Thanks for putting that up pare.

I don’t see how its surprising that Vera (primarily a Muay Thai fighter) is better at Muay Thai than he is at Karate.

STX may be on to something (but with savate – not karate – and muay thai). Thanks Anton.

from the difference of being a contender….to having his face broken by Mr. Jones.

I don’t want to be grumpy, but this presentation sucked.
Vera showed two MT head kicks, one with the foot (most common) and second the shin (less common, because you have to be closer to your opponent which could end up with hard counter. Height of you opponent also matters in choice of the kick).
Karate kicks are performed with different technique (power comes from hip rotation and leg snap).

Where did this air? On Sportscenter? Or just on MMA live?

So much potential, but such crappy execution. They basically said that MT and Karate kicks are the same, except for the part of the foot that contacts. I’m fairly sure that’s a gross simplification, ignoring things like the role the quads play in snapping the lower leg or holding it ridged, or even the way the hips roll when setting up the kicks. There’s much more to it than just striking area. It’s entirely likely that Vera wasn’t throwing the karate kick correctly, since, most people don’t. That’s why there was such fascination with Machida when he first became popular; here was a karate guy throwing kicks that actually hurt.

Maybe my standards are too high, since I’m surrounded by stuff like this all the time at work, but the episode when they tried to establish whether a large mass at low acceleration generates more force than a small mass at high acceleration made me facepalm pretty badly.

The shin vs foot thing is silly anyway. Muay Thai hits with both and so do some styles of Karate like Kyokushin. Its the chamber leg(karate,tkd,etc) vs spinning around(Muay Thai) that is the fundamental difference. Though the way they tested is absurd, I would say that generally Muay Thai is a bit stronger while Karate is a bit faster.