Anderson Silva - Chris Weidman rematch at UFC 168

Weidman-Silva 2 will take place on December 28th at the MGM Grand Garden Arena as the main event for UFC 168. The card is co-headlined by Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate, who will also be rematching after coaching against one another on the historic co-ed edition of The Ultimate Fighter.

Chris Weidman shocked the world at UFC 162 on July 6th by knocking out Anderson Silva in the second round. The rematch is expected to be one of the biggest pay-per-view draws in quite some time. The rematch will be very interesting because Weidman has the better ground game and wrestling takedowns, but now also has a knockout to his credit against Anderson Silva. It will be very interesting how Anderson fights in this rematch. Will he take a completely serious approach or go back to trying to clown his opponents and use a variety of head games to break their confidence and play his game. Silva has become legendary in mixed martial arts after his 16 fight unbeaten streak in the UFC which has included a record-setting 10 title defenses; but we have never seen him come back from losing a fight in the UFC. It will be one of his greatest challenges to date, as well as for Weidman, who actually predicted this whole scenario leading up to the first fight: he said he would defeat Anderson and then rematch him again later in the year.

Anderson Silva on imitating Muhammad Ali's fighting / boxing / dancing style

Anderson Silva on likening a fight to a dance:

"My style of fighting is very free. I like to fight happy and loose...I like to use Muhammad Ali as a reference. He fought as if he was dancing and that's what I try to do."

Karate Case Study: The Front Snap Kick

It's a wonderful thing as a practitioner of traditional martial arts to see a classical technique come back into vogue and be used to great effect in full contact combative sports. John Smith reintroduced the low single leg take-down which appears in dozens of Eastern martial arts forms to the world of amateur wrestling, Jon Jones is bringing back the savate style push kick or "Chassee" to the knee, and between them Lyoto Machida and Anderson Silva have brought the front snap kick back into vogue. Following their use of it so masterfully we have seen a proliferation of it's use in mixed martial arts particularly. Even one dimensional grappler Rousimar Palhares landed it out of nowhere, stunning Dan Miller in the UFC. Just the other night Dong Hyun "Stun Gun" Kim, known somewhat for having turned into a "decision fighter" since his move state side, managed to land a Lyoto Machida style jumping kick or "Tobi-Geri". The only thing that made Stun Gun's attempt less impressive was the fact that he had already attempted to land the crane kick over ten times before in the same fight.

The main difference between the front kick that Machida and Anderson threw and the Muay Thai style front kick which is much more common place in combat sports today is in the chambering of the leg. Notice how Machida and Anderson both bring their heel almost to their buttock and then use the bucking forward of their hips to throw the foot out, as opposed to the driving push kick or "teep" of traditional Muay Thai and kickboxing. That is not to say that teeps have not been used to score knockouts before. Witness the kick Kohiruimaki drives into the face of Nitta at 4:44 in this 2005 K-1 Max match. The key difference is that where the Mae-Geri Keage or Front Snap Kick whips up and under the opponent's chin like an uppercut, often cutting through the blind angle, the Muay Thai teep drives straight through the target. The teep is traditionally used to push an opponent back in hopes of him becoming more determined to push forward - walking into strikes as he does, or to push him into the ropes or corner. The snap kick is intended to cause a knockout or punish the body. Though the teep is used more routinely, it is also hard to find fighters who use the kick to it's full potential - Buakaw Por Pramuk being the most notable push kicker in common knowledge.

The front snap kick existed before Anderson and Lyoto (or Steven Seagal if you're feeling particularly gullible) stormed our living rooms with it in 2011, and had been used on the big stages of kickboxing and mma before, but never as effectively to the jaw. Semmy Schilt - the towering Dutch kickboxer - came to the 2009 K-1 Grand Prix with a front kick that he never before or since demonstrated. In three fights with three top kickboxers Schilt brutalised their bodies with snap kicks to the floating ribs and beat each fighter in under 3 minutes, making the total time he spent in the ring that night under ten minutes.  In this fight with Badr Hari - the consensus best in the world at the time of the tournament final, having already KO'd Schilt earlier that year, Semmy brutalises the mid-section of Hari which had never previously been thought to be a weakness. After avoiding Hari's initial charge Schilt connects his first good front kick at 3:08, falling into the clinch. He lands it against the ropes at 3:13 and again at 3:42. Though Hari does not appear wounded, his hands drop in an attempt to defend further uses of his foe's unfamiliar weapon - this allows Schilt to land a huge left straight (I would scarcely call it a jab) that drops Hari. Hari has been down before in fights, his chin being the biggest challenge his career has faced, but it is the wince of pain and the gasps that he is seen to give while sitting up after the knockdown that show the effect of Schilt's front kick. Schilt peppers Hari with jabs, delivers another front kick, some more jabs and then a high kick - Hari's usually high guard is absent though, further indicating the efficacy of Schilt's body work with the front kick. The final kick comes in shortly after - again a front kick to the floating rib, and Hari falls swinging, and writhes in agony once he hits the deck.

The best example of the front kick in MMA that I can offer is not Anderson or Lyoto, but a Japanese lightweight named Katsunori Kikuno. For those of you unfamiliar with Kikuno's work - he is a solidly entertaining fighter and has fought some top names. Suffering a robbery loss to JZ Calvan and outstriking Eddie Alvarez - the consensus best boxer and at the time best all around fighter at lightweight in the world - for almost 10 whole minutes, forcing Alvarez to take the fight to the ground, something he is rarely seen to do. Is Kikuno a great boxer or kickboxer? Hell no. Kikuno fights (or used to fight) from what fans referred to as "Zombie stance", with his hands open, palm facing the opponent in front of him. Kikuno's entire game was the front kick for the first part of his career - and it worked against top fighters. He winded kickboxing ace Andre Dida with one before throwing him to the floor and pounding him out. he brutalised Alvarez and kept him at range with it for the almost ten minutes in their match, and he used it almost exclusively to win his DEEP lightweight title. In recent fights he has abandoned his best weapon and fought almost exclusively with his hands down by his thighs, relying on his chin and punching power, but having seen him at his best it is clear he is wasting his talent in this way.  Though it's a losing effort, this is a brilliant example of how the front snap kick can throw even the best strikers off:

Kikuno throws and lands the front kick at 2:32, 2:35, 2:52, 3:16, 3:28, 3:47, 4:55, 5:00, 5:05, and 7:06. Eddie eventually catches Kikuno and changes strategy by wearing him down on the ground, but this is a career defining performance by Kikuno. Few have made Alvarez suffer so much for a win in recent years, and it was almost entirely Kikuno's front snap kick that did it. One more front kick to finish; 5:02 for the money shot.

Anderson Silva on UFC 162 Chris Weidman rematch: Trust me, I back

Sometimes it's not victories that so much define champions, but how they emerge front eh ashes after a loss. How will Anderson Silva respond to his loss to Chris Weidman and do in the rematch at UFC 168? Well, it's hard to say because he hardly ever loses. He has done just fine after losses in Pride FC to Daiju Takase and Ryo Chonan, but we have never seen Anderson Silva lose inside the UFC Octagon until he was knocked out by Chris Weidman.

Well, fighters definitely reveal who they are inside the cage. The cage or ring is a truth-telling instrument which reveals who a fighter is and what they're made of. For Anderson Silva, I feel it's not so much his incredible wins that showcased his character, but actually the fight where he had the toughest time in his career: against Chael Sonnen in their first fight. Anderson was down four rounds and was looking like it was over as he was getting pounded in the fifth against Sonnen. But despite the three hundred plus punches which rained on him and the adversity he was facing, Anderson Silva came back and found a way to win. That fight showed that not only does Anderson Silva have the championship skill, but the championship will and heart to take a beating but claw his way back and find a way to win.

UFC Champion, Anderson Silva--Inspired by ONG-BAK

UFC Middlewieght Champion, Anderson Silva is considered by most to be the best pound-for-pound mixed martial artist in the world. This weekend at UFC 134 in Rio, he defends his UFC title against Yushin Okami. Silva is best known for his unorthodox but still incredibly accurate and powerful striking, with highlight reel knockouts of former champions, Vitor Belfort, Rich Franklin, and Forrest Griffin, to name a few.



Before Silva competed in the UFC, he fought in a smaller organization called Cage Rage. One of his opponents during that period, Tony Frykland, had the misfortune of fighting him shortly after he saw Midnight Madness 2003 selection, Ong-Bak for the first time. The UFC champion tells the story of how Tony Jaa inspired him for that fight:

Not long before my Cage Rage fight with Tony Frykland, I saw the movie Ong Bak (sic). Tony Jaa, the martial arts hero in the movie is a master at Muay Boran, an art I have always been interested in. There was one move in particular he did that blew me away. Instead of attacking with a side elbow or an over-the-top elbow, both of which are common in Muay Thai, Jaa stepped toward one of the villains and threw a lead reverse back elbow. I was so enamored with the move I went to my trainers and told them that I was going to use the strike in my next fight to knock out my opponent. Immediately they shut the idea down. 'That won’t work,' they said. 'Just forget about that elbow.' I wasn’t convinced but every time I tried to practice the move during training, the could come run over and tell me to focus on techniques that would actually work.



I still wasn’t convinced, so one night I went home and asked my wife to stand on the couch and hold out her hand. I executed a lead reverse back elbow into her palm, and she told me what I already knew — it was a very painful strike. To get in the practice I needed, I had her stand on the couch every evening after my official training — this time holding a pillow — and I would do one hundred reverse back elbows. By the time the Frykland fight came around, I felt very confident. Unfortunately, backstage I couldn’t sneak off with my wife to warm up on a pillow, so I had one of my training partners hold out a mitt so I could squeeze in a few more lead reverse back elbows. Again my trainers told me to forget that move. I figured I had no other choice but to prove them wrong, so two minutes into my fight with Frykland, I stepped toward him, threw a lead reverse back elbow at his chin, and knocked him out.

And if you don't know Ong-Bak...

Fighters who used mind games the best in the Octagon

Some fighters use their physical weapons in the cage, and some people get into mental warfare. If you have the physical tools and on top of that start getting into mind games, that can be a highly deadly combination. Three guys have been most successful with this tool of mind warfar:

1. Anderson Silva

Putting his hands down, letting you hit him, dodging out of the way, and a variety of different antics have been used by Anderson Silva to throw off his opponent's games. He is able to prey upon fighters' insecurities and bring them out in the UFC Octagon. It didn't end up working against Chris Weidman, but it is important to note that if Weidman didn't land the fourth strike of the combination he fired at Silva to end the fight, the bout could have ended drastically differently. Because Weidman was getting angry and charged at Silva, and if he missed four straight shots after that, then that could have turned the momentum totally in Silva's favor; he was keeping the fight on the feet and starting to shift the bout into his control.

2. Nick Diaz

"Why is your nose bleeding?"
"Oh, we're throwing spinning s**t now?"
These are the sorts of verbal tongue lashings that Nick Diaz doled out to Carlos Condit in addition to slapping him in the face. Kudos to Carlos Condit for staying composed and not biting on the mind games, but many others aren't as mentally disciplined as Condit. Diaz's mind games in addition to his punching skills and endless endurance have made him a force at 170 his whole career. Go back to early in his UFC career when he fought Robbie Lawler; he was tagging Lawler and talking smack to him, slapping him, and Lawler got very angry and came at Diaz rushing in, only to be met with a straight punch that dropped him and ended the fight. Diaz is a master of boxing, cardio, and mental warfare.

3. Frank Shamrock

Frank Shamrock was tremendously strong in his mind, body, and spirit. He was another fighter who was able to expose his opponents' insecurities inside the cage. He would ask his opponents why they are breathing heavy, make a gesture that he is going to put them to sleep, and continually badger them with words and antics. It worked well for him in most of his fights and he used that mind trickery to mess with the head of the his foes in combat.


One thing to note is that using these techniques can be very effective, but if someone uses these techniques on you, you combat them and use them your advantage. Chris Weidman took the approach that if Anderson Silva stands there letting him punch him in the face, that's great, because now he's winning the fight. He's the one scoring points. Carlos Condit also was effective and stuck to his gameplan better than anyone against Nick Diaz on route to victory and showed incredible focus and discipline in the process.

You can change the way you perceive things. You can go into competition already thinking that if someone uses antics, this shows that they are not confident in themselves. Your opponent is no longer using his physical tools, but has to resort to other tactics. You can take the viewpoint that he is mentally breaking, running out of ideas, and grasping at straws, because he is insecure about using just his physical skills alone to win. That changes the way you frame things in you mind and the antics have a different energy because of your perception. Instead of a sign of confidence and bravado, now in your mind it is a sign of weakness in your opponent that he's resorting to these tactics; now you have the mental edge in your brain; which is the only point of view which matters in competition.

Additionally, you can mentally prepare to use your opponent's smack-talking and antics as an "anchor". So you can visualize your opponent doing what he normally does in terms of mental games, and the second he does that, you can visualize yourself successfully landing techniques on him. Basically conditioning your mind to get into a state where you're totally confident and in the zone when you see your opponent doing these things. For example, when you mentally rehearse reacting to something your opponent does or says, think of a time where you were totally on fire and in the zone and landing your techniques with total precision, accuracy, and confidence. Feel the feelings associated with this, hear the sounds, and get a clear mental picture of it all. The more you practice visualizing this success after picturing your opponent engaging in mental ware, then when it happens in combat, you are prepared for it and you have mentally conditioned yourself to get into a peak performance mindset when it happens. So instead of being a negative factor during competition, it becomes a positive one.

Anderson Silva, losing like a champion

We don't see Anderson Silva lose much, but when he does, he does it with the class of a champion. His antics in the cage are one thing, but he definitely shows a tremendous amount of class, grace, and respect towards his opponent Chris Weidman, after Weidman knocked him out at UFC 162 and took the UFC middleweight belt from Silva. Look eight minutes into this clip of Anderson Silva on Brazilian TV and he shows a large amount of respect to Weidman:

I respect him so much, he has a nice background. He started training MMA and fighting professional because he had seen me fighting. His goals was to train in order to be able to fight me someday. So he did. He was very focused, his goal was to defeat me, and he finally made it.