Savate Mobility and Broken Rhythm

View the Pennacchio vs. Dekkers at Boot to the Head for a great example of what makes Savate such a monster style in the ring. I think it was a good counterpoint and contrast to our post, "Muay Thai Lessons from Ramon Dekkers."As you know, I posted on the Muay Thai lessons we can learn from Ramon Dekkers a little while ago. Let's turn that around and see what we can pick up from François Pennacchio in the video posted at Boot. Make sure you watch the whole video, then let me know how you see it.

Mobility
As Ruiz states in his Boot posts, the superior mobility that is the hallmark of Savate is tough to deal with. I noted that the constant circular mobility prevented Dekkers from getting "set" before firing, thus neutralizing much of his power, and creating many misses. As you may know, missing takes much more of a toll than hitting a target, and it shows. An important point is that Pennacchio has excellent discipline to stay in his game plan. As someone once said, genius is the ability to stay focused on the matter at hand. Superior fighters, race car drivers, tennis players, and others have that. Pennacchio definitely does, constantly moving away from the power of Dekkers, preventing him from landing more than one shot at a time.

Power
I agree with George that Dekkers wins the power game, but he rarely got to land cleanly, so that wasn't much of a factor. Savate kicks have an odd sort of focused power which hurts you badly, but in a different way than Muay Thai. Pennacchio stayed on his game and didn't really try to get set and blast Dekkers - probably a good idea!

Broken Rhythm
I think Pennacchio's ability to stop and redirect his momentum to another direction is what appeared to frustrate Dekkers. When he's start to lead off, Pennacchio wasn't there anymore. The broken rhythm also allowed him to fire on the move because Dekkers was off-balance with misses. Excellent!

Conditioning
Finally, I have to credit both fighters with being in excellent shape for the fight. Dekkers could not have maintained that pace without it, but the constant mobility of Pennacchio requires unbelievable cardio and muscular endurance. I can't usually get through a whole round of constant movement, much less 8, 10, or more.

Summary
I'd definitely score Pennacchio the winner of this bout due to his superior ring generalship and defense. He used a "stick and move" tactic which yielded an overwhelming decision on my score card. Due to this type of training, if you like full contact striking, I'd give Savate a look.