We really went through a lot of weird stuff this year, huh?
It’s the final one of these for the year, and it’s been a nice first year for this feature out here. We’ve got a bit of action for you to scratch that combat sports itch while things slow down for a bit, and we’d like to take the opportunity to thank you for continuing to be a part of this community.
With all the niceties out of the way, let’s get to the part where people rock each other’s dome with precision and fury.
We go back to our guy Jerry over at Fight Commentary Breakdowns, delivering more wild snippets from the more traditional side of martial arts.
We start off with Qi La La, whom Jerry has done various videos on. Qi is a Wing Chun practitioner that is attempting to make his style more suitable for modern competition against other fighting forms, and it’s been an interesting thing to see him go through this process over time.
He’s up against a boxer first, then a Muay Thai practitioner, then a Bajiquan fighter. All of them are fairly simple affairs, neither party going too hard. As to the question of just how effective this all is, it’s kind of up in the air. He could just train these other disciplines, but he’s all about expanding what he has. He’s trying, though. Got to respect that.
Then Jerry treats us to another round of bad self-defense advice, and whether or not it’s better to just operate off instinct instead of terrible, terrible technique.
Next up, we’ve got Karate Combat doing their year-end roundups. I’m not sure how they don’t have more exposure, but a lot of the action has been delivering hard:
And a recap of their latest Hollywood event:
Really looking forward to more of this in 2022, as they’ve truly found their footing from an action and production standpoint.
Now we move on to one of my favorite new combat sport properties this year, African Warriors Fighting Championship. They’ve also got a partial highlight of all the hard-hitting action this year:
And as a bit of a bonus, some highlights from a previous wrestling match that got rough in a hurry:
But remember, Nigeria’s also home to Dambe Warriors. They’ve still got a stable of tough fighters working the most minute details of moment to moment combat. Here’s a tight fight that stays close and even has an intermission, but ends with a heartbreaker after being so razor-thin.
Next, it’s STRELKA again. We’ve got some David vs Goliath bouts, and they’re… not great. This match features a guy that weighs 120kg, which is supposed to be impressive, I guess? This is America, we don’t know how to translate that. Dude could be 200lbs or 750 stones, you’re not gonna pay me enough to do the damn math. He fights a smaller dude. Neither guy looks like they’ve had much training.
Still kinda fun, though. Don’t believe me? Watch this goofy mess:
But this second one is just sad. Labeled “FIGHTER vs FAT MAN“, it is another baffling video title from these guys. What is the fighting discipline here? What kind of fighter? Is the fat man’s fighting style predicated on being fat? Because that would get me excited, you have no idea.
Alas, we have the same fascinating formula of clumsy clashes, sloppy clinchwork, and legit technique to end the affair:
Finally, we’ve got the tireless work of Chris Sumo, as he collects a bounty of extraordinary Sumo highlights. It’s art from top to bottom.
That’s it for this year, kids. Let’s hope next year isn’t as dog poop as this one was. And remember – you might think you can fight, but there are many guys like you all over the world.