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Since the calf kick has seemingly become the main "talked about" weapon in MMA right now, I thought it would be good to have a discussion about why we are only seeing it from certain fighters lately (Izzy, Dustin, Munhoz, Royval, Gaethje, etc.).
It's been around for a while of course, but used sparingly, and I always wondered why other fighters didn't all hop on the band-wagon back in the day. Typically in MMA when something works and everyone can "theoretically do it" they all start hopping on the bandwagon. But with calf-kicks we are really only seeing it now from a few fighters that have spent a lot of time putting work in on it. Otherwise if it was so easy everyone would just kick their opponent in the calf a couple times and cripple them. So I was wondering why more fighters didn't try to build on this tool for some time.
Earlier today I listened to Jim Miller talk with Joe Lauzon and Yves Edwards on a podcast revisiting their epic fights; Miller brought up that even though he only landed 6-8 calf kicks in the first fight (he called it a "cutting kick") it fucked up his shin so bad that it literally took him years to fully heal (he said only just recently did it finally fully callus over and stop bothering him). This also brought to mind when Luke was trying to chop down Yoel and got checked so bad it split his shin, which ended up bothering him for years as well.
Basically what Jim said was that calf kicks hurt you like hell as well, they just hurt your opponent more, so if you can compartmentalize in the moment in a war of attrition they are an excellent tool. So you need to be willing to cause incredible structural damage to your own body to achieve that goal. It made me realize that "attritional fighting" is a mindset within fighting that certain fighters are more privy to then others; if you don't have the crazy kickboxing background like Izzy where you've spent decades hardening your shins it's just a brutal technique to have to use (even if you land it perfect it does significant damage to you). Most fighters would prefer to distribute damage and receive little-to-none in the techniques they employ, so most techniques are based around minimizing risk/damage to you and maximizing it to your opponent.
On that basis you need to be a certain type of fighter to use - incredibly tough and attritional with lots of experience working on it (Poirer/Gaethje/Munhoz) or with insane kickboxing background/experience (like Izzy) where it doesn't hurt you that much.
I do think we will see this technique with slightly more frequency, but it isn't some "super-move" that will revolutionize the game. It's a very unique attack that certain type of fighters will flourish in implementing. But just as Aldo showed against Moicano there are plenty of defenses and counters to it, so it's not some skeleton key that will unlock the fight game by itself.
TLDR - The calf kick is amazing attritional damage weapon but it causes you incredible damage as well (unless you are elite kickboxer), so most fighters aren't going to build a game around it because of the repercussions of using consistently (and also difficulty in implementing, since low-kicks are all about speed/timing/set-ups).
It's been around for a while of course, but used sparingly, and I always wondered why other fighters didn't all hop on the band-wagon back in the day. Typically in MMA when something works and everyone can "theoretically do it" they all start hopping on the bandwagon. But with calf-kicks we are really only seeing it now from a few fighters that have spent a lot of time putting work in on it. Otherwise if it was so easy everyone would just kick their opponent in the calf a couple times and cripple them. So I was wondering why more fighters didn't try to build on this tool for some time.
Earlier today I listened to Jim Miller talk with Joe Lauzon and Yves Edwards on a podcast revisiting their epic fights; Miller brought up that even though he only landed 6-8 calf kicks in the first fight (he called it a "cutting kick") it fucked up his shin so bad that it literally took him years to fully heal (he said only just recently did it finally fully callus over and stop bothering him). This also brought to mind when Luke was trying to chop down Yoel and got checked so bad it split his shin, which ended up bothering him for years as well.
Basically what Jim said was that calf kicks hurt you like hell as well, they just hurt your opponent more, so if you can compartmentalize in the moment in a war of attrition they are an excellent tool. So you need to be willing to cause incredible structural damage to your own body to achieve that goal. It made me realize that "attritional fighting" is a mindset within fighting that certain fighters are more privy to then others; if you don't have the crazy kickboxing background like Izzy where you've spent decades hardening your shins it's just a brutal technique to have to use (even if you land it perfect it does significant damage to you). Most fighters would prefer to distribute damage and receive little-to-none in the techniques they employ, so most techniques are based around minimizing risk/damage to you and maximizing it to your opponent.
On that basis you need to be a certain type of fighter to use - incredibly tough and attritional with lots of experience working on it (Poirer/Gaethje/Munhoz) or with insane kickboxing background/experience (like Izzy) where it doesn't hurt you that much.
I do think we will see this technique with slightly more frequency, but it isn't some "super-move" that will revolutionize the game. It's a very unique attack that certain type of fighters will flourish in implementing. But just as Aldo showed against Moicano there are plenty of defenses and counters to it, so it's not some skeleton key that will unlock the fight game by itself.
TLDR - The calf kick is amazing attritional damage weapon but it causes you incredible damage as well (unless you are elite kickboxer), so most fighters aren't going to build a game around it because of the repercussions of using consistently (and also difficulty in implementing, since low-kicks are all about speed/timing/set-ups).