There have only been a few front-kick knockouts in the UFC, and one of the best of all time goes to Lyoto Machida. However, the Karate master thinks Michael Chandler’s latest front-kick knockout is up there among the best.
Earlier this month at UFC 274, Michael Chandler became the first man to knock Tony Ferguson out cold, and he did so with a picture-perfect, violent front-kick knockout.
MICHAEL CHANDLER JUST KNOCKED OUT TONY FERGUSON COLD… WOW pic.twitter.com/sjhJycWhHS
— FightBiz (@FightBizz) May 8, 2022
Machida rates Chandler’s KO.
In a recent interview with MMA Fighting, Machida who probably has the best cleanest front-kick of all time rated Chandler’s knockout a 10.
“I’m the type of guy that sees the martial arts in a global way. ‘Oh, this Mae Geri, this front kick had no technique, he kicked from down up.’ Did it work? It did. If it worked, it’s good,” Machida said.
“We tend to diminish [others]. It’s not easy to land a kick like that. [People criticize,] ‘If his feet was like that, or his knee was a bit bent.’ I don’t care. What matters to me is how effective it was. [If] I’m going out to hunt and I have the best weapon, but I wasn’t effective, what’s the point? [If] my weapon isn’t that good, but I went there and killed the animal? That means I was effective, that I did it well.”
Machida continued.
“Martial arts, like the name says, is art. And like art, anything can come from it. You look at a painting from Leonardo da Vinci and sometimes you don’t see beauty, but someone with more sensibility than you will be able to see something there. ‘This is so beautiful, look at what this person thought.’
“It’s the same thing with a kick like this. I look at martial art in a holistic way, you know? Did it work well? So it’s a 10.” h/t MMA Fighting
That is some high praise from Machida, who knocked out Vitor Belfort with a front kick in 2018.
Four years ago today, Lyoto Machida slept Vitor Belfort with a front kick
— Alex Behunin (@AlexBehunin) May 12, 2022
‘The Dragon’ is coming off a first-round knockout loss to Fabian Edwards at Bellator 281 in London. According to MMA Fighting, that was the last fight on his contract with the promotion after dropping four in a row.
