UFC Macao: Kicks & How Not To Catch Them

The UFC traveled to the land of Sanda and we were treated to some crafty idiosyncrasies from the Chinese martial art involving kicking and catching kicks.

Any UFC card in China means two things - those of us in North America get a taste of what the late nights are like for European fight fans, and we’re probably going to see a lot of side kicks.

These cards tend to be filled with fighters from a Sanda background, which makes liberal use of the teep’s odder, rarer cousin. Sanda is a competition format for various Wushu and Kung-Fu styles, and their heavily bladed stances harken back to that lineage. With the lead foot turned heavily inward, teeps are made awkward and it becomes more natural to draw the knee straight up, before trying to stab the heel through the opponent’s tummy.

But the side kick serves another practical purpose in a hybrid kickboxing/wrestling sport where much effort is dedicated to catching kicks and converting them into takedowns. The side kick is one of the more difficult kicks to catch. While rounds kicks and linear kicks with the toes pointed forward can end up caught on retraction, the heel acting as a handle for the opponent to grip, side kicks turn the heel to the side where it stays out of their grasp. You’ll rarely see side kicks caught with an errant grab, instead they typically require a more intentional, well-timed catch akin to clutching a football.

It came as no surprise that we saw quite a few side kicks from the Chinese fighters on the card. One of the more interesting uses came from Wang Cong, who established a powerful side kick to push her opponent to the fence, before hopping in and picking up the leg as if to kick the body again before going upstairs with it. At 0:18 of the clip above, you’ll note that Cong takes two hops in, turning her planting foot inward a bit more with each hop, which gives her hip room to fully drive up to the head as her leg extends.

But Cong’s fight also gave us a look at the downsides of a common Sanda technique in the cross catch.

The Most Dangerous Catch

When catching kicks, traditionally the kick is taken on the same-side arm while the opposite arm scoops under and traps the leg between them. Shamil Musaev demonstrates:

If you follow Muay Thai, you’ve seen this a thousand times. Since the arm on the side of the kick is kept up near the head, it results in the safest catching option, since you’ll take the kick on the forearm even if the catch fails. However, even if the kick succeeds, you’ve just been smashed in the arm and now you’re left holding the leg at its very end, where it can be quickly ripped away. Converting on this type of catch is far from a guarantee - you’ll often see Thais trade kicks and catches, dropping the leg and firing back, only to have their return caught as well.

Enter the cross catch, which is a far more risky option, but leads to a near guaranteed conversion. Common in traditional martial arts like Karate, but also widely employed in Sanda, the cross catch reverses the position of the hands. The far arm swings across to block the kick, while the near arm scoops under.

With the arm on the same side as the kick scooping underneath, the kicking leg ends up shelved on top of the shoulder. There are a number of easy finishes from there, but all that’s really necessary is to run forward and let the kicker fall over. It ends up resembling a treetop finish to a single leg takedown, but with a much better grip to elevate the leg.

However, the downsides are immediately apparent once you see this sort of catch executed. Since the arm that usually protects the face is held low, failing to bring the opposite arm across in time means giving the opponent a free shot at perhaps the highest percentage fight-ending blow in combat sports. The far arm can be a problem too, as it can easily find itself in an unstable position and end up compromised when the shin slams into it.

Cong’s opponent, Gabriella Fernandes, had been attempting head kicks all fight, but Cong would just lean back smoothly and let them fall short. Midway through the second round she tried to mix it up, however, looking to toss Fernandes to the mat by catching her kick.

A slight hip feint gives Fernandes an edge and Cong times her catch poorly, running head first into the shin with no forearm in place to cushion the blow. While Cong was dominating the fight up to this point, the clean head kick gave Fernandes a big enough opportunity to pounce on, quickly dropping Cong again and choking her clean out.

Strangely, the Macao event also gave us an example of a perfectly executed cross catch for comparison. No discussion of Sanda in MMA is complete without mentioning Muslim Salikhov. A five time world Sanda champion, Salikhov is the front runner for the greatest Sanda practitioner of all time. His background in Sanda has carried him to a surprisingly succesful UFC career despite entering way after his prime and being the oldest athlete on any card involving him.

When Kenan’s head kick comes, Salikhov first raises his left arm like he’s about to cross it over, but immediately recognizes he doesn’t have the time and instead lurches forward. He doesn’t use the far arm at all, but he covers enough ground to jam the kick, getting his shoulder under the knee and his head outside the most dangerous arc of the lower shin. The catch can be similarly executed without the stopping forearm by circling away from the kick’s arc while scooping under with the near hand, but time it even slightly wrong at your own peril.

The key here is Salikhov’s eyes and honed reactions. He’s perfectly aware of the distance and recognizes he has time to beat the kick by stepping into it, where Cong is late to the punch and ends up plowing into the kick from a range where she’d be better off leaning back. If you go and watch some highlights of Salikhov in Sanda, you’ll see he’s a master of this and can pull it off consistently without getting himself beaned.

As a final note on the cross catch, top Muay Thai fighter, Kumandoi Petchyindee, has a unique and ballsy variation on the theme:

Instead of bothering with woke nonsense like blocking kicks, Kumandoi simply storms forward diagonally with his favorite left hook while keeping his rear hand at his belt line. The hope is that if his opponent throws a kick or knee, his forward movement will jam it and the kick will fall onto his scooping rear hand, where he can then toss his man to the floor. It looks stupid and like he’s just being sloppy, but he does it consistently enough that there’s obvious intention behind it.

When Kumandoi’s hulk toss works, it ends up looking very cool, but the corollary is that it will get you kicked in the head a lot. In fact, Kumandoi does get kicked in the head, a lot, and often loses fights to southpaws who can diguise their high kicks well. I wouldn’t try this one at home.

But while Salikhov’s kick catch provided a neat little flourish of Sanda nous, his finish a moment later far eclipsed it. Salikhov put heel to jaw in a gorgeous spinning hook kick that robbed Song Kenan of his consciousness.

Unlike a wheel kick, which attacks the space beside an opponent in a wide arc, the spinning hook kick keeps the leg straight until the last moment when it hooks around the guard, catching the jaw. While the tighter trajectory makes it less useful for cutting off a rapidly circling opponent, it makes the kick sync perfectly with the quick spinning back kick that Salikhov had established earlier in the fight. The delivery on the spinning hook kick looks identical to the spinning back kick to the body, until just before the heel slams into the jaw.

Also of interest is the way Salikhov set up his knockout blow. As Kenan leaped into a jab, Salikhov bounced back out of range and reset, using a cross step to circle back toward Kenan and re-engage. Cross steps are a great way to enter into a spin, as the lead leg stepping across the rear hides the turn of the hips. Salikhov managed to get Kenan opening up his stance to turn with him just before initiating the kick, which further concealed it.

Everything about the finish was very typical of the Russian style of Sanda, from the short spinning back kick that doesn’t follow through into the opposite stance, to the cross-stepping setup. You can see all the same aspects in the skillset of Shamil Musaev, a PFL standout and Salikhov’s teammate on the Russian national Sanda team. In my article Shamil Musaev's Powerful Anti-Wrestling, I go into more depth on the value of the Sanda-style spinning back kick and his cross step setups.

Odds and Ends

There were a couple moments from earlier in the card worth mentioning too, as the theme of kicking displays seemed to permeate the entire event.

Zhang Mingyang is a fighter with a wild Tapology page, coming off an eleven-fight win streak despite being 18-6 in his MMA career. And what’s more, every single win for Mingyang has come via first round finish. His fight against Ozzy Diaz this weekend was no different, as he needled Diaz with calf kicks on the outside before finishing him with an intercepting elbow.

Mingyang didn’t face too much resistance on his calf kicks, but he quickly used them to attack the jab of Diaz, smashing the leg as it became weighted to step into the jab. Diaz was forced to take more risks and expose himself, which led directly to Mingyang’s knockout. It was a reminder that controlling kicking range can serve a counter fighter very well by goading the opponent forward onto their heavier blows.

There was a crafty kicking battle on the prelims between Jose Ochoa and Lone'er Kavanagh, a vaunted Cage Warriors prospect making his UFC debut. The 25 year old Kavanagh out-kicked the longer Ochoa with speed and sharp setups on the outside, but there was one flashy technique that stood out:

After spending all fight hopping into quick body kicks and looking to sneak head kicks in on the jaw of Ochoa, Kavanagh found his own spinning hook kick in the final seconds. He added a new dynamic to the kick by throwing it off a shift, however.

Salikhov’s spinning hook kick came from a closed stance engagement with both fighters in an orthodox stance, so the rear leg naturally fell on his opponent’s open side as he spun. But with Ochoa fighting out of southpaw, a simple spinning hook kick would attack the side of the jaw protected by the shoulder. The little switch step that preceeded Kavanagh’s spinning hook kick put his left leg in the rear, where it was lined up with Ochoa’s open side. But the switch step also looked similar to his round kicks to the body and head. Ochoa saw the switch step and raised his leg to check what appeared to be a middle kick, only to eat the heel as he was on one leg.

Check back later this week where I’ll break down Petr Yan vs Deiveson Figueiredo for premium subscribers.

For more crafty Sanda tactics, check out Tactical Guide to the Sanda World Championships:

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