Wing Chun or Wing Tsun in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) or Vale Tudo: Sifu Steve Falkner vs Igor Zinoviev

Sifu Steve Falkner

One of the greatest debates in the history of martial arts is the question "Which is the best style of fighting?". Typically, martial artists around the world tend to consider that their respective style is the best. However, only recently, martial artists and fans could be wtiness of no-holds-barred competitions between martial artists from different styles of fighting (actually, such "no-rules" matches among different styles have been part of the history of martial arts, but just recently has been the public exposed massively to this kind of competitions through TV and the internet, and the records are available to everyone).

This kind of competitions provide a more or less neutral and empirical way to answer the question about which is the best style (actually, it only provides a partial answer: A style can be "the best" in one respect, but the worst in another. For example, spiritually aikido is a lot superior than kickboxing, which as such has not spiritual aspect at all. Other styles can be useful against weapons, but weak in hand-to-hand fighting, etc.). But at least such competitions provide an objective criterion to discuss technical efficacious on empirical basis.

One of these "no-rules" matches that I liked a lot (because it was instrumental in changing my mindset) was the one that faced classical Wing Chun stylist, Sifu Steve Falkner, against sambo and grappling specialist, Igor Zinoviev. The reason why I like this fight a lot is because it faces an exponent of a classical martial art (concretely, a respected style of Kung Fu, namely Wing Chun) and an expert in a contemporary martial sport like Sambo.

For people unfamiliar with Wing Chun, let's just say that was the first combative style learned and used by the great Bruce Lee (who trained directly with Grandmaster Yip Man for a few years). Wing Chun Kung Fu is short-range style of fighting, which stresses trapping and chain punching, with simultaneous attack and defense techniques, a whole theory of combat (e.g. about the center and central line) and sensitivity training (Chi sao = Sticky hands; Chi Gerk = Sticky Legs). 

Without a doubt, Wing Chun is one of the best and more effective classical Kung Fu styles. When competently used, Wing Chun is a devastatinng fighting art which leaves little room for the opponent to do an effective defense. See for example:

Sifu Steve Falkner is a seasoned Wing Chun figther and teacher, who trained under Sifu Duncan Leung (one of the world's leading masters of Wing Chun). Contrary to other traditional martial artists, Sifu Falkner had the courage to enter a Mixed Martial Arts competition to test his skills.

As you can watch in the first video above, Falker lost the fight pretty easily. When I first wacthed that fight many years ago, I was very young and still a practitioner of traditional martial arts and my "mindset" was the same than other traditional martial artists, namely: my style (and myself) was virtually unbeatable (except by people who knows my style better than me) and I assumed that Falker will kick ass in the tournament. This is a WRONG mindset, which (as I've argued in another post) is very dangerous and can get you badly beaten.

Falkner's loss doesn't refute the proven effectiveness of Wing Chun, but it forces you  to think about its limitations. Against a experience grappler, in the context of a mixed martial arts event, the chances of the Wing Chun figther tends to be small. It doesn't mean that the Wing Chucn figther cannot win, but it is more likely that he loss, specially if the fight goes to the ground (which is likely to be the case in a MMA fight). In other context, for example fighting in stairs, the Wing Chun guy perhaps would have the upper hand.

The point is that we need to be humble, open mind and self-critical in our way to knowledge, martial arts training being no exception.

For more information on Wing Chun history, theory and technique, see discussion in the book "Wing Chun Kung Fu" by Ip Chun (the son of Yip Man) and "Wing Chun Martial Arts" by the same author (see also "Wing Tsun Kuen" by Sifu and Grandmaster Leung Ting)