Midnight Mania! Watch Brutal Arm Break From Lion Fight 57!

Photo by Williams Paul/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

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

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Lion Fight 57 went down last Saturday, and in the main event, England’s Salah Khalifa was awarded a close decision victory over highlight reel machine Eddie Abasolo. Before the main event, however, a hard right kick from Magalie Alvarez slammed into the forearm of Andy Nguyen.

Those with a stern stomach can watch below:

Combat sports are often a high-stakes game of inches, particularly when discussing fighters who kick extremely hard, and this is another such example. Had Alvarez’s kick come up a bit shorter and landed foot on elbow, she would very likely be hobbling back to her corner with her own broken bone. Instead, her shin landed as intended, and Nguyen’s block resulted in the kick landing just above the elbow.

The same game is played when fighters look to check kicks with the knee.

In kickboxing/Muay Thai/MMA, fighters are generally taught to block kicks with both hands, ideally while also stepping off to the side to avoid the full impact. Sometimes, however, a fighter is simply caught off guard and have to put up some line of defense — this is one of the worst-case scenarios to such a situation!

It’s also worth-noting that MMA judges don’t seem to understand the impact of a blocked kick. Similarly, it’s an overlooked aspect when looking at significant strike numbers. In either case, absorbing a full power kick to the forearms hurts badly and can really slow an opponent’s punches down. It’s rarely as simple as pretending the strike was blocked without consequence.

Insomnia

Team Alpha Male’s Dwight Joseph will make an appearance on tomorrow night’s Contender Series. He’s an extremely friendly guy and hard worker, so check out his story below:

He’s also goddamn infamous around the gym for taking the longest showers and holding the line up. A couple years ago, we finally figured out why!

The gimmick worked…

… and the performance itself was record-setting!

Lastly, a pretty wild fact about the two Welterweight kings:

I guess Cain Velasquez’s knees still work, which is great to see!

Heavyweight sparring is tense stuff:

A gladiator in his element! If you haven’t been following Joe Benavidez and Megan Olivi’s Instagram stories of wondrous Italian food and art, you’re missing out.

Slips, rips, and KO clips

A 10-finger guillotine lifts its victim way up high:

Low kick stoppages are the most brutal way to go down.

Body-head!

Random Land

A few germaphobes (read: cowards) in the comments are freaking out, but this is super cool!

Midnight Music: August 5th, 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of The Stooges’ self-titled debut album. Iggy Pop and The Stooges — with the help of Velvet Underground’s John Cale as producer — released a proto-punk classic that day, and it holds up well even if their next two albums are better known. The opening riff below is simply incredible, heavy and hard-hitting. Plus, the group of misfits had the audacity to include what’s basically a 10-minute drone track right in the middle of the LP. Awesome!

Sleep well Maniacs! There’s always more martial arts madness on the way.