[div class=”notice” class2=”icon”]The following is from an article on LiverKick.com, part of the MiddleEasy Network.[/div]
Tomorrow is the first leg of the Shoot the Shooto/Shooto the Shoot events, with Shooto’s portion of the card taking place and I’ve decided to finish this look at kickboxing vs MMA with what is one of the strangest, most bizarre fights, in theory and in practice, between kickboxing and MMA and that is last year’s special rules match between Shinya Aoki and Yuichiro Nagashima at Dynamite!!! 2010. When the fight was announced, most were confused as to what rules it would take place under, but FEG released the details that there would be a 3 minute kickboxing round and a 5 minute MMA round using MMA gloves for both, with the order being decided by a coin flip. When it happened, the kickboxing round was determined to be first and most figured Nagashima would need to put Aoki away in that three minutes or else the fight would almost assuredly be Aoki’s. What followed was the strangest 3 minutes of kickboxing, characterized by Aoki clinching whenever Nagashima got close, shooting for takedowns and throwing dropkicks.
