Karate blackbelts in MMA

That's what I call "walk around skill"

Kid's off the charts in that case!

TMA showing how it's done!
I re-watched the fight yesterday and the size advantage of Nordine Taleb is crazy. Of course there's a 10-year difference between them but Nordine looks like he's a full weight class heavier and at one point even throws Oliver with ease just with his hands!

Just checked on wiki and my impression was spot on - Nordine used to fight at middleweight! I don't think Oliver cuts anything, he looks pretty slim.

Really, to come in with 12 days notice, face a much more experienced, heavier, stronger, 10 years older fighter and still look good - that's amazing. Oliver was basically "thrown to the wolves" but held his own. Hope his next opponent is at least his age or size.
 
My bad, not sure what I did wrong when I searched his name. Thanks for the info @Tayski. I personally don't think a kid like this can get "too much exposure". :D

I agree. It's only because certain people feel some of the young stadium MT fighters aren't getting enough exposure.

 
I agree. It's only because certain people feel some of the young stadium MT fighters aren't getting enough exposure.


BTW can you tell me who exactly this "Lawrence Kenshin" person is? I mean I've seen his videos, read his articles and the guy seems legit but I can't find any proper bio, wiki or fightmetric.
 
^^

He use to lurk in these forums a while back before he started writing professionally - I remember conversing with him on sherdog a long time back. I think it was while you were on hiatus lol.

Tbh he does have good technical knowledge but I'm not a fan - I think there's a lot of style vs style things that some of his videos play into. Usually those videos showcase muay thai being superior in some way to taekwondo, karate or some other style. I can see why he does it - it's click bait and gets views. But it's nauseating as a karate guy to see the elitism in those videos and in the comments section. Although I do like his videos that are just strictly MT.

Plus I just don't really like those martial arts articles/videos that much in general either - knowing something and being able to teach something are two different things.
 
^^

He use to lurk in these forums a while back before he started writing professionally - I remember conversing with him on sherdog a long time back. I think it was while you were on hiatus lol.

Tbh he does have good technical knowledge but I'm not a fan - I think there's a lot of style vs style things that some of his videos play into. Usually those videos showcase muay thai being superior in some way to taekwondo, karate or some other style. I can see why he does it - it's click bait and gets views. But it's nauseating as a karate guy to see the elitism in those videos and in the comments section. Although I do like his videos that are just strictly MT.

Plus I just don't really like those martial arts articles/videos that much in general either - knowing something and being able to teach something are two different things.

The reason I like Jack Slack is that he seems very unbiased, but I feel like Kenshin is a businessman and I feel that he's dishonest, especially with that whole Saenchai impersonation going on with the Nak Muay Nation thing he's a part of.
 
The reason I like Jack Slack is that he seems very unbiased, but I feel like Kenshin is a businessman and I feel that he's dishonest, especially with that whole Saenchai impersonation going on with the Nak Muay Nation thing he's a part of.
TBH Jack Slack has said some very ignorant things about karate, despite being one himself I've heard. He definitely needs to do more research before posting some of things he does.
 
TBH Jack Slack has said some very ignorant things about karate, despite being one himself I've heard. He definitely needs to do more research before posting some of things he does.

I'm not sure I agree - that dude has done TONS of pieces on karate, and even wrote a book on how to use karate in MMA, as well as doing a lot of history pieces on it - he's definitely well researched on the topic. The only things he's said that are really negative were that you can't get good at fighting in MMA if you only practise points karate with proper sparring - which is true
 
I'm not sure I agree - that dude has done TONS of pieces on karate, and even wrote a book on how to use karate in MMA, as well as doing a lot of history pieces on it - he's definitely well researched on the topic. The only things he's said that are really negative were that you can't get good at fighting in MMA if you only practise points karate with proper sparring - which is true
"Traditional style karate (rather than Kyokushin and its off-shoots, which are much more closely related to kickboxing) / Taekwondo—side on stance, lots of movement—doesn't work half as well in the ring as it does in the cage or on a big, open mat."

he wrote an article saying Karate doesnt work in kickboxing because it is fought at long distances. Okinawan Goju Ryu/Old School Japanese Goju Ryu fight close quarters, and forms the technical basis for kyokushin which is very successful in kickboxing. At that point he obviously didnt know the okinawan styles, which are the most
traditional forms of karate, didnt know that many of the founders of dutch kb were kyokushin , and many of the succesful kk guys didnt have much experience fighting in kb rules before entering.
 
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@6:08 is my definition of what martial arts is, the perfection of timing, body mechanics, movement and attack. I saw him do that earlier in the clips and was going re play his counter footwork and movement. He was trained well, to push of with his front foot to retreat, compress his left leg to uncoil into the counter. Drilling that into subconscious execution means who ever he came up under is at the highest level.
I re-watched the fight yesterday and the size advantage of Nordine Taleb is crazy. Of course there's a 10-year difference between them but Nordine looks like he's a full weight class heavier and at one point even throws Oliver with ease just with his hands!

Just checked on wiki and my impression was spot on - Nordine used to fight at middleweight! I don't think Oliver cuts anything, he looks pretty slim.

Really, to come in with 12 days notice, face a much more experienced, heavier, stronger, 10 years older fighter and still look good - that's amazing. Oliver was basically "thrown to the wolves" but held his own. Hope his next opponent is at least his age or size.

The weight class differential is the first thing I noticed. It sucks that the only recourse for fighters is to play the game and weight cut on guys smaller than them. Kind of a viscous cycle the promoters force on them.
 
"Traditional style karate (rather than Kyokushin and its off-shoots, which are much more closely related to kickboxing) / Taekwondo—side on stance, lots of movement—doesn't work half as well in the ring as it does in the cage or on a big, open mat."

he wrote an article saying Karate doesnt work in kickboxing because it is fought at long distances. Okinawan Goju Ryu/Old School Japanese Goju Ryu fight close quarters, and forms the technical basis for kyokushin which is very successful in kickboxing. At that point he obviously didnt know the okinawan styles, which are the most
traditional forms of karate, didnt know that many of the founders of dutch kb were kyokushin , and many of the succesful kk guys didnt have much experience fighting in kb rules before entering.

I'd say I agree with the quote in your reply. Raymond Daniels' is a great example, he gets mauled every time he's against a half decent kickboxer, and he gets trapped by the ropes all the time. I did correct him about Okinawan Goju on facebook once, but I think a lot of what he says about karate in kickboxing is correct.

You tend to find the guys who do better at kickboxing, tend to abandon a lot of their karate. I mentioned that earlier in this thread - I think that if the long stanced, long ranged in and out footwork heavy style of karate was really fitting for kickboxing, you'd see more guys having success with it - but at the highest levels they don't seem to do very well.

The Kyokushin style guys have done well in kickboxing, but the more side on guys haven't had near the success, probably because the style isn't suited for a small ring with hard corners.
 
I'd say I agree with the quote in your reply. Raymond Daniels' is a great example, he gets mauled every time he's against a half decent kickboxer, and he gets trapped by the ropes all the time. I did correct him about Okinawan Goju on facebook once, but I think a lot of what he says about karate in kickboxing is correct.

You tend to find the guys who do better at kickboxing, tend to abandon a lot of their karate. I mentioned that earlier in this thread - I think that if the long stanced, long ranged in and out footwork heavy style of karate was really fitting for kickboxing, you'd see more guys having success with it - but at the highest levels they don't seem to do very well.

The Kyokushin style guys have done well in kickboxing, but the more side on guys haven't had near the success, probably because the style isn't suited for a small ring with hard corners.
well the quote is wrong because traditional karate just doesnt use the side stance and hop around. Keep in mind he said karate or traditional karate, not just the styles that use the long stances exclusively. Goju and okinawan styles uses a square cat stance like kyokushin alot of the time and is rooted to the ground for strong strikes. The vast majority of techniques found in kk come from okinawan goju. Daniels isnt a more "traditional" karateka than any kk guy. Its just a different lineage. If anything his kenpo karate and tkd background make him less traditional overall. i know alot of karate people don't consider him such.
 
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Just watched Enkamp's fight.

The most obvious point is what happened to me transitioning from TKD to Kickboxing and starting to spar Muay Thai and Dutch based KB. It took me a while to subconsciously target the legs anytime I was in range. Enkamp missed countless opportunities to slow Taleb down or make him think twice about advancing. When I trained it hard, it got so instinctual that I could be focused on center mass and sense when the leg weight load up came for the signature MT step forward to time the leg kick to land when all the weight was on the forward leg. So in Enkamp's case after Taleb was ether hurt or gun shy moving forward that's when all the high head hunting and spinning body shots can land clean on a more stationary target.

Classic point fighter or TKD mistake is going high on a close range trained fighter.

The stuff Enkamp impressed my on is that first take down where he trapped the leg to break Taleb's balance. Plus all the extreme flexibility and position changes to constantly be looking to land a sub.

If I was going to bet from just the size differential Taleb is cutting down at least a weight class to fight smaller lighter guys. Enkamp will probably need to exploit that cheat or face the same type of fight day weight disadvantage.

Excellent first UFC fight, the Karate kid can hang with the big boys!

...Just go after the legs before the head hunting!

Man you guys are all really high on Enkamp but he got handled pretty easily. Sure I saw potential, but Taleb is a decent fighter with some solid fundamentals and didn't really have any trouble shutting Enkamp down. He cut him off at will, faded the axe kicks and fancy stuff aimed at his head, took angles to get behind Enkamp when he spun to the body, caught a few kicks, landed low kicks pretty much whenever he felt like it, rocked Enkamp with a left hook in the pocket and controlled him on the ground--though I won't hold that as much against him because of the size difference. Also Enkamp is lucky Taleb didn't start going to the body until the third round because he had absolutely no answer for that.

Enkamp is young and talented, but he got beat by the same blueprint that style of fighter always gets beat by. Steady pressure, angles to counter linear rushes, low kicks to stifle movement, body punches once they're cut off, counter punches to the head once you get them to open up in the pocket and takedowns whenever you get them squared up or with their back turned. It's the same thing Edgar did to Yair, Holzken did to Daniels, Woodley did whenever he could be fucking bothered to against Wonderboy, Weidman did to Machida, RDA did to Pettis, the list goes on.
 
I'd say I agree with the quote in your reply. Raymond Daniels' is a great example, he gets mauled every time he's against a half decent kickboxer, and he gets trapped by the ropes all the time. I did correct him about Okinawan Goju on facebook once, but I think a lot of what he says about karate in kickboxing is correct.

You tend to find the guys who do better at kickboxing, tend to abandon a lot of their karate. I mentioned that earlier in this thread - I think that if the long stanced, long ranged in and out footwork heavy style of karate was really fitting for kickboxing, you'd see more guys having success with it - but at the highest levels they don't seem to do very well.

The Kyokushin style guys have done well in kickboxing, but the more side on guys haven't had near the success, probably because the style isn't suited for a small ring with hard corners.

That style doesn't work all that well in MMA either. Even though everybody likes to talk about how it's harder to cut someone off in the cage than in a ring, guys still get cut off all the time--especially those sideways, in-out TMA guys. As I said in my previous post, they all lose the same way once they hit a certain level of competition. I don't even mean this in an art vs art way, I'm saying that fundamentally you can't rely on linear movement unless there's no penalty or obstacle to prevent you from backing up forever, and you can't rely on long-range techniques forever when effective short-range techniques are allowed by the ruleset.
 
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