Anderson Silva Shows Why High Level Kickboxers Hate MMA

There are lessons to be learned from Saturday night's UFC 117 where Anderson Silva, arguably the best kickboxer in MMA, met Chael Sonnen, one of the better wrestlers to adapt to MMA in years. Anderson Silva claims to of gone into the bout with Sonnen with a broken rib, fighting against doctors' orders, but wanted to be a true champion and fight anyway. Sonnen went into the fight of his life looking to back up all of the talk he had done for the past few months, so the pressure was on for both men.

Recently, we took one of those speculatory looks into how Ando could fare in the K-1 world, and it is important to note that out of all of those names listed, only a few have ventured into the MMA world, and the only two who have had any success are Alistair Overeem and Semmy Schilt. Outside of that, MMA is generally a no-no for high level kickboxers for the obvious reasons of having to deal with grappling and takedowns, which means standard fight stances don't always work.

Anderson Silva took the risk that any fighter takes going in against a game opponent who is hungry and in the process ate a few shots from Chael Sonnen, a fighter not known for his stand up and will now have the misfortune of being dissected by fans and have his talents called into question. It is the risk every fighter takes stepping into a fight, but in MMA especially a striker takes a risk of being caught by someone who isn't known for their high level striking. In this case, Sonnen has always been known to have OK hand work to set up his takedown (his takedown almost always misses without the set up one-two), and in this case connected.

Some of the main criticisms against K-1 heavyweights in the past have been that they are very offense-oriented, but their defense is lacking compared to Middleweights. Many chalk that up to a stylistic preference, or how the rules of K-1 dictate the fighting style. So it seems MMA is the same where the rules dictate the style. If you take to heart the lack of defense of some of the K-1 Heavyweights (not all, obviously), it is apparent why many would like to stay away from MMA. Even with basic knowledge of takedown defense, the chance of getting hit by a striker not seen on their level could do damage to their credibility. On top of this, being laid upon for any amount of rounds is demoralizing.

If you want proof of this beyond Anderson vs. Sonnen, watch this video of Badr Hari in his lone MMA bout and understand why he'll never do MMA again. Watch Errol Zimmerman's top level striking not even come into play against Ikuhisa Minowa from Dynamite!! 2008, as well. So this is why you won't see many, if any kickboxers wander into MMA, and why there should be a certain level of respect given to fighters like Anderson Silva who are exceptional stand up fighters but choose to compete in MMA and learn every aspect of the game.