But wait... He's largely right, and biomechanics aren't the point here.
Combat sports are a closed system with fixed rules, known targets, mutual restraints, and predictable techniques.
That’s why you can read your opponents, anyone who has ever trained in combat sports will tell you this.
But natural violence is a whole different ballgame, as it is an open system with no rules, no agreements, massive asymmetry and you also have to factor in the environment (no fixed setting), tools, and possibly the element of surprise, among many other factors.
Training for a rule-bound game doesn’t automatically carry over once the rules disappear.
I think his actual point is that punches and kicks simply become low-leverage choices once the fight isn’t constrained.
In an open situation, force transfer isn’t the bottleneck. What decides things there is initiative and control: positioning, creating imbalance, targeting vulnerabilities, numbers, and whatever tools are available.
The idea that the kickboxer wins because of transferring power through the hips assumes the fight collapses into trading punches and kicks when natural fighting doesn’t default to that at all.
It defaults to ambush, disruption, and ending it as quickly as possible before any rhythm can even be established.
Skills optimized for a very specific rule-set don’t scale cleanly once the context disappears.
