Modern mixed martial arts was born from the desire to discover what styles of martial arts work better than others. The means to discover what works was as simple as wheels on luggage - have top exponents of each style fight, with as few rules as possible.
MMA is now a modern sport with a body of knowledge drawing from the best of each martial art, best being defined as what works best against trained fighters. However, even today, the greatest fighters in each division often have a base in a single style:
•The heavyweight G.O.A.T., Fedor Emelianenko, has a visible base in Combat Sambo:
•The light heavyweight G.O.A.T., Jon Jones, has a base in Folkstyle wrestling, that makes all else possible;
•The middleweight G.O.A.T., Anderson Silva, has a visible base in Muay Thai;
•The welterweight G.O.A.T., George St-Pierre, despite never having wrestled, likely has the best wrestling for MMA ever seen in the cage;
•The lightweight G.O.A.T., Khabib Nurmagomedov, has an extremely visible base in wrestling;
•The featherweight G.O.A.T, Jose Aldo, has a visible base in Dutch Kickboxing.
In sum, styles still matter. And too, style vs. style fights still have the power to teach. This karate vs. judo fight has some powerful lessons.
What Happened
The video opens with the karateka moving forward extremely aggressively, with a right round kick, a left round kick, and two strikes. Then the Judoka gets a grip on the karateka; it’s also possible that it was the karateka who initiated the grip. Either way, now they are connected.
The karate man reacts not by fighting the grips, but with a right knee, and another right knee, and anoth…
Mid-third knee the karateka is unceremoniously thrown to the mat, hard, with Morote Seoi Nage. Not knowing what to do, he scrambles up and is thrown again. Still not knowing what to do, he scrambles up, albeit more slowly, and is thrown a third time, the last one with a variation called Drop Seoi Nage.
At this point, the karateka cannot remember his own name, and is dragged up, only to be hoisted with Kata Guruma (Folkstyle wrestlers with know the throw as a Fireman’s Carry). The judoka merrily takes a couple of steps and throws the karateka off the mat to raucous cheers from the onlookers.
The entire fight lasted 22 seconds.
The Lessons
First, Judo is the art of hitting your opponent with the planet Earth. The padded surface is the equivalent of putting gloves on the karateka. Had the throws been on a hard surface, a floor say, or a chair, there would have been an immediate trip to the hospital, had the judoka been inclined to throw hard.
Second, Judo is the art of off-balancing the opponent, and this is preceded by grips. If the grips are not contested, and their purpose not understood, being hit with the planet follows inevitably.
Third, if your opponent knows what you are going to do, then any even remotely fair fight is already over. The karateka moved forward aggressively, giving the judo the distance management he needed. Strikers typically need to manage distance by staying outside of striking range, until the moment of their choosing. Grapplers Strikers typically need to manage distance by inside of striking range. Compounding the karatekas problems, he executed the identical strike, a right knee, three times in succession, giving the judoka knowledge of where he was going to move, and that was all he needed.
This video was uploaded by YouTuber The Lone Wolf; he’s a good guy so subscribe to his channel.