Advanced Striking 2.0: Badr Hari
Kickboxing’s top promotion, K-1 was built around the understanding that fans like knockouts and more knockouts will translate into more fans. It was for this reason that K-1 focused its efforts on the heavyweight division and tweaked its rules to limit the clinching that slows fights and saves fighters when they are on wobbly legs. But when two world class fighters square off there is nothing close to a guarantee of an early finish. It speaks to the ability of Badr Hari that he was perhaps the best fighter at delivering on K-1’s promise of knockouts, and might well be the most offensively talented heavyweight kickboxer of all time.
Getting to K-1 was the goal for every heavyweight kickboxer through the 1990s and 2000s, and Hari made it to the big show in 2005 at the tender age of twenty-one. His promotional debut was against Stefan Leko, who had snapped Hari’s impressive seven fight winning streak at an It’s Showtime event in Amsterdam six months earlier. The six foot six Morrocan still had the build of an adolescent then and he looked strange, giving ground to the shorter, older fighter. Yet a minute and a half into he second round Leko stepped onto a wheel kick that shattered his consciousness. With what would go on to be voted the greatest knockout in K-1 history, Hari had arrived. From the moment that Hari’s heel exploded onto Leko’s jaw in November 2005 to his first meeting with Rico Verhoeven in December 2016, Hari fought fifty times and just six of those bouts went the distance. Badr Hari was the epitome of a “kill or be killed” fighter.
As he made it to the largest stage in his sport so early, much of Hari’s development happened in front the cameras. Looking back it is strange to recall that Hari’s early fights were largely built around his length and his kicking. He often looked uncomfortable trading punches with his opponents and he didn’t have the same kind of pop that he would carry through his prime. Part of that likely had to do with gaining confidence and packing on muscle as any growing heavyweight will do (especially in the pharmaceutical wild west of kickboxing), but as much of it had to do with refining his mechanics.
Spinning kicks with the heel are brilliant, but they are not a go-to technique that you can build from through three rounds, especially north of two hundred pounds. It was mastery of the right straight that morphed Hari from an interesting prospect into the most dangerous kickboxer in the world. This took time and in fact, by 2007 when Hari won the dubious K-1 heavyweight title, he was still something of a gangly kicker with training wheels on his hands. It was when he faced Ray Sefo in April 2008, after five months off, that Hari’s transformation seemed to be in full swing. He had packed on so much muscle that all of K-1’s pre-fight graphics and promotional material seemed to show a different man, and as Sefo found out, Hari’s right hand was no longer an afterthought.
The science of boxing—which lends itself to kickboxing—is that of landing right hands and avoiding right hands. Two right-handed men in orthodox stance should be doing their best hitting with their back hand because they can drive off their back leg and get their body into the blow. Average hitters should be looking to line up their right hand because that is their best shot at doing some damage. When you stumble upon a right hand hitter of the quality that Hari developed, the goal and the method stay the same, the results just become a lot more dramatic.
A kickboxer can survive fairly well by just putting on his earmuffs—high gloves and tight elbows—and riding out the storm. In fact, that is largely the method that the Dutch kickboxing style has brought to the fore. Watch a fighter like Robin van Roosmalen and you might think there exists no other form of defence. Where a boxer has to contend with the position of the lead shoulder and the opponent’s ability to get down behind it, a kickboxer has to contend with his opponent using their gloves and forearms to obstruct blows from a more square on stance.
For this reason, Badr Hari gravitated towards a pair of techniques that allowed him to pick at his opponent’s centreline. Hari made use of a jab—often thrown with a vertical fist to wedge up between his opponent’s forearms should they attempt to close them in front of their face—and would then cut the angle into his right low kick from there. But the real game changer for Hari’s career was his discovery and subsequent mastery of the right straight to the body.
Fig. 1
The right straight to the body has always been an underused weapon in combat sports, partly because of the feeling of vulnerability it creates in the man attempting it, and partly because of the lack of immediately obvious results. While Hari’s career is poorly documented before he appeared in K-1, he has taken part in over a hundred fights and yet there are only two notable instances of Hari scoring a knockout with a right straight to the body, and only a couple more of him scoring a knockdown with it. Both knockouts came against considerably smaller men.
The value of the right straight to the body is the same as the body jab: it targets an area on the opponent that is very difficult to simply cover up without creating other openings, and which cannot be pulled away with a slip. And of course the right straight to the body, delivered with a rotation of the hips and a falling step, is going to have a good deal more spite on it than a jab.
The right straight to the body slotted into Hari’s game well because of the success he had created for himself with his switch kick. Hari would often throw left high kicks to square his opponent up, and then try to get behind their right elbow with a switch kick to the body. Substituting the body kick with the right straight to the body proved a more reliable way to score clean blows.
But the right straight to the body was still not an obvious option for Hari. At six foot six he was one of the taller men in a division of lofty fellows, and yet he was level changing to score body straights on men under six foot. The taller man has the advantage of forcing his opponent to punch up at him, but he has a disadvantage on the level change as he has further to go. Often the difference in height between Hari and his opponent was so significant that Hari couldn’t punch level with his shoulder after the level change and in fact punched down on his opponent’s gut, giving up some of his reach as well.
Hari also used the body straight to stop opponents in their tracks in the moments that they began to build confidence against him. From 2005 to 2007, Hari was still largely a kicker and had found trouble against opponents who crowded or rushed in on him such as Ruslan Karaev. By 2008, Hari was able to use the right straight to kill an opponent’s momentum immediately—somewhat like Gene Tunney, who credited a stiff right straight to the solar plexus for saving him from Jack Dempsey in their first fight.
Against Errol Zimmerman, in the semi-final of the 2008 K-1 Grand Prix, Hari’s right straight to the body was in great form. Zimmerman was known for his swatting right hook, so each time Hari engaged with his right straight to the body he would dip down to his left and slide under Zimmerman’s return. When Zimmerman caught Hari off balance and began to close in on him along the ropes, Hari feinted into a squared position and used the lead uppercut to put Zimmerman on his heels before following with a right straight to the body. At this point Zimmerman simply allowed Hari off of the ropes—no fancy footwork needed.
The Zimmerman fight was also a great example of Hari building off the body straight. After stretching his stance and advancing his left foot to commit to the right hand to the body, Hari would often step his right foot up underneath him as he fired his left hand again, allowing him to drive through the opponent’s position with another extension of his stance into the right hand. Against Zimmerman, Hari attacked with a jab and right straight to the body, then brought his right foot up as he raised Zimmerman’s head with the left uppercut, before dropping Zimmerman with the right straight.
Another combination that Hari built off the right body straight was a 1-2-3-4. The jab, right body straight, left hook to the head and then a right hook to split the guard. In order to actually land the right hook, Hari would strafe out to his left side as the left hook landed, taking him into a southpaw stance facing the opponent from an angle. This was the same movement that Mike Tyson used consistently through his career to sneak tight southpaw right hooks up the centreline.
The comparisons between Badr Hari and Mike Tyson were always obvious: both were hard punching knockout artists who had difficulty staying out of trouble outside of the ring. While they were opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of build, Hari found great success with a cruder form of Tyson’s angling on the inside. After he had an opponent covering up or trading with him, Hari would drift to both sides of his opponent as he threw his combinations, though he never had the tightness and control of Tyson—always looking a little wild as he did so. In Figure 2 you can see that if A is the position where Hari stepped in and forced a cover up, B would be sliding to the left in a southpaw stance, while C would be Hari almost back stepping out to his right.
Fig. 2
Both strafing movements provided Hari with a better angle on his right hand against a shelled up opponent. In position B, Hari’s southpaw stance from the side of his opponent allowed his right hook (now his lead hand) to sneak through the front of the opponent’s guard, between their forearms. Position C was cruder but often more successful for Hari because it allowed him to throw his right hand wide and often wind up clubbing the opponent over the back of the head.
The reason that K-1 did its best to outlaw the clinch was that it saved fighters and prevented the spectacular knockouts they wanted to sell. Even under K-1’s rules, however, referees weren’t disqualifying fighters as soon as they tried a tie up, so plenty of men were able to escape knockouts with well timed holding. Hari’s answer to this—and one of the reasons he was able to convert staggering blows into finishes so often—was basic but needs to be studied by anyone hoping to finish competent opponents. When a hurt fighter moved in to hold Hari (who was normally in full swing at this point, throwing haymakers), Hari would get his head down, get his left elbow out in front of him, and use the forearm to frame on the left side of his opponent’s neck. From there Hari would press the opponent away by the neck or head in order to create separation. Hari would maintain a strong stance throughout this with a foot in front and a foot behind to drive off. From the extended frame, Hari would replace his framing hand with a right straight on the jawline. It sounds simple, but the framing hand has to be removed and the opponent is likely to collapse in just as quick as you pitch the right hand.
Fig. 3
There is a good degree of strength and physicality needed to use the frame effectively to begin with, but creating explosive force from such a short distance and timing the right hand correctly is an art form in itself. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that because this technique requires physical strength it is somehow a lesser method though: many of Floyd Mayweather’s best punches have come off this same crossface post and you can readily study him using it against the very physical Ricky Hatton.
Hari was also very capable with the cross hand trap, which we sometimes call the Dutch hand trap because it is so popular among the kickboxers of the Netherlands. This technique likely caught on in Dutch gyms because kickboxing favours the cover up so much. The way that Hari applied this technique was to flick his jab, then crash in behind his right hand—usually against the opponent’s guard. With the opponent’s forearms locked to their head, Hari would quickly slap his left hand on top of the opponent’s left glove, then tear it straight downwards and swing in a wide right hook. This is an all-out offensive method, requiring the fighter to commit both hands to one side of his opponent’s body, for that reason it is only worth attempting against an opponent adopting an extremely defensive posture. In his fight with Ray Sefo, Hari went between a double collar tie—which he used to knee the shorter fighter in the head—and this cross hand trap.
Fig. 4
Ultimately, when you have a cannon hanging from your right shoulder, most of your job is lining up the shot. From 2008 onwards, most of Hari’s biggest victories in the kickboxing ring came on the back of his booming right hand in one way or another. In his second fight with Ruslan Karaev—who had overwhelmed him early in their first meeting—Badr Hari found the timing on his right hand when everything else seemed to be going to pot. Karaev had dropped Hari in the second round with his vaunted left hook and it looked as though Hari was about to fall apart again—something he was getting a reputation for. But Hari knew Karaev and he knew that as soon as the ref had stopped counting and restarted the fight, Karaev would be on him.
As Karaev came in and squared up for his left hook, Hari took his head off to the left and shot the right straight down the inside. This specific counter was one the great boxer, Barney Ross called the most dangerous punch in boxing. Ross believed that if you could time your right down the inside of the left hook, you could turn a man’s lights out more often than not.
Fig. 5
A left hook “closes the door” on the right straight by placing the lead shoulder in front of the chin and forming almost a folding guard as it travels through. That is why so many boxing coaches teach their charges to finish combinations with the left hook: it gets the fighter back behind the lead shoulder and into their guard again. The key to this silver bullet of a counter is in knowing that the opponent has a killer left hook up front, then using the squaring of his shoulders or his forward step as a green light. He will either have to square his shoulders from an ordinary stance, or step deep from a more square on stance, in order to lead with the left hook and in doing so he hits the trigger on the counter.
In 2008, Hari fought his way to the final of the K-1 Grand Prix and came within minutes of kickboxing’s greatest prize, but lost his temper in the final and kicked a grounded Remy Bonjasky, resulting in a disqualification loss. Throwing away years of work in a second of anger was an insight into the kind of man that Badr Hari unfortunately proved to be in his life outside of the ring. However, after having already fought three of the best kickboxers in the world in one night on the sixth of December, Hari committed to a fight against MMA fighter, Alistair Overeem on New Years Eve.
The kickboxer versus MMA fighter trope was one that Japan loved and it took pride of place on every New Years Eve card. Often the brilliant lightweight technician, Masato Kobayashi would pick up his only knockout of the year by bludgeoning some hapless MMA fighter. But with the proximity to the Grand Prix, you had a decent chance of seeing a top kickboxer get upset by an MMA fighter. Hari fell victim to this as Alistair Overeem came into the fight looking like a killer and Hari looked like a man who had just fought three opponents a couple of weeks earlier. Overeem’s awkward left hooks and shifting left hands bothered Hari enormously. Early in the first round, Overeem slipped inside a jab and uncorked his left hook on Hari, stumbling him. The fight continued in that fashion, with Overeem shifting in with his left hand and pushing Hari around from the clinch, until Hari tried to load up for a left hook of his own, ate Overeem’s and was knocked out just two minutes into the first round.
When the 2009 K-1 Grand Prix rolled around a year later, Overeem had committed to a serious run in kickboxing and Hari versus Overeem was the most anticipated grudge match, but would require both men to get to the semi-finals. In his first fight of the night, Hari met Ruslan Karaev again—the scoreboard on their rivalry was 1-1, and Hari had almost been knocked out in their second fight before he pulled off that incredible counter. This time, Hari swarmed on the Russian from the start, clubbing him over the back of the head with right hands in wild trades and dropping him to a knee in the early moments. As Karaev hopped up and took the eight count, the referee had to hold him back from going after Hari immediately. As the referee stepped out of the way to recommence the bout, Karaev stepped in, squared to throw his left hook, and took that lighting right straight down the inside once again. Karaev’s brain checked out for the night and his body stayed up for a few moments more as Hari swarmed for the knockout.
When Hari and Overeem met in the semifinal, Hari seemed to be a completely different man to their first encounter. Hari went from the bull to the matador in an instant, moving around Overeem and going up and down on Overeem’s body with four and five punch salvoes. Then as Hari flashed a jab, Overeem looked to slip inside and return with the left hook that won him their first bout, but was met with the right straight inside of his left hook.
The peculiar thing about the right straight inside of the left hook is that the counter puncher finds his man’s jaw, but the left hook often doesn’t stop—the countered fighter will often have committed his weight by that point. So just as in the second Karaev fight, fans were treated to the sight of a stunned Overeem throwing himself to the floor as his left hook whizzed over Hari’s head. When Overeem arose, Hari went wild looking for his finish and succeed once again.
The final of that 2009 K-1 Grand Prix captures the frustration of Badr Hari’s career in a nutshell. For some years, Hari was considered the best heavyweight kickboxer in the world and was ubiquitous in K-1 discussions. Yet he only competed in K-1’s legendary Grand Prix twice, and the biggest title in the sport eluded him. He won the K-1 heavyweight title, but he fought the unremarkable Yusuke Fujimoto to win it and defended it once against the aged Glaube Feitosa. The heavyweight title ultimately meant nothing because K-1 simultaneously created a “super heavyweight” title which all the other heavyweights in K-1 were competing for.
That “super heavyweight” title was held by Semmy Schilt who was generally considered the greatest heavyweight kickboxer in the world. Schilt was also the best tournament fighter in the world—having won the K-1 Grand Prix in 2005, 2006 and 2007. In a field of big men, Schilt was a legitimate giant—standing seven feet tall and weighing almost three hundred pounds on a trim night. He also owned one of the most awkward styles in the game. Every Schilt attack began behind his lead leg, and he would step his rear foot up right underneath him as a preparatory motion for each lead. It all hinged around the sinister front kick Schilt delivered to the body—he could catch the liver, the floating rib or the solar plexus, and he regularly made the biggest, nastiest kickboxers in the world curl up on the ground and surrender. What’s more, he could just as easily turn that front kick into a round kick to the head—punishing the many Dutch fighters who tried to parry or catch the front kick with their forearms. Finally, after every kick Schilt would bring his left foot back to the floor, then step his right foot back into a long stance, and pump out a jab. Though this “jab” was stiff enough to knock out many of the men who tried to chase his kicks back and crowd him.
During Hari’s redemption tour, following the Overeem loss but before the 2009 Grand Prix, Hari and Schilt were booked to fight in Amsterdam on an It’s Showtime card. Neither man’s K-1 title would be on the line, but the fight was still understood to have incredible significance. As the two came out to begin the fight, Hari answered every Schilt attempt to kick with a cross check—committing to getting up on one leg and using his shin and forearms to form a complete barrier down the right side of his body. It was a “belt and braces” approach, fully committing to defence and giving Schilt no chance at sneaking something through. Hari didn’t hang around though, the moment he had the chance he checked a Schilt kick and raced in on the giant. Schilt’s jab came out like clockwork and Hari slipped to the inside of it, flicking out his own. Then the right hand followed, over Schilt’s extended left arm. Schilt—perhaps the best heavyweight kickboxer who ever lived—lasted just forty five seconds with Hari.
Fig. 6
All Hari had to do was land the right hand. The set ups were simple, the counters were basic but finely honed, but the right hand was the be all and end all. Unfortunately, where a crafty fighter can save himself with trickery on an off night, Hari had timing and his attributes and when those didn’t work it could all fall apart. The old duality of offensive counter punching is that the offensive fighter will either get his timing down and punish the opponent’s jab, or he will be deceived and get stuck on the end of it. In May 2009, Hari had gotten the read on Schilt and punished him in an instant. In December 2009, after two hard fights in the tournament, Hari got stuck on the end of Schilt’s tricky kicks and jabs and was sent down three times, awarding the giant the TKO victory and an unequalled fourth K-1 Grand Prix title.
The rest of Hari’s career was a strange blur. He was always there, a name that was recognized and respected, but he was seldom fighting where he needed to be to prove himself. His life was complicated by repeated violent incidents outside of the ring and jail time. When K-1 fell apart, Schilt and the rest of the modern crop of heavyweights went to Glory, and Schilt won one last grand prix to walk off into the sunset at forty years old. Meanwhile, Hari fought rarely and got himself disqualified against Hesdy Gerges in Amsterdam, kicking the obviously inferior fighter in the head when he was on the floor.
The perfect Hari fight came in 2012, in what was supposed to be Hari’s retirement from kickboxing as he went to pursue a boxing career and a title fight against Wladimir Klitschko. Hari was matched against Gokhan Saki—then being spoken of as the heir to the heavyweight division when Schilt shuffled off into retirement. Hari obliterated Saki. Saki, touted as the fastest heavyweight in the world, couldn’t see Hari’s punches coming and was sent to the floor multiple times without mounting any real offence. It was a reminder of what Hari could do when he was on, but it was the last great Hari victory.
The boxing debut never happened and, in need of a career, Hari entered the farcical 2012 K-1 Grand Prix. The company was a shell of its former self after going bankrupt and Hari and the ancient Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic were the only real names involved. Hari dropped out injured after a poor first round victory against Zabit Samedov. He rematched Samedov months later and lost a shocking TKO, where he seemed uninterested in rising from the canvas.
But there was one more Mike Tyson parallel in store for Hari. Just as the brilliant but unpopular Lennox Lewis sought out Tyson for his name value long after Tyson’s best days were done, Rico Verhoeven and Glory Kickboxing thought a fight against Badr could do nothing but positive things for them. Verhoeven was a brilliant technician, a massive heavyweight, and had been the best in world for a while—but the modern heavyweight crop has none of the shine of the K-1 era.
It is a credit to Hari’s ability that in two fights with Verhoeven, he turned back the clock and looked as dangerous as anyone Verhoeven has ever fought. Unfortunately, the first fight was stopped by a broken arm Hari sustained from a knee after a great first round. The second fight came to an end as Hari injured his own knee on Verhoeven’s guard as he threw up a wheel kick as fast and unexpected as the one he scored on Stefan Leko a decade and a half earlier.
The pantheon of heavyweight kickboxing greats is not short on members. Hoost, Schilt, Aerts, Le Banner, Hug – the list goes on and on. Hari is undoubtedly among the greats. In fact, you would be mad to bet against him in a fight against any of them. But Hari’s career also serves as a cautionary tale: his temper in the ring and his antics outside of it left him without the championships and titles that we so often point to as proof of a brilliant fighter and no matter how well he fought against world class scrappers, there will always exist that question mark: just how good could he have been if he had gotten his shit together?