Joaquin Buckley stops Impa Kasanganay with acrobatic kick
Every hardcore MMA fan has that friend who just won’t shut up about how this chop or that technique would clean up in the octagon, right? Mine thinks Steven Seagal and his wrist locks are too deadly, so deadly, that it’s impossible to determine the world’s toughest fighter because he has been excluded from sanctioned competition. (Little did he know the front kick to the face was Seagal’s contribution.)
Point is, certain techniques don’t work in the octagon. We’ve known this since tournaments weeded out S.A.F.T.A. and Pencak Silat. New techniques do arrive on the scene from time to time, but only do they become widely used when they’re effective. That particularly applies to striking. Calf kicks are all the rage because they’re relatively low risk and high impact. We don’t see a whole lot of wheel kicks because they’re more for show than damage. If you want to win, it’s not worth it to get too acrobatic.
