Ok so I’m sitting down watching UFC 141 from the comfort of my sofa and the first fight of the night is between Nam Phan, someone I’ve seen before from The Ultimate Fighter, and Jimy Hettes, who is introduced as a Judo Brown Belt and BJJ Purple Belt. As Nam Phan is pretty experienced in MMA and also a BJJ black Belt I assume he will have too much for the young Hettes but I am proved wrong as Hettes repeatedly performs lovely Judo throws which include Harai-Goshi, O-uchi-gari and I think I saw an Uchi-mata as well. To top this off Hettes has very good control over Phan on the ground as well and is definitely a hot prospect for the future.
Another fight that night was between Kim Dong-Hyun, a 4th dan black belt in Judo and Sean Pierson. Again I was delighted to see some lovely throws from Kim, especially a lovely Harai-Goshi.
Joe Rogan, who is one of the commentators for the UFC and has been for a number of years now does an excellent job commentating and really puts over a fans perspective of each of the fights. Coupled with this Rogan also holds a Black Belt in Taekwondo and a brown belt in BJJ, so he understands a lot of what is going on and is very good at seeing techniques and moves that are being set up, particularly where the ground work is concerned. He can tell you the (BJJ) name of every submission, choke, leg lock etc and also tell you how to escape the said submission, providing of course that it’s still possible. I do however have one gripe with Mr Rogan and that is that he calls every throw a “Judo Throw” or “Judo trip”. It infuriates me that after all these years he isn’t able to name the throws correctly. Now I don’t expect him to go away and learn all 67 throws of the Gokyu but he doesn’t need to as there are only about half a dozen or so throws that are performed in MMA, due mainly to the lack of gi but also because some Judo throws can leave you vulnerable to punches or can give your opponent a superior ground position following the throw, which isn’t such a hazard when competing in Judo Shiai.
So Joe Rogan, if you are reading this, please go away and learn the correct names of these lovely Judo throws, it will make me and the rest of the Judo performing MMA fans very happy.
