CLASSIC Stand-up:

Sinister

Sinister

Doctor of Doom
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We always talk about Kickboxing, and Muay Thai, Tae Kwon Do, Kyokushin, etc. A lot of the Arts that current MMA Artists are meaking some degree of headway with in MMA. Sometimes old Arts get overlooked when once they were practiced with stout enthusiasm despite not always having arenas like MMA in which to flourish. Some arenas have thus gone unseen, or have been forgotten over the years where they might lend some ideas to this new generation of fighter looking to add to their game.

With that sentiment in-mind, I give you guys the Golden Age of Sport Karate (anyone with a sense of History will recognize some of the guys in these clips, and some of it is demonstration, yes, but some of it is also competition, full-contact).

Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC662_Yvek0

Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ0kCZbs794

Interesting sub-text, this video was paid for by Elvis Presley...seriously.
 
AMAZING! HOLY CRAP I could die right now! I've been looking for competition footage of the old greats for a while and this clip blows my expectations out of the water.
 
wow, this is a nice throwback, the pioneers of standup competition in martial arts
 
interesting to see karate put into a good light for once. those guys were obviously good but with that said i am glad i take muay thai.
 
What I like is how a lot of them seemed to have no abandon. They just attack. Especially Urquidez, dude was like a buzz-saw back then. And I love when occasionally one of them would get pissed off and toss a back-leg sweep or takedown in there as a counter.
 
Cheers KK.Why did you seem surprised(seriously) about the film being financed by Elvis?He was heavily into the martial arts and received an 8th Dan(I think).He was supposed to be okay but I think that the 8th dan was more about the recognition that he brought to karate due to its inclusion in his movies and the use of it on his stage shows as much for how good he was....kinda like an honoury degree I think?

From what I remember he actually sewed 2 red belts together to show his 'master' status when he received his 8th dan also.
 
Cheers KK.Why did you seem surprised(seriously) about the film being financed by Elvis?He was heavily into the martial arts and received an 8th Dan(I think).He was supposed to be okay but I think that the 8th dan was more about the recognition that he brought to karate due to its inclusion in his movies and the use of it on his stage shows as much for how good he was....kinda like an honoury degree I think?

From what I remember he actually sewed 2 red belts together to show his 'master' status when he received his 8th dan also.
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I wasn't surprised at all. I knew about this video forever ago. Pieces like this and Fighting Black Kings, Don Wilson's early fights, Benny's, Bill Wallace in his youth, Ed Parker, Billy Blanks, Tokey Hill, Keith Hirabayashi (Cooke), these guys are the reasons I started doing Martial Arts.

I just thought a lot of the younger guys around here might be like "Elvis...WTF?"
 
King Kabuki said:
I wasn't surprised at all.

I just thought a lot of the younger guys around here might be like "Elvis...WTF?"
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Yeah its the way that it was phrased about Elvis....I read some of your other stuff and you certainly seem to have been around a while(didnt mean that quite the way it came out) and have a lot of knowledge about martial arts in general and the background.Thats why I was surprised about the Elvis thing...I figured that you would have known about that after seeing your other posts...as you already did.I'm an oldtimer too but a slightly different era(I think and certainly a different country)..I grew up with a dominant British karate team (world champions a few times I think!)And seeing the likes of Jeff Thompson,Alfie Lewis and Kevin Brewerton back in the 80's fight....then along came a skinny upstart called Royce something or other and a lotta things changes...
 
i always knew the eff of karate, its not like the arts have become less feasible; its just that people who have been on the biggest mma stages were not realistically trained or good enough at their art form to be eff.

the ufc had some excellent standup fights w/tma types; but most of them were preliminary fights not shown; an even now certain fighters use tkd/karate moves/backgrounds, st. pierre won his 1st fight w/just karate back ground and frequently uses moves from it (high/mid level/spinning kicks) same w/louiseau. Shonie carter uses the high/switch/low/ spinning backfist in mma successfully. So people just see/hear what they want to.

hell even hackney did ok..beating two people in ufc w/just kenpo striking (not clean but still kenpo based) he even gave royce on of his toughest battles...

i alwasy knew how eff karate/tkd could be i saw tapes/film of my dads training in mlitary continuos knockdown sparring; aggression, tech, offense, toughness, etc. An i saw how he could not train at american schools cus of the contact/etc
 
alot of the hardest guy i have sparred w/were karate based guys who were comfortable and aggressive w/their standup...not to mention tech sharp.

they were aware of other arts and tailored their game to take adv of what they could do physically and openings that would be there for their skills.

i even made a post years ago about a fight i got into w/a guy and every flamed me saying u let a guy who does karate hit u..u must not know anythiung bout standup
 
Ha ha Kabuki....

I'm the only other guy on Sherdog who has also seen 'The Fighting Black Kings!!!!'

Even though only one guy on the video is black and it is just a good demonstration of karate technique in general. I have no idea why they gave it that title.

A lot of the disrespect to Karate (and if you watch the video there were old school TKD guys as well, they are the guys with the black along the lower trim of their dobok) is that they don't know the history. Plus the old school guys were pretty well versed in takedowns (but not really a ground game) as you can see from the old videos.

And Elvis's blackbelt was honorary. He never trained regularly at any one place. But Ed Parker justified it by saying that Elvis (with all the free time he had to train on his own and with other people) was as good as any blackbelt he ever taught.
 
devante said:
alot of the hardest guy i have sparred w/were karate based guys who were comfortable and aggressive w/their standup...not to mention tech sharp.

they were aware of other arts and tailored their game to take adv of what they could do physically and openings that would be there for their skills.

i even made a post years ago about a fight i got into w/a guy and every flamed me saying u let a guy who does karate hit u..u must not know anythiung bout standup
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I'm a karate based guy and many karate based guys have very good and aggressive standup. But we do tend to be vulnerable to the takedown. That certainly throws off the standup quite a bit. In many of the MMA matches the karate guys never got to show what an exciting and fun style they have because they spent the entire match with a guy on their chest while they are thinking, "Okay...what the heck is this?????"

;)
 
That was really cool, I would have liked to see it in normal speed instead of slow motion.

It depends on where you train really, a friend of mine trained shotokan karate in Egypt. He said he got trained like absolute crazy, and keep in mind he was only 10 or 11 at the time. Doing pushups on concrete in the summer, running and sweating etc. etc.

He said once he sparred and kicked the other kid in the teeth. Certainly sounds tougher than most karate thats around in my area.
 
i thought that was urquidez in there. a request though, i'd like to see billy blanks in action before he invented tae-bo.
 
My dad trained Karate for many many years, he learned Shukakai (prob not spelt right) which originated from Japan but had more of a boxing loose legged stance over other traditional styles. He obtained 3rd Dan black belt (which he had to take gradings all over the world) and was taught by a Mr Tomyarma and did very well in national championships. And at 56 id put money he can hit harder than a guy of the same age who trained Muai Thai. An overlooked and underrated Art these days I have much respect for him
 
RandomXMAN said:
AMAZING! HOLY CRAP I could die right now! I've been looking for competition footage of the old greats for a while and this clip blows my expectations out of the water.
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Get the movie, "Fighting of Black Kings". It is a documentary of old full contact karate fighters getting ready for a fight. I remember back in the late 80's there were still some old style full contact karate tournaments around. Now they have the Kyokushin full contact karate , which also lets shorin-ryu, isshin-ryu, kenpo, etc. Basically who ever has the stomach for that sort of thing to fight in. You start to realize real quick what works and what doesn't.

Also, if you can get some of the old fights with Super foot Bill Wallace, or Joe Lewis, those guys were pioneers that basically inspired the beginning of Americanized kickboxing. They didn't allow leg kicks though. Don Wilson was probably one of the best. He is 45 now and just fought Dewey Cooper not to long ago under ISKA full contact rules (code for not allowing leg kicks) He won the fight though. It was cool to see the new style against the old style. There was alot that they did that worked. If you ever have to fight in a parking lot, you can win the fight without ever getting hit using a good side kick and high roundhouse.(see Crocop)
 
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