Ending On A Hook With Cyrille Diabate
Hook punches are great, they have a high knockout percentage, they can set up your other strikes and they are a fairly safe punch to throw overall. Hooks are one of the key punches in boxing and are some of the most thrown strikes in every striking sport.
In traditional western boxing style, or at least in old-school traditional ones, it is said that you have to end a combination in one of three ways. The first is to end the combination off a jab, as it keeps you safe and allows you to exit and maintain distance safely, as well as get an extra strike and point on your opponent. The second way is to roll off a rear hand strike to your rear hand side, this way you dodge any immediate counter punches that your opponent throws at you and put yourself completely out of harm's way and at a better angle than your opponent to follow up with.
The third way is to end your combinations off a hook, for similar reasons to why you would end a combination on a jab. Ending on your lead hand is a safer way to keep distance and get back into a defensive position than ending on your rear hand and you don’t need to move if you don’t want to. All of these ways to end combinations are solid and can be used by all stickers no matter the disciple but right now we are going to be focusing on ending a combination off a hook.
In this video retired kickboxer and former UFC fighter Cyrille Diabate shows a unique combination that puts this idea into practice. This is a fairly unorthodox combination and involves more than just strikes.
The combination starts with a basic jab to overhand right, when you land the overhand it, you are actually not going to retract it right away. Instead you are going to frame off that right hand to get your opponent moving back. After this you are going to step forward and out to the side with your rear leg and land a lead leg low kick on your opponent's rear leg.
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From there you are just going to go with a standard left hook to the body and then left hook to the head. This is where Cyrille ends the combination but you are able to do a lot off of it. Off of this hook, even if you decide to just end the combination just like Cryille, ending on a left hook is a good way to quickly come back into your stance with your hands in the proper position to defend.
Off of this left you, your opponent is also perfectly set up for a low kick to their lead leg, as if you are both in orthodox or both in southpaw, your lead hook will get them heavy on their lead leg. You can also pivot off of this lead hook to gain a dominant angle on your opponent, where some of the best targets to score a knockout are, while they have to turn to face you and defend.
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