Greatest kick thrown & landed in combat competition?

Striker Fox said:
ySaiXu.gif
Click to expand...

I'd bet a lot of people here don't even know that's Joe lol
 
Not every knockout in this video is a headkick. But there are quite a few in here, and you can pretty much take your pick. My personal favorite kick - and probably my favorite knockout in all of combat sports history - is at number 6. Aerts vs. Jean Claude Leuyer. Edit: the kicks seen in the top two knockouts in this video are right up there.

I used to say Aerts would make grown men look like they were made out of Legos: they'd shatter to pieces when dropped. I can't imagine how hard he was kicking these fighters.

 
Last edited:
the showtime kick was so damn overrated that all the gifs of it cut off premature... to conceal the fact that bendo is immediately back up and fighting because it did literally no damage. It was a slappy foot kick that just caught bendo off balance causing the knock down.

All the showtime kick did was look cool. The amount of damage it did was about as much damage as getting flicked in the face from a pixie fairy's pinkie. Bar none the most overrated kick in history.. the gifs having to cut off early to make it look like it was some kinda KO speaks volumes.. The internet needs to purge every showtime kick gif and replace it with 1 that lasts another few seconds to tell the actual story... that it didn't do any damage whatsoever
 
Get To Da Choppa said:
This is the first time we saw something like this in the UFC, plus the context in which this happened. This was a title fight and Silva seemed beatable after the Chael fight, and Vitor was a tear with 3 straight KOs. People thought it was gonna be a tough fight for Anderson and it seemed like it until he kicked him in the face!

JVOr3G.gif



Plus this epic picture was one of the loading screens in the best MMA game of all time, UFC 3 Undisputed

4baf0fce84c91919b169db4bdbefba68.jpg
Click to expand...
Also Vito had never been KOed
 
gentel said:
joaquin-buckley-ufc.gif


I was so lucky to be watching (online) when this happened live
Click to expand...

Gonna go with this..it's far more situation than the others. It was part of a combo and relied on Kasanganay blocking the first kick and reaching out to grab his leg.
 
Last edited:
TheMMAnalyst said:
That’s one of the dopest rolling thunder kicks I’ve ever seen, but level of competition, rule set, and importance of the fight matters just as much as the technique to be “The Greatest.”
Click to expand...

I disagree.
With those qualifiers only kicks from the UFC or high-level kickboxing are acknowledged.

For example, IMHO this is the greatest football catch ever.



Haters to that opinion will say 'But it wasn't in the NFL or even college. It wasn't for a touchdown.' Doesn't matter. I'm judging strictly based on the catch itself without caring about where, when, who, or what was at stake.
 
GearSolidMetal said:
I disagree.
With those qualifiers only kicks from the UFC or high-level kickboxing are acknowledged.

For example, IMHO this is the greatest football catch ever.



Haters to that opinion will say 'But it wasn't in the NFL or even college. It wasn't for a touchdown.' Doesn't matter. I'm judging strictly based on the catch itself without caring about where, when, who, or what was at stake.
Click to expand...


I wouldn't say UFC or High-Level Kickboxing, I'd take other high-level MMA/Striking Promotions that have existed or still exist so we know the level of competition is relatively high (can at least get some guys that would be UFC or K1 level in them) - Strikeforce, PRIDE, EliteXC, DREAM, Bellator, ONE, Glory, etc.

I don't think anyone will "hate" on that catch as it's unbelievably impressive, but you completely narrow the range of what makes something "great" to a few categories while patently ignoring others. That's fine, it's a subjective thing to rank/rate something in the first place, but if we are being objective in rating any athletic achievement we would use multiple categories and use the overall mean as the baseline rating i.e.

-Creativity (how uniquely conceived was it relative to the situation that developed)
-Difficulty (what type of athleticism and practice/training is required to pull it off)
-Fluidity (how smooth/effortless was it made to look)
-Level of Competition (who was it pulled off against)
-Situation/Stakes (what was to be won or lost in that moment)

Don't get me wrong that's a cool catch, but what is that a random Division II college game for a first down in the first half against a random Division II opponent? Like if I had to rate it 1-10 on each of those categories it would be:

Creativity = 10
Difficulty = 10
Fluidity = 10
Level of Competition = 5
Situation/Stakes = 3
Total = 38 > 7.6

I'd instead call something the "Greatest" like David Tyree's "Helmet Catch" to help win the Super Bowl in the final minute - it wasn't as creative or as difficult (maybe to some, I'd say just slightly less), but the level of competition and stakes were INSANELY higher to degrees that elevate it's overall greatness:

Creativity = 9
Difficulty = 9
Fluidity = 10
Level of Competition = 10
Situation/Stakes = 10
Total = 48 > 9.6

It's why "NFL Films' Steve Sabol called it "the greatest play the Super Bowl has ever produced". The play was also named by NFL Films as "The Play of the Decade (2000s)"." Does anybody know the name of that receiver who made that stunning backflip catch or remember that catch and tell people about it? Seems just like a very impressive catch for the athleticism/difficulty/creativity but no regard for the level of competition or the stakes, which is why it's ultimately been forgotten in the sands of time.

This is even more relevant in fighting sports, since it isn't that impressive to pull off ridiculous techniques on opponents that are defenseless/unathletic/untrained on small regional shows where there is $500 to show/$500 to win at stake.

Showtime pulling off an "Off the Wall" Ninja kick in round 5 of a 2-2 WEC Championship fight against Benson Henderson that's been a crazy war for 23 minutes is leaps and bounds more impressive than some of the super-cool tornado kick KO's we've seen. I personally think the Tornado Kicks are cooler and more devastating technique, but there's a reason we only see it pulled off against opponents that are not very good on smaller shows; you literally have to manufacture the conditions to create the situations for those techniques to even be attempted in the first place, since better opponents would read the set-up and take you down off the spin or just move out of the way laterally.

It's pretty crazy to not care about the where/when/what when factoring these things into consideration, but hey it's a subjective interpretation anyways, so like what you like. Just don't be surprised when you're in the minority because almost everyone else cares about level of competition and stakes when considering such things.
 
TheMMAnalyst said:
I wouldn't say UFC or High-Level Kickboxing, I'd take other high-level MMA/Striking Promotions that have existed or still exist so we know the level of competition is relatively high (can at least get some guys that would be UFC or K1 level in them) - Strikeforce, PRIDE, EliteXC, DREAM, Bellator, ONE, Glory, etc.

I don't think anyone will "hate" on that catch as it's unbelievably impressive, but you completely narrow the range of what makes something "great" to a few categories while patently ignoring others. That's fine, it's a subjective thing to rank/rate something in the first place, but if we are being objective in rating any athletic achievement we would use multiple categories and use the overall mean as the baseline rating i.e.

-Creativity (how uniquely conceived was it relative to the situation that developed)
-Difficulty (what type of athleticism and practice/training is required to pull it off)
-Fluidity (how smooth/effortless was it made to look)
-Level of Competition (who was it pulled off against)
-Situation/Stakes (what was to be won or lost in that moment)

Don't get me wrong that's a cool catch, but what is that a random Division II college game for a first down in the first half against a random Division II opponent? Like if I had to rate it 1-10 on each of those categories it would be:

Creativity = 10
Difficulty = 10
Fluidity = 10
Level of Competition = 5
Situation/Stakes = 3
Total = 38 > 7.6

I'd instead call something the "Greatest" like David Tyree's "Helmet Catch" to help win the Super Bowl in the final minute - it wasn't as creative or as difficult (maybe to some, I'd say just slightly less), but the level of competition and stakes were INSANELY higher to degrees that elevate it's overall greatness:

Creativity = 9
Difficulty = 9
Fluidity = 10
Level of Competition = 10
Situation/Stakes = 10
Total = 48 > 9.6

It's why "NFL Films' Steve Sabol called it "the greatest play the Super Bowl has ever produced". The play was also named by NFL Films as "The Play of the Decade (2000s)"." Does anybody know the name of that receiver who made that stunning backflip catch or remember that catch and tell people about it? Seems just like a very impressive catch for the athleticism/difficulty/creativity but no regard for the level of competition or the stakes, which is why it's ultimately been forgotten in the sands of time.

This is even more relevant in fighting sports, since it isn't that impressive to pull off ridiculous techniques on opponents that are defenseless/unathletic/untrained on small regional shows where there is $500 to show/$500 to win at stake.

Showtime pulling off an "Off the Wall" Ninja kick in round 5 of a 2-2 WEC Championship fight against Benson Henderson that's been a crazy war for 23 minutes is leaps and bounds more impressive than some of the super-cool tornado kick KO's we've seen. I personally think the Tornado Kicks are cooler and more devastating technique, but there's a reason we only see it pulled off against opponents that are not very good on smaller shows; you literally have to manufacture the conditions to create the situations for those techniques to even be attempted in the first place, since better opponents would read the set-up and take you down off the spin or just move out of the way laterally.

It's pretty crazy to not care about the where/when/what when factoring these things into consideration, but hey it's a subjective interpretation anyways, so like what you like. Just don't be surprised when you're in the minority because almost everyone else cares about level of competition and stakes when considering such things.
Click to expand...


A damn fine counter-argument.

In the debate of 'Greatest Kicks In MMA' people usually post kicks that KO the opponent and win the fight.

With Pettis's Ninja Kick I've promoted the argument that it is the greatest kick ever.
Although it didn't KO Henderson it did win him the fight and the championship.

And by the way, my OP was mostly to get the ball rolling with the discussion and everyone to watch that IG clip because it still really is shocking how great of a kick it was. As one IG comment said 'That was the most anime thing I've seen in real life.'
 
SpikeSpiegel said:
Not every knockout in this video is a headkick. But there are quite a few in here, and you can pretty much take your pick. My personal favorite kick - and probably my favorite knockout in all of combat sports history - is at number 6. Aerts vs. Jean Claude Leuyer. Edit: the kicks seen in the top two knockouts in this video are right up there.

I used to say Aerts would make grown men look like they were made out of Legos: they'd shatter to pieces when dropped. I can't imagine how hard he was kicking these fighters.

Click to expand...

You can almost see the cartoon birds circling Esdonk's head as he goes down.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,282,959
Messages
58,472,717
Members
176,047
Latest member
derpmaster3000

Share this page

Back
Top