ASU Football Player Turns MMA Fighter

**Judah Maccabee** · Posted On: 10/01/2006 12:37am

Says that striking is the hardest thing to learn.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...9rage0929.html

Martial arts all the rage for ex-ASU walk-on
Mesa cage fighting event another big test for Kingsbury

Jim Gintonio
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 29, 2006 12:00 AM

Kyle Kingsbury never had much trouble throwing nasty characters out of bars when he was a bouncer.

The former Arizona State football walk-on is now taking on a tougher brand of competition in the early stages of his career as a mixed martial-arts fighter. He'll put his three-match unbeaten Rage in the Cage streak on the line tonight in Mesa.

Kingsbury, 6 feet 4 and 230 pounds, saw the move to this brand of fighting as a natural transition from his days as both a high school wrestler in California and a defensive tackle at ASU. advertisement

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(more at link)

I'm surprised that he says that striking is hard for him in the same story that says his strategy is to knock people out and use wrestling as a "last resort."

**Cullion** · Posted On: 10/01/2006 3:29am

Striking is harder for most people.

**Gumby** · Posted On: 10/01/2006 8:59pm

Originally Posted by Cullion

Striking is harder for most people.

Its something you need to put into perspective. Striking is somewhat hard for me, simply because all the philosophies I know come from a grappling standpoint. As far as picking it up, I would say that grappling is much more difficult to learn than is striking.

Coming from a wrestling and football background, I'd assume hes acustomed to grabbing people to smash them. Its hard to go from that mindset to a strikers mindset.

**Camus** · Posted On: 10/02/2006 5:10am

Originally Posted by Samurai Steve

I'm surprised that he says that striking is hard for him in the same story that says his strategy is to knock people out and use wrestling as a "last resort."

Well, wrestling+football and now MMA, the poor guy's probably had a few knocks around the general skull area, so cut him some slack.

I got some 'ol buddies at ASU.

**Black 6** · Posted On: 10/03/2006 5:39am

Imagine the power that he can generate in a small distance. Just think about it. You're going for the clinch, and from a foot away he drops slightly and slams into you.