Does kicking leave you open to a grappler?

Don't think there ever was such an era; after the early UFC's it was assumed kicking was pretty much useless. ps, yes of course, being on one leg makes you more vulnerable to being taken down.

 

Hardly, you need time to absorb the kick which gives the kicker time to get balance. Catching kicks is very difficult unless you can read your opponent like an open book. Unless you go against someone who's main goal to take you down(his stance is adjusted appropriately) it's not very likely to be taken down. You'll only see top fighters do that, such as GSP or Fedor, or when the match up is one sided.

 

There are tons. A recent one would be Liddell vs Jardine; Jardine beat him largely with leg kicks. This is the type of kicking that seems to work for a lot of MMA fighters.

Then at the other end you have Cro Cop, who was a freak; sprawling and just kicking people's heads off. I can't think of any kickboxer before or since who has fought like that and been successful , especially at the top level.

 

Which a grappler would be, obviously...

 

liddell's also actually a very well trained wrestler, which plays a lot into why you only see him on his feet. in his better years his sprawl was phenomenal.

 

Your friend is basically right... badly timed kicks to the body & legs usually end up with the grappler grabbing the leg/legs & taking them down.

High kicks to the head - if fast enough - are rarely caught but unless the guy is hurt or stunned they usually miss or are blocked, sometimes the kicker will miss bad & spin completely around & a lot of grapplers take this half second of unbalance advantage & shoot in for the takedown.

Nowadays you get very high level muay thai guys like Anderson Silva & Mauricio Rua who throw their kicks fast, hard , sharp & just at the right time judging by their opponents position so as to not get caught... but these guys are also BJJ black belts - in other words, its far from game over if you take them down, in fact if your own BJJ is not top notch, its you thats in trouble, big trouble.

Another way is the Chuck Liddell way, great kickboxer but rather than top level BJJ, he learned terriffic wrestling... if you catch Chucks leg, he will sprawl suddenly & you waste LOADS of energy by continuing to try take him down + once/if you get him there, he is the best ever at powering back up to his feet & you are left gassed & on your feet with a serious looking Chuck coming at you, most straight grapplers would dread a fight with Chuck stylewise.

Sorry about the book I just wrote - I would have been quicker saying `strikers need to learn some form of grappling these days to enable their striking to work in MMA.`

:good

 

Grapplers used to dominate UFC but the 1st time that form was broke was when kickboxer Maurice Smith beat wrestler Mark Coleman in a big UFC superfight by using great movement & timing Coleman, kicking **** out his legs & using his quick feet to get out of the way of Colemans takedown attempts.
Smith did have some grappling experience but nothing to guys like Rua or Liddell, just enough to survive tough spots & get back to standing.

Of course this situation was reversed when Maurice Smith lost his HWT title to Randy Couture in another UFC mega fight, this time the wrestler Couture timed his takedowns better than Coleman did & won the fight by constantly taking him to the ground.

Ps. Marco Ruas won the UFC 7 tourney primarily with leg kicks but he was a great grappler too & I believe submitted 1 of his 3 opponents that night.

Also check out Cro-cop & Pedro Rizzo, they were highly successfull using leg kicks at their best but of course had their losses to great grapplers too... Cro-cop to Nogueira & Fedor & Rizzo to Randlemann & Couture.

 

The point is you won't see any failed attempts after "kicks that have been defended". Because there arent many, if any attempts at all. They either take the hit and get the takedown or they defend it and not even try.
"Open" is a bad way to describe the situation. It's more of a trade off. They have to leave themselves open in the first place and take the hit to have enough time to get to the kicker. Unless you can defend + catch.

Watch Crocop Gonzaga first round. Both are excellent in their respective sports. Gonzaga ended up taking him down but he had to take a kick to his ribs, if I remember correctly after that one kick Gonzaga had a nasty ass bruse on his right side but he got the take down. If he was to try to defend the kick and then take crocop down it is unlikely to have been successful.

 

There's only Cro Cop who fits the bill.

 

it does if the **** grabs your leg