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What would happen if you’re in the middle of a fight and you were smashed in the face by a headbutt? You, as a trained martial artist, could perhaps be caught off guard that someone would have the wherewithal to land the blow correctly. He corrals your hands and smashes the crown of his head into your nose, disorienting you. This would likely give your opponent the upper hand. You could be shocked or you could even be wobbled just as you would from any punch. The headbutt is a game changer.
While illegal in contemporary mixed martial arts, there are several sports that allow for the headbutt, namely lethwei, but sports such as Combat sambo, Kudo, Muay boran and even some branches of kyokushin karate incorporate headbutts into their respective art. It fundamentally changes how these sports are structured and, if added to other sports without the headbutt, would change massive areas of how they are fought.
If you couldn’t guess, today’s topic is all about the headbutt. For this topic, I’ve brought in four experts to talk about the headbutt and how it changes a fight, how it is utilized, and more. Our experts: Bas Rutten, Dave Leduc, Phil Dunlap and Mark Kerr. They will give us insight on how the headbutt is utilized and hopefully help us understand the art of the ninth limb a little better.
Bas Rutten: An introduction to the headbutt
Does Bas Rutten really need an introduction? A 28-4-1 mixed martial arts record is his qualification. Not to mention he’s the former UFC Heavyweight champion. But the area of expertise we really want from Rutten is his years as a bartender. Rutten has been very vocal about the effectiveness of the headbutt to subdue people in a street fight. Bas Rutten’s Lethal Self-Defense featured him in a bar and he went over a multitude of brutal techniques, including today’s subject matter.
What Rutten likes best about the headbutt is how it disrupts a fight. With so much fighting experience outside of the ring and instead as a bouncer, Rutten says the headbutt changes how fights go down quickly. But he wants to first de-escalate a situation first.
“The headbutt is a great weapon. If you do Lethwei, they’re used to it. But on the street, like when I would be a bouncer, I would get in an in a big fight and this big guy will do something. Because everybody stands outside is watching, and if you want to make sure that it will never happen again, that’s when you start using headbutts. Because if you have bad person in the face, for the people who are looking, they’re freaking out. Then that’s a friendly reminder to never mess with that bouncer. You know, you want to stop the fights. And that’s why actually the reason was why they always had me as a bouncer. I simply would take the guys to the side, and it would break it down. I’d say, ‘What happened? You looked at my wife? Did you talk to her? No. Did you touch her? No. Okay, whoa, this is kind of a compliment. That means your wife is good looking. He wasn’t disrespectful, not to you not to her.'”
With self defense being such a big thing for Bas Rutten, he’s even taught it to his daughters. While sweet, despite who their dad is, Rutten made sure that they knew how to defend themselves and at the center of that was the headbutt.
“You see, once something happens do it in such a way that you leave an impression that everybody was watching, and they will talk, and it will never happen again. This was actually what I told my kids, my daughters. My daughters are really sweet daughters. But I taught them headbutts when they were kids already. And they go, ‘But daddy…’ But I said honey, trust me, you fight once and you’ll never fight again. If you headbutt a girl and you grab her, bang, bang, two headbutts and you drop her down, you’re going to be the crazy bitch. And at the moment you’re going to be the crazy bitch, that story goes around and you will never have a problem again. It’s just intimidation factor, I think.”
The practicality behind the headbutt is one of distraction according to Rutten. When I told him Dave Leduc was on the list to talk on the topic, he mentioned we would discuss this as well. Rutten says that the headbutt can be a finisher, but there are ways to continue an assault if it doesn’t put someone down.
“The headbutt is a final thing. And I’m pretty sure Dave [Leduc] will talk about that. As soon as you load up a headbutt, the only thing afterwards is lean forward. And as soon as I lean forward, he’s going to headbutt the top of my head, that’s going to be bad for him. I’m closing the distance, I’m certainly bring the target forward, so he’s going to hit the top of my head. So, you have to really watch out with headbutts. If you place them, there is this little finesse. And right away when you hit him, that’s when he connects with punches. So, it’s a great tool to knock somebody out but it’s really a greater tool to just distract somebody and then follow it up with knockout blows.”
Ultimately, Rutten never competed with headbutts. But he’s used them in the bar scene as a bouncer. Perhaps it’s the most practical use of the headbutt itself. But, we can’t stop here.
Dave Leduc: Striking expertise
In the combat sports scene, Dave Leduc is seen as the foremost expert on all things headbutt. A Lethwei champion, Dave Leduc has worldwide fame from a sport that is highly segregated to Myanmar and almost Myanmar alone. But Leduc has worked hard to bring the sport of Lethwei to the masses and bringing fights outside of Myanmar.
For the uninitiated, Lethwei is a style of martial arts that allows punches, kicks, elbows, knees and headbutts with no gloves. It’s a brutal, bloody sport and violence-fiends cannot get enough of it. It just so happens that Leduc is the best at it. Leduc explains just how restrictive removing the headbutt is. What Leduc believes works best with he headbutt is coming up and that his 6’2” frame as a disadvantage.
“It completely changes the mentality. For an untrained eye, you look at Muay Thai and Lethwei, the first thing you see is the lack of gloves. Some of my fights, I didn’t have time to headbutt sometimes. But once you enter the pocket, where I like to play, most people think, ‘Oh, you’re tall, you have an advantage.’ Well, actually, no, I have a disadvantage because the shorter opponent has the advantage because his collar and his forehead is directly aligned with the jaw. Actually, my easiest headbutts that I’ve given was against a guy that was taller than me, a French kickboxing champion. My forehead was directly aligned to his cheekbone, his jaw and everything.”
The mechanics behind it are simple. If you have to change levels, like a takedown, it allow a the opponent more time to clinch or counter. Being shorter and in the clinch, as we saw in our last section, allows for an opponent to position, post and smash with the crown of their head.
Dave Leduc continues, “A tall guy has to drop his level in order to go to the jaw, unlike if the shorter guy who can go directly without even hesitation. So, what happened is that when you’re going in the clinch, everything goes away, meaning that your long arms don’t matter anymore. Your elbows don’t matter anymore. Because your elbows are the same length if you’re short or tall, my elbows are the same. My sifu always told me, ‘You fight like a short man’ because I like to go inside. I like to grab him in plain sight. I actually lose my advantage as a as a taller slim guy by going inside. My kicks don’t matter, my knees don’t matter anymore. My only thing that matters now is headbutts, which I actually have to drop my level. My opponent has an advantage because in order to come in, for example, he could just headbutt me right away.”
The changes in the clinch when headbutts are allowed are drastic. Leduc says that changing the rules and restricting fighting, which we will discuss in our next section with Phil Dunlap, changes the fundamental nature of a fight.
“And so, the biggest difference is basically that because if I’m clinching and that’s what I teach in my seminar, when I’m clinching, grabbing the bicep or grinding the neck, in Muay Thai, you only fear maybe an uppercut. You can hear some elbows over the top, you shared the knees, but you’re in the middle is f****** green. There’s nothing stopping it. Literally, it’s like almost a fake fight when you’re not having headbutts.”
When headbutts are allowed, a fighter also has to be cognizant of what’s coming back their way as well. The classic defense for that, Leduc says, is to put your hand on your opponent’s head. But no move is without sacrificing a weapon and creating another opening and this is no exception.
“The way I was taught in Myanmar is to put your hand on the forehead of my opponent. So that way, if he headbutts me, I’m only getting stung by my hand and the impact but I’m not getting cut. But to do that I need to lose a hand to put on your face and your forehead. So, I have minus one weapon on the other side. So in order to be effective in the clinch and be effective and close quarter when headbutts are allowed I have to throw my sword away, like in the mediaeval times. You throw one hand away to protect from a headbutt, and you have to also be aware of his head. So, it’s just it’s a very, very different mental game.”
When to headbutt is also very important. A flying headbutt may look cool but it’s not practical in Dave Leduc’s mind.
“I don’t do headbutts when I’m not holding a piece of my opponent.” He continued, “I like to grab the either the neck the shoulder. I want to bring him in as I’m going forward and pushing off my back leg. I’m pushing and pulling so it’s like duplicates the impact.”
Leduc calls the other headbutt a “jumping headbutt.” While it’s not wrong, he doesn’t appreciate the risk presented in the technique.
“I’m protecting any stuff that can go wrong because there’s some guys who did a jumping headbutt from afar but once you do that, you have a lot that can go wrong. You can have an up elbow [and other] stuff can catch you on your way to the to the face of your opponent.”
Dave Leduc’s experience with the headbutt is one of the most extreme on the planet. Outside of life and death hand to hand combat engagements in war, Leduc and his sport of Lethwei reign supreme. But the headbutt is something that can be also used on the ground. For that, we will bridge the gap with another point of view, that of Phil Dunlap. But first, a deeper look at landing a headbutt.
Landing the Headbutt, Lethwei Style
Headbutting while standing is no easy task. But as a neutralizing force, the technique can be set up and devastating and change a fight to the most extreme. We will take a look at a headbutt from a Lethwei bout in Myanmar.
As our Burmese fighter and opponent enter the final exchange, (1) both set there feet and look to exchange. Blue shorts will (2) and our Lethwei fighter will grab the jabbing hand. This is made especially possible with the no-gloves nature of the sport. (3) As he moves the hand out of the way, creating a path for the headbutt, he braces on the elbow to go two on one with the lead hand. (4) Next, he will drag the hand down and change levels, just as Leduc described earlier. Finally, with the hand down and controlled, our Burmese fighter (5) fires the uppercut down the pipe and puts blue shorts out cold.
This type of control is necessary for an effective headbutt. When you are committing to offense, every punch you throw sacrifices something defensively. Here, both of the Burmese fighter’s hands are on his right side controlling blue shorts’ lead arm. This leaves his left side, the power side of his opponent, open. That’s why this technique must be done quickly and fluidly. Failure to do so will lead to a counter that can hurt or finish an opponent.
But there’s more to a headbutt. Let’s take a look the technique from the grappler’s perspective. We now turn to Phil Dunlap and Mark Kerr as our examples and guides.
Getting to know Phil Dunlap
Phil Dunlap is probably the least known person in this work. When compared to Bas Rutten and Dave Leduc, both of whom have been on the Joe Rogan Experience, and our next feature, Mark Kerr, Dunlap is relatively unknown. But don’t let his anonymity fool you. Dunlap’s knowledge and, more importantly, his experience is as deep as it is wide. Let’s run it down for you.
Phil Dunlap has 119 fights to his name. That’s only counting Lethwei, Muay Thai, K-1 and MMA. Dunlap also in the sport of Naban, a grappling art that allows palm strikes from Myanmar. Even today, as Dunlap is in his 50’s, he can be seen on Who’s Number One on FloGrappling. He’s as Game as it gets and is a lifelong competitor. Phil Dunlap’s credentials for this study? 28 wins by headbutt.
“I was born and bred. I grew up in a family, my grandfather had lived in Burma prior to, and during World War II and my grandmother on that side was actually Kachin which is in northern Burmese. So I grew up doing Lethwei. We all watch Bruce Lee movies, and I was always so disappointed I couldn’t do cool s***.”
With that upbringing, Dunlap really was immersed into martial arts and the headbutt. Having had that tool his entire career and relying on it so heavily, taking it away was an incredible handicap for him. But, Phil Dunlap understands that rules make the sport.
“I think the change of a single rule, the deduction of a single move can greatly change the complexion of the fight that develops. If I know it was, let’s say the thigh kick, you don’t see a lot in Burmese boxing because there’s so many headbutts from it. So in Burmese boxing you don’t see it a lot and when guys do it, they tend to get headbutt. I try to tell people just that one little rule changed the whole complexion of the clinch in what are almost sister arts. In other words, I’m not one of those guys. I don’t want to get into like a pissing contest stuff like, is Thai boxing better than Burmese boxing? Yeah, for Thai boxing rules, Thai boxing is better. For Burmese boxing rules, Burmese boxing is better. I tell people all the time, take a look at something as simple as Burmese boxing never used to have what they have now, that tool. It used to be the last round until somebody won by knockout. So the idea is the whole fighting style is going to be different, if there’s no decision or points. It’s like the difference between watching between watching submission only grappling and points only grappling. These rule changes are so huge. I always thought on the ground.”
But the addition of a headbutt, specifically on the ground, is a strike that Dunlap feels is the most basic, intuitive, and destructive. He points to the effects Mark Coleman and Mark Kerr had to their opponents on the ground, the later of which we will be speaking to next.
“The rule change killed wrestling’s biggest advantage. Because we looked at Mark Coleman and Kerr, they both were really good at using headbutts on the ground. And I’ll be honest with you, as somebody who also does jujitsu, I will tell you the guard’s a lot different position if I can headbutt you from the guard,” says Dunlap. “I’m just opening up with the ground could pound. I’m talking pop his ribs a couple of times with short shots. Make him uncomfortable, take his hips away, then ground and pound. It’s the same thing with the headbutt. Once you find center mass, the headbutt on the ground is probably one of the easiest techniques to do. And I’m not talking like what you see people do when they want to give their most of headbutts when they lift their head back and forth, that’s a good way to break your own neck or get a concussion yourself. Basically, you just tuck your chin in and drive forward. It’s probably the most simplistic technique there is, other than biting. But it’s kind of one of the most simplistic techniques. It’s available all the time, both stand up and on the ground. It’s like anything else. You can’t just say, ‘I would headbutt you.’ If you don’t work it, you’re not going to do it.”
The application of the headbutt on the ground is fascinating, at this point. We’ve focused solely on the headbutt from a standing position. But from everything I’ve seen, watched and studied, the ground is where the technique reigns supreme. We have more spectacular knockouts standing up, surely. But on the ground, in someone’s guard, the headbutt is a complete game changer.
“You try to hold the head to your chest. What it’s going to do is cut out on your ability to move. You’re taking the hips away. Like I tell people, the key of the guard: if you’re good from your back, the key is using your hips. Your legs are an extension of your hips. So if you can’t use your hips in the guard, your guard will fall apart. So, the idea is the headbutt has a tendency to crash right through the center of the guard. Almost anybody who does jiu jitsu, if they’re going for submission, they want to get off center. They don’t want the guard on center mass. And that basically opens you up. If he’s on center mass, it’s easier for him to stay there because every time he moves his headbutt, he moves his head to the side, create space, jam your head into it.”
When comparing to other illegal ground techniques, specifically the grounded knee, Dunlap says that the headbutt has a lot lower cost of entry, meaning that teaching a headbutt in lieu of a grounded knee is easier and reaps more rewards. As cringe as “cost-benefit analysis” is in martial arts, it’s true to an extent. You can learn a headbutt fast, according to Phil Dunlap, and you can inflict major damage on the ground to much higher-skilled opponents in a jiu jitsu sphere of influence.
“One of the things I don’t like about the grounded knees themselves is the idea that a lot of times in order to throw the knee, you’re giving the guy the escape. Well, it’s not like a headbutt where I can control you, and headbutt you. With the grounded knee you have to create the space to throw. There’s a lot more technique, in grappling involved pulling it off. In other words, I can take a guy with very little grappling experience, teach him to get double under hooks on the shoulders, crunches knees to his elbows to control his hips. He’s not going to have an open for submission, the first submission and your head can be bouncing off his chin over and over again. Eventually, you’re going to land a good one. And it’s no work whatsoever and it doesn’t take a great skill set.”
Dunlap boils it down succinctly:
“The more he tries to move, the more his head’s going to be open because he’s got to create space. So, the idea is I tell people because of the ease of headbutt I find it the most influential and the easiest to pull off.”
With Dunlap’s Naban background, striking on the ground came second nature. Naban is a folkstyle from Myanmar, the same country that berthed Lethwei. Of course headbutts come into play. Naban allows strikes on the ground as long as they’re open palmed. This has led to Dunlap thinking about effective striking on the ground since he was a child.
“I always felt my strongest was the fusion of what I’m grappling. I did a lot of open palm strikes on the ground. So I’m a lot more comfortable grappling and doing something like combat Jiu Jitsu. I don’t like space, I don’t move just for the sake of moving like a lot of Jiu Jitsu guys do.”
Allowing the use of the head is not uncommon in martial arts. In Jiu Jitsu, the Ezekiel choke is set up by pushing your head into your opponent’s head to sink in the choke. Dunlap says that allowing more freedom for the use of the ninth limb would make for more utilization of the head.
“I always liked the idea of guiding with your head but even when somebody goes for a sweep. I have a tendency to stop the sweep with my head instead of my hands. The more you use it the more becomes like an extra limb and it actually helped me a lot in regular kickboxing, I was ready to hit on the punches [with my head].”
At the end of the day, the headbutt seems the most spectacular standing up. But, as Leduc discussed, it’s really the close quarters, the clinch, where the headbutt is the most effective. The heaviest close quarters combat is in the grappling department. Combining those two will give you the most efficient headbutt and cause the most damage. Let’s see how that’s done.
Mark Coleman and the headbutt from guard
One person I could not line up for this chat that I really wanted to speak with was Mark Coleman, the former UFC champion. He was around in the true no holds barred UFC days and smashed his head through the skull of anyone that dared played guard with him. It led him to wins over Gary Goodridge, Don Frye, Dan Severn, Igor Vovchanchyn and Shogun Rua. Mark Coleman was a killer.
Looking at Coleman’s headbutts on the ground, specifically in his fight with Goodridge in 1996 at UFC 10, we can see the created space talked about by Phil Dunlap. (1) In the guard, Mark Coleman is being locked down. Goodridge would make a mistake and look to bridge out to make something happen. (2) Coleman sees this space and (3) smashes his forehead into Goodridge.
Coleman used the headbutt very effectively. Early UFC was dominated by Jiu Jitsu and it made sense. Royce Gracie took the world by storm when he won the first UFC beating Art Jimmerson, Ken Shamrock and Gerard Gordeau to put the little known sport on the map. Incidentally, Gracie used the headbutt at UFC 1 as well.
The sport, as young as it was, was both racing to learn Jiu Jitsu and wrestlers learning how to counter it. Wrestling and Jiu Jitsu were seemingly from the same block. Both were on the ground and could drown people. Wrestling felt like it needed to find a way to make the field even. The headbutt was one of those early innovations, though it died out soon when unified rules took out the strike for a safer and more appealing strike to the masses.
But the headbutt on the ground made it’s impact and we will talk to one more person who used it to such an impact.
Mark Kerr: The great equalizer
Our final discussion is with Mark Kerr. “The Smashing Machine,” as he is known, is a four time ADCC champion. He is also a UFC, Pride and Vale Tudo veteran. But what makes him so interesting for this topic is in his nickname: he smashes.
Co-signing everyone else we’ve talked about, the headbutt is nearly the greatest equalizer. One thing that Kerr talks about is how instinctual it was for him to headbutt for the first time.
“Oh my God, it’s devastating. It is on the same level as getting, you know, hit with, an elbow or forearm. It’s incredibly damaging. Realistically, a headbutt or an elbow it brings the fight to a different level and it allows a fighter to actually get a fight over. It’s just one of those things where it’s absolutely devastating. The crazy part about it is it’s weird with me, it was almost instinctual. Like, like, all of a sudden, a light bulb went on, Then the first one that you deliver, you realize how devastating it is. It’s a very effective weapon for it that way.”
Kerr famously smashed Brazilian Jiu Jitsu player Fabio Gurgel in 1997 into submission. That was in Vale Tudo which was a blood thirsty sport. The ability to headbutt is what made that sport so different for Kerr.
“When you’re doing Vale Tudo, most people don’t understand, unless they’re scouring YouTube for a lot of these videos, just really how far the sport has come. You know, their bare knuckle has a certain element to it. But when you add that close contact, and you add a 15-pound sledge hammer, which is your head into the mix, it changes everything.”
In his fight with Gurgel, Kerr realized how effective the strike truly was. In fact, Fabio Gurgel never competed in Vale Tudo or any other striking sport after coming head to head (pun intended) with “The Smashing Machine.”
“I actually had fractured his orbital with one of the headbutts. So, he never ever fought again. That was it. That was his last fight. He never fought professionally, again. He went back doing what he was just amazing at which is straight up the jiu jitsu. It’s just one of those things where I think it allows you to actually get a fight over.”
On the ground, Kerr talks about the advantage modern Jiu Jitsu guys have with the guard and removal of the headbutt. When in the guard, Mark Kerr says that being able to lock someone down is a great power and taking away the headbutt is a huge nerf.
“It’s a great equaliser for all of that,” says Kerr. He continues, “It was like, well, how do we get a guy to open up, you know? If the guy crams on you in the guard in the old days, you sit there for a lot longer. So how do you get them to open up? If you can’t really get in there with elbows, you’re literally in close quarters. It’s not an option to sit there at all.”
With more traditional weapons involving the head and feet, the guard can neutralize the devastation from those weapons. The headbutt changes all that.
“Here’s the reality of just about any kind of lethal weapons. You have a high head kick on your shin or chin on head, that’s lethal. It changes the whole fight if you get knocked out or if you take the kick. If you’re in a position where the guy is not moving, and you can’t change position, the guy has to move. It’s an absolute game changer as far as positional competition in MMA, it allows you to change position and gain advantage.”
Despite the effectiveness, Mark Kerr understands the taboo behind a headbutt. It’s a brutal technique and not necessarily for competition. Though sports like Lethwei, kudo, and sambo allow it, the big sports, MMA, boxing and wrestling, generally see it as a penalty.
“I can see in this day and age why it’s not included. People think it’s like, ‘Oh, he’s fighting dirty. He headbutted him.’ There’s been this whole narrative around it. If you really want to get down to brass tacks, if you and fighting, and I would headbutt you until the end of the day.”
When Kerr used the technique, however, it was like a new world was opened up to him and that an entire new method of fighting was on the horizon. He understood what he’d found, or rediscovered, and made sure to make it count.
“My experience with it, and how I implemented it, it felt like one of the most natural things I’ve ever done. It’s just an odd thing to say. But it was right there in front of me and all of a sudden, like, light bulb, and I was like, s**t.”
Kerr was also a natural at the headbutt. We’ve discussed the method of doing so in the previous sections. We talked about leading with the crown of the head. Mark Kerr did all that instinctively. It worked out well for him. He broke Gurgel’s orbital and got the win on the night.
“And then realizing like the first one that I struck with, I got it right, amazingly, because it’s the crown of your head, it’s not your forehead. It’s like this thick, thick, thick part of my skull. That fight with Fabio was almost an anomaly. Because there was no way on the planet Earth, he was ever, ever, ever going to attack. It didn’t matter, I would have had to knock him out, or he would have been dragged out of the ring.”
Final thoughts
At the end of the day, the headbutt has gone from a devastating show stopper to little more than a technique used in niche sports. Sure, sambo, kyukoshin, and the likes are well known sports. But to appeal to the masses, a headbutt is just a bit much to stomach.
But the past has shown us that when they are allowed, they are game changers. The headbutt fundamentally changes close quarters combat. Lethwei and grappling show us just that. In the clinch or in the guard, we know that adding or removing a headbutt makes or breaks what goes down in those positions.
Finally, the headbutt is still useful. Though not used in common sport anymore, Bas Rutten tells us that the headbutt can not only cause damage, but can deescalate a situation before it becomes too violent, ironic as that may seem.
The headbutt is a technique not likely to be studied much more unless a massive perception shift occurs either around the unified rules of MMA or the popularity of Lethwei becomes bigger in the west. Until then, it will be an opportunistic strike that is allowed in these lesser-known sports that will occasionally pop up and go viral because of the perceived novelty of the strike. In reality, it’s an incredibly effective strike. Perhaps it’s the greatest equalizer.
