42 seconds in combat. Wow. More on that in a moment…
Welcome to Karate Combat and Inception Miami
April 26 in Miami saw the inaugural fight card for the newly formed Karate Combat league. Aptly named #inceptionMiami, the league promised top karateka engaged in full contact sparring.
And they delivered.
As I wrote in my piece introducing the league, Karate Combat is still in its infancy and they have a few tweaks to make. I give them high marks for their showmanship, even if having the fighters
arrived in chauffeured Rolls Royces was a bit hokey and over the top.
But once you look past this bit of cheese, the core of this combat league becomes visible and it’s solid.
Before I get to the matches, I want to introduce you to my friend and fellow karateka, Eric Kastengren. He and I will be co-writing reviews of the different fight cards coming up with Karate Combat. Sometimes we will agree, sometimes we won’t, and sometimes you may just wish we stopped writing!
Here’s Eric’s take on the league…
I’ve kind of missed the boat on the whole MMA thing. Well, missing the boat probably isn’t the right way to put it. More like I got off before it left the first port.
The last time I followed it was when I was in college. One of the first UFC matches coincided with my brown belt testing. The after-testing party was at my house off campus, and we sat back and watched as several different styles went head to head and we compared and contrasted what they were doing to what we were studying. There were shouts of “hey that was cool” interlaced with “hey I can do that!”
After a time, and this may be “crabby old man” syndrome on my part, but that became less and less about the “art” part of martial arts and more who could trash talk the best. I’d watch it if it was on somewhere, but I wouldn’t seek it out.
My friend and fellow karateka gave me a heads up about Karate Combat and asked me to give it a watch. For the most part, I am glad that I did. I’m going to break this up into a couple of
sections. If you haven’t read a previous article here with a link to the rules, please do. I don’t want to dive too deep into those and get all verbose on everyone.
In the overall sense, here’s what I liked:
I liked the ruleset and the scoring a lot. I appreciated the fact that scoring on good, clean strikes and kicks were encouraged. The fact that a well-landed kick received even greater weight made me even happier. Good kicking technique is something that I think hasn’t been emphasized as much lately and I’d love to see that come more to the forefront.
I would also like to stand up and applaud whoever came up with the 5-second rule for throws, grappling, takedowns, and tying up your opponent. This not only takes away one way for a tired opponent to slow the pace, but I think it also encourages good form and technique for the allowed throws. The few times I saw a throw pulled off, it was good and clean. When it didn’t work, instead of just trying to muscle through the throw with brute force you had to break off and try something else. That loss of momentum and initiative I see as a form of penalty for either a bad setup or bad technique for a throw. Speaking of throws, the rules for the grounded fighter and the standing fighter I think are outstanding. For one, 5 seconds is enough. Secondly, if I wanted to watch two people ground pounding the crap out of one another I’d go watch UFC. This is a differentiator between the two and I am all for it. Even though this is full contact doesn’t mean we don’t respect and like our opponent. Kumite is all about learning even if you win or lose. For me, a lot of that respect is lost when you allow unfettered beating to go on. I think it also allows a loss with dignity.
The conduct and demeanor of the fighters in Karate Combat made me especially happy. For the most part, there was not the theatrics of who can act like the biggest jerk that made me stop watching MMA. I can’t emphasize enough how heartened I was about that. We go on and on about respect to our fellow martial artists, and they walked that walk. Not once did I see sour grapes, and on more than one occasion I saw genuine respect and concern for well being.
Even the commentators were a fresh sight. All commentators are there to add color, and personally, I find them to get rather old rather fast; I found these critiques to be pretty spot on. On more than one occasion, when I found myself saying “man, you don’t want to keep doing that…” one of those two would come out and say it. In addressing some criticism about the ruleset on no elbows or knees, one announcer brought up having control of one’s self. If you can’t follow these rules then you don’t have control, and isn’t control part of what we do? Like I said, a bit refreshing.
If I have to be critical, the one thing I could have done without was the whole entrance gimmick with the Rolls Royces. It was a bit more campy than I thought necessary. Minor, but irritating nonetheless.
First Fight – Spyros Margaritopolous (Greece) v Mohamed Salem Mohamed (Mauritania)
Margaritopolous:
- American Karate
- 5’9″
- Arm reach of 30″
- Kick reach of 37″
Ibrahim:
- Shotokan
- 5’8″
- Arm reach of 35″
- Kick reach of 43″
Rob Domaschuk (RD):
Before this match started, I heard that Mohamed said he didn’t study his opponent but, at the pre-fight meeting, remarked that Margaritopolous looked like a punching bag. I wondered if those
words would come back to bite him, and they did.
Mohamed had a slight height advantage at 6’2″ over Margaritopolous’ 6’1″ but close enough to not be a real concern for either. However, Margaritopolous carries a 4″ advantage on the reach and that would certainly come into play with this match.
For me, the real question was whether Mohamed’s Shotokan training would stand up to Margaritopolous’ Wadu Ryu training.
Margaritopolous came out swinging right from the bell and managed to trip up Mohamed within the first five seconds. And that was how the first round went. Mohamed certainly was able to block a lot of the attacks and he was obviously trying to wait for an opening and for Margaritopolous to make a mistake. But that never really happened in the first round.
The second round brought much of the same, with Mohamed being on defense more often than not and that’s simply not going to win a match. And it didn’t. With a beautiful left strike to the chin of Mohamed, Margaritopolous earned the TKO in the second.
When I went back and watched the match again later, it struck me that Mohamed’s critical mistake seemed to be in his posture. For a large percentage of the match, he can be seen leaning back away from Margaritopolos and was never really in any position to come in aggressively.
A good first match but one that was dominated by Spyros Margaritopolous the entire time.
Eric Kastengren (EK):
Three things come to mind for me in this first match: terrain, balance, and moving off of center. The terrain and balance part go hand in hand. The sloped walls are deceptive in luring you to gain
a higher elevation and for more power in a strike down from above onto an opponent. However, working to get up to that point resulted in many times in a loss of balance and that loss of balance resulted in a loss of initiative. You’ll see something similar to this in the 4th match.
As far as moving off of center, I felt that most of that fight was very linear as far as footwork and body positioning goes. Neither one would move off to the side, or just turn a foot slightly to
gain a different angle on one another. It was almost as if, after the bell, they were always squared up on one another and made a straight line to the corner. I work all the time on moving my body
slightly off center so my opponent does not have a clean shot on me. I find myself always falling into squaring up, and my footwork is always in a straight line with my opponent’s center. I’m not
fast or lean so I need to use every advantage I can get, and I think seeing this makes that argument.
Second fight – Josh Quayhagen (USA) v Abdella Ibrahim (Egypt)
Quayhagen:
- American Karate
- 5’9″
- Arm reach of 30″
- Kick reach of 37″
Ibrahim:
- Shotokan
- 5’8″
- Arm reach of 35″
- Kick reach of 43″
RD:
The second match started out a lot more evenly than the first, with both fighters showing an ability to deliver high kicks and lightning fast strikes. But it was Ibrahim that came on more powerfully and showed a willingness to throw great kick combinations that seemed to quickly get Quayhagen on the defensive.
And, sure enough, a quick right, left combination set up Ibriham to finish Quayhagen with a solid right straight punch to win with a knock out halfway through the first round.
Post-fight review and watching the fight again revealed Quayhagen having the same flaw that Mohamed had in the first fight; a tendency to lean the upper body away without moving the feet back at the same time. This results in being off balance and that just makes it too difficult to come back in to counter.
EK:
(I’m putting my thoughts on fights 2 & 3 together)
These were short and I had to go back to these a couple of times to find the lesson. Keep your guards up. If your hands are down low they have a long way to travel to guard your head. They gambled with hand positioning and lost. While we are talking about these two matches, let me reiterate how I like the rule about a grounded fighter. I appreciated the officials stopping those immediately after the “finish” by the standing fighter. While I thought the 3rd match could have continued, if the standing fighter actually followed through with the finish it’d be an entirely different story.
Third fight, Co-Main Event – Dionicio Gustavo (Dominican Republic) v Alexandre Bouderbaine (France)
Gustavo:
- Shitoryu
- 5’9″
- Arm reach of 35″
- Kick reach of 44″
Bouderbaine:
- Shitoryu
- 5’7″
- Arm reach of 27″
- Kick reach of 39″
RD:
42 Seconds. Wow.
I think the best way for me to sum up this match is with the three tweets I managed to fire off during the match:
- Can I finish typing my tweets before you get the TKO?
- Was going to say that I thought Bouderbane was coming in too aggressively. And then Gustavo takes advantage. 42 seconds? New record?
- Did they even have time to get the Rolls Royces back to the end of the street?
Seriously though, Bouderbaine must have been watching the first two matches and saw how the fighter who comes in aggressively seems to have the advantage. But, as my tweet said, I thought he came in too aggressively. Gustavo had an 8″ reach advantage and that definitely came into play in this incredibly short match. It was an impressive knockout, though, especially in a match involving two fighters from the same style of karate.
My lesson in this? Take a few seconds to measure up your opponent before committing to going all in.
Fourth fight, Co-Main Event – Elhadji Ndour (USA) v Andras Virag (Hungary)
Ndour:
- Shotokan
- 6’3″
- Arm reach of 33″
- Kick reach of 44″
Virag:
- Shotokan
- 6’0″
- Arm reach of 31″
- Kick reach of 40″
RD:
One of the first things I noticed was that, before the night started, there were two “co-main events” but by the time this fourth match started, Karate Combat was billing this as THE main event. Possibly hoping that this match would last longer than 42 seconds.
It did.
This match went the full three rounds with Ndour winning with a unanimous decision of 30-27 over Virag. I think the Ndour really controlled the match the entire way through. Virag battled back
several times and this was definitely the highlight match of the card.
Ndour took charge in round one although Virag demonstrated his skill in executing throws near the end of the round. Had the round lasted 30 seconds longer, I think Virag would have managed to gain another couple of points as he was finding his stride when the bell rang.
But with the round ending, Virag didn’t have the chance to get comfortable in that stride.
However, as the second round progressed, Virag kept going back to the clinch and the throw. Ndour seemed to be picking up on that and mostly managed to keep Virag at bay with repeated front kicks and straight punches. And, just as Virag ended the first round as the aggressor, Ndour finished off the second round being in control.
But it was the third round that, I think, sealed the win for Ndour. Virag was cut about halfway through the third. His confidence seemed shaken by it and he never seemed to fully recover. There was no doubt in my mind that Ndour would win the match but it took watching the match again and noticing the takedowns by Virag for me to understand why the match ended up being scored as closely as it was. Although the final score was 30-27 in favor of Ndour, to be candid, I would have scored Virag in the lower 20s.
EK:
This one went the distance, and there are a couple new lessons to learn from this fight. The first takeaway for me would be don’t let your footwork compromise your own balance or telegraph your strikes. It’s one thing to bounce around when you’re sparring. It’s another to have your feet lose contact with the ground. I’d get into greater detail on it, but I’ve found there’s a good video by Jesse Enkamp that explains this better than I can.
Weight distribution on your feet is also very important. More than once there was a leg sweep takedown because of too much weight on the front leg. With proper weight distribution, that leg sweep is only a low kick to the calf. Hurts, yes, but it doesn’t knock you over. As an aside, the former Hapkido student in me wants to show some of the competitors how to break a fall. My wrist hurt just watching a couple of those falls.
One other thing in this match I found cool was I think I saw something that came out of a kata I’ve been working on. It was a bit of an a-ha moment for me that I really liked. I’ll leave it to the reader to determine what and where it was. Let me know and if it’s something different than what I am thinking of then that’s one other thing for me to add to my toolbox.
All in all, I enjoyed this thoroughly. Not only for the spectacle and the sport of it but for the opportunity to see concepts in action without needing three ibuprofen to learn it.
A Final Thought
After watching this card from Karate Combat, I hope this league stays around. The quality of the fights absolutely exceeded my expectations and it can show young and upcoming karateka that there is another option outside the MMA cage.
Do you agree with us, or do you think we got it all wrong? Let us know what you thought in the comments below!
Missed the fight? Watch it here:
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