Anderson silva leg break

yelyah · December 31, 2013

Brilliant article here that goes in-depth talking about how a fighter protects themselves from leg kicks, other incidents where fighters have checked kicks using their knee/top of the shin and basically breaks down the incident > http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1904314-ufc-168-how-chris-weidman-buried-the-legend

That link has different gifs and angles of the leg break so if you don't want to see the break again, I'll post a few bits that stuck out to me below so you don't have to see..

Something to consider when talking about checking kicks is that there are, as with any technique, several approaches to it (and probably many more which I haven't even heard of). Some check with the center of shin because it provides the largest surface on either side of the checking point in case of a miscalculation.

Some like to push their shin toward the opponent's kick and meet it earlier in its path. This is something Duke Roufus talked about in his old instructional series.

And some like to check as close to the knee cap as possible because of its destructive effects on a shin bone. This is something I especially love seeing in fighters because I have always had a great affinity for limb destructions which actually work.

To add to the above point, the GIF I posted above that is Jose Aldo throwing a leg kick that the Korean Zombie checked with his knee, resulting in Aldo breaking his foot.

Some are claiming that Silva's injury was a freak injury. In truth, the snapping of the shin bone in that manner was a rare injury, but when a fighter runs full power into a kick which connects on the opponent's knee, it's not uncommon.

Within that scenario, it is a very common outcome that the shin will be injured to some degree. Whether the fighter can fight on it or not, he will not want to kick again too soon, and that is the purpose of checking with the top of the shin and knee.

How come we don't see so many of them? The event of a hard low kick into a knee is not that common. Good fighters set up their low kicks; most MMA fighters don't even check low kicks. In kickboxing, most fighters are smart enough to set up their attacks because they are used to having to work around an opponent who is willing to check.

Similar circumstance to this only really arises when you have one man who is comfortable checking kicks and another who is far too confident in his own power kicks. A brilliant example is Ray Sefo versus Ernesto Hoost. Hoost was an old man in the fight world by then, and Ray Sefo was on the rise. Yet Sefo threw a low kick without set up at Hoost and quickly discovered that age doesn't matter when it's shin on knee.

To draw a parallel, running into a power low kick without set up is like coming out against an older boxer and only throwing power punches because you reckon you can put him away.

Some will say this injury was a fluke because they want to believe that Silva's 38-year-old shin couldn't hold up to a good check any more. But in the post-fight presser, Weidman talked extensively about training to put his knee on Silva's shin. We're not talking about a good kick that rode up, we're talking about a poorly planned kick which was checked well.

malfosse · December 31, 2013

My son was watching this, paused it and shouted me in to watch it, I watched not knowing what was going to happen. What made him think I wanted to see that i don't know.