Jab of The Black Warrior

In May of last year, Zack Mwekassa seemed like just some jobber brought in to welcome Pat Barry back to kickboxing. At Bellator Dyanmite next weekend, Mwekassa finds himself in a fight for the GLORY light heavyweight title. Part of this is fortune smiling upon Mwekassa, but for the most part the Congolese puncher has forged his path there with a trail of soul-snatching knockouts.

Mwekassa has been called the most interesting man in combat sports, and it's easy to see why. A survivor of the Second Congo War, the victim of a shooting, a snake bite, a volcanic eruption and a laundry list of other misfortunes you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. From an accomplished family and always with something thoughtful and honest to say, Mwekassa's memoir is sure to fly off of the shelves if he can sit still long enough to write it. But by far the most important point to anyone watching him fight is that he consistently lays opponents out.

The Congolese kickboxer fighting out of South Africa has what every fighter wants and every fan wants to see, heavy hands. You can have the most beautifully rounded kickboxing game in the world, but it doesn't put arses in seats quite like the promise of a big puncher swinging for the fences. Mwekassa has a built for short Youtube videos and gifs, and in this age of Reddit and Twitter, that more than anything can help a fight promotion get its product out.

What is interesting about Zack Mwekassa is that despite being almost entirely a boxer in a kickboxing ring, he consistently gets results with his hands alone. The dynamic of kickboxing often stunts the effectiveness of punching techniques—the constant danger of kicks and the need to check prevents a fighter from using his feet to line up his punches and create angles as well as he would in a boxing match. Overwhelmingly in kickboxing, the consistent knockout punchers are men who a) develop a big counter punch (think Tyrone Spong's left hook in answer to everything), or b) overwhelm with volume against an opponent's guard until you can work one around, a la Gokhan Saki.

What Mwekassa has found success with is a technique which is almost an afterthought to most boxers, the jab. Not a jab on the spot, but a long, lunging, spearing jab. The kind of jab that Miguel Cotto was diving six feet forward on to smash Paulie Malignaggi's nose open. Of course, to do this requires a deep step between the opponent's feet, and to do it well—maximising the reach across the shoulders and minimising the profile—means turning side on and turning the lead foot in.

The difficulty that boxers who transfer to kickboxing and attempt to use their jab have always had is that this step is completely nullified by the need to be ready to check kicks. You might eat a kick on the way in and it'll buckle your leg, or you might land a picture perfect jab, do the damage, and still eat the low kick on the way out. It plagued the great Mike Bernardo for his entire career despite his constant vigilance on the issue, and it made Riddick Bowe's Muay Thai bout a sad sight.

Obviously Bowe was old and overweight, but the delusional fans in the comments section who claim he would have won the bout in his prime "with his jab" didn't notice that every time he wanted to jab, he started to turn himself side on to stretch out his tremendous reach, as he had throughout his career, and presented that lead leg more and more. The same vulnerability stunts many fighters' lead hooks in kickboxing to a degree by not allowing them to pivot and 'toe in'.

Mwekassa, however, has managed to work in his long jab by picking his shots better. He will stand square, picking up the lead leg when he senses a kick, and then as the kick retracts or when he is certain it isn't coming, he'll lunge in on that jab. His timing has proven to be exceptional to this point.

While the long jab in kickboxing exposes the fighter's lead leg and places him more side on so that kicks to the upper body will unbalance him, the square on stance adopted by the majority of kickboxers to deal with kicks actually leaves them more vulnerable to straight jabs up the center if the feet are used to line the blow up correctly.

A few good, weighted jabs to the face and Mwekassa can usually get onto the front foot. By keeping the opponent on the retreat and their feet moving, he makes it much harder for them to challenge his base with those kicks.

That deep step on the jab also serves to set up Mwekassa's terrific left hook. He will perform that same step to get his body on a line behind his lead shoulder, itself in line with the opponent's centreline, but instead loop the punch around the opponent's guard. Here you can see him go from two powerful jabs, straight to the left hook, but it doesn't quite come off:

This time he fairs a little better and causes a stumble which is ruled a knockdown.

Confident that the opponent was hurt, Mwekassa stepped in with a couple of quick power punches and another left hook laid Carlos Brooks out. The classical jab and left hook double attack was entirely responsible for that knockout and it was beautiful to watch.

There's a few more tricks to Mwekassa—he uses an excellent right straight to the body, when he's flurrying he will work off to the right side so that his left hook enters through the center of the guard, not to mention that terrific left uppercut and counter left hook—but the kicking game was the cause of his last loss. Against Saulo Cavalari, whom he will rematch at Bellator Dynamite for the GLORY light heavyweight title, Mwekassa was landing his shots but eating low kicks which clearly hurt him.

Here Mwekassa goes to the boxing favorite when tired—to stop moving your feet and move your head instead. Problem is that swaying your head out of the way in kickboxing greatly inhibits your ability to pick up your leg and check a kick. Mwekassa was repeatedly touching his own leg by this point, making it clear that he was in pain.

The third round came and Cavalari threw a low kick, followed by a left high kick—an excellent weapon to dissuade opponents from dipping to their right as a boxer like Mwekassa often will.

Now with Gokhan Saki and Tyrone Spong being MIA for the foreseeable future, the GLORY light heavyweight title is up for grabs, and you couldn't ask for a much better match up on their current roster than Mwekassa versus Cavalari. Mwekassa's most recent performance showed a return to the more cautious attitude he had to opponents kicks he displayed before his meeting with Cavalari, wherein he was somewhat keen to get straight in and throw. Meanwhile Cavalari has since gone the distance in a split decision victory over Artem Vakhitov.

The co-main event of Bellator Dynamite is worth watching for the play off in styles alone. The fact that a belt is on the line and that it is preceded by a card of excellent fights and succeeded by, well… Liam McGeary at least, is just a bonus.

Pick up Jack's new kindle book, Finding the Art, or find him at his blog, Fights Gone By.