The best sports highlight from the weekend was easily from Joaquin Buckley in the UFC, who hit Impa Kasanganay in the face with a spinning kick and knocked him the fuck out. If you’ve already seen it and thought “that’s straight out of a fighting game”, you are correct!
If you haven’t seen it, here it is (skip to around 0:25):
Holy shit. pic.twitter.com/0el6zYeW0x
— Mark Serrels (@Serrels) October 11, 2020
Not that Buckley was explicitly paying homage to Tekken in any way when he pulled off the move — he hasn’t mentioned it since — it’s still incredible to see his spinning heel kick, launched in this instance while Kasanganay was already holding his other foot, is practically identical to Lee’s Mist Trap from Tekken.
Buckley landed literal tekken shit last night pic.twitter.com/4fECvGQ2YS
— creepy slowed down version of an upbeat song (@high_light) October 11, 2020
As some commentators have pointed out, this is a sweet Taekwondo move. This isn’t a Taekwondo blog, though, so we’re calling it a Tekken move, thanks.
Oh, and to continue the fighting game spirit, this fight was one of the bouts taking place in the fifth event to be held on the UFC’s Fight Island.
It’s almost like fighting games have a basis in real life martial arts, especially when character profiles list them. (I know this was alluded to, but still, some direct acknowledgement of the research that goes into these games might be nice)
I’m pretty sure this a Hwoarang move though (He is a Taekwondo fighter after all). I remember trying it out on a friend once (sans contact) because I was maining the character at the time.
Hwoarang has similar moves but this one really does resemble Lee’s mist trap a lot.
It’s also done by the kid in the TMNT2 movie from the 90s lol.
That was a nice little fight card. Didn’t expect Sandhagen to work Moraes that hard.
one of my mates tried to do that to me back in school. it ended with him flat on his arse because i let go of his foot while he was in mid air and pushed it away from me.
the difference between us and the clip…we were actually going as fast as the slomo replay and so i was able to see it comming. in the actualy clip due had no fuck all time to react
I’m not into sports at all, but HOT DAMN was that one of the coolest things I’ve seen a human being do.