Nate Marquardt, Tarec Saffiedine and the 10 Most Brutal Leg-Kick Performances

There’s nothing else quite like one MMA fighter beating another fighter by way of leg kick.It’s not glamorous. But it’s visceral. You are “chopping him down.” When it’s effective, you see the damage just like you’d see a broken nose or a facial cut. An…

There’s nothing else quite like one MMA fighter beating another fighter by way of leg kick.

It’s not glamorous. But it’s visceral. You are “chopping him down.” When it’s effective, you see the damage just like you’d see a broken nose or a facial cut. And you can feel those shots, too. Or at least I can; if you watch a brutal enough leg-kick performance, sometimes you start walking with a sympathy limp. 

So last Saturday night, when Tarec Saffiedine fed the Hamburglar through a blender and festooned the resulting slurry over Nate Marquardt’s thigh to become the final Strikeforce welterweight champ, it got some of us here in the Bleacher Report newsroom thinking about classic leg-kick performances.

Here’s the list that resulted. 

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