Bloody Elbow Judo Chop: The Front Kick, or How Georges St. Pierre Can Beat B.J. Penn

This is the first speculative Judo Chop, but I've been thinking about it for a long time. Since June 27 of last year to be exact.

That's when Josh Thomson beat Gilbert Melendez to take the Strikeforce Lightweight title. I was blown away by the method Thomson used to beat Melendez: the front kick (not pictured, I couldnt' find a nice still shot of Josh using the front kick).

Its not that flashy a technique, nor is it much of a fight finisher. Its also not a technique we've seen a great deal of in MMA. It's quite common in Muy Thai where it functions essentially as a jab and is called a "teep kick", often the most thrown strike in a fight.

In MMA the low round kick to the legs has been very common, but the front kick is a rarity. Thomson made a strong case in his fight against Melendez that the front kick has a place in the arsenal. He didn't open the fight with it, but by the second round, Thomson was using the front kick to keep Melendez out of punching range and effectively nullified his game.

What does this have to do with beating B.J. Penn? Simple, like Gilbert Melendez, B.J. eschews the kicking game. In fact, his training manual (which is excellent btw) doesn't feature a single offensive kick. Both Penn and Melendez are good boxers who have elected to focus their time on honing fewer striking techniques to a higher level of polish. Its a logical decision, if you can present a striking threat standing with just your hands, why mess with learning a whole new batch of techniques -- high risk ones at that.

In the first decade of MMA, throwing kicks was seen as risky, virtually inviting the takedown. But Thomson used the front kick to keep Melendez out of punching range. And since Melendez usually shoots in behind his looping lead lefts, keeping him out of punching range thoroughly stifled his formidable wrestling game.

B.J. Penn is clearly more dangerous on his feet than Melendez, but his offensive wrestling game isn't as strong. If GSP wants to thoroughly put B.J. off his game, I recommend leading with the front kick to keep him on his heels, outside his punching range, where GSP can wear him down on the feet before taking the fight to the ground.

As pictured, it was a key part of Anderson Silva's victory over Dan Henderson. Silva didn't just use the front kick to keep Henderson out of clinch range, he used it to damage Henderson. Silva also didn't wait to use the front kick, he opened with it in the first round, right to the throat, and went back to it in the second. Silva talks about the front kick in his instruction manual. For an ambidextrous fighter like Silva, the front kick gives a perfect opportunity to switch stances and follow up with more strikes.

I don't recall seeing GSP throw many front kicks, relying more on round kicks to the legs. I'd wager he's thrown more spinning back kicks than front kicks in his MMA career, but I'd like to see the numbers.

Nevertheless, the technique is there and B.J. Penn is the perfect fighter to use it on. He doesn't incorporate kicks into his game, rarely shoots for a takedown from distance and is very very dangerous in close and in the clinch.

Listen to me Georges, if you want to win, keep B.J. back with damaging front kicks until you wear him down, then you can take him down and grind out a decision or even score a TKO.

Scads of gifs from the Thomson fight in the full entry.

About the name of this feature: I chose Judo Chop because it’s an utter misnomer that is sometimes used by poorly informed MMA commentators during fights. It’s also from the Austin Powers movie. I chose it because it reflects my own lack of expertise and what this column is: my stumbling along in the dark trying to get a handle on the technical aspects of the fights. The techniques featured here will sometimes involve judo but not always. Sorry if that's confusing.

This might be too many gifs for one page, so forgive me. Gifs by Chris Nelson.

Here we see Josh throwing a rear front kick (that's a confusing name but it means he's throwing the kick with his rear leg) to Gilbert's head.

Note he lands with his heel rather than the ball of his foot. TKD stylists land the kick with both the ball and the heel. Anderson Silva started out in TKD and you see it in the pic of him kicking Henderson, landing with both the ball and heel of his foot.

Here we see the lead front kick to the body.  Thomson used this throughout the fight the way an offense will run the fullback up the middle behind a powerful guard who's just crushing the defensive line.

Gilbert can't even get fully into his boxing stance before he's pushed back out of range again.

Here Josh uses a lead front kick to get himself out of trouble when Gilbert has him backed against the cage and is throwing combinations.

The kick forces Melendez back and lets Thomson get off the cage and out of danger. That happened throughout the fight.

This last one shows how late in the fight, Thomson is using the threat of the front kick to back Melendez up and once he's back peddling, take him down.

I'd love to see a FightMetric of this fight, I'd like to know how many front kicks Thomson landed in this fight. He really ran over Melendez with this technique. Its not anything fancy, just a straight shot up the middle.