Midnight Mania! A Toe In The Taint?!?

Bringing you the weird and wild from the world of MMA each and every weeknight! Midnight Mania…
Emphasis on weird. Emphasis on wild.
Last Saturday (June 22, 2019), Bellator 223 went down in London, shaking up the sport a bit when grapplin…

Bringing you the weird and wild from the world of MMA each and every weeknight!

Midnight Mania…

Emphasis on weird. Emphasis on wild.

Last Saturday (June 22, 2019), Bellator 223 went down in London, shaking up the sport a bit when grappling ace Rafael Lovato Jr upset Gegard Mousasi in an excellent five-round war. Elsewhere on the card, Melvin Manhoef swung for the fences, and some English prospects looked to gain a bit of acclaim on their home turf.

However, the most Bellator moment of the card occurred long before Mousasi walked to the cage. During the preliminary portion of the event, Jorge Kanella delivered an illegal kick to the butt region of opponent Alfie Davis. See for yourself:

Kanella lost a point for his actions, but it wasn’t immediately clear what rule specifically he violated. Luckily, legendary referee John McCarthy took to Twitter to explain the finer points of toe-in-butt penalties.

While I always knew attacking the spin and base of the head was illegal, I wasn’t aware the tailbone was included in that rule, though it does make sense. At any rate, Davis ended up victorious despite the foul, and his reflections on the trauma is perhaps my favorite part of the whole ordeal. Transcription courtesy of MMAJunkie:

“It was like, the bum, right at the bottom of the balls. If you’re standing up with someone on the floor, you do not go straight line like that. You’re never taught that because it’s a foul. … It slid up. So when I stood up, it was right in the gooch. It’s normally pleasurable for a man, isn’t it? The gooch. We all enjoy the gooch, but not when you’re getting kicked straight in it.”

Ultimately, Davis gets the win, some additional fame, and clearly a bit of a laugh. All’s well that ends well? There is something of a precedent in Bellator history…

Insomnia

Henry Cejudo is angling for some kind of fight with Vasyl Lomachenko, and the expert boxer has recently been training Muay Thai in Thailand. Coincidence?

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Monday training Lesson 2 thanks brother @mehdizatout

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Using my skills of inference, I believe either Max Griffin or Niko Price is next for Mike Perry.

A bit of highlights from the weekend’s goofiest — and most popular according to our numbers — event.

Speaking of…

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Mike Chandler is out here making the rest of us look silly with his stupid levels of athleticism.

Great comparison from the Muay Thai legend.

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Training same way I fight

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While on the topic of Muay Thai, check out what the doc has to say on strengthening the shins for kicking. From personal experience, my shins feel fairly strong, but I’m still hoping the tops of my feet manage to toughen up more. Nothing worse than smacking your foot/toes on an elbow or knee — it’s awful.

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Understanding Shin conditioning ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Muay thai fighters are notorious for having “shins of steel” and use their shins simultaneously as weapons and shields. How do muay thai kickboxers develop such strong shins? . ??Physiology of cortical remodeling: Wolff’s law states that bone tissue will adapt to stress placed on it. In the case of muay thai repetitive stress from kicking and checking will cause microtrauma to the tibia. The microtrauma is similar to what happens to muscle tissue when someone lifts heavy weights but at a much slower rate. When microtrauma occurs osteoblasts/osteoclasts are sent to the site to address the physical stress. Osteoclasts breakdown the damaged bone tissue while osteoblasts deposit new bone. When the bone mass reforms the bone will have increased density at the site of stress. . How to incorporate in your training: The most important lesson is to stress the bone APPROPRIATELY?? ?The safest method is repetitively kicking pads/heavy bag as well as drilling/sparring while wearing shinguards. This creates enough of a stimulus for adaption to occur without excessive damage. ?If a novice kickboxer kicks a hard tree they may cause macrotrauma / stress bone fractures to the shin. Banana trees in Thailand are fairly rubbery, so just because you see a famous thai fighter kick a tree does not mean you should?? . Other methods, such as bottle rolling and stick tapping on the shin is not a good idea. The general consensus is to use something that is softer than the bone. Remember your body has to adapt to the stress so stressing the body more than necessary does not mean you will reach your goal faster. Cortical remodeling is a long process. . I have not found any specific studies on pain reduction for muay thai fighters. A common theory is that kickboxers are ‘deadening’ the nerves in the tibia, but more likely it is just an increased pain tolerance from years of training the art and adrenaline from a fight. . Having properly conditioned shins allow you to use your legs more effectively both offensively and defensively.

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Days ahead of Francis Ngannou’s main event slot, the French minster of sports has announced professional MMA to be legalized at the start of the 2020.

Slips, Rips, and KO clips

A pair of highlights from this weekend that ended in very similar, brutal fashion. Neither man looked ready to return to combat after the first drop.

All fighters are guilty of it to some degree, but another example of why blocking a high kick with one arm is a bad idea.

Pretty brutal rear naked choke given the torque on the trapped arm.

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What would you call this brutal submission?

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Random Land

This is absolutely top-notch, God bless Russia for its contributions to the internet. Admittedly, the skinny kid with the knee sleeve is completely useless, which essentially brought this back to a one-on-one slugfest. Still, it’s worth-watching several times.

Tonight’s Midnight Mania was brought together in part by the powerful Chicago blues of Muddy Waters’ At Newport 1960.

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.