I kinda think aside from the fact that this guy actually conditions and spars, that his ability to maintain his base structure under actual heavy fire that made him more able to preemptively sense and brush off those hooks.

Ving Tsun is Leung Ting's lineage from the Y(Ip) man "both spellings are correct since it's Cantonese/Mandarin characters (not letters)!

@@mazenkaiser7234 You are mistaken. "Ving-Tsun" is a spelling that is supposedly more correct than Wing-Chun. Might have to do something with WC standing for toilet. Anyways Leung Ting adopts the "Wing Tsun" spelling. Ving-Tsun is very often the Wong Shun Leung lineage as is the case with this guy. I have actually sparred with this guy's teacher a few times and practice in the same lineage.

@@florisvanlingen You are the one who is confused. I stated *Yip* and *Ip* man are both correct *spellings* since both names are expressed in *Chinese characters not phoenetic letters.* My statement on *Ving-Tsun is that it is simply Leung Ting's lineage under (Y)Ip mon.* You are however correct in the fact that *Leung Ting changed the Wades Guile constanants of "W" "C" to "V" "T".* You see in Europe in the 1970's *WC was a common abbreviation for "Water Closet" European acronym for "bathroom".* But the *"Pronunciation in Cantonese is "Wing-chun" not "Ving-Tsun" just a "German phoenetic."*

@@florisvanlingen *"Wong Sheung Leung"* uses the *Cantonese Pronunciation of Wing-chun. You are speaking to a 5th generation sifu, under Ben Der/Kenneth Chun who was under both "Wong Sheung Lueng" "Ben Deer's" family tree and "Leung Sheung" Kenneth Chun's family Tree. Both are the oldest family tree's splitting from Yip mon as "they are both his first two students" Leung Ting was a younger brother of Wong Sheung Leung and he changed (Leung Ting) the name of his family tree in Germany due to what I just told you.*

You are right. I can also say that the wing Chun guy wasn't using much of the art, but at least he had good distance control and other stryking skills. Both fighters were respectful to each other (I admire that) but the fight could be more intense / agressive.

Yep

Yeah as a brown belt in bjj and mma fighter I can confidently say that “mma guy” has very little training in both stand up and ground game. Not hating on him I’m just saying what I see.

In that same way a lot of Wing Chun people go to schools that also teach very surface level stuff. It's just that that surface level stuff is much more prevalent in WC than it is among MMA gyms

@@Hawidaku It all depends on the individual and how they train. Some people join an mma gym and only come to class once a week. The rest of the time they lay back and watch t.v. at home. Same as a martial art school.

True that!

Actually Wing chun has a lot of techniques whose can control opponent's arms. That should be the meaning of chi sao

Can you send me a link? I’ll take a look!

They were not capable of intelligently defending themself. They shouldnt be competing, the referee could have stopped the fight "by accident" at pretty much any moment...

So it’s trademark related… interesting!

@@FightCommentary Ving Tsun is the official name of the Yip Man Hong Kong historical wing chun and any others whose Sifu was a teacher under Yip Man, while Wing Tsun is for the European version, which is Dr. Leung Ting's students spread worldwide. Some VT schools came from Sifu's who left Hong Kong in the 1960's such as GM Moy Yat...Then we have the WC spellings. EBMAS has made a few changes too, so we spell Tsun with a z instead of an s. It is not just because of trademark lawsuits or branding, but because we are different. It is no longer enough to just call it "Wing Chun" as it means 5 or 6 different things now. Other comments in here refer to how vague the label MMA is for the same reason.

Wong Shun Leung lineage also uses the VT spelling.

@@FightCommentary Dont know how it is in Switzerland but its pretty close to Germany and there is a massive Leung Ting Wing Tsun (WT) association that has WT trademarked and is pretty obnoxious commercialized and widespread. So other schools tried to differentiate themself with the Ving Tsun (VT) spelling used and promoted by the Wong Shun Leung branch, and sometimes Ip Chung (one of Ip mans sons), and Wing Chun (WC) by lesser known branches. That guy could be Wong Shun Leung branch but I´m not 100% sure but he has a good stable basis which is usually a focus of that.

The problem also depends on the lineage of the art, the teacher, and especially the practitioner. I'm a wing Chun practitioner since late 90s and also practiced other systems before coming to wing Chun, and I can tell you that it's the responsibility of the practitioner to make sure he trains and learns properly... I have never been to a dojo but at least I test tecnics and systems against sparring partners and explore all possibilities of a real fight. I can make most things work, be it kickboxing, taekwondo, wing Chun, jiu-jitsu, I learned a bit of everything. They all work well, people need to be intelligent at applying each art correctly. Another thing I can say is that I don't recommend wing Chun for beginners because it's a soft style and people need to master hard styles first and only then go practice the soft internal styles (like wing Chun, baguazhang, tang Lang, etc).

His striking was bad too

@@pangopod2969 If you take out the atrocious haymakers, his striking was.. passable? If he just had better grappling he would've had that fight in the bag. Throw out the idea of a submission, and only leave the ground and pound, he would be fine. But alas...

@@DeathxThexKid100 That guy probably never heard of footwork, none of his strikes were sharps, he had no guard, he was sloppy, had no head movement, no control of the "ring", he used no feints, his kicks could be outskilled by a systema practionner, he used no set up either to strike or to enter the clinch...

@@pangopod2969 I'm not arguing that his striking is somehow good. I'm just saying that in MMA, especially considering his current opponent they he really doesn't need to be a better striker. It helps to have better striking, no doubt about that. However, he could have clearly won if he just had better control on the ground, and a more solid takedown game.

@@DeathxThexKid100 Ho sorry. You're right but i'm not sure if he could represent MMA if he sacrificed his striking training for wrestling. (Well he failed anyway but if he's indeed training MMA, he tried)

@@hoguho3588 Mostly Raw Garden

how to recognize the influence? ,nothing from boxing came from wing chun,there were records of fights with fists since the time of the Minoan civilization when fighters only used punches in the fight, modern boxing was already practiced in England before wing chun appeared, the rules of Queensberry only formatted how the fight should start and end ,the principles of body positioning, boxing guards, punching styles and techniques, boxing fighting styles, as well as foot and torso movement are unique to boxing, and you trace the boxing fundamentals of the era gold in boxing's ancient history, as well as fights recorded before boxing's heyday began. And as for using wing chun fundamentals, well that's personal taste, wanting to impose rules of the style you like on others is being closed-minded and arrogant

Who ? And why I would practice Wing Chun to incoporate 2% of this garbage ?

That’s a tough one. I think if I had to play within the rules of the dichotomy you presented, I would choose really strong and know the basics. Once a few punches land, everyone is using their basics, so I’ll take the strength advantage. People like sakuraba who could take on bigger guys who have some skill and win are the exception, not the norm.

@@FightCommentary cool

That’s a interesting thing!

This was my whole philosophy right here. I started learning southern style Shaolin from my father and branched out to Wing Chun but learned that most of my sparring ended up too linear to defend and adapt. So I decided to try to learn as much as I could from as many styles as possible, starting with Baguazhang, Tai chi, and Aikido. I also went to a boxing gym to work out with western style defensive boxers. I feel that by not limiting your style to one form or another makes you more adaptable and far more defensive. (Also embarrassed a TKD teacher who clearly was not on my level)

We interviewed Till here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AwyFIqNUNRI.html

@@FightCommentary absolutely wonderful, thank you. Till is a super humble guy, which shows the true essence of VT. So he’s Wong Shun-Leung lineage. WSL was a contemporary older brother of Moy Yat before and through the founding of the VTAA, hence details looking familiar. He was also someone that spent time with his Sifu. He was known as King of Talking Hands - so what Till said about fighting was correct. And he was noted for passing much of his Sifu, Yip Man’s kung fu onto Bruce Lee. In your interview when you ask “what is Ving Tsun what is not Ving Tsun?” This is interesting. Moy Yat would say if you are practising centre line, you are practising Ving Tsun. I interpret this to mean if you are practising Siu Lim Tao. Once you have this ingrained any technique that conforms to the principles is VT, because VT becomes moving my body and centreline and every legitimate movement my body can express whilst adhering to those principles, or recapturing those principles. Is grappling VT? Yes, if I’m in that range. But it highlights the need to spend time to not only talk the principles, but to walk them, so to speak. So therefore we can further conclude that time spent with a sifu is critical for a strong lineage, a strong unbroken chain. Where what we are seeing described as VT is not VT is usually because at some point in the chain the link was weak or broken, and then this guy passed down a poor understanding. Overall that was an amazing interview and there are many areas I agree, some I would interpret differently. I don’t wish to be critical, but there were two areas I think my interpretation could be helpful: at the end when talking about falling back on Krav - this highlights the necessity to “play more Siu Lim Tau” - play more forms. Sparring can be helpful, but more forms with correct details are needed to make VT more natural and to not “break the principles” and lose structure. The other point comes to what Till was saying about punches with gloves, and how one can train to counter this. To a degree I agree. But one of the issues is when it comes to power generation. Until one has mastered horse, coordination, one would struggle to gain sufficient knock out power whilst wearing gloves. So the VT practitioner might light up the other guy, but not have powerful enough strikes to defeat him through the inch of armour afforded by the glove. Without the glove the metrics are very different. The younger practitioner still hasn’t cultivated the full potency of Ving Tsun but they have enough to protect themselves with their bare fist. So I think this is an important point to raise. That idea “I hit him in the face and nothing happened” is because the crumple zone in the glove took enough of the impact, that the face didn’t.

Please leave this comment on the chats page too so people can see it more easily!

@@FightCommentary I don’t know how to do that. If you could cut and paste, then send the link, I’d be sure to check it out.