Yahoo continues it’s UFC retrospective and this time Kevin Iole takes a look at what made UFC 7 unique: Marco Ruas not only used leg kicks to stop Paul Varlens, he did so before the true effectiveness of leg kicks were known in NHB:
Massive Paul Varelans, who is 6 feet, 8 inches and around 300 pounds, returns to the tournament competition after having been knocked out by Tank Abbott at UFC 6.
Varelans, whose nickname is “The Polar Bear,” earned two quick submission victories to earn his way to the tournament final, where he would meet a highly regarded Brazilian.
This time, though, it was not Royce Gracie in the finals but rather Marco Ruas, who made his UFC debut.
Ruas, who would go on to become one of the top mixed martial arts fighters in history, also made it to the finals after a pair of submissions. He defeated Larry Cureton and Remco Pardoel to make his way to the finals, where he’d meet Varelans.
Ruas used a series of leg kicks to chop the much bigger man down. After a number of hard kicks, Varelans has difficulty standing and ultimately collapses to the canvas.
His well known pupil in Pedro Rizzo continued the leg kick tradition in MMA, although it’s obviously a Thai boxing technique that wasn’t invented by Ruas. I included a highlight of “The King of the Streets” after the jump. Long live Ruas Vale Tudo.
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