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Missed Fists: William Whipple unleashes a Head Kick from Outta Nowhere, plus ‘Who Ref’d It Better?’

February 21, 2020
Wansongkran is stuck by a head kick from William Whipple at a MAX Muay Thai Ultimate show in Pattaya, Thailand, on Feb. 16, 2020 | MAX Muay Thai Official, YouTube

Welcome to the latest edition of Missed Fists where we shine a light on fights from across the globe that may have been overlooked in these hectic times where it seems like there’s an MMA show every other day.

This week, we’ve got a pair of ridiculous Muay Thai KOs, some questionable decision making, and everyone’s favorite game, “Who Ref’d It Better?”

William Whipple vs. Wansongkran Sor.Por.Ped

JM: More like William Whip-ass, amirite?

AL: It’s a superb name.

JM: That was one of the more ferocious head kick KOs I’ve seen in quite some time. Reminded me of Yves Edwards’ kick on Josh Thomson only instead of rocking the guy, Whipple plain laid him out. Ooof.

AL: Far be it from me to double guess the tactics of a professional fighter, but I have to ask: Wansongkran, so casual walking away, why? Also, why is the referee even considering letting this fight continue? But we’ll have more officiating talk later.

That KO came from a MAX Muay Thai Ultimate in Pattaya, Thailand (full fight available here), not to be confused with Muay Thai Super Champ in Bangkok, which produced this gem.

Mot Klamkhamao vs. Luca Lassalle

JM: I’d love to know how it feels to do that to someone else, but I have zero interest in putting myself in a position of having an elbow like that done to me so for now, living vicariously through these clips will have to do.

AL: If William Whipple gave us the Head Kick from Hell, then this elbow is definitely from the same zip code.

Jeka Saragih vs. Angga

AL: Staying over on that side of the pond, how about this display of “only in Asia” offense from Jeka Saragih.

From One Pride MMA Fight Night 36 (don’t get sued!), Saragih put on a dominant display of grappling after being rocked in the first round. Credit to Angga for being a risk-taking champion, but unfortunately his ground game is completely non-existent and the above clip is indicative of how the majority of the fight went before Saragih ended it in round four with a rear-naked choke to claim Annga’s lightweight title.

JM: It’s weird to think about MMA rules and how arbitrary they are.

This is a sport where you can see things like the above two clips (I know those were Muay Thai, not MMA, but the point stands) yet kneeing someone in the head while on the ground is a bridge too far. It’s all so very stupid because as you can see here, grounded knees are a phenomenally useful tool that will literally only improve the fan experience. Grounded knees open up many stalling positions and force disadvantaged fighters to be much more aggressive in escaping.

Bring back grounded knees and standing headbutts you philistines!

Ludovit Klein vs. Lukasz Sajewski

AL: That’s Ludovit Klein with a wicked head kick and... wait a minute, I’m getting deja vu.

Oh, right.

JM: I love me some Oktagon Prime (full fights available on YouTube). It sounds like the knockoff Transformers toy you got from Santa for Christmas because when the elves finally unionized the fat man was put in a bind.

AL: It’s February.

JM: Anyway… old SloCop showed off that left leg cemetery thing again like the last time we saw him in Missed Fists. Back-to-back highlight-reel head kick KOs and a 16-2 record mean this 24-year-old should be competing in the actual Octagon, stat.

Tarek Mousa vs. Mark Twaalfhoven

AL: I… don’t think I’ve ever seen a head kick quite like this one.

JM: That may be my favorite knockout in a long time. He’s so damn nonchalant about that kick, probably because I doubt he thought it would actually work. That kick looks like me at the end of a heavy bag session when I’m completely spent throwing it out there with little consideration to form or power, just trying to make contact and survive to hear the buzzer.

AL: This came from an amateur bout at World Fighting League MMA 4 in Hoofddorp, Netherlands, the first time that city has ever been featured here. Shout out to Hoofddorp, home of the Dutch Transport Safety Board!

JM: I also love that Twaalfhoven (sidebar: what a glorious name!) went full starfish on his collapse. You rarely see a body splayed out like an X when they get got but that’s what we got here.

AL: A proper sell, in pro wrasslin’ terms.

Terunari Inoue vs. Tatsuki Okano
Shinsuke Matsubara vs. Junpei Ueno

And now over to Japan where we check in on Pancrase 312 and two rollicking right hand KOs, courtesy of young gunners Terunari Inoue and Shinsuke Matsubara.

JM: Good heavens. Poor Tatsuki Okano. He looked like a man who caught a full-on punt to the testicles, if his testicles were in his brain. I know that probably doesn’t make sense, but it kind of definitely does make sense.

AL: I doubt anything made sense to Okano after eating that shot.

JM: The lights weren’t exactly turned out on Okano, but everything hurts and he hates himself right now.

Conversely, for poor Junpei Ueno, the lights weren’t just turned out, the power to the entire block was shut down and his backup generator exploded.

AL: “The Iceman” himself would be proud of these homerun overhand swings.

And now *drumroll* we enter the Weird World of Sports portion of our show.

JM: My favorite part!

Dragan Desic vs. Nenad Rajic
Maxim Kolosov vs. Edis Besic

JM: I want to be clear, if I ever do take an MMA fight, I will look exactly like this. At the core of it, MMA should be fun and you cannot tell me that Dragan Desic isn’t having the most fun out there.

AL: That scintillating action comes from Serbian Battle Championship 26, at around the 49:00 mark of the show, which can be viewed on Facebook. Desic really thinks he’s got something here, bless his heart, fighting with all the confidence of a man with a 1-4 record facing another man with a 0-0 record.

It’s worth watching the whole thing. He wins by choke, puffs his chest, and then does a pair of serviceable flips to celebrate, because of course he does.

Less interesting but far more effective is this high kick by Maxim Kolosov that is best described as “disdainful.”

JM: I love Kolosov’s half-hearted second kick as Edis Besic is clearly surrendering, by the way. Like he’s trying to shoo away a fly with his foot.

Emilio Cuellar vs. Alexis Ramirez
Daniel Vega vs. Antonio Marquez

AL: Here’s Alex Ramirez at Lux Fight League 8 (available on UFC Fight Pass) in Mexico City going for a rolling I don’t know what.

Emilio Cuellar would later finish Ramirez by third-round TKO.

JM: You know it’s bad when Fight Pass’s own Twitter person is calling you out for that. Honestly, this would’ve been the best MMA clip of the year if homie got rifled in the face and KO’d right then.

Then we could’ve dubbed this segment, “When Keeping It Wheel Goes Wrong.”

AL: It’s moments like these where I am just immensely proud to be able to say that I know you.

On that note, here’s Daniel Vega and Antonio Marquez with a visual representation of what our writing process is like:

JM: The Lux MMA Gods tried their best to give us some wooly and wild ish but these two guys just had to stand back up! The double KO is the unicorn of MMA and we were so close!

AL: If anyone is curious, Vega would go on to finish the fight in round one via rear-naked choke to improve to 12-2 and he’s now put together a tidy five-fight win streak.

Gustavo Trujillo vs. Lorenzo Hunt

And then there’s the BKFC, which by it’s nature will always fall under the category of weird/wooly/wild.

Here’s Lorenzo Hunt with some head-down, face-first offense that ends about as you’d expect.

JM: Respect to Hunt for even being able to get up from that.

AL: Man was like, “Aye, just gimme a sec here.”

JM: He basically threw his entire body weight into the right hand and still got back to his feet. That’s impressive as hell.

Alright, let’s close up shop this week with a classic game, one that comes to us from the wonderful world of Muay Thai (after this week we may just be a full kick-fighting column), where their referees are all fuggin awesome.

AL: That’s right, kids, it’s time for WHO! REF’D IT! BETTER!!!

*cue confetti*

JM: Let’s just get this out of the way to start: the referee who made the MLB diving catch of Neymar’s brain box definitely had the more important showing. Legitimately, that dive may well have added time to Neymar’s life as without the ref, our dude was about to have his head bounce off the canvas like a basketball on cold concrete.

AL: This clip exploded on social media this week and for good reason. At first you think you’re just watching yet another devastating Muay Thai KO (yawn, am I right?) and then it looks like the referee was accidentally bowled over from the impact. It’s only upon review that you realize that the referee was making like The Fray and showing us how to save a life.

JM: That being said, I think there’s a strong case to be made that the nameless hero in Clip 2 was more impressive. Just look at it! THE MAN CHECKED THE OTHER FIGHTER’S KICK LIKE HE’S JACKIE CHAN IN A DAMN CHOREOGRAPHED MOVIE SCENE. This isn’t Ip Man, that was a real fight and he did that. That’s unbelievable.

AL: It should be noted that while we know the first clip came from a Muay Hardcore show (available on YouTube), it’s unclear where our second entrant comes from or if it’s even from the same weekend. Credit to @GlobeSvcs for the find and giving us all the chance to see one of the finest pieces of combat sports officiating ever.

JM: No disrespect to the man who ensured that Neymar will make it to his 80s, but there’s a non-zero chance I could’ve done that in the same situation. His execution was flawless but it’s a reasonably instinctive reaction to try and catch falling objects.

But the Wing Chun knee block from Referee Two is something I don’t think any of us could do even if you knew it was coming and I had weeks to train for it.

What do the people say?

If you know of a recent fight or event that you think may have been overlooked, or a promotion that could use some attention, please let us know on Twitter – @JedKMeshew and @AlexanderKLee – using the hashtag #MissedFists.

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