Oluwale “The Holy War Angel” Bamgbose has a black belt in Taekwondo, a brown belt in BJJ, and has studied Sanshou, among other martial arts.
He went undefeated in the star-producing Ring of Combat, and then in his UFC debut lost to another ROC alum, Uriah Hall. In his second fight, at UFC Fight Night 83 on Sunday, Bamgbose shone bright.
Watching the replay, you can almost hear the “HIEEYAH-HIEEYAH” as he holds his arms in wild traditional martial arts poses. It could look a little silly, except for what happens next.
Bamgbose knocked Daniel Sarafian silly with a wild head kick, and followed up with punches, ending the fight at exactly the 1:00 min mark of the first round.
The devout Christian (his parents own a church in their native Nigeria) then dropped to his knees for a quick prayer.
https://twitter.com/UFCONFOX/status/701575785094643712
His opponent had not taken his traditional martial arts based striking seriously.
“His striking doesn’t scare me,” said Sarafian before the fight. “It wouldn’t force me to take the fight to the ground. I can stand with him. So I’m not too worried about him.”
The entire division should take notice now.
Bamgbose, who holds a Masters Degree in public administration, has a wide variety of plans, one of which is to bring more traditional martial arts techniques into mixed martial arts.
I have a very vast background in several different arts, he said after the win, as transcribed by MMAJunkie. “I’m one of those types of traditional martial artists, and I like that fancy stuff, and I want to apply it to MMA because that’s what MMA is for. It’s what the UFC is for, for real pure martial artists.
Those one-dimension fighters aren’t lasting. You better step up your game, bro.
