Karate blackbelts in MMA

[Hotora86]

Rolls Gracie´s lone Vale Tudo fight was against Paulo do Karaté in 1976...

This fight was part of the Challenge BJJ vs Karate, was the restart of the Vale Tudo Scence in the 1970s after years of crisis... this challenge led to the famous Rickson vs Rei Zulu in 1980.

Interesting, never heard about that before. Do you have any more detail and sources about the fight and this Paulo do Karaté character?

 

[gono btw]

Interesting, never heard about that before. Do you have any more detail and sources about the fight and this Paulo do Karaté character?

Was technically an essential fight and historical fight for the Vale Tudo scene, but few details..He was locally famous enough to appear on TV, which sparked the BJJ vs Karate Challenge.

 

[gono btw]

Interesting, never heard about that before. Do you have any more detail and sources about the fight and this Paulo do Karaté character?

Wand´s 1st Vale Tudo fight was vs Dilson Filho:

@ 0mn05s

 

[gono btw]

Back in 2012 I created a thread called "30 Successful Karate Fighters in MMA" (http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/30-successful-karate-fighters-mma.1040386/), later renamed to "100+ Karate Fighters in MMA" as the list grew. The thread got quite popular (50 pages of replies) but sadly it was lost during the forum migration.

Back then it had drawn some criticism for listing fighters whose experience in Karate was rather insignificant - which I now admit was justified. So instead of simply re-posting the old thread I have filtered out the rubbish and retained only cold facts: MMA fighters who legitimately hold black belts in Karate. No bias, no opinions, just a complete and comprehensive list.

The list is sorted by fighter NAMES in alphabetical order along with their corresponding STYLE and DAN rank.

• Style "Sport" is used as an umbrella term for all kinds of sports / freestyle Karate.
• Style "unknown" is used when my source states "Karate" without mentioning the exact style and I can't find any indication of the style.
• DAN rank "1?" is used when my source states "black belt" without mentioning the exact rank.

New fighters are added periodically with a separate post describing their background and rank along with a highlight video.
_ _ _ _ _

View attachment 358501 View attachment 358503 View attachment 358505 View attachment 358507 View attachment 358509

Oleg Smirnov.

@ 1mn35



Rustam Talibov

@ 0mn01



Evgeni Golovihin

@ 0mn01

 

[Hotora86]

Karate is an inefficient fight in MMA

LOL, here we go again...

If 144 fighters with winning records plus a dozen champs plus another dozen contenders couldn't convince you then I guess there's no point in discussing this with you.

 

[Tayski]

Karate is an inefficient fight in MMA

Sure that's why people like Wonderboy Thompson, Georges Saint Pierre, Lyoto Machida, Robert Whittaker, Gunnar Nelson, etc. are some of the top MMA fighters with Karate as their striking base.

 

[Hotora86]

Sure that's why people like Wonderboy Thompson, Georges Saint Pierre, Lyoto Machida, Robert Whittaker, Gunnar Nelson, etc. are some of the top MMA fighters with Karate as their striking base.

 

[eneck]

 

[FighterTwister]

That's still quite many but I think you are missing a few... like the Machida brothers perhaps?

Have you ever seen Katsunori Kikuno fight? Even his stance is straight from the Sochin kata.



I would even argue that practically all Japanese fighters on the list "actively use" Karate principles since the art is taken much more seriously in Japan than in the US.

+1 I agree...... his good ha..... his very relaxed as well.

 

[Tayski]

That was a foul. He punched him in the face face while the rules were no head punches. That was his only way out as he was getting battered.

Also:

and when punches to the head are allowed:

 

[Tayski]

One more for the road:

 

[FightGuyOpenMind]

Sure that's why people like Wonderboy Thompson, Georges Saint Pierre, Lyoto Machida, Robert Whittaker, Gunnar Nelson, etc. are some of the top MMA fighters with Karate as their striking base.

I agree but with a caveat, or another consideration, if you will.

Those named are great examples but I believe they are outliers. If you took the bell curve of karate practitioners, and put them in MMA fights I do not believe they would fare well. If you took the bell curve of boxers, and wrestlers and put them in MMA fights I believe they would fare far better.

Now, I have no data to support this because it has never been done. However, based on my observations, karate as a whole appears to prepare you the least for a full contact confrontation in terms of the skillset it gives you and the way it is practiced.

I think Karate would have to make the biggest adjustment in order to transition, because you would have to supplement your training with probably much harder conditioning, take consideration to weight classes, and become accustomed to full contact as opposed to point sparring. Boxing, and wrestling already have tough conditioning by nature, have to make weight classes, AND are accustomed to full contact competition with the intent to stop the opponent as the primary objective.

I know people will point to Kyokushin, however, that is not the most popular style in the world. The most popular styles revolve around point fight kumite. Boxing, and wrestling again are the same wherever you go in terms of application, and intent. Without great modification I think coming with pure karate as your base it would leave you the most unprepared, and you'd have to make the most adjustments.

 

[Tayski]

I agree but with a caveat, or another consideration, if you will.

Those named are great examples but I believe they are outliers. If you took the bell curve of karate practitioners, and put them in MMA fights I do not believe they would fare well. If you took the bell curve of boxers, and wrestlers and put them in MMA fights I believe they would fare far better.

Now, I have no data to support this because it has never been done. However, based on my observations, karate as a whole appears to prepare you the least for a full contact confrontation in terms of the skillset it gives you and the way it is practiced.

I think Karate would have to make the biggest adjustment in order to transition, because you would have to supplement your training with probably much harder conditioning, take consideration to weight classes, and become accustomed to full contact as opposed to point sparring. Boxing, and wrestling already have tough conditioning by nature, have to make weight classes, AND are accustomed to full contact competition with the intent to stop the opponent as the primary objective.

I know people will point to Kyokushin, however, that is not the most popular style in the world. The most popular styles revolve around point fight kumite. Boxing, and wrestling again are the same wherever you go in terms of application, and intent. Without great modification I think coming with pure karate as your base it would leave you the most unprepared, and you'd have to make the most adjustments.

Here I would say that's probably based on opinion more than anything.

Having trained Karate, Muay Thai and Boxing, as well as some grappling on the side for fun I'll give you my view on what you just said.

Most Karate practitioners across all styles are hobbyists with no intention of competing. That's also quite true in Boxing in Muay Thai but at least the sport itself is based on competing and fighting, so you'll most likely have a higher number of competitors. On top of that, you also have the Karateka's who don't believe in fighting and don't think you should be fighting at all.

Even if we take this into consideration though, I believe Karate as a martial art would give you more tools than Boxing to transition to MMA. First of all a lot of Karate is done without boxing gloves, usually the sparring and competitions are with small gloves, like mitts, similar to MMA gloves, so that gives you a better adaption on that aspect. On top of that you also train a lot of other strikes than just punches such as kicks, knees, etc. and from time to time some form of grappling with Jujutsu locks and some kind of Judo type throws too. The stance is also a lot more suited for MMA with weight on the front leg and the in and out type of movement than the boxing stance which would get your legs kicked to shreds or have you get taken down. Based on the variety of techniques taught, the type of gloves used, the grappling being taught, the stance, etc. I actually think Karate would work better than straight up boxing from which you'd have to change your stance, start from scratch in grappling, and learn all the other strikes which aren't just punches. For someone who never kicked or grappled, there's quite a lot to catch-up on already. The full-contact adjustment usually doesn't take as long to get used to (I know what I'm talking about as I cross-trained from semi-contact point-scoring Karate to full contact).

The full contact aspect is definitely a plus though as indeed for people who don't practice full contact it will change the dynamic quite a lot when switching to MMA. While there are many semi-contact Karate styles there are also a lot of Karate styles (not just Kyokushin) which are full contact.

I have a hard timing trying to name someone from boxing who did great in MMA, of course you will probably say it's because there's more money in Boxing so they stick to it, but generally the few boxers I've seen having a go at MMA or even Kickboxing usually had a pretty rough time and didn't stick to it.

There are also weight classes in Karate by the way.

Anyway, my response was to someone who said "Karate is an inefficient fight in MMA", and I think that's far from the truth. It needs some adaptations and cross-training sure, but that's the same with boxing, wrestling and anything else; it has to be adapted for MMA and some cross-training needs to be done.

 

[FightGuyOpenMind]

Here I would say that's probably based on opinion more than anything.

Having trained Karate, Muay Thai and Boxing, as well as some grappling on the side for fun I'll give you my view on what you just said.

Most Karate practitioners across all styles are hobbyists with no intention of competing. That's also quite true in Boxing in Muay Thai but at least the sport itself is based on competing and fighting, so you'll most likely have a higher number of competitors. On top of that, you also have the Karateka's who don't believe in fighting and don't think you should be fighting at all.

Even if we take this into consideration though, I believe Karate as a martial art would give you more tools than Boxing to transition to MMA. First of all a lot of Karate is done without boxing gloves, usually the sparring and competitions are with small gloves, like mitts, similar to MMA gloves, so that gives you a better adaption on that aspect. On top of that you also train a lot of other strikes than just punches such as kicks, knees, etc. and from time to time some form of grappling with Jujutsu locks and some kind of Judo type throws too. The stance is also a lot more suited for MMA with weight on the front leg and the in and out type of movement than the boxing stance which would get your legs kicked to shreds or have you get taken down. Based on the variety of techniques taught, the type of gloves used, the grappling being taught, the stance, etc. I actually think Karate would work better than straight up boxing from which you'd have to change your stance, start from scratch in grappling, and learn all the other strikes which aren't just punches. For someone who never kicked or grappled, there's quite a lot to catch-up on already. The full-contact adjustment usually doesn't take as long to get used to (I know what I'm talking about as I cross-trained from semi-contact point-scoring Karate to full contact).

The full contact aspect is definitely a plus though as indeed for people who don't practice full contact it will change the dynamic quite a lot when switching to MMA. While there are many semi-contact Karate styles there are also a lot of Karate styles (not just Kyokushin) which are full contact.

I have a hard timing trying to name someone from boxing who did great in MMA, of course you will probably say it's because there's more money in Boxing so they stick to it, but generally the few boxers I've seen having a go at MMA or even Kickboxing usually had a pretty rough time and didn't stick to it.

There are also weight classes in Karate by the way.

Anyway, my response was to someone who said "Karate is an inefficient fight in MMA", and I think that's far from the truth. It needs some adaptations and cross-training sure, but that's the same with boxing, wrestling and anything else; it has to be adapted for MMA and some cross-training needs to be done.

Hmmmm, I've never been to a sanctioned boxing gym where most of the fighters weren't competitive or had competed at one point. Not a single one, and I'm from a big boxing town, with a lot of history. If you don't compete it's almost looked down upon. In "boxing classes" I'm sure there is more of that, but even those are looked down upon largely by the sanctioned gyms as it is not a term used.

I'm not referring to the weapons that are given. I'm speaking in regards to the application. Karate tournaments are largely about control and not the finish. Point sparring tournaments are more widely participated in by practitioners than any other form, would you agree? MMA is full contact with the ultimate intent being to finish. Boxing, and wrestling are by their nature about the finish, the knockout and the pin. Both of these are full contact in nature.

Most karate tournaments I have seen are divided by ranking are they not? If they are by weight do you think the weight cutting culture is as severe as boxing or wrestling?

As far as boxers in MMA, I would say that most boxers are in it to make money. They box as a means to get out of poverty, and they were exposed to boxing and competed boxing their whole lives. MMA was a great way for wrestlers to make money, and other disciplines to make money. However, even MMA fighters are wanting boxing matches, because the money is better. The only examples we have really come from nobodies in boxing as far as elite level crossing over in MMA, and retired boxers. Even a retired Ray Mercer, and Holly Holm did fairly well in MMA.

My argument comes from mentality of the sports. Karate is not about a fight in my opinion. "There is no first attack in Karate." Boxing and wrestling mindset and conditioning plays better to MMA. They'll have the attributes to cross over at a higher rate I believe than most karateka I would argue.

I've competed boxing, wrestling, and karate. The best fighters in my experience have been the boxers, and wrestlers. The hardest training has been in boxing, and wrestling. I've belted in both Isshinryu and Shotokan.

 

[Tayski]

Hmmmm, I've never been to a sanctioned boxing gym where most of the fighters weren't competitive or had competed at one point. Not a single one, and I'm from a big boxing town, with a lot of history. If you don't compete it's almost looked down upon. In "boxing classes" I'm sure there is more of that, but even those are looked down upon largely by the sanctioned gyms as it is not a term used.

I'm not referring to the weapons that are given. I'm speaking in regards to the application. Karate tournaments are largely about control and not the finish. Point sparring tournaments are more widely participated in by practitioners than any other form, would you agree? MMA is full contact with the ultimate intent being to finish. Boxing, and wrestling are by their nature about the finish, the knockout and the pin. Both of these are full contact in nature.

Most karate tournaments I have seen are divided by ranking are they not? If they are by weight do you think the weight cutting culture is as severe as boxing or wrestling?

As far as boxers in MMA, I would say that most boxers are in it to make money. They box as a means to get out of poverty, and they were exposed to boxing and competed boxing their whole lives. MMA was a great way for wrestlers to make money, and other disciplines to make money. However, even MMA fighters are wanting boxing matches, because the money is better. The only examples we have really come from nobodies in boxing as far as elite level crossing over in MMA, and retired boxers. Even a retired Ray Mercer, and Holly Holm did fairly well in MMA.

My argument comes from mentality of the sports. Karate is not about a fight in my opinion. "There is no first attack in Karate." Boxing and wrestling mindset and conditioning plays better to MMA. They'll have the attributes to cross over at a higher rate I believe than most karateka I would argue.

I've competed boxing, wrestling, and karate. The best fighters in my experience have been the boxers, and wrestlers. The hardest training has been in boxing, and wrestling. I've belted in both Isshinryu and Shotokan.

You're just arguing for the sake of it at this point.

I'm not talking about "most fighters" not competing. I'm saying that if you look at ALL the boxing practitioners you will have a lot more hobbyists and casuals than fighters in total, it's true in all combat sports and martial arts. You have a lot of people who do it for fitness and self defense reasons, or just never had the courage to compete. If you don't believe me ask around, ask the total number of registrants of a gym and ask how many of them are fighters, and not just the big name fight gyms, any boxing gyms. You'll see what I mean.

-Karate tournaments are not all non-contact. That's only some styles and tournaments.

-Karate tournaments are not divided by ranking, it's almost all the time by weight class. (you should know if you've competed in Karate as you pretend)

-Even when you come from non-contact karate you can make the transition to MMA, there are a lot of point-scoring Karateka's who are doing great in MMA, Lyoto Machida, Kyoji Horiguchi and Wonderboy Thompson are good examples.

-Weight cutting has nothing to do with how well you're going to do in MMA, it's part of it but not a deciding factor.

-You're saying the boxers we saw in MMA aren't elite level, neither are the Karateka's you see in MMA.

"There is no first attack in Karate." What are you even talking about?
You base your opinion on some Isshinryu I have never even heard about.

I don't know why you change your post now about the mentality of boxing and wrestling when the initial post was simply saying that Karate isn't useless for MMA. I even said myself that "Most Karate practitioners across all styles are hobbyists with no intention of competing." No one is denying that boxing and wrestling are great for MMA, but please don't underestimate Karate like most of the other idiots on here.

 

[FightGuyOpenMind]

You're just arguing for the sake of it at this point.

I'm not talking about "most fighters" not competing. I'm saying that if you look at ALL the boxing practitioners you will have a lot more hobbyists and casuals than fighters in total, it's true in all combat sports and martial arts. You have a lot of people who do it for fitness and self defense reasons, or just never had the courage to compete. If you don't believe me ask around, ask the total number of registrants of a gym and ask how many of them are fighters, and not just the big name fight gyms, any boxing gyms. You'll see what I mean.

-Karate tournaments are not all non-contact. That's only some styles and tournaments.

-Karate tournaments are not divided by ranking, it's almost all the time by weight class. (you should know if you've competed in Karate as you pretend)

-Even when you come from non-contact karate you can make the transition to MMA, there are a lot of point-scoring Karateka's who are doing great in MMA, Lyoto Machida and Wonderboy Thompson are 2 good examples.

-Weight cutting has nothing to do with how well you're going to do in MMA, it's part of it but not a deciding factor.

-You're saying the boxers we saw in MMA aren't elite level, neither are the Karateka's you see in MMA.

"There is no first attack in Karate." What are you even talking about?
You base your opinion on some Isshinryu I have never even heard about.

I don't know why you change your post now about the mentality of boxing and wrestling when the initial post was simply saying that Karate isn't usless for MMA. I even said myself that "Most Karate practitioners across all styles are hobbyists with no intention of competing." No one is denying that boxing and wrestling are great for MMA, but please don't underestimate Karate like most of the other idiots on here.

Go to any USA sanctioned boxing gym and call yourself a boxer without having competed they will laugh at you. Boxer = boxed in competition.
Wrestler = wrestled in competition.

You do have hobbyists, but they are not boxers. They box for fitness or self defense, but boxer means you compete.

I did bring up mentality as I said:
"with the intent to stop the opponent as the primary objective."

Intent: "having the mind, attention, or will concentrated on something or some end or purpose intent on their work"
(merriam-webster)

The karate tournaments I have seen and participated in are divided by belt ranking. Why would weight be a factor for non contact?? I'm not saying there aren't those that have weigh ins, however, all wresting, and boxing events are designated by weight.

I just believe wrestling, and boxing produces more competent fighters in larger numbers. I believe the names we list for karate success are huge outliers and don't represent the masses. Boxers and wrestlers consistently put out competent athletes because the nature of their competition is full contact, and you see what really works.

Most karatekas are not competent fighters, and I believe it is in the application. There are the exceptions.

 

[Tayski]

Go to any USA sanctioned boxing gym and call yourself a boxer without having competed they will laugh at you. Boxer = boxed in competition.
Wrestler = wrestled in competition.

You do have hobbyists, but they are not boxers. They box for fitness or self defense, but boxer means you compete.

I did bring up mentality as I said:
"with the intent to stop the opponent as the primary objective."

Intent: "having the mind, attention, or will concentrated on something or some end or purpose intent on their work"
(merriam-webster)

The karate tournaments I have seen and participated in are divided by belt ranking. Why would weight be a factor for non contact?? I'm not saying there aren't those that have weigh ins, however, all wresting, and boxing events are designated by weight.

I just believe wrestling, and boxing produces more competent fighters in larger numbers. I believe the names we list for karate success are huge outliers and don't represent the masses. Boxers and wrestlers consistently put out competent athletes because the nature of their competition is full contact, and you see what really works.

Most karatekas are not competent fighters, and I believe it is in the application. There are the exceptions.

You're talking about "USA sanctioned boxing gyms" so you're already filtering to specific gyms. Truth is, the majority of people who do boxing don't compete, just like the majority of people who do Karate, or majority of people who do Thai boxing, or even MMA. Fighters are always a smaller portion of the total population who practice a martial art or combat sport. Of course in certain gyms or dojos which have a reputation there could be a bigger population of fighters, but overall across all gyms there are more hobbyists than fighters.

I have no idea what kind of Karate tournaments you've seen and participated in but even non contact Karate tournaments have weight classes. I competed in both in the JKA and WKF at regional and national level and both had weight classes (they are the 2 biggest world organisations for point-scoring Karate). Official WKF rules: https://www.wkf.net/pdf/WKFCompetitionRules2018.pdf
And obviously all full-contact tournaments are also with weight classes.

As I previously said twice above, there are more hobbyist in Karate obviously anyway, so you're not really adding anything here.

 

[FightGuyOpenMind]

You're talking about "USA sanctioned boxing gyms" so you're already filtering to specific gyms. Truth is, the majority of people who do boxing don't compete, just like the majority of people who do Karate, or majority of people who do Thai boxing, or even MMA. Fighters are always a smaller portion of the total population who practice a martial art or combat sport. Of course in certain gyms or dojos which have a reputation there could be a bigger population of fighters, but overall across all gyms there are more hobbyists than fighters.

I have no idea what kind of Karate tournaments you've seen and participated in but even non contact Karate tournaments have weight classes. I competed in both in the JKA and WKF at regional and national level and both had weight classes (they are the 2 biggest world organisations for point-scoring Karate). Official WKF rules: https://www.wkf.net/pdf/WKFCompetitionRules2018.pdf
And obviously all full-contact tournaments are also with weight classes.

As I previously said twice above, there are more hobbyist in Karate obviously anyway, so you're not really adding anything here.

USA Boxing is the standard in America. Typically anything with USA attached to it is the standard (Wrestling, Judo, etc) as they are typically the pipeline that will lead you to the Olympics.

You're not a boxer if you haven't fought in a boxing match.

Anything else is a watered down definition. You may box for fitness, but you are not a boxer. You may have learned a single or double, but you are not a wrestler.

You have to put your time in. That is why both of these are more tested than karateka in my argument. They aren't looking for a lifestyle generally as the main focus, they want to compete, fight and win. The karateka you named made that same decision to want to compete, fight, and win. That is not a common theme in TMAs when you look at the whole of the population.

 

[gono btw]

Interesting, never heard about that before. Do you have any more detail and sources about the fight and this Paulo do Karaté character?

Ol´school karatekas in the Russian NHB scene (IAFC Org):

 

[Hotora86]

Ol´school karatekas in the Russian NHB scene (IAFC Org):

Appreciate the work you put into research but I don't think I'll be adding these people to the list... they're mostly irrelevant cans or just plain bums!

https://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/fighters/166749-ruslan-talibov (1-0)
https://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/fighters/6498-vadim-shevchenko (1-1)
https://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/fighters/84862-sergey-zubkov (1-3)
https://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/fighters/gerry-harris (1-4)
https://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/fighters/7170-gela-getsadze-surgeon (7-21)

Check out the profile pic of that last guy!