Chinese martial arts, often named under the umbrella term Kung Fu are several hundred fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in China. These fighting styles are often classified according to common traits, identified as “families” of martial arts. Examples of such traits include Shaolin physical exercises involving Five Animals or training methods inspired by Old Chinese philosophies, religions and legends. Styles that focus on qi manipulation are called internal, while others that concentrate on improving muscle and cardiovascular fitness are called “external”. Geographical association, as in northern and “southern”, is another popular classification method.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts promotion company based in Las Vegas. It is the largest MMA promotion company in the world and features some of the highest-level fighters in the sport on its roster. Today, mixed martial artists must cross-train in a variety of styles to counter their opponent’s strengths and remain effective in all the phases of combat. The techniques utilized in mixed martial arts competition generally fall into two categories: striking techniques (such as kicks, knees, punches and elbows) and grappling techniques (such as clinch holds, pinning holds, submission holds, sweeps, takedowns and throws).

Sprawl-and-Brawl is a stand-up fighting tactic that consists of effective stand-up striking, while avoiding ground fighting, typically by using sprawls to defend against takedowns. Ground-and-pound is a strategy consisting of taking an opponent to the ground using a takedown or throw, obtaining a top, or dominant grappling position, and then striking the opponent, primarily with fists, hammerfists, and elbows. Ground-and-pound is also used as a precursor to attempting submission holds.Submission-Seeking is a reference to the strategy of taking an opponent to the ground using a takedown or throw and then applying a submission hold, forcing the opponent to submit.

While grapplers will often work to attain dominant position, some may be more comfortable fighting from other positions. If a grappler finds themselves unable to force a takedown, they may resort to pulling guard, whereby they physically pull their opponent into a dominant position on the ground. Clinch-Fighting is a tactic consisting of using a clinch hold to prevent the opponent from moving away into more distant striking range, while also attempting takedowns and striking the opponent using knees, stomps, elbows, and punches. The clinch is often utilized by wrestlers and Judokas that have added components of the striking game (typically boxing), and Muay Thai fighters.

The transcript below is from the video “Kung Fu Monk vs UFC Fighters | Kung Fu vs MMA” by NcCrullex.

NcCrullex (YouTube Chhannel Dedicated To All Different Types of Martial Arts):

Kung-fu masters versus MMA fighters. Why don’t you see kung-fu fighters in UFC? Well kung fu fighters pop up from time to time in MMA style fights. Early on in the UFC there were a small number of kung-fu fighters but by the end of its first year, you didn’t see any, why? Well there’s a reason for that. The first UFC s were open to all. They were very much about putting style versus style.So they had karate, Taekwondo, kung fu’, Wing Chun, judo, wrestling etc. It was pretty cool but after a brief number of UFC’s a pattern emerged grapplers generally owned the strikers who are mostly traditionalists and purists with no knowledge of grappling whatsoever. It was embarrassing for the traditionalists. Brazilian jiu-jitsu emerged from obscurity to become the most well known and well respected Styles that prepared people for MMA fights.

NcCrullex (YouTube Chhannel Dedicated To All Different Types of Martial Arts):

Karate, kung-fu and other traditional arts were starting to be seen as inferior, because of the influence the early UFC had a lot of new students rushed to learn Brazilian jiu-jitsu, judo, sambo, wrestling, submission grappling and shoot fighting. From this pool of talent came the next generation of UFC fighters. This new generation of fighters understood the value of grappling and especially ground fighting. At the same time right after UFC one there were many local MMA venues opening up all over the US Canada and the UK. It was in these local competitions where the new generation of fighters got their first fights. Every now and then traditional stylists such as kung-fu fighters would enter these local MMA competitions, but they generally didn’t win without grappling skill. Then the UFC changed a bit it became more selective.

NcCrullex (YouTube Chhannel Dedicated To All Different Types of Martial Arts):

Instead of allowing anyone to enter the UFC they would only look at fighters who had fought and won in local MMA competitions. They were looking for the best fighters not the best stylists. Kung-fu stylist generally would not be able to win those fights enough to be recognized by and brought into the UFC to fight. And now forward to today there are local regional national and international MMA competitions everywhere.There are now enough fighters to have organizations other than just the UFC. But the UFC is seen as the organization with the most elite competitions. So your best bet for seeing how kung-fu stylists do in MMA is to actually look for stuff outside of the UFC or any other national or regional MMA organizations. These would be local MMA competitions, cage matches, Toughman competitions etc.

NcCrullex (YouTube Chhannel Dedicated To All Different Types of Martial Arts):

Only there will you see newcomers with no fight history being allowed to fight and so you sometimes can see kung-fu fighters. Why though would kung fu stylists not do well in MMA fights? The answer is you perform the way you are trained. It’s not about the style. It’s not about the techniques. It’s how you train that matters. Kung fu training rarely involves non-compliant live partners who are trying their best to win against you in matches that allow all three ranges of combat free fighting, clinch and ground. If you don’t train with people who are trying their best to take you down to the ground and submit you, you won’t know how to handle that when the time comes to defend yourself from it. If you’ve never trained with partners, who are allowed to grab you throw you kick you in the legs, punch you in the face etc, then you’ll be lost in a competition that allows those techniques. It’s even worse if you train in a style that doesn’t even do competition at all.

NcCrullex (YouTube Chhannel Dedicated To All Different Types of Martial Arts):

This happens in many kung fu schools. In those Styles you’re either just doing forms and punching to the air or maybe you’re lucky enough to have some partnered activities.But the partnered stuff is compliant and not live. By compliant I mean that your partner is not resisting you. He’s just letting you do stuff. He might throw a punch for example and then he stops and lets you do any number of crazy things to him.You might grab his wrist and yank at it until it locks his arm. And then you perform a standing arm bar but he lets you do that. He doesn’t try to pull his wrist away when he sees you reaching for it. He doesn’t try to keep his elbow from being locked. And by live I mean that your partner is thinking and able to change what he’s doing on the fly, you make you aware of your problem. He’s not just a robot programmed to do one thing and stop. A live partner will not stop after he throws that first punch, he’ll do another punch when he sees that you’re to open on one side. He’ll try to trip you when he sees that your stance is too wide etc.

NcCrullex (YouTube Chhannel Dedicated To All Different Types of Martial Arts):

The most live a partner can be is during a sparring session where things are done completely at random and you have no idea what your partner will do next. Another aspect of this training is speed and power. It’s easy to practice trapping a punch and counter striking to the face when things are slowed down. But speeding it up and adding power might show you that your elegant drill simply doesn’t work at that point. People whose training comes through styles have a lot of excuses and reasons why they don’t train the way MMA trains. The most common reason they claim is that their techniques are too deadly for competition.They also disagree that ground fighting should be developed at all because it would give students bad habits. They basically claim that being on the ground is dangerous in real life for a variety of reasons- mobility, multiple attacker scenarios, broken glass and used hypodermic needles etc.

NcCrullex (YouTube Chhannel Dedicated To All Different Types of Martial Arts):

They would rather put all of their training into learning how to fight on their feet instead and they even dislike the notion of sport fighting claiming that violates the principle of Wu De martial ethics and code of conduct. For these and other reasons they seldom even consider fighting in MMA competitions. Another thing to realize about kungfu is that the styles are highly revered by their students and teachers almost taking on religious significance. Criticizing any aspect of your kung-fu style is just not done. Kung-fu practitioners have faith that the traditional old ways of training are the best, that their instructors are always right and that their particular branch of kung-fu is the best. Each style passes down oral histories of their founders, that make them sound near godlike. They talk about proponents of their style that once fought 30 people at a time and one for example.

NcCrullex (YouTube Chhannel Dedicated To All Different Types of Martial Arts):

And since their styles are generally thought to be perfect, it means that if anyone does poorly using it in a fight it’s because that person just didn’t train hard enough, wasn’t very good at it, or may have some sort of character flaw- laziness, egotistical, selfishness etc. So convincing kung fu stylists that they need to train a different way or to start entering MMA competitions to test their skill is an uphill battle. It’s just not very likely to happen on a large scale. Incidentally MMA is just starting to take root in China. It is unknown at this time how successful it will be at attracting students in a culture that’s so deeply embedded in kung fu We all would love to see a pure kung fu stylist come into the MMA world and succeed that would be amazing. There’s no technique that you can see in MMA fights that isn’t already in kung fu. But like I said it’s not the technique that matters. It’s the way you train for that reason I doubt you’re going to see any pure kung fu fighters go very far in MMA.