Wing Chun in MMA - the case of Tony Ferguson

TheMaster

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Made a recent thread about this here, so I'm not reposting all the gifs.

http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/n...oxing-wing-chun-massacre-standup-gif.3844751/

fight clip is here:


Ferguson is using alot of Wing Chun in close here. He does alot of wooden dummy training and you can see it in his elbows and close range strikes. May be some technical points for wing chun purists but he makes it work in combat sports which so far hardly anyone else has so they can stfu and he trains it alot apparently so his WC will get better. Also says he doesnt spar anymore which is interesting.

Example here close range punch then downward diagonal elbow which he is doing alot on the dummy (like you see in Biu Jee form) which slices him open.

20181009_193210.gif

Master Wong Shun Leung doing downward elbow in biu jee form
20181012_223909.gif

He also mixes it up with good boxing but the bulk of damage he does is with the elbows. Does not really use thai clinch but uses the lowkick on occasion. His elbows and entry are very wing chun.
He also does alot of hand trapping and uses pak sau/ hand parry alot to deflect punches and counter, and tends to come in square alot using the pak sau and jut sau. Relentless close in pressure without clinching (the old saying 'Wing Chun is only good for the telephone box')

For the record, Ferguson is one of the top fighters in the world now. I should say also he is this level because he is super talented and aggressive and he is well rounded:

- college Wrestler so great takedown defence.
- BJJ blackbelt. His elbows off his back are also devestating which can also utilize wing chun strikes and sensitivity to an extent.
- His standup is mainly a hybrid of boxing and Wing Chun
- Great cardio so sustains the pace and always in your face

This is one of the few occasions we have seen legit Wing Chun techniques being applied in mma at the highest level as part of a well rounded fighter. Good to see it and we know the sport continues to evolve so what WC brings for infighting in the mma arena will come in more I am sure.
 
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Well I don't believe hand fighting is anything new, boxers pull/push their opponents gloves/guard all the time.

It seems like a no brainer in MMA with the open fingered gloves. We used to drill wrist control of the standard "striking guard" as means to clinch entry and control on the fence back in the day.

Reaching out and snagging a a wrist during striking exchanges is easier than you think. Most of the time you won't have control of that arm but for a second or two but that's enough time to push/pull their guard into your strike or TD.
 
Tony isn't really known for having great striking defence, he's just great at recovering.
 
I've only seen Tony fight once and I wasn't excited about his hands.

Boxing, and wing Chun have so many similarities it's all hand fighting. Wing Chun has some bs in it for sure but there's some gold in wing Chun if you pay attention
 
So I guess wing chun dorks are now going to take credit for a pro MMA fighter that's just messing around with a stupid wing chun wooden dummy. Hahaha.

wing chun is garbage. deal with it, wing chun fan boys.
 
Yeah i dont seen how this is Wing Chun.

1. Noodling around on a wooden dummy doesnt mean you know wing chun. Bare in mind theres plenty of Chinese styles that make use of the wooden dummy.

2. To my knowledge there is nothing to show that Ferguson has spent any time studying the art specifically

Wing chun people need to focus on organizing their own house and getting it into a full contact fighting system rather than looking for examples of it working in stylists who dont even practice the art.
 
I do remember a lot of clamor about capoeira being trash too. And then:



Point is how you're able to use a thing depends pretty much entirely on how you practice the thing
 
So I guess wing chun dorks are now going to take credit for a pro MMA fighter that's just messing around with a stupid wing chun wooden dummy. Hahaha.

wing chun is garbage. deal with it, wing chun fan boys.

WC techniques work in mma if trained in live situations. This has been proven. The sport keeps evolving. Deal with it.
So who are we gonna go with, a top ranked mma fighter who actually trains this and has made this work in his fights, or a keyboard warrior hater on sherdog such as yourself? I think we know the answer.

It is about how you train. Spending hours and hours on a wooden dummy practicing WC techniques is not 'messing about', he has clearly learned some and what is more he demonstrates some classic WC in the actual fight, this is evident. He credits it as part of his training so your going to have to revise your beliefs about it. In fact you can see some of the same entries and hand techniques and elbows he trains on the wooden dummy being applied in the fight.

What is also evident is that alot of mma has actually evolved due to the open gloves to actually look like WC in practice ironically which is why it gels so well. When a good fighter does incorporate it we see the overlap.

Hand fighting, 'dirty boxing', parrying, deflections and trapping, close in elbows from different angles and sensitivity at close range. Many of these things have evolved in the mma arena over the last two decades and also trained in Wing Chun. The reason is they developed both based on live fighting although in different contexts so what works has slowly come up again . So there can only be a large contribution WC can make to mma training and technique if trained effectively and it is good to see it.


I do remember a lot of clamor about capoeira being trash too. And then:



Point is how you're able to use a thing depends pretty much entirely on how you practice the thing


Yes this is the truth. And as much is it is cool to see people pull off capoera moves, Wing Chun is not capoera. Can legit see WC becoming the infighting par excellence skill to train in mma especially if Ferguson keeps doing what he is doing.
 
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im not opposed to wing chun, but im not in a fantasy world about it either.

I skimmed through the video, I did not see any wing chun.

The gif posted looked more like sloppy boxing, he really dropped his left hand when throwing the right, and the "elbow" that landed looked alot more like a missed hook, and was primarily forearm, I didnt see wing chun, and I wouldnt call it muay thai either.

i think a someone who is high level wing chun would be very good at trapping the hands. as maxmma already mentioned its nothing new and is used in boxing as well as many other sports. Maybe its not common knowledge like i thought it was but I would say muay thai probably has the most hand fighting, there is a shitload of traps to elbows, traps to punches, pulls to punches, etc. not just from the clinch either.
 
I skimmed through the video, I did not see any wing chun.

The gif posted looked more like sloppy boxing, he really dropped his left hand when throwing the right, and the "elbow" that landed looked alot more like a missed hook, and was primarily forearm, I didnt see wing chun, and I wouldnt call it muay thai either.

i think a someone who is high level wing chun would be very good at trapping the hands. as maxmma already mentioned its nothing new and is used in boxing as well as many other sports. Maybe its not common knowledge like i thought it was but I would say muay thai probably has the most hand fighting, there is a shitload of traps to elbows, traps to punches, pulls to punches, etc. not just from the clinch either.

Maybe dont 'skim through' the vid and you can clearly see ALOT of WC techniques and entries being applied.

The above gif is clearly a downward elbow (or forearm which is still good). If you watch the fight he is trying to land these a lot. Not sure where you got "sloppy boxing where he drops the left hand then misses a hook/overhand".
He drops the left hand to then generate force to close in with a downward diagonal elbow the type trained alot in WC, and if you watch the fight the elbow immediately sliced open the right side of Pettis head (the left side was already cut from another elbow) and contributed to the fight being stopped.

Not sure what your experience of WC is to know what you are seeing but if you have more experience with it you would see how much of what he does is Wing Chun.

I agree with the point about Muay Thai, there is def some overlap with WC techniques in the handfighting and trapping but with some different approaches also. But this should also tell you that if it similar to muay thai in some ways for handfighting and elbows it is being trashed in ignorance by alot of people and it is going to work if trained effectively and bring some more skills and dangerous weapons into mma especially for the infighting range. What we have seen we will see more.
 
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it is going to work if trained effectively

theres useful stuff in every martial art. You can find benefits in yoga for fighting. You can find benefits in Tai Chi for fighting. so on and so forth. I agree that there are some things beneficial to take from wing chun.

gif below: when the right hand is thrown, he drops his left hand all the way to his waist. Ideally you would want to not drop your hand at all, this goes with the saying of "keep your hands up" or dont drop your hands when punching. just as your not supposed to "wind up" your punches, at least in MT, we dont "wind up" our elbows either. from your other gif, it looks like thats how its done in WC. I dont agree with it being thrown that way. lastly the way his "elbow" is thrown looks alot more like a narrowly missed left hook that ended up connecting with mostly his forearm to me. I really dont see a elbow being thrown. you may be aware of the dirty boxing technique of throwing a hook that misses on purpose to land with the forearm/elbow area. The gif looks alot more similar to that to me, than a intentionally thrown elbow.

20181009_193210-gif.452573


If i met someone who was high level wing chun I would definitely pick their brain and try and learn some things from them, i have never met any WC guys though. I have studied it a bit online. lastly as i said before i think some of the stuff could be applied in MT which is why I have a interest in it. I made a video about some hand trapping to elbow techniques here.

 
I don't know, looks like Muay Thai to me. Many of Muangthai's elbows are setup off of hand traps.

 
gif below: when the right hand is thrown, he drops his left hand all the way to his waist. Ideally you would want to not drop your hand at all

his "elbow" is thrown looks alot more like a narrowly missed left hook that ended up connecting with mostly his forearm to me.

agreed, 100%
most of what asian disciplines teach in hand-fighting (Wing Chun/Aikido/Judo/Wushu etc) start from higher hand positions at shoulder/upper chest levels so there is less time spent traveling to the strike
 
Even in white collar boxing I get encouraged when I put my hands on my oponents head to control.
 
WC techniques work in mma if trained in live situations. This has been proven. The sport keeps evolving. Deal with it.
So who are we gonna go with, a top ranked mma fighter who actually trains this and has made this work in his fights, or a keyboard warrior hater on sherdog such as yourself? I think we know the answer.

It is about how you train. Spending hours and hours on a wooden dummy practicing WC techniques is not 'messing about', he has clearly learned some and what is more he demonstrates some classic WC in the actual fight, this is evident. He credits it as part of his training so your going to have to revise your beliefs about it. In fact you can see some of the same entries and hand techniques and elbows he trains on the wooden dummy being applied in the fight.

What is also evident is that alot of mma has actually evolved due to the open gloves to actually look like WC in practice ironically which is why it gels so well. When a good fighter does incorporate it we see the overlap.

Hand fighting, 'dirty boxing', parrying, deflections and trapping, close in elbows from different angles and sensitivity at close range. Many of these things have evolved in the mma arena over the last two decades and also trained in Wing Chun. The reason is they developed both based on live fighting although in different contexts so what works has slowly come up again . So there can only be a large contribution WC can make to mma training and technique if trained effectively and it is good to see it.




Yes this is the truth. And as much is it is cool to see people pull off capoera moves, Wing Chun is not capoera. Can legit see WC becoming the infighting par excellence skill to train in mma especially if Ferguson keeps doing what he is doing.
Get over it. Tony Ferguson doesn't train that wing chun crap. He's just screwing around with the wooden dummy for fun. That's all. Deal with it.
 
Doesn't Roy Nelson have a "master sash" or w.e. in Wing Chun? I know it's some kind of Kung Fu.
 
Get over it. Tony Ferguson doesn't train that wing chun crap. He's just screwing around with the wooden dummy for fun. That's all. Deal with it.

I'm not going to bother replying to you again. Your clearly a clueless keyboard warrior tool, committed to spamming your views on any wing chun related thread that comes up. Sounds like maybe you had a bad experience with WC? Or maybe something about it disturbs you? Either way it doesnt change the facts, Rogan has stated Ferguson trains alot on the dummy, he wouldnt have said that if it wasnt a big part of his training and he knows since they both train with Eddie Bravo. Ferguson's close in style reflects the training and is consistent with footage of him using it and with application of some WC techniques. FACT. Evidence infront of your face, but since you've been parroting the "WC is garbage" line for a while now I expect it to take time to sink in or maybe you'll stay in denial who knows.

gif below: when the right hand is thrown, he drops his left hand all the way to his waist. Ideally you would want to not drop your hand at all, this goes with the saying of "keep your hands up" or dont drop your hands when punching. just as your not supposed to "wind up" your punches, at least in MT, we dont "wind up" our elbows either. from your other gif, it looks like thats how its done in WC. I dont agree with it being thrown that way. lastly the way his "elbow" is thrown looks alot more like a narrowly missed left hook that ended up connecting with mostly his forearm to me. I really dont see a elbow being thrown. you may be aware of the dirty boxing technique of throwing a hook that misses on purpose to land with the forearm/elbow area. The gif looks alot more similar to that to me, than a intentionally thrown elbow.

20181009_193210-gif.452573


If i met someone who was high level wing chun I would definitely pick their brain and try and learn some things from them, i have never met any WC guys though. I have studied it a bit online. lastly as i said before i think some of the stuff could be applied in MT which is why I have a interest in it. I made a video about some hand trapping to elbow techniques here.



Nice vid. The issue here is twofold:
-The style and techniques of a given martial art
-The training methodology (i.e live sparring/pressure testing or not)

As we know, most WC schools do not do the second part, whereas most muay thai schools do. It is the training that makes the techniques much more applicable in real situations.

What we see with Ferguson is an example of taking WC techniques and principles and adding them to his training methodology with excellent results. Because there have been so few attempts to do this with WC thus far it is met with some surprise and even skepticism but that is all it really boils down to. For those of us who have trained it is really not surprising since we always knew the potentials of the system as well as some of the strong similarities to aspects of muay thai and boxing/dirty boxing

With regard to the elbow/forearm above, it was probably his single most damaging strike of the fight so I'm gonna give it to him as a deliberate elbow not an accidental missed overhand that happened to cause devastating damage.

The gif of the WC elbow is from the form so shows full range of motion. In application if your hands are infront of you you never 'wind it up' but come over from where your arm already is. But the principle of the downward diagonal elbow is there. To me it is clear Ferguson is throwing an elbow/forearm to cut as he has already thrown alot of them leading up to this at close range. He may be winding it back abit but it is effective regardless and since Pettis is guard up and defending he can pull it off.

I am also open to the possibility you mentioned that he throws it as a 'dirty boxing' forearm, with the hand coming over as a hook/ overhand then bent in to make it land with the elbow. It would look extremely awkward if he was throwing it as an overhand or hook, but as a forearm it makes sense. In this case it would be not that disimilar to the WC method.
WC is famous for straight punches and also elbows but seldom if ever hooks (although there is a little known hooking punch in the biu jee form). The reason for this is WC was developed for the bareknuckle arena so a hook can likely leads to a broken hand which we discussed on another thread. But as you are probably aware, the mechanics of a hook and elbow strike are similar in alot of ways, depending how you throw either.
I will address the handfighting/trapping similarities and applications later.
 
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At some point we have to stop calling it " this style or that style" its just martial arts to try to limit a move to one art or another art it's just striking.

Wrestling, Bjj, judo it's just grappling.

What makes a move or system effective is if you can use it constantly on multiple types of opponents at live speeds.
 
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I'm not going to bother replying to you again. Your clearly a clueless keyboard warrior tool, committed to spamming your views on any wing chun related thread that comes up. Sounds like maybe you had a bad experience with WC? Or maybe something about it disturbs you? Either way it doesnt change the facts, Rogan has stated Ferguson trains alot on the dummy, he wouldnt have said that if it wasnt a big part of his training and he knows since they both train with Eddie Bravo. Ferguson's close in style reflects the training and is consistent with footage of him using it and with application of some WC techniques. FACT. Evidence infront of your face, but since you've been parroting the "WC is garbage" line for a while now I expect it to take time to sink in or maybe you'll stay in denial who knows.



Nice vid. The issue here is twofold:
-The style and techniques of a given martial art
-The training methodology (i.e live sparring/pressure testing or not)

As we know, most WC schools do not do the second part, whereas most muay thai schools do. It is the training that makes the techniques much more applicable in real situations.

What we see with Ferguson is an example of taking WC techniques and principles and adding them to his training methodology with excellent results. Because there have been so few attempts to do this with WC thus far it is met with some surprise and even skepticism but that is all it really boils down to. For those of us who have trained it is really not surprising since we always knew the potentials of the system as well as some of the strong similarities to aspects of muay thai and boxing/dirty boxing

With regard to the elbow/forearm above, it was probably his single most damaging strike of the fight so I'm gonna give it to him as a deliberate elbow not an accidental missed overhand that happened to cause devastating damage.

The gif of the WC elbow is from the form so shows full range of motion. In application if your hands are infront of you you never 'wind it up' but come over from where your arm already is. But the principle of the downward diagonal elbow is there. To me it is clear Ferguson is throwing an elbow/forearm to cut as he has already thrown alot of them leading up to this at close range. He may be winding it back abit but it is effective regardless and since Pettis is guard up and defending he can pull it off.

I am also open to the possibility you mentioned that he throws it as a 'dirty boxing' forearm, with the hand coming over as a hook/ overhand then bent in to make it land with the elbow. It would look extremely awkward if he was throwing it as an overhand or hook, but as a forearm it makes sense. In this case it would be not that disimilar to the WC method.
WC is famous for straight punches and also elbows but seldom if ever hooks (although there is a little known hooking punch in the biu jee form). The reason for this is WC was developed for the bareknuckle arena so a hook can likely leads to a broken hand which we discussed on another thread. But as you are probably aware, the mechanics of a hook and elbow strike are similar in alot of ways, depending how you throw either.
I will address the handfighting/trapping similarities and applications later.

in my younger days before MMA blew up, i trained at a "kickboxing" gym, that aslo taught other martial arts such as, BJJ, Kali Silat, and JKD. The owner of the gym dated Dan Inosantos daughter for a long time and thus trained with Dan alot. The school was primarily "cardio kickboxing" but they tried to push some JKD as well. Thus I had my stage in my life where I was a Bruce Lee fan boy, I have read the Tao of Jeet Kune Do, and am familiar with stuff like the "straight blast" etc.
 
I'm not going to bother replying to you again. Your clearly a clueless keyboard warrior tool, committed to spamming your views on any wing chun related thread that comes up. Sounds like maybe you had a bad experience with WC? Or maybe something about it disturbs you? Either way it doesnt change the facts, Rogan has stated Ferguson trains alot on the dummy, he wouldnt have said that if it wasnt a big part of his training and he knows since they both train with Eddie Bravo. Ferguson's close in style reflects the training and is consistent with footage of him using it and with application of some WC techniques. FACT. Evidence infront of your face, but since you've been parroting the "WC is garbage" line for a while now I expect it to take time to sink in or maybe you'll stay in denial who knows.



Nice vid. The issue here is twofold:
-The style and techniques of a given martial art
-The training methodology (i.e live sparring/pressure testing or not)

As we know, most WC schools do not do the second part, whereas most muay thai schools do. It is the training that makes the techniques much more applicable in real situations.

What we see with Ferguson is an example of taking WC techniques and principles and adding them to his training methodology with excellent results. Because there have been so few attempts to do this with WC thus far it is met with some surprise and even skepticism but that is all it really boils down to. For those of us who have trained it is really not surprising since we always knew the potentials of the system as well as some of the strong similarities to aspects of muay thai and boxing/dirty boxing

With regard to the elbow/forearm above, it was probably his single most damaging strike of the fight so I'm gonna give it to him as a deliberate elbow not an accidental missed overhand that happened to cause devastating damage.

The gif of the WC elbow is from the form so shows full range of motion. In application if your hands are infront of you you never 'wind it up' but come over from where your arm already is. But the principle of the downward diagonal elbow is there. To me it is clear Ferguson is throwing an elbow/forearm to cut as he has already thrown alot of them leading up to this at close range. He may be winding it back abit but it is effective regardless and since Pettis is guard up and defending he can pull it off.

I am also open to the possibility you mentioned that he throws it as a 'dirty boxing' forearm, with the hand coming over as a hook/ overhand then bent in to make it land with the elbow. It would look extremely awkward if he was throwing it as an overhand or hook, but as a forearm it makes sense. In this case it would be not that disimilar to the WC method.
WC is famous for straight punches and also elbows but seldom if ever hooks (although there is a little known hooking punch in the biu jee form). The reason for this is WC was developed for the bareknuckle arena so a hook can likely leads to a broken hand which we discussed on another thread. But as you are probably aware, the mechanics of a hook and elbow strike are similar in alot of ways, depending how you throw either.
I will address the handfighting/trapping similarities and applications later.
Again, Tony Ferguson doesn't give a fuck about that wing chun crap. Screwing around with a stupid wooden dummy doesn't mean he trains in that useless crap. He was just having fun mocking it cuz he knows wing chun is a laughing stock, just like aikido is a laughing stock.

And since you want to play name dropping by dropping Joe Rogan's name, Joe Rogan said wing chun is useless and it's a waste of time too! Dummy. Hahahaha
 
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