In the following old school, bare knuckle MMA fight between a kickboxer and Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner, we see what happens when two very different styles of fighting collide in the early days of MMA before it really became a sport of its own.

This fight took place in 1995 in Moscow, Russia, shortly after the first few UFCs, and was part of the ‘IAFC: Absolute Fighting Championship I: Elimination’ tournament.

The fight featured kickboxer ‘Ice Cold’ Igor Vovchanchyn in one of his first few MMA fights against BJJ black belt Adilson Lima.

Now what’s interesting about this fight is that at that point in time in MMA history, BJJ black belts were the end all, be all of fighting and would usually make very quick work of strikers.

Igor Vovchanchyn was no ordinary striker though as you can see in this video. Little did Adilson know at the time, that his opponent Igor would go on to become a legend of the sport and one of the best fighters in the world for his time.

You can see early on in this contest that Igor is very patient and respectable of his opponent’s grappling abilities, not rushing in.

It is actually his opponent, Lima, who ends up rushing in and Igor makes him pay for it, dearly. The amount of damage Igor is able to inflict here in such a short amount of time is frightening and forces his opponent’s corner to throw in the towel.

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ABOUT IGOR VOVCHANCHYN:
Igor Yaroslavovych Vovchanchyn (Ukrainian: Ігор Ярославович Вовчанчин; born August 6, 1973) is a retired Ukrainian mixed martial artist and kickboxer. After making his professional MMA debut in 1995, he won nine mixed martial arts tournaments, 3 superfights, holds the second longest unbeaten streak in MMA (at 37 fights), has the 6th most wins in MMA (61), and reached the final of the PRIDE 2000 Openweight Grand Prix. He is widely considered an MMA legend, and in Ukraine he even has a tournament named after him, the Igor Vovchanchyn Cup. [Source: Wiki]