The Kung Fu stuff is sadder than usual this week, but the palate cleansers are so worth it.
Are you ready for your weekly dose of fringe violence? You’d better be.
Where do we begin? Why, where we usually do: Fight Commentary Breakdowns. I swear, it’s like Jerry never runs out of wild things submitted to him. Look, the purpose of his segment and of his channel has never been to make fun of traditional martial arts or its representatives in situations where they end up looking bad, but… wow.
Just.. wow.
I’ll summarize this one thusly: two old heads were going at each other online for about a year. Having an IRL “Meet me in Temecula“ moment, they decided to have their worlds collide in an honest-to-God gym and give each other the treatment. One of them is a “boxing enthusiast,” while the other is a “Tai Chi Master.”
See what just happened there? There’s a reason both of them have quotation marks around their respective backgrounds. It’s the one thing they have in common. Turns out, neither guy can really fight worth a damn.
Also notice their age. How old are they? Grown. That’s how old.
Peep the inverse windmill punch at ~2:18, where the dude in the white shirt tries to work in some technique cribbed from either Roger or Roger Jr. (and his mama). There’s nothing redeeming here. As much as I’d like to find some sliver of anything approaching a teachable moment. The only one I can take from this is stop arguing online with other people. That’s embarrassing. Both of these cats are old enough to know better.
You know what’s worse than finding out your dad’s been engaging in petty feuds online? Having to see him on Weezy Jefferson’s internet getting his ass beat by a guy that fights just as poorly as he does. There’s better ways to get your cardio in and settle your infantile squabbles, so don’t let this be you when you get to this big age.
Karate Combat is giving so much action, and this time we’ve got a pair of wonderful examples to demonstrate what caliber of talent they’ve got. First up, a recap of their recent middleweight title fight:
There’s also a nice little collection of moments where fighters are pinned against the pit wall. It creates way more tension than you might think.
Sambo FIAS had one that really warmed my heart. Haiti officially held their first national Sambo championship recently, and the highlights were pretty great:
Oh, but there’s more. Here’s some top technique clips that include some legit jaw-droppers:
Strelka simply refuses to stop putting on fights, and they never run out of people looking to test themselves out there. This one has a guy they’re calling Death Machine. Not sure I’d go so far to lean on that “Death“ part or whatever, but dude is worth the hype. This is some bonkers action bundled up in a very brief window of time:
This one is not quite as cut and dry. I know what a Cossack is, but I neither know nor care to find out what a Tashkent is for the time being. I do know that these two really brought some grit and aggression to it.
Finally, a pair of satisfying Lethwei bouts for your pleasure. Here’s the first one, with two guys you might not expect to be able to beat dudes up mercilessly:
And this competitive and riveting bout:
And remember – you might think you can fight, but there are many guys like you all over the world.