Igor Vovchanchyn Part 3: Bear Slaps and Defense

Igor Vovchanchyn in his hey day was perhaps the most feared mixed martial artist on the planet and had unparalleled success under the one night tournament format of old school no holds barred fighting. In the first installment in this three part series I dissected Igor's pioneering use of punching while on the retreat to prevent grapplers from clinching him and to drag them out of their depth on the feet. In the second part we turned to Igor's fabled "Russian Hooks" (variously called "Corkscrew Swings" or "Casting Punches") and his fondness for landing strikes with the top of his fist rather than the front of it in order to maximize his limited reach. In this installment we will discuss another peculiarity of Vovchanchyn's striking, his use of "Bear Slaps" or palm strikes to damage opponents over short distances, and his excellent head movement.

Vovchanchyn's roots were in bareknuckle, no holds barred fighting. This is important to remember because his style of striking would have been largely affected by this. Spending much of his early career with no gloves, and having few weapons to defend himself other than his ungodly punching power, the health of Igor's hands took priority. A boxer with "glass hands" will have a hard and painful career but has eight or ten ounce gloves to soften the blows. A bareknuckle fighter with recurring hand injuries loses the use of his primary weapons altogether.

In efforts to protect the hands which he routinely threw like meaty bricks, Vovchanchyn would often utilize strikes with the heel of his palm or his open hand. When throwing the flurries of looping hooks which became a trademark of Vovchanchyn, Igor would often intersperse open handed swings for numerous reasons:

• To save his hands, which could often get damaged in the middle of exchanges by misjudging the position of an opponent and striking their skull or elbows.
• To feel where his opponent was in the middle of an exchange and to stop them moving their head in one direction.
• To maneuver the opponent's head into Igor's next punch.

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