The front kick is a karate technique that used to be laughed at as a viable technique in mixed martial arts. But that all changed recently. Karate has made a bit of a resurgence with athletes like Lyoto Machida, Anderson Silva, Stephen Thompson and Michael ‘Venom’ Page showing off their karate backgrounds in the cage.
At a fight this past weekend in Japan, Sheldon Reid fought his third amateur mixed martial arts and won with this unbelievable front kick knockout:
This was a crazy Knockout #MMA #ufc #knockout #fight pic.twitter.com/HgQ13BCbKS
— HELLO JAPAN (@HelloJapan01) May 2, 2016
Reid, who entered the bout with a 2-0 amateur record, and opponent Julio Calcina were working against the fence in the clinch in the final minute of the first round before a low blow prompted a stop in the action.
Reid took a few seconds to recover, met Calcina in the center of the Octagon and threw the devastating front kick that sent his opponent reeling to the canvas.
To cap it all off, Reid spent the next 45 seconds after the impressive win sauntering around the cage celebrating, doing the money sign.
source: foxsports.com
The knockout was impressive, but it wasn’t the first time it had been pulled off in mixed martial arts. In fact it has been done twice before at the highest level of the sport, in the UFC.
Former UFC champion Lyoto Machida was the first man to show karate techniques could really work in the modern mixed martial arts arena. Machida famously knocked out Randy Couture with a jumping front kick in the second round of their UFC 129 fight in April of 2011.
Not be outdone by his countryman, middleweight legend Anderson Silva also used the technique to knockout Vitor Belfort when the two met at UFC 126 in February of 2011.
