MMA Fighter Breaks Down Kengan Ashura | Saw Paing vs Rei Mikazuchi

- [Announcer] Wow, look at him go. - Rei is fast as lightning, so it makes sense to hit those legs, particularly the calf, to make it difficult to walk and obviously to move, slowing down the fight. Good job, Saw Paing. (rapid rock music) (sound system feedback) (fighters grunting) What is up? I am Chad Vasquez, the head owner and coach of Paxibellum Martial Arts in New York City. If you're ever in town, come try a class with us. - And I'm Pak, I'm a Judo black belt with a background in wrestlin

g and boxing. - And today is a special day, Pak. Do you know why? - It's a "Kengan Ashura" breakdown. - Yes it is. We are breaking down a fight between Saw Paing versus Rei Mikazuchi. So Saw Paing is a Lethwei fighter who is fighting for his hometown, the Village of Dawn. And Rei is a mysterious martial artist who's fighting for love. - What a simp. Love makes the heart weak. - Okay, Rei is using a fictional martial arts style referred to as Lightning Spirit style. - Not only are we gonna react,

but we're gonna demonstrate what they could have done better using our vast fighting experience. - So make sure to subscribe, share, and watch to the very end to see our final grade on how realistic these techniques were used in this fight scene. Pak, are you ready? - Let's get it. - Let's get it. - Let's rock. (crowd cheering) - Begin! (fist pounding) - Bam. Lands the first punch. You could immediately see the speed difference. - Yeah, actually the nickname for Rei is the Lightning God due to

his speed, his style. - [Pak] All right, what's Rei doing? He kind of moves like the Flash. - [Chad] That's referred to as an "Illusion Step" from his Lightning Spirit style. And that's just Saw Paing screaming. - Oh, yeah. (blow cracking) - Ooh, spinal. Does that work on Saw Paing? - No, for two reasons. One, Saw Paing actually has worked on breaking every bone in his body, and as you know in real life, bones that heal get stronger. So this guy is solid with like strong dense bones and obviousl

y muscle. So that's like this guy's armored, that's one. Two, Rei style is meant for really weapons work or, you know, he's an assassin, so that's why his attacks, his movement makes more sense when you see a weapon involved rather than hand-to-hand. - Oh, that makes sense. The Illusion Step is like flanking as well, - Right, getting behind him, stabbing, boom. That's your target. You hit and you go, you bounce. - It makes total sense. - Prison style, baby, prison style. (Saw Paing shouting) - O

kay, hits from Rei. So, so far Rei's winning the exchange, man. Rei's fast. He's circling getting the first strike. Saw Paing is missing every hit here and getting hit. So Saw Paing is tired and he's trying to bait Rei to hitting him so he can counter attack. So we'll see tactically how he uses this. Oh and there we go, Saw Paing now is dodging Rei's shots. He's kind of collecting data off those strikes, which is you do see real combat sport athletes do in their fights. And here it comes, "Burme

se Iron Hammer". Dude. - He's got a big head. - Yo, put a dent to that floor. - It also looks like his specialty. - Yes, which represents his style, the combat sport of Lethwei, which does allow headbutts. Makes it very different from a similar combat sport let's say like Muay Thai looks similar but they don't have headbutts in it. - [Pak] How many brain cells do you have left after that? - Two and a half. - Maybe two. - [Rei] He almost landed that I let myself get lured in too close. - All righ

t, man. Both fighters are tired. - You could tell Rei's making an adjustment now. He must've been intimidated by the power. - Dude, word. I don't know what to do if someone broke the floor with his head. (Pak chuckling) - [Saw Paing] Let's go! - So Rei's using a combo referred to as "Heat Haze", where he just throws rapid punches. - [Pak] That's a legit block, an elbow destruction. - [Chad] Yeah, and what's real is that bruising, man. - [Pak] That's right. (fists pounding) Yo, Chad, why is his f

ingers like that? - Yeah, yeah. Okay, so in this technique referred to as heat haze, we see now in the scene fingers kind of sticking out like so to hit certain pressure points in the head here. - But you and I both know that's an easy way of breaking your hand. - Absolutely. - Let's break this down and go over how to actually punch when you don't have gloves. - I always wear protection. - How do you throw strikes when you have no gloves? I'll do a few reps here and I'm gonna explain what's goin

g on technique-wise. (fists thwapping) Well, when you hear bare knuckle boxers talk about how to punch in their sport, they explain that you really have to clench like so to not break your hand. When I was taught striking with gloves here, we're taught to have relaxed hands. So before you hit your target, you make a fist the last second before you make contact. Now in case you mess up, there's a glove, so the chance of you breaking your hand, I'm not saying it doesn't happen, is not as high if t

here wasn't a glove there. But bare knuckles, you wanna make sure you're automatically clenched 'cause if you are late in your timing on closing that fist when throwing a punch, the probability of you breaking your hand is high. So I clench early and I keep it clenched when I throw my strikes. Now hooks, we could make a fist, that's fine, but again, what's the concern? Us breaking our hands. If you haven't seen a sport called "Power Slap", you'll be surprised in what a smack in a well-placed are

a can do. (hands smacking) So in there, I'm making strong connections. I'm trying to clinch my fingers like so. So when I do connect again, I'm not loose where I can hurt my wrist, I hurt my hand, I keep it somewhat clenched here so there's good connection. Another good trick here, what's cool about smacks is this, if he blocks, smacks can be used for pulling down hands. This opens up techniques like elbows or another strike. So that's a cool thing about smacking. They are great for striking, bu

t at any point they can be turned into a grappling grip to open up other attacks, whether it's striking or grappling techniques. And that would've been a more realistic approach for Rei to attack Saw Paing. - Yeah! - Okay, so now we're going to leg kicks bruising on Rei's- - Calf, yeah. - Calf there, yep. - So one thing about Saw Paing's style that I'm noticing is that even when you block his hits, it's extremely painful. (hand pounding) It looks like he's about to hit him with the Burmese iron

hammer. - [Chad] Yeah, dude. - [Pak] Oh, but Rei hits him with his own headbutt. - Cuts him off. Okay, I like the angle in which they show Rei cutting off Saw Paing. Let's actually break this down and, have a quick discussion on how headbutts are tactically used in hand-to-hand combat. So now we saw that Rei beat Saw Paing in a headbutt exchange. So what happened here? When Saw Paing was launching his headbutt attack, Rei level changed and cut him off by hitting up in the jaw. It reminds me of a

really cool tactic that can be used in a real hand-to-hand combat scenario. Now, I must say this combat is complicated and techniques are not perfect. They have flaws, they have strengths, they have weaknesses. The weakness of a headbutt is that when you're using your own head, you are taking a chance on rattling your own brain when doing so. So you can make yourself dizzy or possibly knock yourself out. But with Rei's setup, it reminds me of what you do see sometimes in mixed martial arts by a

ccident where fighters go for a leg tackle, but in riding up, boom, hit the head. That's actually a fair tactic to use on purpose in a real hand-to-hand fight scenario. So for example, if we're gonna set up a headbutt, one grappling way of doing it is in combat here as we're striking, we threaten a leg tackle. Maybe I make contact, but of course, someone trained will be moving hips and knees away from me. As I ride up, I can always come up to the jaw, getting a good, clean shot. In a similar way

, Rei did not necessarily grab the legs, but he level changed and kept the same angle using a similar tactic to cut off Saw Paing's headbutt. In Saw Paing's case, why could he not land his headbutt? Rei is faster than him. That's a fact. Never follow the speed of someone who's faster than you. You'll never win. Slow the fight down. Saw Paing needs grappling to some extent. We can probably apply underhooks, overhooks, or some form of head control. Head control. From these grips, we can make our o

pponent carry our body weight. In this case, Saw Paing making Rei carry his body weight. So one perfect example, in overhook I have a free hand that can control the far arm or at times make space and block his head. I have space now to set up and launch a headbutt. What's great about this setup is this angle I have right to the jaw there. There's a nice little knockout button there that if my forehead can make contact with some good momentum, we can possibly drop this guy. Tactics like this woul

d've helped Saw Paing fighting a much faster Rei. - We don't cover headbutts enough in this channel, but let me tell you, I absolutely love Headbutts and when I was in college I witnessed a street altercation and I saw the most brilliant self-defense move ever. Oftentimes we've all seen this scenario, two guys square up popping off at each other and this other guy just without warning, headbutt the other guy in the nose and the mouth. Blood was leaking everywhere and he followed it up with a two

piece, knocking the other guy out and I thought, "Oh my God, that was awesome. I'm copying that if I ever need to." - So you know what moral of the story is that whenever you're in an argument with someone, do not let them argue with you face-to-face. Always create distance, set a boundary. If that person's trying to approach you, you send a warning. "Do not come near me." If they ignore that, the fight's on. - Control the distance, control the outcome. - [Rei] Lightning Spirit style. - Alright

, you punch fast enough, Japanese letters are gonna just start popping out. - Yep, and that is "Brutal Lightning" he's using now. - Yeah, and you see the brain. I really like the brain shifting inside the skull and how they animated that. - Which is real. I mean, it actually that happens in real life. - That's how you get concussed. (punches whooshing) - [Chad] Look at the brain just shake! - [Pak] More flurries. - Oof, nice elbow. Okay cool. So you know what's really cool about the elbow that w

as thrown by Saw Paing and the effects they show about that cut? That's real life. Elbows and even even knuckles, but let's say elbows right now are very powerful cutting tools. Let's do a little breakdown on how elbows are applied in hand-to-hand combat. We see he throws an elbow as a counterstrike, which cuts Rei just above the eye and that's a real thing. Elbows do cut. I actually have some scars myself from being elbowed and kneed in some of my mixed martial arts fights, so it's a real thing

. Now as Rei is lighting up Saw Paing's face, in one of the strikes, the jaw is being turned and an elbow is coming right over that punch. It makes sense if you think about it structurally. If the chin is already being moved a certain direction, that means the shoulder and elbow can easily rotate with the strike. In fact, you see boxers getting hit and countering with the same side punch due to the same mechanical reasons. Furthermore, to tie in to how we were discussing earlier, smacks are grea

t way to apply and pull down for those strikes. Sometimes when fighters are really tight to each other and throwing punches and they're holding very tight guards, there's opens where I use hooks to open up a tight upward elbow. So you see, elbows come in different angles and there's different setups. Whether you use a punch elbow set up or with some grappling where your hands get involved to lower guard. So I must say, great use of elbow demonstrated by Saw Paing. (Saw Paing grunting) Okay, so S

aw Paing is pulling closed guard here. Now, before in the comment section you guys say, "Hey yo, pause," let's break down what's going on here. It is a natural reaction by people, even untrained people, when they're fighting to grab and hold to not get punched. So let's break down why Saw Paing's doing this and what his goals are tactically. Saw Paing pulls a closed guard. What is that? It's when when on the bottom I wrap my legs around the waist. This is to help control my opponent's hips so th

ey cannot stand up and posture so easily. It's also a great way of managing punches. Now, we see the fighters having their arms like so. Rei is using a framing arm to keep Saw Paing away from him. He's also trying to use his arm to maintain space, which allows him to throw punches to the face. Saw Paing's controlling punches with a arm inside like so and the other arm on the neck. Now, Saw Paing tries to go from this control to launching elbows, which eventually leads to him losing the position.

If he had some more grappling training, he could apply what's called a side scissor. From here, he could attack the arm that's framing, putting his defense arm to grab the elbow, pull it across, and shrimping out to cross his legs on the far hip. My top hand will grab the lat muscle and like you're seeing here, this position's called a side scissor. It's a type of closed guard. From here I could launch elbow attacks or I can climb to the back like this. From here, he could get a far underhook a

nd let go the floor to start launching elbows. If he had any more grappling experience, he could reverse his opponent to a back mount to launch a strangle. Something like this, putting an arm behind the neck and using a power nelson to reverse the opponent to expose the neck for strangles, ending the fight - [Announcer] He pulled away. Did he slip on something? - Come on. - He's creating distance. - So Saw Paing does a flying knee, which okay, it makes sense. He's trying to cover the distance an

d he follows up with leg kicks. This is very smart. Let's break this down and explain why he's using both of these attacks. We see Saw Paing using two flying knees in this fight. The first one is used to set up grips on the arms on Rei to launch a headbutt. The one I wanna focus on is the flying knee used to just simply cover distance and move into another attack. Base mechanical form, the lead leg can be used to take that first step. You may notice how my head goes over that knee. This makes my

right leg light. The right leg is the leg I'm going to use to hit my partner with. So here we go. (knee thumping) So you saw in my jump there, again a light example, how I'm covering distance while attacking. Okay, remember, combat's complicated and techniques are not perfect. Yes, I'm covering distance, yes, it's my body weight. Yes, I do damage, but I am exposing myself. We do see examples let's say in mixed martial arts of fighters getting knocked out while jumping at their opponents. Howeve

r, Saw Paing quickly changes tactics. He uses the flying knee to cover distance and then starts going to leg kicks, which is very smart. Leg kicks when they add up, slow down very mobile fighters, which Rei is. Now we'll do this, we'll demonstrate a basic leg kick and show you a subcategory of leg kicks that Saw Paing was doing in this fight. Just watch. (leg thumping) Now you may notice my basic leg kick, in which most coaches consider a leg kick, is attacking the thigh. Going very slow, going

very slow like so. However, we do see based on bruising on Rei that Saw Paing was hitting the calf. The calf kick is a subcategory of leg kick. We'll show a few reps now on how I'll kick my partner but with the pad focusing on calf kicks. (leg thumping) There are three interesting advantages to a calf kick. Number one, it is a little bit tricky for your opponent to read the body language of a calf kick. When I'm launching a kick to the thigh, for example, you'll usually see a knee lifting. That

motion goes right into a thigh kick, whether it's in front of me or out wide for more power, the knee must come up to a certain degree. For a calf kick, it doesn't have to come up that much. You can see from here it is way lower and so it's trickier on the eyes, especially when I use footwork. Number two, they are harder to defend. If I was to kick the thigh, my partner Pak can easily check it if seen, right? But a calf kick goes around the shin. I've definitely seen when an opponent tries to ch

eck, but he still gets caught. We'll do a light example right now as my partner tries to check my kick. I can still go around it. Sorry, (chuckles) my bad. So if my partner tries to check it and I have good footwork, I can still hit the side of the calf, which is hard to defend with checking. And third, it hits a nerve behind the calf that makes it extremely painful to walk. We saw an example of this in a UFC fight between Dustin Poirier versus Conor McGregor where Dustin had Conor just limping

on that leg after a few calf kicks. And it tactically makes sense for Saw Paing to do this against Rei. Rei is fast as lightning, so it makes sense to hit those legs, particularly the calf, to make it difficult to walk and obviously to move, slowing down the fight. Good job, Saw Paing. (impact booming) - [Announcer] He refuses to back off. - Saw Paing's just kicking the crap out of Rei and his legs there. - Yeah, they're really sharing brutal kicks. All right, he's setting up a downward elbow. -

Here we go. Boom. - Who won that exchange? - All right, I'm not gonna lie, that pose is fire, looks pretty cool, but not the most realistic punch but yo, gets the job done, Rei wins. - Ooh, sorry, Village of Dawn. - (chuckles) Yeah, those poor kids. - All right, Chad, what'd you think about this fight? - So Rei's Lightning Spirit style, which is completely fictional, I'd never heard that style in real life, pulls back the realism of this fight compared to other "Kengan Ashura" matches that we'v

e broken down. Therefore, my grade for it is a B minus. - I think that's very fair. Don't get me wrong, it's completely entertaining. It's a great fight scene. But again, if we're judging by its realism and its technique, B minus is fair. - Totally agree with you, Chad, but wait, you didn't think you'd get away with me missing that judo throw by Rei on Saw Paing? - I was hoping we actually skipped that, but here we go, let's do it. - Rei just got cut by an elbow by Saw Paing and Saw Paing's load

ing up for another elbow. You see Rei sidestep, post here, hooks Saw Paing's inside leg, and take him down. Honestly, I don't see how that works. There's no upper body connection in a meaningful way where I can steer my opponent's weight. What Rei should have done to make it more realistic is this, again, same thing, side step. Instead of posting here, I'm gonna shoot my arm through, get a head and arm control like so, almost like a kata-gatame, side step, hit an osotogari, and from here, I can

really overwhelm my opponent with the Brutal Lightning.