Fighting GIF Breakdown

For me, one of the coolest parts about watching professional fighting matches is breaking down the hows and whys for everything we see on screen.  Physical attributes like strength and speed are very important factors in a fight, and obviously play a huge part in who makes it to the big leagues.  But here's the thing: many top combat athletes have comparable speed and strength, and often wins we attribute to physical factors are actually tactical victories.

In this post, I'll use some GIFs from different boxing, kickboxing, and MMA matches to show what I mean.  All of these GIFs are from the awesome blog MMA-GIFs, many of them created by the person (persons?) who runs the page.







What's great about this uppercut is how red gloves uses some basic striking principles to land it.  Notice how an instant before he throws it, he steps sliiiiiightly to his right (check his right foot), and also leans his upper body to the right.  This moves him off of the center line of attack that his opponent is currently swinging wildly through.  Black gloves has his gloves in front of his face to shield him, but this also blinds him to red gloves' subtle change in position.

Simultaneously, red gloves also throws his right uppercut from his right side, which is now off the center line.  Black gloves doesn’t even see the punch coming, and walks right into it.  Getting an opponent to walk into a punch always makes that punch land much harder, the same way a traffic accident will be more devastating with a head on collision than getting rear-ended.  It’s basic physics.



Red gloves sees the body jab coming from blue gloves and decides to crash in on it.  Sometimes when an opponent throws a straight punch (that is, the punch is reaching out straight in front of you, instead of something like a hook or an uppercut) to the body, if you can see it coming, you can crash in and jam up your opponent’s punch.  You’re moving in before their arm can extend all the way, so while they’re jammed you can throw a more appropriate punch for the short range you’re in (a hook or an uppercut).

In this case, homie thought he could do that, but blue gloves was really just throwing a quick little body jab to set up for his right cross that red gloves walked right into.  Like I said in the above breakdown, collisions: way more force.



A lot of times when an opponent lands a head kick, people remark "wow, it was so quick his opponent didn't see it coming!"  Now, of course, there are some fighters who are so quick and efficient with head kicks, that can sometimes be the case.  More often than not, however, head kicks come about as a result of careful setup.  By studying this picture, it becomes clear that this was a case of the latter.

Notice how when red gloves throws the kick, blue gloves lifts his leg.  This isn’t a case of “oh shit, I didn’t see a kick coming!”  Blue gloves saw the kick and believed it was coming for his leg, rather than his head, hence why he brought up his leg to check it.  This means his opponent had been kicking him repeatedly in the leg, conditioning him to think that was where his next kick would always be headed.  After doing this enough times, blue gloves raised his leg automatically anytime he saw a kick coming.  This time, however, the kick went for his head.

This is one of the most popular head kick set ups you will learn in any Muay Thai class.  Hammer away at the legs and/or body as much as you can.  Eventually, they will start trying to shield those areas reflexively when they sense a kick, and that's when you go to the head.  The exact same principle is in boxing, too: go for the body when they cover the head, and go for the head when they cover the body.



This picture is another example of why shielding your face with your gloves isn't the best defense.  Red gloves throws a nasty jab-cross combo that blue gloves covers up to avoid.  While putting your gloves in front of you like that you are blind, and there is always a split second where you have to move your gloves so you can see again.  Red gloves threw a kick during that split second moment, when blue gloves was lowering his gloves so he could see again.

A noteworthy detail here is that when red gloves threw his jab, he took a diagonal left-forward step.  This put him in a better position to launch attacks from both his rear hand and leg, because now they are that much closer to his opponent's center line.  This closing in distance means a slight downgrade in power, but a strike with slightly less power that lands is infinitely better than a stronger strike that doesn't.  Especially when the strike that lands is a head kick that the opponent doesn't see coming.



This one is from an MMA match between Georges St Pierre (red gloves) and Carlos Condit (blue gloves), who happens to be my favorite welterweight fighter.  In the match, Condit landed this beautiful head kick and was the first person in years to seriously threaten GSP's record-breaking run as the welterweight champion.  Unlike the previous GIFs, this is less about masterful striking fundamentals and more about the value of an unorthodox approach.

In most striking gyms, fighters are taught to try and throw strikes both during and after you duck or bob your head to avoid a punch.  That way, you're putting out offense as well as defense.  Most of the time, the moves are punches.  Throwing a kick as you're coming up from being hunched over is very difficult and requires a lot of flexibility.

In this match, Condit decided to throw a head kick instead.  Nobody saw it coming, least of all GSP.  One of the biggest risks about a headkick in MMA is how open it leaves you to being taken down; indeed, we had already seen it in this fight.  Here, however, he threw up during a time where few people do and was rewarded with a knockdown.

This shows the importance of trying new, unorthodox ways of applying something.  Sometimes it won't work out, but other times it will succeed wonderfully.