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Strategies for landing head kicks
It's time to take a look at how to learn head kicks, specifically a roundhouse kick to the head of your opponent. In combat sports head kicks are a more flashy technique designed to knock out your opponent in infatic fashion. As rare as a head kick knockout can be it's time to take a deeper look into them and how they are set up.
A very consistent theme you'll find in this breakdown is that the majority of successful head kicks hit their opponent on their rear side. Meaning the kick will strike your opponent on the same side as their rear arm.
And this is because your opponent does not have a shoulder in the way like how they do on the lead side. And this factor plays majorly into land head kicks. And another thing I have noticed when studying head kick knockouts is just how strikingly similar many of them are.
An astounding majority of them happen on the opponent's rear side leaving only their rear hand as their main defensive weapon.
There are plenty of ways to set up head kicks but let's get into what I see as the most high percentage.
The first way is to kick your opponent's body repeatedly, causing them to lower their guard and then when they expect a body kick, you kick them in the head of course.
But what fascinates me with this set up specifically is how many head kicks knockouts happen with what's called a naked kick. Generally naked kicks are ill-advised because when a fighter throws a naked kick they throw the kick by itself with nothing before it to set up the kick.
However, very many head kick knockouts have come from naked kicks.
Some examples include
Rashad Evans ko over josh salmon
Gabriel Gonzaga’s KO over Mirko cro cop
Valentina shevchenko’s ko over Jessica eye
Holly holm’s ko over bethe correia
Alessio di chirico’s ko over Joaquin Buckley
Abdul razak alhassan’s ko over Alessio di chirico
Marlon chito Vera’s ko over brad Pickett
Ovince saint preux’s ko over Corey Anderson
Ian Machado Garry's ko over Daniel Rodriguez
Amber leibrock’s ko over Martina jindrova
Rose namajunas’ ko over Zhang weili
https://youtu.be/r-kXLCObXg8?si=6_S-dij3-8irnzNE
Even legendary fighter Shinigami scored a naked head kick ko on streetbeefs
https://youtu.be/tdRKym5HBjA?si=WQuP-qpUZ2NAE9Ws
What all of these knockouts have in common is that those who won used a naked kick to strike their opponent, meaning there was no strike thrown in an immediate combination before the head kick to set It up. They simply threw a lone kick at their opponent and it landed.
Another commonality they have is that they all kicked their opponents rear side.
And stance doesn't matter. I Included examples of kicks from the rear and front leg examples of southpaw vs orthodox matchups even examples where the orthodox fighter is the one who throws the kick. But regardless in every example they all struck their opponents rear side with a naked kick and knocked them out.
In this example with Ignacio bahomondes, Ignacio starts out in an orthodox stance but then switches to a southpaw stance right before he head kicks his opponent.
https://youtu.be/X2Z1En-eAgk?si=v8JqJlSoTW03cy8Q
This switch in stances allows for him to kick his opponents rear side just like in all of the other examples. But this example with Ignacio stood out to me because it shows just how vulnerable your opponent's rear side is to head kicks because he didn't have to fight the entire fight from a southpaw stance. He simply had to switch his stance and kick his opponent's r
ear side in order to land a naked head kick.
It's time to take a look at how to learn head kicks, specifically a roundhouse kick to the head of your opponent. In combat sports head kicks are a more flashy technique designed to knock out your opponent in infatic fashion. As rare as a head kick knockout can be it's time to take a deeper look into them and how they are set up.
A very consistent theme you'll find in this breakdown is that the majority of successful head kicks hit their opponent on their rear side. Meaning the kick will strike your opponent on the same side as their rear arm.
And this is because your opponent does not have a shoulder in the way like how they do on the lead side. And this factor plays majorly into land head kicks. And another thing I have noticed when studying head kick knockouts is just how strikingly similar many of them are.
An astounding majority of them happen on the opponent's rear side leaving only their rear hand as their main defensive weapon.
There are plenty of ways to set up head kicks but let's get into what I see as the most high percentage.
The first way is to kick your opponent's body repeatedly, causing them to lower their guard and then when they expect a body kick, you kick them in the head of course.
But what fascinates me with this set up specifically is how many head kicks knockouts happen with what's called a naked kick. Generally naked kicks are ill-advised because when a fighter throws a naked kick they throw the kick by itself with nothing before it to set up the kick.
However, very many head kick knockouts have come from naked kicks.
Some examples include
Rashad Evans ko over josh salmon
Gabriel Gonzaga’s KO over Mirko cro cop
Valentina shevchenko’s ko over Jessica eye
Holly holm’s ko over bethe correia
Alessio di chirico’s ko over Joaquin Buckley
Abdul razak alhassan’s ko over Alessio di chirico
Marlon chito Vera’s ko over brad Pickett
Ovince saint preux’s ko over Corey Anderson
Ian Machado Garry's ko over Daniel Rodriguez
Amber leibrock’s ko over Martina jindrova
Rose namajunas’ ko over Zhang weili
https://youtu.be/r-kXLCObXg8?si=6_S-dij3-8irnzNE
Even legendary fighter Shinigami scored a naked head kick ko on streetbeefs
https://youtu.be/tdRKym5HBjA?si=WQuP-qpUZ2NAE9Ws
What all of these knockouts have in common is that those who won used a naked kick to strike their opponent, meaning there was no strike thrown in an immediate combination before the head kick to set It up. They simply threw a lone kick at their opponent and it landed.
Another commonality they have is that they all kicked their opponents rear side.
And stance doesn't matter. I Included examples of kicks from the rear and front leg examples of southpaw vs orthodox matchups even examples where the orthodox fighter is the one who throws the kick. But regardless in every example they all struck their opponents rear side with a naked kick and knocked them out.
In this example with Ignacio bahomondes, Ignacio starts out in an orthodox stance but then switches to a southpaw stance right before he head kicks his opponent.
https://youtu.be/X2Z1En-eAgk?si=v8JqJlSoTW03cy8Q
This switch in stances allows for him to kick his opponents rear side just like in all of the other examples. But this example with Ignacio stood out to me because it shows just how vulnerable your opponent's rear side is to head kicks because he didn't have to fight the entire fight from a southpaw stance. He simply had to switch his stance and kick his opponent's r
ear side in order to land a naked head kick.