How Sean Strickland Dismantled Israel Adesanya

[DoctorTaco]

He tells an entertaining story. So much bs everywhere. Next to one mentions things learned through repetition like reflexes and anticipation. Never enough credit given to good hard work.

it takes a level of delusion bordering on impressive to credit a martial art for a fighters win when that fighter has never trained that martial art.

 

[TheMaster]

The Philly Shell looks like the way it does for very specific reasons. You are usually in a much more bladed stance than usual. Your shoulder is there to deflect punches, your rear hand is there to catch or parry jabs. You bend more at the waist, and when done right, crosses and hooks just roll of your shoulder and jabs just get swatted to the side.

James Toney, especially when he was older showcased it perfectly and is an absolute master at the Philly Shell. If you haven't already, dive down that rabbit hole. He is such a pleasure to watch.

This is a good explanation and description. With this as the reference point then yes in no way was Strickland using the Philly Shell. I will check out more of Tony.
Its not just people on here though who it seems have lazily called it that.
Taco, (after finishing his first serving of crow) also posted a clip of the trainer who claimed Adesanya was beat by "forward pressure, jab, jab cross, basic Philly Shell". It's seems there is no widely recognized reference point for what Strickland is doing in terms of modern boxing styles.

Parries, hand trapping and deflecting is not exclusively Wing Chun, though. You could say there were some overlaps in techniques but to say Sean primarily used Wing Chun would be like saying Silva primarily used Wing Chun to beat Nick Diaz.

Yes I am not denying that boxing has parries.

Like I said, for me the fundamental of Wing Chun is standing in a square stance with almost no head or body movement and using the deflection and parry style with the primary centreline punch, all things Stickland was doing as a foundation also and things Silva experimented with but never embraced as his primary system to this extent.

You seem like you know your boxing. Can you name me one school or style of boxing that teaches to:
- stand square
- not move the head or body but instead rely on forarm/elbow deflections and hand parries at close range as the primary defence

To me the fundamental of boxing is to move the head and body and make extensive use of footwork. This is the foundation, and if you are not doing that to call it "boxing" is a stretch.

For Wing Chun it's the other way round. This is why I have said Strickland even if his background is training boxing had adapted it to the extent he was essentially doing an applied Wing Chun approach in there with his MMA striking style.

 

[Stuart0502]

Standing in a square stance with very little head or body movement and extensive use of hand parrying and deflections at close range is Wing Chun 101 and is anathema to boxing.

That is a semi legitimate point. It kind of gets into philosophical debate of "what is boxing" but it does go against some trainers boxing philosophy.

You could say George Foreman fought in a way similar to that coming from a boxing background.

 

[rmongler]

There is a big discussion about this on the main UFC forums as well.
Like it or not, its a Wing Chun type style and proven to be effective now which is what we always knew.
Not classic Philly Shell at all because of the MMA gloves and rulset.

- Upright narrow stance
- Standing square, both hands equidistant
- Extensive use of hand parrying
- Hardly any head or body movement, not a boxing strategy at all but keeps balanc and faster counters.
- 'Wing arm' deflections, or bong sau in Wing Chun
- Mainly straight line punches down the centerline
- Straight thrust kicks
- Doesn't use hooks or looping punches unless opening is there and opponent is hurt

MMA has adapted many techniques from Filipino boxing and rates styles to make this work.
Strickland has made it work, don't know how much influence he or his trainers have from other arts but he has an excellent atypical striking style.
He has also set a template for every Wing Chun man to make the art work, adapting some additional boxing methods where necessary as a supplement.

I don't give damn how many people want to deny or hate, I know what I am seeing.
People far more qualified than anyone on here have already discussed the parallels so they can STFU.



* additional point: The effectiveness of this close range hand parrying, elbow forearm deflections, square stance system with straight line attacks opens up even more opportunities when the added restrictions of MMA ruleset are removed.



Things just got interesting

Thing is, men calling themselves wing chun fighters were not the first to do the things you talk about, nor are they the most prominent examples of things you talk about.

Strickland's main influences in striking are muay thai and boxing. It is a coincidence for anything he does to look like wing chun to you, then.

 

[The Don]

This is a good explanation and description. With this as the reference point then yes in no way was Strickland using the Philly Shell. I will check out more of Tony.
Its not just people on here though who it seems have lazily called it that.
Taco, (after finishing his first serving of crow) also posted a clip of the trainer who claimed Adesanya was beat by "forward pressure, jab, jab cross, basic Philly Shell". It's seems there is no widely recognized reference point for what Strickland is doing in terms of modern boxing styles.

I have said before that video was posted that Sean beat Izzy with forward pressure and distance management than anything else. When a lot of people were talking and focusing on the faux Philly Shell he was using.

And I agree with those statements. Sean essentially walked Izzy down, took away Adesanya's kicks which in turn took away Adesanya's other tooks. Izzy doesn't really use his jab to set up his other strikes, he uses his kicks and his own opponents aggression to set up his own offensive and counters. Sean managed his distance very well, defended kicks and walked him down while landing his own jabs and crosses. I mean the most significant strike that was landed in that fight was a textbook 1-2

Yes I am not denying that boxing has parries.

Like I said, for me the fundamental of Wing Chun is standing in a square stance with almost no head or body movement and using the deflection and parry style with the primary centreline punch, all things Stickland was doing as a foundation also and things Silva experimented with but never embraced as his primary system to this extent.

Again, just because there are some techniques from Wing Chun, doesn't mean he was using Wing Chun. Considering Wing Chun borrows a lot of principles from boxing, there is bound to be some overlap.

And to say Strickland wasn't using any head movement at all is erroneous.

This and the TS posts showcase head movement.

You seem like you know your boxing. Can you name me one school or style of boxing that teaches to:
- stand square
- not move the head or body but instead rely on forarm/elbow/hand deflections at close range

First of all, there's a reason why boxers move their head and body and have put so much emphasis on footwork and that's because, their opponents also move. If you're put in a ring and say go punch each other until one of you knocks the other out, you will instinctively either go forward, or move back.

Without any training at all, our instincts is to pull our head straight back, look away from the punch and even close our eyes. It's how our brain is just hardwired. We see a punch coming at our head, we move our head away from the threat. In boxing, this natural reaction gets retrained into slipping, bobbing and weaving away from the punches while still be in a position to counter, reset or move back into a safer position.

Wing Chun looks like it's overriding the body's natural reaction to moving away from the threat and solely relying on deflection and parries. Removing another layer of protection from strikes. It's also practiced in an unrealistic way. Both people stand still, drilling these parries. What happens if one guy just simply moves forward while throwing punches? What if one guy uses resistance? What if one guy doesn't feed his punches but actually tries to land it?

Secondly, standing in a more squared stance and relying on forearm blocks, look no further than Archie Moore or George Foreman during his comeback stint.

 

[Nonoame]

it takes a level of delusion bordering on impressive to credit a martial art for a fighters win when that fighter has never trained that martial art.

Totally agree

Wasn't Israel the one who before the fight was dedicating the fight ro his Sifu from China.

I've just read the master saying Strickland has no head movement just like wing chun, but Strickland moves his head off the centre line all the time. Yes he sometimes uses parrys, blocks etc without moving his head, but he mixes it up well with head movement. Probably setting up subtle traps by making you think he doesn't move his head, then using the slip and counter.

He moved his head off the centre line when he landed the right that knocked Israel down.

I'm not really sure where the comparison to wing chun comes from when he has never trained it.

When wonderboy uses his hands to out strike people, you don't hear boxing fans jump in and say he won because he is boxing instad of kickboxing so boxing is more superior.

It's very strange to desperately try and find your martial art in every fight to find some validation in your training. If you watch pure muay Thai, you will find comparisons you can relate to wing chun

In fact I suspect that before the Israel fight, if I posted a break down of Strickland loosing to Pereira, saying its because he was doing wing chun, the master would of chimed in pointing out that Strickland stance and defence is nothing like wing chun and there should be no comparison

 

[rmongler]

As it happens, there's more than just a coincidental overlap there;

The Old Mongoose was one of Big George's biggest influences, and the way he leant heavily on his style for his comeback was certainly a self-conscious choice.

 

[The Don]

As it happens, there's more than just a coincidental overlap there;

The Old Mongoose was one of Big George's biggest influences, and the way he leant heavily on his style for his comeback was certainly a self-conscious choice.

Also helped that Foreman was huge in all he right places. He didn't need to duck down as low as Archie and his more upright version of the cross guard was possible because of the size of his arms IMO.

 

[TheMaster]

Again, just because there are some techniques from Wing Chun, doesn't mean he was using Wing Chun.

Yes its beyond dispute he was using a lot of techniques that are consistent with Wing Chun. I said from the beginning it was his own hybrid style of MMA striking he has developed.

My main point was that he was using the square stance with parry and deflection as his primary defence , with head and body movement as a minimal as necessary. This is more consistent with a Wing Chun approach than a boxing one.

For boxing it's the reverse, continuous head and body movement and footwork as the foundation, with parrying as a supplement where needed.

This is what we see in 99% of boxing fights and with the majority of MMA fighters who adapt boxing to MMA. Which is why when guys like Strickland or Anderson start standing more still or just walking forward and using parry/deflection as the primary defence with head movement minimal where necessary it stands out as something very different.

Considering Wing Chun borrows a lot of principles from boxing, there is bound to be some overlap.

There is an unconfirmed theory on some parallels with old time bare knuckle and WC but it's speculative with no concrete evidence. For example Dempsey advocating the lower 3 knuckle vertical fist which he claims comes from BK.

And to say Strickland wasn't using any head movement at all is erroneous.

This and the TS posts showcase head movement.

Yes this is true, just way less than most any other MMA striker out there. It was the minimal necessary I would say.

First of all, there's a reason why boxers move their head and body and have put so much emphasis on footwork and that's because, their opponents also move. If you're put in a ring and say go punch each other until one of you knocks the other out, you will instinctively either go forward, or move back.

Without any training at all, our instincts is to pull our head straight back, look away from the punch and even close our eyes. It's how our brain is just hardwired. We see a punch coming at our head, we move our head away from the threat. In boxing, this natural reaction gets retrained into slipping, bobbing and weaving away from the punches while still be in a position to counter, reset or move back into a safer position.

Yes it's perfectly natural to move your head when a punch is coming towards it, its also natural to try to lift your hands to stop it. As you point out though boxing focuses on the head movement and turns this into bobbling and weaving to become a hard target. It's about priorities, for Wing Chun and Filipino boxing it's about standing square and honing the natural reaction to block the strike using parry and deflection as the primary protection and the head only moving if a punch has come past these defences. This is what we saw with Strickland, not bobbing and weaving or extensive footwork.

Wing Chun looks like it's overriding the body's natural reaction to moving away from the threat and solely relying on deflection and parries. Removing another layer of protection from strikes. It's also practiced in an unrealistic way. Both people stand still, drilling these parries. What happens if one guy just simply moves forward while throwing punches? What if one guy uses resistance? What if one guy doesn't feed his punches but actually tries to land it?

WC follows the principle that "the hands move faster than the head" so head movement only comes in as a secondary if the punch has gotten through, with emphasis on honing the skill to protect the head with the hands. You are right in a sense that to an extent we train to override the reaction to flinch or move the head when facing a strike. However its still there if the punch gets through, just not turning into a gross movement of continuous head movement like in boxing. As I mentioned when you spar it starts to look more realistic where these issues are addressed.

Secondly, standing in a more squared stance and relying on forearm blocks, look no further than Archie Moore or George Foreman during his comeback stint.

A decent example but the fact we need to go back to Archie Moore tells me it's not a common or typical method. He is also using the crouching boxing stance more not the upright type stance.

Another way of putting it is that MMA striking has evolved in different directions based on the gloves, rules, and training. Stricklands version is the most "Wing Chun" style of MMA striking I have ever seen, with many of the typical fundamentals of boxing coming secondary to the fundamentals we associate more with a style like WC.

 

[rmongler]

Joe Frazier and Henry Armstrong are other notable examples of men who leant on such forms. They don't come from nowhere; behind every champion is a whole stream of tradition that them and others had been arising from.

There are more things under Boxing and The Ring, Horatio, than are dreampt of in your philosophy. Boxing is bigger than your idea of boxing. Any notion you can possibly think of about fisticuffs, someone, somewhere, at some time, has thought of it too, and put it to the test.

 

[DoctorTaco]

Joe Frazier and Henry Armstrong are other notable examples of men who leant on such forms. They don't come from nowhere; behind every champion is a whole stream of tradition that them and others had been arising from.

There are more things under Boxing and The Ring, Horatio, than are dreampt of in your philosophy. Boxing is bigger than your idea of boxing. Any notion you can possibly think of about fisticuffs, someone, somewhere, at some time, has thought of it too, and put it to the test.

well put

 

[aerius]

My main point was that he was using the square stance with parry and deflection as his primary defence , with head and body movement as a minimal as necessary. This is more consistent with a Wing Chun approach than a boxing one.

No it isn't. That's Muay Thai.

 

[Substance Abuse]

Two months ago, Sean Strickland was picking up his second straight win against the largely unknown Abusupiyan Magomedov, who gassed out after one round of striking at his own pace. That win put him in position to step up when number one contender, Dricus Du Plessis was unable to fight for the UFC Middleweight title due to a foot injury.

Strickland was walking into a title shot that he really didn’t deserve as a +500 underdog. While few expected him to win, Strickland didn’t get the message that he was supposed to lose. Instead he turned in one of the biggest upsets in UFC Championship history. But he didn’t do it with a freak knockout or by stumbling into big, fight-changing moments. He picked Israel Adesanya apart at the seams, taking away all his effective offense and leaving nothing but a defensive shell left. For a fighter who was often mocked for his janky striking technique, especially compared to the composed, slick stylings of Adesanya, it was nothing short of vindication.

To understand how Strickland stripped Adesanya of all his offensive tools, first we need to understand the kind of fighter Adesanya is. Like Anderson Silva before him, Adesanya has been billed as a dangerous counterpuncher who is liable to knock out anyone who steps in on him, but just like Silva, that frame has a very loose relationship to what he actually does in his fights.

Adesanya’s big counter shots come on fighters who are already frustrated and desperate, or so aggressive they’re willing to sacrifice defense and positioning for a chance to hit him. They don’t come on fighters who are boxing their way in with their feet underneath them. His modus operandi is to maintain a distance past his opponent’s jabbing range so they can’t immediately step in to hit him, and frustrate their entries. When his man moves in, he steps back. When they try to take an angle, he switches stance and slides out the side door, often manipulating the entry by controlling a hand to force the opponent to throw on the side he wants to slide away from.

After several minutes of trying to find a clean entry and watching Adesanya slip out unharmed, his opponents will often abandon their positioning and chase. This is when Adesanya is dangerous on the counter. His counter-punches are not scalpels that he uses to slice you up as you jab at him, but blunt instruments that smack you over the head when you get sloppy. His wide, committed left hooks and right hands leave Adesanya in poor position too, often squaring his feet and leaning back at the waist, but the beauty of it is that he mainly uses them when he trusts his opponent to be in even worse position. The two knockdowns in the first Whittaker fight are the perfect example - in both, Adesanya is squared up and leaning back, in position to be hit hard. But Whittaker had been so frustrated from his blitzes falling short that he over-committed, squaring himself up and leaving him a mark for the hooks. With Adesanya’s length and lean-back giving him a slight cushion, his hook connected and Whittaker’s fell short once again.

So what happens when opponents remain disciplined and don’t over-pursue? Adesanya can’t box his way out of that, but he kicks them. Hard, often, and right as they step in. He’ll intercept their forward movement with leg and body kicks, then repeat his strafing and sidestepping when they try to counter, only to lead them into more kicks. Adesanya is very well prepared to deal with fighters trying to counter his kicks and has a plethora of funky exits out the side door or backstepping through the opposite stance. Adesanya opponents who applied more measured pressure wouldn’t get hurt too much by his hands, but they would suffer death by a thousand cuts from the precise, scalpel-like kicks.

Most MMA fighters respond to kicks by trying to step in and hit, so it makes sense to invest more in making the exits sound than in tactics to bypass kicking defense. But while he’s very difficult to hit during or after the kicks, Adesanya did not appear to have a plan for when the kicks themselves fail. Enter Sean Strickland.

Strickland typically fights out of a very narrow, upright stance and uses a jittery defensive system involving lots of extended hands to parry and frame. In practice this looks very awkward and can leave a lot of openings for combination punchers to take advantage of the upright posture. But it provides him a significant advantage for kicking defense.

MMA fighters tend to stand in a relatively wide stance with deeply bent knees, as it allows for quick level changes and facilitates power punching, as well as folding over the hips to slip punches. But one of the weaknesses of that stance is that when trying to lift the legs up to defend kicks, it takes much longer to transfer weight from leg to leg. With his narrow stance, Strickland could quickly and easily pick up either of his legs at an instant’s notice, even if his weight was currently parked on that leg.

The utility of narrow stances for kicking defense is a big part of why Muay Thai fighters tend to stand more narrow and upright than MMA fighters. When Rodtang Jitmuangnon rematched Kaonar P.K.Saenchai after being picked apart with kicks and clinch entries in their first fight, one of the biggest adjustments that allowed him to win was narrowing up on his stance. Rodtang would even advance through kicking range completely square at times, with his feet nearly together so he could lift either up at any time to immediately block or dissuade kicks.

Strickland made excellent use of the defensive capabilities of his stance. He checked kicks off both legs, a feat scarcely seen in MMA. His lead leg would check leg kicks and when Adesanya went to the body, he would either thrust his rear leg forward to check or point the lead leg across in a cross-check. If he miss-timed the check on a body kick, he would rotate his shoulder and hips to close off the open side, mitigating the damage and allowing him to threaten a catch on the leg. When Adesanya tried to hammer the calf, Strickland would fold his leg back at the knee, a classic counter to the calf kick that’s been catching on more as of late. He also remained conscious of the distance and would often pull his lead leg back to make Adesanya’s leg kicks fall short.

But the kick defense wasn’t only a reactive matter, Strickland would constantly pick his lead leg up while stepping in, or march forward lifting both legs up. Marching footwork is a great way to close in on a kicker, as it leaves a near constant barrier of shin between the squishy bits of the body and the opponent’s leg. Every time he raised the leg while walking forward, it signaled that Adesanya would be kicking into a check, and he would often decide to just give ground instead of bothering.

The marching footwork also combines brilliantly with front kicks, and Strickland used a light teep throughout the fight to facilitate his pressure:



The teep wasn’t particularly powerful or threatening, but that wasn’t its purpose. It served to push Adesanya back to the cage where Strickland could work and covered his entries into the pocket. When teeps and round kicks collide, the teep usually wins due to its linear trajectory. Just like jabs slot inside wider hooks, the teep pierces the centerline and threatens to knock a round kicker off balance. The mere act of keeping an active lead-leg teep can dissuade kicks, and when combined with the marching footwork the effect is increased. Every time Strickland picked up a leg, Adesanya had to worry about the check and the teep.

Strickland’s teep also found an important role as an intercepting strike. By keeping the light, flicking teep in front of him as he advanced, Strickland created a barrier preventing Adesanya from stepping in. Several times throughout the fight Adesanya tried to step in with a feint or a punch, only to run into the teep and be forced back.



It wasn’t a skewering strike, but it was enough to halt some of Adesanya’s entries. Later in the fight Strickland started punching off the intercepting teep, taking advantage of the brief moment where Adesanya’s momentum stopped and he was stood in punching range. The teep works similar to the jab as an intercepting strike, but with a distinct advantage; the jab attacks the head which can easily slip, bob, and weave, so opponents can get inside, outisde, or underneath it and continue closing distance. But the teep attacks center mass. The body stays put when the head moves, making it much more difficult to walk through a teep.

The excellent kicking defense and constant teep allowed Strickland to walk Adesanya down and put him on the cage over and over, where Adesanya is most vulnerable. Once there was no room behind Adesanya to slide away, Strickland went on the offensive. He did a great job exploiting Adesanya’s handfighting tactics throughout the fight. The handfighting battle is usually a place of comfort for Adesanya as he’s typically longer than his opponents, but Strickland’s reach made it difficult for him to find success there.



Adesanya regularly controls his opponent’s hands to draw out punches that he can circle away from, or to set up powerful rear hands. Strickland mirrored this back to him, covering the lead hand to force Adesanya to throw his rear and slipping outside it. Later in the fight he used it to land his own offense, either pushing the hand down and punching over it while Adesanya had no room to back up, or shooting out a quick straight right when Adesanya tried to cover his hand.

Throughout large stretches of the fight, Strickland had trouble finding clean offense, but Adesanya spent the entire fight unable to land anything with consistency. It was remarkable how few ideas Adesanya seemed to have once Strickland took his kicks away. With Strickland able to defend the kicks, he could apply the type of measured pressure that has historically made Adesanya uncomfortable. But rather than adjusting, Adesanya seemed to be stuck on his usual strategy of kicking and moving to deal with a fighter who won’t throw himself out of position in the pocket.

Adesanya’s boxing has always been more a collection of tricks than sound application of boxing fundamentals, and that really showed once Strickland closed off his kicking game. In his kickboxing career, Adesanya was more of a mid-range hitter, using active forearm frames and shifting setups to needle his foes with combinations. But in MMA, he’s clearly uncomfortable opening up in that range and sticks to one or two-strike pot shots on the outside.

The feints and jab of Adesanya usually compensate for his lack of commited boxing offense, freezing opponents in place for his kicks and allowing him to work short mixups with the jab and lead hook. But whenever he threw out his lead hand, Strickland would parry and lean back, projecting his lead shoulder to cover against right hands. The feints became less effective over time because there was no threat backing them up. A jab feint would cause Strickland to jitter slightly and attempt a parry, and Strickland would continue moving forward. If the feint was turned into a real punch, he would just pull back to make it fall short, then resume his pressure.

One reliable way to get past an opponent with annoying first-layer defense is to committ to combinations, forcing them to deal with multiple threats in the same exchange that play off each other. But Adesanya has never been too comfortable committing to boxing combos in MMA. What was more conspicuous was his complete inability to put his punches together with his kicks in combination.

Every time Adesanya tossed out a couple half-committed punches, or feinted into a big shot, he put Strickland into a position that left him wide open for a kick that never came. Adesanya would kick actively when Strickland had his weight set to pick either leg up into a check, but as soon as he forced Strickland to lean his head back over the rear foot and commit his weight, making it nearly impossible to check a leg kick, he stopped or went up to the head.



There were several times Adesanya feinted Strickland into a position where he could kick with impunity, then actually waited for him to resume a strong stance before kicking right into a check. It seemed like an almost pathological refusal to commit to punch-kick combinations even though there was no threat coming back at him to dissuade the use of them. But it wasn’t the case that Adesanya fought differently than usual, he’s just never faced an opponent in MMA that could take away the kicks and apply subtle pressure, forcing him to find alternate ways to score with them.

While Strickland’s excellent kick defense was responsible for shutting Adesanya down initially, it’s difficult for me to read Adesanya’s inability to adjust his kicking tactics as anything but a strong indictment of his depth as a kicker. In his kickboxing days he wasn’t a kicking specialist, using them mostly to facilitate his movement and open up his hands. Leaning more on the kicks was an adaptation to an MMA field where fighters tend to operate at longer distances and opponents generally do not have sound defensive responses to kicks. Whenever Adesanya encountered a fighter who tried to pressure without getting overly agressive, he’s been able to kick them largely for free. It was a reminder that kicking tactics in MMA lag far behind the sport’s application of boxing tactics, and that best practices from kicking specialists in sports where the average fighter can defend kicks soundly have not widely caught on.

Conversely, Strickland’s offensive success came largely as a result of his willingness to close distance with committed combinations. While Strickland’s defense involves a lot more waving his arms around, both he and Adesanya have a similar response to the simple jab-jab-straight. They look to give ground and pull their head back from the jabs, before rotating their body inward to roll the straight off their lead shoulder. But while Adesanya largely punched into the shoulder roll, Strickland looked for ways around it.

Continued Here...

Exceptional post and write up. Thank you for sharing. I enjoyed that immensely.

 

[TheMaster]

No it isn't. That's Muay Thai.

No it isn't. There will be some influence there but its not how Muay Thai is done, I didnt think he threw any Thai kicks and didnt try to engage a Thai clinch. He did use the straight thrusting kick/teep though yes. It may resemble some old school bare knuckle styles but not the typical ring style. He has basically made his own MMA striking style that is not consistent with boxing or with Muay Thai but has elements of both, as well as strong elements of Wing Chun.

There are more things under Boxing and The Ring, Horatio, than are dreampt of in your philosophy. Boxing is bigger than your idea of boxing. Any notion you can possibly think of about fisticuffs, someone, somewhere, at some time, has thought of it too, and put it to the test.

This doesn't really tell us much other than you want to take the view that "boxing" can be potentially anything. If you follow that line of thinking then "boxing" can also encompass much of MMA, after all much of the early pre queensbury boxing had wrestling in it as well.
Let's stick to notable Queensbury rules gloves boxing as our reference point, and compare it to what we are seeing in this sport.



Hands on the centreline "the hands move faster than the head"


Almost always engages the hands first with his hands, not a standard in boxing but is in WC.
Close range stance turning parry and counter



His hybrid Wing Chun boxing, parry and deflection


Controlling the centreline


Classic bong sau ('Wing arm' deflection)



Rapid pak sau (slap parry) with right hand and deflection and immediate counter with left, staying on the line with little body or head movement.



Hands on the centreline. Got to give him credit here, slick minimal movement avoidance of kick without checking it


More classic Wing Chun style parry first approach with minimal head movement, controlling centreline and range.


Application of more slap parry, the "slipping" is actually a forearm parry deflection ('bong sau' in WC) with the head moved as minimal necessary for extra cover.

 

[rmongler]

This doesn't really tell us much other than you want to take the view that "boxing" can be potentially anything. If you follow that line of thinking then "boxing" can also encompass much of MMA, after all much of the early pre queensbury boxing had wrestling in it as well.
Let's stick to notable Queensbury rules gloves boxing as our reference point, and compare it to what we are seeing in this sport.

No, what i'm telling you is something empirically demonstrable; boxing, as we understand it today, is both very old, and very popular. You, specifically, have not come up with any ideas that some other specific person has not also come up with and tried out. Not just theoretically, literally.

Every time you, specifically, make a statement in the form of 'boxing is like such and such', it is wrong, because you, specifically, have a low resolution view of what boxing is.

It is like you're trying to drive down a winding road, but the only way you can turn the wheel is in 90 degree chunks every five seconds. There's no possibility of successful navigation, every approach only ends up going off the road somewhere.

 

[rmongler]

Hands on the centreline "the hands move faster than the head"


Almost always engages the hands first with his hands, not a standard in boxing but is in WC.
Close range stance turning parry and counter



His hybrid Wing Chun boxing, parry and deflection


Controlling the centreline


Classic bong sau ('Wing arm' deflection)



Rapid pak sau (slap parry) with right hand and deflection and immediate counter with left, staying on the line with little body or head movement.



Hands on the centreline. Got to give him credit here, slick minimal movement avoidance of kick without checking it


More classic Wing Chun style parry first approach with minimal head movement, controlling centreline and range.


Application of more slap parry, the "slipping" is actually a forearm parry deflection ('bong sau' in WC) with the head moved as minimal necessary for extra cover.

Leverage blocking in an upright stance ready to check with both legs; a classic muay thai style instantly recognizable by anyone familiar with the history and practice of muay thai, as one might expect from someone with training partners specializing in muay thai, such as Sean Strickland, whose approach in neutral is significantly informed by muay thai.

 

[The Don]

There is an unconfirmed theory on some parallels with old time bare knuckle and WC but it's speculative with no concrete evidence. For example Dempsey advocating the lower 3 knuckle vertical fist which he claims comes from BK.

I mean, assuming boxing came way before Wing Chun it's more than fair to connect the similarities between the two.

Yes it's perfectly natural to move your head when a punch is coming towards it, its also natural to try to lift your hands to stop it. As you point out though boxing focuses on the head movement and turns this into bobbling and weaving to become a hard target. It's about priorities, for Wing Chun and Filipino boxing it's about standing square and honing the natural reaction to block the strike using parry and deflection as the primary protection and the head only moving if a punch has come past these defences. This is what we saw with Strickland, not bobbing and weaving or extensive footwork.

Well, it's not exclusively Strickland who doesn't bob and weave in MMA. It's almost all of the roster because they are not boxers. They are mixed martial artists which has become, in it of itself it's own discipline.

WC follows the principle that "the hands move faster than the head" so head movement only comes in as a secondary if the punch has gotten through, with emphasis on honing the skill to protect the head with the hands. You are right in a sense that to an extent we train to override the reaction to flinch or move the head when facing a strike. However its still there if the punch gets through, just not turning into a gross movement of continuous head movement like in boxing. As I mentioned when you spar it starts to look more realistic where these issues are addressed.

What does a sparring session look like in Wing Chun?

A decent example but the fact we need to go back to Archie Moore tells me it's not a common or typical method. He is also using the crouching boxing stance more not the upright type stance.

Another way of putting it is that MMA striking has evolved in different directions based on the gloves, rules, and training. Stricklands version is the most "Wing Chun" style of MMA striking I have ever seen, with many of the typical fundamentals of boxing coming secondary to the fundamentals we associate more with a style like WC.

I don't know. I look at Sean and I never thought "Huh, that looks like Wing Chun" Anderson Silva however, when he did try it out in his fights I instantly thought about Wing Chun because it looked like it.

 

[shunyata]

That is a semi legitimate point. It kind of gets into philosophical debate of "what is boxing" but it does go against some trainers boxing philosophy.

You could say George Foreman fought in a way similar to that coming from a boxing background.

It's bullshit. Wing Chun is simply one type of "Chinese boxing" and there were a variety of different styles in the pre Queensbury bareknuckle era that used this shit. You can only do so much with the human body.

We're not out here in f12 claiming every hip throw and foot sweep in wrestling is always judo.

If we were pulling shit out of thin air, there's a better case to be made for Sean using 52 Blocks than "wing chun principles".

 

[TheMaster]

Leverage blocking in an upright stance ready to check with both legs; a classic muay thai style instantly recognizable by anyone familiar with the history and practice of muay thai, as one might expect from someone with training partners specializing in muay thai, such as Sean Strickland, whose approach in neutral is significantly informed by muay thai.

I am not denying his striking is informed by Muay Thai. But its not how Muay Thai is generally applied either in MT itself or in MMA and doesn't follow a MT strategy.

No, what i'm telling you is something empirically demonstrable; boxing, as we understand it today, is both very old, and very popular. You, specifically, have not come up with any ideas that some other specific person has not also come up with and tried out. Not just theoretically, literally.

Every time you, specifically, make a statement in the form of 'boxing is like such and such', it is wrong, because you, specifically, have a low resolution view of what boxing is.

Yes, everyone has at some point "done everything under the sun"


I am not interested in talking about outliers who have tried this or that. I mean the fundamentals of the style.
Obviously we know Stricklands training is primarily boxing and Muay Thai with limited if any actual Wing Chun input apart from things his trainers may have picked up that has come into MMA; the point is this is neither boxing nor Muay Thai, so the striking style he has developed is different and has a strong resemblance to many aspects of Wing Chun

Why don't we reach a consensus on the fundamentals and aims of each style, excluding outliers. Otherwise we just go in circles for comparison, there has to be a point of common reference.

This is how I would put it. I am going by @The Don to have input, who I am taking as the resident boxing expert here, since the other so called 'experts' were fooled by Stricklands faux Philly Shell, which he was the only one who called it out to say what he is doing has no resemblance to an actual Philly Shell.

Yes this is simplified but I am trying to get to the essence, particularly with regards to defence.
Fundamentals:

Boxing

Movement of head and body and footwork as primary defence (bob and weave, extensive footwork). Use of hand parrying defence secondary to body movement and footwork.


Muay Thai

Use of Thai kick, teeps on outside. Uses hand trapping counters sometimes to punch but mainly attempts to engage a Thai clinch. Does not typically stand and trade using parry/deflection and punches but tries to initiate clinch for elbow and knees.


Wing Chun

Primary defence hand parry and forearm/elbow deflections with straight line punches.
Use of head and body movement secondary to use of hands only if strikes get through. Stands at close range to strike without strategy to clinch.


Stricklands MMA striking style in this fight, however he has developed it, is closer to the WC approach. His defence was primarily based on the deflection and hand parry style at close range, with body and head movement secondary and no attempt to initiate Thai clinch, but rather to stand and strike with mainly straight line punches unless the opponent was hurt or out of position.

 

[Stuart0502]

It's bullshit. Wing Chun is simply one type of "Chinese boxing" and there were a variety of different styles in the pre Queensbury bareknuckle era that used this shit. You can only do so much with the human body.

We're not out here in f12 claiming every hip throw and foot sweep in wrestling is always judo.

If we were pulling shit out of thin air, there's a better case to be made for Sean using 52 Blocks than "wing chun principles".

As I said before I don’t really care about who copyrighted a technique, the argument is pretty irrelevant.

If you include slang there’s probably about half a dozen different ways you could describe a Walter ppk (gun, firearm, gat, glock etc.) it’s not going to change how it functions.

Fundamentally Strickland almost definitely learned his striking style from a mixture of MMA trainers, boxing and Muay Thai coaches.

Also if someone mentioned a Wing Chun school off hand I’d imagine a bunch of nerds putting not a lot (drilling, sparring, conditioning etc. ) in and expecting a lot out (e.g KOing their opponent in 10 seconds, instant cat like reflexes etc.). The only thing I’d concede is at a philosophical level there are some principles to Wing Chun that make sense in specific scenario’s in combat sports if the martial art is trained hard though I’d still say it’s sub optimal in comparison to Karate for self defense.