Elite kickers fall broadly into one of two categories. The first type batters the opponent into submission or scores fight changing single connections by means of raw attributes—speed and power. Some of the greatest kickers in combat sports history have fallen into this category. Enormous power kickers like Yodsanklai and Nokweed Devy in Muay Thai. Speed kickers like Buakaw in Muay Thai and kickboxing, or Rafael Fiziev and Edson Barboza in mixed martial arts. Cro Cop’s kicking success was built entirely on the speed and power of his back leg and the constant threat of the double attack with his left straight. The common theme of these kickers was that their physical attributes allowed them to slam basic techniques in and fill gaps in the opponent’s defence much quicker than anticipated, or blast that defence and not care.

Then there is a second type of kicker whose success does not rely being too powerful or too fast. These are fighters who accept that you might see the kick coming, and use that to build into more varied offence. Think of Alexander Volkanovski and Israel Adesanya using the step up inside low kick to get the opponent to react to the preliminary step, or our beloved Yothin obviously stepping into his right low kick, to make the opponent check each time they see the step and not when they see the kick.  

Jonathan Haggerty and Yuki Yoza are both kickers who use their kicks to set traps and build their offence as the fight progresses. Neither is lacking for speed or power, but their styles do not stop at the opponent’s defence, they contort themselves around it.

Jonathan Haggerty stood out from the crowd because he was the opposite of what is ordinary in a farang competing in Muay Thai. The stereotypical farang is all combination punching and kickboxing. Haggerty built his style around the teep. His teep is so good that it stands out even when he fights elite Thai fighters. To have success with his teep he will often stand in a stance that is very biased towards his rear leg. You could drop a plumb line from Haggerty’s head and it will line up with his right hip, right knee and right foot. Fighting heavy on the back foot in this way is antithetical to opening up in combination with your hands and so a weight transfer must be made at some point.

Haggerty excelled with an intercepting teep, but also with an offensive teep that could send the opponent stumbling back across the ring. Traditional teep targets are the hip crease and solar plexus. Haggerty like to throw his teep high on the chest specifically to force his opponent backwards in a spectacular way. His second favourite target seems to be the front of the thigh which is more effective as an intercepting strike to break the opponent off.

A teep on its own is not much of a game, so Haggerty rounds it out with the switch kick. Standing light on the lead leg enables him to perform the very short “switch” that is more just bringing the lead foot back to level with the rear one. Just about every fast switch kicker out there from Buakaw to Nattawut makes use of this. One of Haggerty’s great skills is in hitting a very short switch or even no-switch into a high kick, while almost gliding backwards on his standing leg. This retreating high kick has stunned a number of his opponents as they have begun to steal the initiative.

Haggery will also perform a much larger switch step to truly change stances and lead with his right foot, and he will also back step off kicks into this southpaw position. The obvious follow up is a powerful left round kick on the open side, but Haggerty was a menace with a long, rear leg teep from this stance change.

This kicking game provided cover for Haggerty to enter with elbows from an unexpectedly long range. The tomahawk elbow he used to drop Joseph Lasiri immediately increased Haggerty’s popularity. A knee raise to fake the teep, leaping in over the distance, and landing almost on top of Lasiri with the elbow.

The fake teep to elbow has given Haggerty some of the best connections of his career. Haggerty has had just as much success showing the stance switch, threatening the powerful southpaw left kick, and then stepping through with the elbow instead.

This was the state of Jonathan Haggerty when he won and lost the ONE Championship Bantamweight Muay Thai title.

Relearning the Punch

The curious thing about Jonathan Haggerty is that he excelled in Muay Thai because of his skill with traditional Muay Thai weapons: the teep, the switch kick and the elbow. Many foreign fighters partake in Muay Thai by carrying a kickboxing game into it, rather than adapting to what is valued by judges and what is unique about the ruleset.