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| Dos Anjos giving Nate Diaz a beating of a lesson, (Photo from USA Today) |
If you've watched yesterday's UFC on FOX 13, you might have caught this one-sided fight between Rafael Dos Anjos and Nate Diaz. Nate is well known in the sport for being notorious with his words and actions, but also known to walk the walk within the Octagon.
If you've watched the fight, you would have easily guess the determining factor in which Dos Anjos was able to dish out the brutal beating. If you haven't, here's a short highlight clip:
The leg kicks that Dos Anjos rained throughout the fight was the key deciding factor. Leg kicks; the proper, hard ones that don't go "piak", are extremely painful, and worse, slows you down. Dos Anjos easily dropped what? 20 or 30 leg kicks on Diaz, the rest was history.
From a theoretical point of view, it echoes the fact that Muay Thai remains the most effective striking art for MMA. It saddens me on the number of MMA fighters that do not invest time in dwelling deeper into Muay Thai, while those who did, reaped huge benefits (think Anderson Silva, Matt Browne).
But learning from the Dos Anjos and Diaz fight, Nate's proper and real mistake was standing in a side stance against a Muay Thai kicker, and worse, a low-kicker. The reason why the Muay Thai stance is mostly squared, is to give proper balance to shin-blocking left, right. The side stance that Nate was standing on then, reveals his right thigh for kicking, which Dos Anjos properly did. I hope this becomes a case study for MMA fighters. When the right combination of striking ability, matches up with the right combination of striking inabilities, the results can be devastating.
But I must humbly admit that, MMA is not a Muay Thai fight. Muay Thai is but a tool/weapon for utilisation. Matt Browne may be an excellent Muay Thai fighter, but he gets pounded on quite abit as well. Anderson Silva who was once thought to be invincible, beaten by a broken shin; the irony.
So, come. Let's do some kicks and then roll on the mats.
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