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Samson Issan (Dutch boy) vs Benjie Canete. Samson vs Canete also Also Samson vs Thembinkosi Ntyinkala very cool. Extremely demonstrative for anyone looking to study/incorporate Samson’s “max guard”. I’m taking note that an essential part of this guard is forwards movement and bullying his opponent around. It looks a little similar to the much crappier version that a lot of bad fighters use where their gloves are more at their temples. Samson’s head posture and the fact that his hands are at the top (or crown) is only 1/2 of the effectiveness. The other half is how he actually pushes into the opponents fist which may seem counterintuitive. However, not only is he stifling the last few inches of the punch which is where “pop” comes from, he also ends up engaging his muscles around this guard (that being mostly his neck and lats) which takes energy that would be transferred to the head and redirects it to his torso. Kind of like a lightning rod for kinetic energy from a punch. He also pushes his forearms outwards at times which again is capturing kinetic energy and rerouting it to his much heavier torso through his much bigger lat muscles with much more inertia to overcome to make him move. Absolutely brilliant, cannot believe we don’t see this guard more often.

I think that with first fights its important to just lower expectations. They are a mental blur. It will be very hard to execute what you feel you know, and because first time fighters tend to hold their breath under the stress they gas out quicker than they think they should or realize. I think just get your cardio up to give you a bit of a buffer, spar as much as you can with an emphasis on relaxation, and go into the fight expecting it to be more out of your control than you think. If you can relax, have solid defense, and enjoy the first fight experience, you've already won. The whole point of first fights is so you can get to your second fight.