1970s Epic Karate vs Kungfu Match

This is a match from the Oriental World of Self Defense. The karateka is Little John Davis, and the Kungfu guy is Tayari Casel. Let's see how this match went. This is an absolute gem of a clip!

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#fight #commentary #breakdowns #martialarts #kungfu #karate

Timecodes:
0:00 Match first watch
2:43 Slow motion analysis
6:20 How I found the match

[DouglasGomesBueno]

John Davis the Karate Master is a Shotokan Master and is the founder of Kumite Ryu Jiu Jitsu, which is the third component of V.S.K. Ryu Jiu Jitsu he's a true warrior.

[ssths]

the kung fu guy is attempting ground grappling maneuvers. he isnt just getting tangled up. hes doing it on purpose. he keeps going for leg locks/ entanglements to either get a ta, or secure a standup. ground grappling isnt foreign to kung fu. they just found methods they think work better.

[camiloiribarren]

Back when Kung Fu was more respected and karate was taken much more serious. This is very cool and I like it

[hexkwondo]

Now these are the kind of style vs style matches I like to watch! One where both practitioners fight in the style they trained in!

[SpiritOfJustice]

The Kung Fu guy is from the Casel family which are well known in the martial arts community

[ralphmarshall]

I was there, it was the 70s. They also featured Judo vs Wrestling, and Boxing vs Kick Boxing. I was in my early teens, and trying to figure out what style to study. Unfortunately, this match was pretty much a draw. The Karate fighter won the decision by, I believe one point, but he was also bigger, so this didn’t help me any. The fight did demonstrate the need for a style like BJJ, as apparently even masters can’t stay on their feet. In the street, a referee doesn’t jump in and stand the fighters up when they go to the ground, as they did almost immediately. For those who are curious, Judo beat Wrestling by a hair, and the Kick Boxer dominated the Boxer. This was one of the earliest examples of mixed martial arts.

[MrCeora]

That's not "Kung Fu guy" that's the great Tayari Casel and the great Little John Davis.
Before your time.

[slothmaster]

Hey! At least it didn't turn into a Kickboxing match.

[lancecahill]

Karate guy had more mass, and a pretty good speed, thus his kicks and punches had more power.

[christopherbrown]

It looks like the Kung Fu fighter is very comfortable on the ground and I don't mean that as a joke. At 0:35 it looks like he's ready to start throwing kicks from the ground which is something I've seen done in demonstrations. It also looks like he might be trying to set up leg locks. Either way I like how fast paced this fight is. Does anyone know which style of Kung Fu this is?

[bradycharles]

For those saying kung fu has ground fighting you are correct. I was taught scissor sweeps, kicking from the ground, various sweeps and throws. And a few standing and ground submissions. I would have learned more but that was only learning half my style. (Northern 7 star praying mantis)

[jaypoison]

Man old school shotokan really hits different. Some old shotokan tournaments were knockouts too, kinda like kyokushin would get later, hard to find videos of it though.

[RexDartEskimoSpy]

In the sequence where Casel gets hit in the shoulder and goes down it looks to me like the reason he went down was because Davis swept him. It looked more like he shoved him over rather than actually landing a punch.

[ScottyCrawford]

T. Casel. the Gung Fu fighter, was outweighed about 2 to 1 by John Davis, but still did OK or better. Boy, what a gentleman John Davis is here. Also notice that Mr. Cassell isn't breathing hard at all at the end, and his opponent is huffing and puffing despite his excellent conditioning. Mr. Casel is still active, and looks like a million bucks today.
T. Casel was a Northern Gung Fu martial artist, which was very, very unusual in America for 100 years, probably up to the late 1980s.
Northern Gung Fu is, ironically enough, since he's a small man, a style that's for tall and long-limbed fighters, since people are much taller in the north there. Northern China also tends to be uncrowded, even in the cities, so they stress big movements and lots of rolls, jumps, and high kicks.

In contrast, the much shorter southern Chinese people have short arms and legs in proportion to their bodies. They've generally lived in super-cramped, crowded, narrow-street towns and cities for a thousand years, and often worked and lived on tiny boats, so they concentrated on squatting down and keeping their balance and using very short techniques.

[onggiong]

The Kung Fu player in black uniform performed very well in ground tactics, especially the referee stopped him every time he saw him using the scissors kick. If he had not stopped him and continued the game, the black team should have won the game.

[Xnycogprepper]

I saw this in person at Madison Square garden .in the 70's forgot the exact year

[chrisdudedurian]

The Kung Fu guy looked like he accidently started doing a bolo back take in the beginning which is kinda funny and cool

[BWater-yqjx]

3:05
Karateka def used to takedowns. Notice the neat reverse shoulder roll out to stand up.

[fredrichardson]

This is really cool - I've enjoyed a lot of your commentary on traditional martial arts in the context of MMA. I know next to nothing about either which makes your commentary really worth while.

[Justobserving]

Is this kungfu guy doing dogfighting/dog style? He keeps going to the ground but it looks intentional. Like his moves are designed that way. Dog fighting can kinda be like that with the pseudo groundwork