Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira are finally confirmed to fight for the Middleweight title in November, making the first time two glory kickboxers will compete for a UFC title. Alex Pereira has beaten Adesanya twice before in kickboxing, but this time will have to deal with a new foe. The cage.
Alex Pereira is unquestionably the more accomplished kickboxer of the two. He is a dual division Glory Champion, meanwhile Alex Pereira hasn’t won any major kickboxing title, and has lost to the majority of top kickboxers he has faced, albeit in competitive bouts. What favours Adesanya this time around though, is that he has far more space to move around in.
Israel Adesanya is actually better as a mixed martial artist than he was as a kickboxer, in part because his twitchy, pot shotting style translates better to the long ranges of MMA than it does the up close and personal approach of kickboxing, and partly because he is able to move far more freely in the cage, where there are no corners to trap him.
He is a good example of a kickboxer who has been able to successfully adapt his style to the cage – and there have been a few like him.
Alex Pereira is still relatively untested in MMA, but benefits from competing in a division where the better wrestlers are all so low ranked and inconsistent that he’s unlikely to ever get matched up against them. He’s been able to adapt his striking style to MMA relatively well, he was known for his one shot power, and wasn’t typically the type of kickboxer to string long combinations together. As a result, we get a very deliberate striker.
The two of them are similar, but also on the opposite ends of the scale. Adesanya is fleet footed and looking to outpoint and win by decision, although if a KO happens, then that’s great. Pereira similarly sticks to his gameplan knowing that he is powerful enough to knock people out by chance. Something refreshing about Pereira is unlike a lot of other power punchers, you don’t typically see him swinging at the fences trying to get a knock out.
Perhaps the perfect middle ground between the two of them, is the now retiredMirko CroCop. A K-1 Veteran and GP Champion. CroCop fought at heavyweight, yet was sickeningly quick in the ring. Cro Cop built his entire style around his quick feet, and a dangerous combination of a left straight, left body kick and left high kick. Something that Adesanya himself emulates. As far as kickboxers go, he brought a very simple but well timed and refined style to the cage.
You could certainly debate Alistair Overeem‘s position, as he was the first fighter to hold both a major kickboxing and MMA title. Being both a K-1 GP winner and runner up, as well as the only ever StrikeForce heavyweight champion. Alistair Overeem is unquestionably an MMA fighter first and kickboxer second, but how many fighters out there have actually managed to go out into the top levels of another sport and succeed?
Alistair Overeem’s kickboxing career looks to be restarting, with him now signed to Glory Kickboxing, and you have to wonder about his advanced aged and also the years of bad habits he will have picked up in MMA. It’s strange to think that the majority of Overeem’s career has now been spent in the UFC, especially as prior to his signing, he was one of MMA’s biggest ‘what ifs’. He’d never been in the UFC and it was widely assumed he would be the champion. Something that were it not for a failed drug test likely would have happened.
That being said Overeem is unique among other kickboxers in that he is unquestionably the most well rounded fighter you’ll ever come across. With both ADCC tournament victories, the top prize in kickboxing and the StrikeForce title (the same heavyweight division that would essentially BECOME the UFC’s heavyweight division), Overeem used his knowledge of MMA, his technical clinching, and combined it with some legitimately impressive grappling and refined boxing technique that he lacked prior to his K-1 debut.
One of Overeem’s kickboxing rivals, Gokhan Saki, also made a brief switch to MMA, getting immediately signed to the UFC. He went 1-1 before returning to kickboxing and the common meme is that he couldn’t adapt his style to the cage. This is amusing because he clearly did adapt his style. He maintained distance, as opposed to up close brawling and he saved his vicious, lengthy combinations until his opponents were near the cage. To say Gokhan couldn’t adapt, or didn’t adapt, is ridiculous. All we can really say is, he fought twice and then returned to kickboxing, where we can presume he will stay.
One of my favourite kickboxers to transition to MMA is Muslim Salikhov a Kumyk sanda fighter who seems to be what we all assumed Cung Le was. While Cung Le had great striking skills, it’s fair to say that he was a taekwondo black belt and amateur wrestler, who figured out that he could put those skills together in sanda. He had a respectable national career in the US and Strikeforce – but he didn’t compete in legit international competition in the way Muslim Salikhov did.
Salikhov is after all, the king of kung fu. He won the Wushu Kings Cup, the highest prize in Sanda, being one of only two non-Chinese fighters to do so. Sanda allows for wrestling – meaning when the time came for him to move to MMA – he really just had to show up and learn the ground game, and since then he’s proved himself to be a legitimate competitor.
Of course, these are only a five, there are many more kickboxers who have made the switch from MMA to Kickboxing. Perhaps we’ll look at more another time.
