weaponThe elbow

ศอก · sok

The only weapon that ends a fight without knocking anyone out.

Gerrit Phil Baumann · CC BY 3.0

What it is

A short bone with no padding on it, swung horizontally, diagonally, upward, downward, off a spin, or in the air.

The long version

The English article calls the elbow "the most dangerous form of attack in the sport". The reason is not power — a knee carries more of it — it is the edge. An elbow opens the skin over the eyebrow, the eyebrow bleeds into the eye, the doctor looks at it, and the fight is over with both men still standing.

So the elbow is the weapon that beats the referee's arithmetic. You do not have to out-score anyone. You have to land once.

Two consequences for a spectator. A corner that is behind on points starts throwing elbows in the fourth, which is why the fourth is the round to watch. And elbows are why the clinch is not the rest it looks like: the two men with their heads together are each waiting for the other to loosen a hand.

Connected to

• The eight limbs The count it belongs to.
• The clinch Where most of them are thrown from.
• The crocodile lashes its tail A named technique that is not an elbow, and is mistaken for one.
• The doctor, and the cut How an elbow usually wins.

Named here by

• The eight limbs One pair of the eight.
• The clinch The other thing waiting in there.
• Buakaw at K-1 Max, 2004 And what else.
• The doctor, and the cut What opens it.

This record as JSON