Issue 124

It set the internet ablaze and baptized a new MMA superstar. Anthony Pettis explains how to do his flying kick off the cage.

In his five-round title war against Benson Henderson at the last ever WEC in January, Anthony Pettis unleashed one of the most spectacular strikes ever seen in an MMA bout. In the dying seconds of the fight Pettis ran up and along the cage then launched himself at his opponent, hitting Henderson cleanly with a flying right-leg kick.

You can already find imitators on YouTube, practicing it in the gym on standing ‘Bob’-style training dummies.

“It’s easy to hit a still object with it, but striking a live, moving target is tough,” Pettis explains. “So the timing is crucial. You do need a lot of momentum, but the hardest part of all is having the guts to throw it.” Pettis has performed the kick plenty of times before “we do it for visiting media” and it’s been part of his arsenal from a young age.

“I used to do it in taeknowndo class when I was seven or eight.

We’d jump off each other’s backs and break boards at demonstrations. I used it while sparring MMA one time and my coach Duke Roufus said, ‘Man, that’s a cool kick. Let’s try implementing it in the cage.’

He put a Muay Thai twist on it, taught me to connect with the shin.

We practice with him holding the Thai pads for me to connect onto.”

Pettis swears that he “never thought I’d end up doing it in a competitive fight. It was certainly spontaneous, I wasn’t planning it.

But I did, and it landed flush.” His impressive composure for a 24 year-old, either in the middle of the cage or launching himself off it, Pettis puts down to his coach.

“That’s my coach Duke Roufus. He gives me a lot of time and it’s paying off in the cage. We’re always on the same page and he’s helped me to come so far, so quick.”