Hunt vs Kongo - What is "World Class" Striking?

At UFC 144 two big men with KO power will meet in the heavyweight tilt between New Zealand's own, Mark Hunt, and the French Muay Thai practitioner, Cheick Kongo. While Mark Hunt has won the K-1 Grand Prix, the highest title in the world of competitive striking, his technical skill is often overshadowed by the fact that it was largely his physical attributes which won him this title. Hunt only succeeded in getting to the tournament final by injuring Ray Sefo's eye in a losing effort against Sefo in the semi finals, drawing his fellow Kiwi into a brawl because he could not deal with Sefo's superior technical kickboxing. Cheick Kongo, on the other hand, receives enormous credit for his string of kickboxing titles despite a complete absence of any verifiable kickboxing record. Kongo was once, though it is hard to believe now, in serious title contention in the UFC, after picking up 3 solid TKO wins through 2008 - 2009 before meeting Cain Velasquez and being taken down seemingly at will en route to a unanimous decision loss.

It is hoped that this fight will remain standing, in which case it is important to consider the strengths of each man in that domain. Hunt's abilities are well known - he has one of the most solid chins in the history of combat sports. In his career he has taken Cro Cop's high kick flush on the jaw, and the strongest blows from Ray Sefo, Mike Bernardo and Jerome Le Banner. Hunt has mixed it up with the best kickboxers in the world and come out with mixed results, but has been knocked out cold only once, in an MMA match against Melvin Manhoef, perhaps the biggest puncher, pound for pound in the world. Hunt also holds a thunderous punch - being able to knock out the iron jawed Jerome Le Banner, and break the orbital bone of Ray Sefo.

Once Hunt entered MMA, his career was perhaps the worst nurtured of any prospect, meeting Hidehiko Yoshida, Dan Bobish, Wanderlei Silva and Mirko Cro Cop in his first four fights. Somehow managing, with a complete absence of MMA experience, to get the better of the latter three. Clearly Hunt fights best against strikers, Cro Cop and Silva being the two highest profile strikers in MMA at the time. But his matches against Josh Barnett, Fedor Emelianenko, Alistair Overeem and Sean McCorkle exposed his woefully inadequate takedown and submission defense. Since his loss to McCorkle in his UFC debut, however, Hunt has experienced a career renaissance - developing the takedown defense to repeatedly stuff Brock Lesnar's training partner, Chris Tuchscherer en route to a walk-away uppercut knockout during a sprawl. Hunt continued his improvement, out grappling veteran Ben Rothwell, and brutalizing him on both the feet and the floor. While Rothwell is no master of the ground game or of takedowns, he is certainly a better wrestler than Kongo, and will make Kongo's night long if he is forced to revert to his wrestling strategy.

Hunt has, however, been prone to eating too many shots due to his great chin's allowing him to. In a way reminiscent of Chuck Liddell, who could not learn to keep his hands up even when working with Howard Davis Jr., Hunt may be too stuck in his ways to learn to keep his hands up. It was this fault which got him knocked out by Manhoef and stunned by Gegard Mousasi, who is not known as a hard puncher.

Kongo, for his part, is an extremely interesting striker from a technical perspective. His kicks and Thai plumm (double handed neck clinch) are brutal, and were almost entirely responsible for his kickboxing success. While he has shown his Thai clinch during his UFC tenure, and that he can do significant damage from the guard against weaker opposition what is particularly fascinating is the enormous credit given to Kongo as a boxer. Based purely on his kickboxing titles, UFC fans credit him with having skill in his hands which he simply does not possess. Kongo often carries his chin high and pushes his punches out without being in good position to defend counter shots. The punches which Pat Barry dropped him with were simple looping counters which should not land on a "world class" kickboxer with the reach and height advantages that Kongo carried into that fight. Watch this fight from Kongo's mysterious kickboxing career and notice how he relies almost entirely on his savage kicks and clinch work - factors which have been largely absent from his UFC career as he is so weak off of his back that he cannot risk attempting them except against lower tier opposition.

Important to notice from this fight is firstly how Cheick Kongo's kickboxing record is apparently 12 - 12 with 0 KOs, certainly different from the 21 - 2 listed on Wikipedia, seemingly the only available evidence of his career. What is most obvious is how easily Kongo out maneuvers and manhandles his opponent however - how often do we see him use those low kicks in his MMA career? Almost never, and that is the sad downside of his have next to no guard game. Were his legs and hips as dexterous on the ground as they are on the feet, he could throw such biting strikes without concern. Most noticeable, however, is Kongo's only real attempt to box with his opponent, at 4:11 where he is wobbled while wading in with sloppy, stepping punches. His lack of head movement and unconvincing feints allowed his opponent to throw the lead hand shot onto Kongo's chin as he walked backwards - not a powerful punch and eerily reminiscent of the backward walking punches which Kongo used to great effect on the similarly head-movement averse, Cain Velasquez.

Notice how Kongo's own lack of head movement leads him to eat a shot from Velasquez despite landing cleanly on his opponent. It is these kinds of 50/50 punching exchanges which Kongo occasionally wins big in, perpetuating the belief that because he has knockout power, he has good boxing. Pat Barry was caught similarly but due to diving in with reckless abandon was put out cold. Mark Hunt, however, has made a career of baiting opponents to trade with him. Hunt succeeded in giving as good as he got against bigger punching, technically elite, Ray Sefo and Jerome Le Banner - if he stuns Kongo as Barry or Mir did, Kongo has little hope of pulling out a flash knockout as he did against Barry, and lacks the power of Melvin Manhoef.

The most important factor of this match is the wrestling. When two good strikers meet, they often wrestle in a tedious display of "octagon control" (simultaneously the dumbest and vaguest criteria in sports) for 15 minutes, and when two great grapplers meet they often choose to put on a light contact kickboxing exhibition. When Kongo failed to get the better of Mitrione on the feet, eating the few significant strikes of the match, he chose to lean against Mitrione on the fence to eek out the third round and pick up a decision, whether Hunt's counter-wrestling is of the level where he can muscle his way off of the fence will likely decide this fight if Kongo drops the first round.

Jack Slack breaks down striking strategy and technique at his websitewww.fightsgoneby.com

He can also be found on Twitter @JackSlackMMA