Photo by Brandon Magnus/Zuffa LLC

On the State of Aldo-McGregor, and the Bicycle Kick

The UFC 189 main event has come off of the rails. Jose Aldo is injured, and is either going to bail on the fight or be firmly encouraged to fight anyway. Chad Mendes is waiting in the wings as sort of a fistic understudy, and while the McGregor – Mendes bout would be as worthy a main event as any, who wants to see the best in the world fight without proper, opponent-specific preparation? Is it even worth throwing McGregor in at the deep end with Mendes with an interim belt on the line when it puts the multi-million dollar bout with Aldo at risk? Any way this fight plays out, if it does play out, it comes with an asterisk which will keep fans arguing for months.

Really, there is no way that the fans can win this one, and it just underlines the dangers of pumping millions of dollars into a fist fight between two individuals: no B-teams can be fielded, and there is no opportunity to substitute the fighter on for five minutes to 'see how it feels'.

With Nova Uniao dropping out of a whopping 16% of its commitments in the UFC and WEC since 2009, and with stars like Jose Aldo and Anthony Pettis each pulling out of four fights in that time due to injuries, and Cain Velasquez recently returning from six hundred days without a fight we must take a minute to perform our usual, futile reflection on the clearly ineffectual manner in which many camps are training. Yes, ineffectual—you can produce world-beaters but if they can't actually make it to the fight, your training is not doing what it should.

Even if it is announced that Aldo's rib is “just bruised”, you have to consider it pretty significant if it is keeping the champion, who was happy to kick Chan Sung Jung with a broken foot, from walking normally.

And all of this leaves me somewhat high and dry. I was writing a pair of intertwining series, charting the careers of Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor up to their fight, but at the time of writing this I have no way to even know if that bout is happening. There's certainly no point writing a detailed Can Conor McGregor Kill the King? analysis if the bout is cancelled the next day.

So while we all cross our fingers and hope that Aldo simply has trapped wind, and in the interest of keeping the McGregor train rolling, I want to examine—nay, celebrate—a double attack he has created and utilized beautifully in the cage. A traditional martial arts combination which certainly no-one would have seen working five years ago. A Chinese technique practiced by monks, delivered to Okinawa by a pirate, taken to Tokyo by a school teacher, adopted by Korean dojang, and perfected in Ireland's Straight Blast Gym. Ganbei, karii, kampai, gunbae, and sláinte!

Nidan-Geri

The nidan-geri, or two-level kick is a pretty simple idea—kick low, then kick high. It's essentially a jumping double kick. It appears in almost every old Chinese style, made it's way to Okinawa through the ambassador, Kusanku and the pirate, Chinto, and was then taken to mainland Japan by men like Gichin Funakoshi and Kenwa Mabuni. It caught on like wildfire with the Japanese university students who made up karate's core, because it involved leaping through the air. But it was only when karate began to be formed into taekwondo that the kick really became a focal point.

Now in quan fa and karate, the double kick was always considered an all-in move. I've even seen martial arts historians theorize that it is a move for a fighter on higher ground, throwing himself downhill. In taekwondo tournaments, however, it became commonplace to be jumping into kick after kick. Both schools of thought naturally led into most of us assuming that to double kick in MMA would be to give up an easy takedown for little gain.

The effectiveness of the two-level kick is vastly improved, however, when the first kick is treated as a feint to set up the second. The efficacy is increased even more when the feint looks like a kick which the fighter is repeatedly utilizing. Compare Dong Hyun Kim jumping in and missing with nearly twenty attempts at a double kick in his bout with Sean Pierson, to Lyoto Machida knocking out Randy Couture on the first attempt.

Machida had repeatedly landed with the left leg to the midsection up to that point in the bout. When he feinted with the left leg and jumped into the right kick, Couture was leaning into brace against the impact of what he thought was just another left kick. Simply committing to the technique he intended to fake led to Machida easily landing the spectacular 'crane kick'.

That is one form of bicycle kick, but it requires some commitment to power kicking with the rear leg in order to set up an accurate kick with the lead leg. What Conor McGregor and Saenchai both do is the reverse of this. They establish their lead leg, then begin picking that leg up and leaping in with rear footed kicks or punches. In this instance the combination acts in a similar way to the 1-2, the weaker lead leg is used to set up the powerful rear leg kick.

Saenchai does this with the simple lead leg push kick to the midsection. Being a short, stumpy fighter, you would not think that the straight push kick would be of tremendous use to Saenchai—but he doesn't use it for reach, he gets in range and brings it up faster than his opponent can throw something of their own. Shorter legs, shorter kicking time.



Saenchai's side on push kick is also a favorite.

Once he has that lead leg established, he'll start faking the quick lead leg kick, and leaping in behind it with a rear leg kick. It's beautiful stuff, and punishing too; Saenchai can kick like a cassowary.

But the lead leg push kick is not tremendously useful in MMA. McGregor's work comes off of that Bruce Lee favorite which has won Jon Jones almost every fight since he met Vitor Belfort: the low line side kick. Its value is that it doesn't require tremendous power because it is there to jam the opponent's lead leg as they step in.

Against Max Holloway, McGregor went to this side kick early and often. When Holloway became reluctant to step in and box, McGregor began using the side kick to glide in on the standing leg. Then he began adding rear leg kicks. This bicycle front kick to the midsection led straight into a punching combination.

And more recently, McGregor utilized the same set up to leap into a knee strike on the shorter Dennis Siver.

McGregor has really only been applying the taekwondo kicks since his bout with Holloway, and much of the media focus has been on the hook kicks and spinning kicks, but to me this integration of the low line side kick into the double kicking game is really what makes McGregor unique as a kicker. While orthodox fighters will struggle to land low line side kicks against other orthodox fighters without risking going past center and exposing their back, southpaw fighters should definitely be looking more into this.

Whether or not the planned Aldo versus McGregor meeting goes ahead, and whether or not McGregor wins or has his hype train derailed, do not delude yourself into thinking that he isn't something special as a fighter. It takes tremendous will to break with the norm and try something new, and even greater courage to bring something new each and every fight. Doesn't matter if you're sick of his fans, or out to rub it in the face of his doubters, we can all agree that McGregor's flair for the dramatic and creative makes exciting fights.

Check out these related stories:

The Path of Conor McGregor: Birth of The Notorious

The Path of José Aldo: Fed to the Lions

Jack Slack: How Conor McGregor Dispatched of Dennis Siver