#4 Maurice Smith
Maurice ‘Mo’ Smith began training in striking-based martial arts after being inspired by Bruce Lee’s movie, ‘The Chinese Connection’. He got into martial arts at the age of 13 and trained in Karate, Taekwondo and Wing Chun. At the age of 18, Smith found the sport of kickboxing, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Smith had a brief run in the amateur kickboxing circuit and then turned pro, going on to win Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight titles in the World Kickboxing Association, World Kickboxing Council, International Sport Kickboxing Association, as well as other promotions.
By winning the Battlecade Extreme Combat 3 and 4 championships, Smith became the first legitimate striker, to win world titles in a top MMA promotion. Smith got submitted by Ken Shamrock in December of 1994, but this defeat proved to be the turning point of his MMA career.
Smith moved his training camp to the Lion’s Den gym to train alongside the legendary Shamrock brothers. During his time at Lion’s Den, he formed a close bond with Ken’s brother Frank Shamrock. Smith and Frank Shamrock would later go on to form their own gym known as ‘The Alliance’.
Smith was a world-class striker and kickboxing champion, while Frank was one of the best grapplers to ever step foot inside the Octagon. Smith helped Frank improve his striking, while Frank helped Smith improve his grappling. It was this teamwork with Frank Shamrock that helped Smith to capture the aforementioned Battlecade titles.
Furthermore, at UFC 14 in 1997, Smith faced UFC Heavyweight Champion Mark Coleman, with the HW strap on the line. Coleman dominated Smith for the first three rounds of their fight by maintaining top position, and attempting to land his signature ground-and-pound.
However, Smith was actively looking for submissions off of his back and thereby negated most of Coleman’s ground-and-pound. Smith went on to outclass an exhausted Coleman on the feet for the remainder of the fight and had him badly hurt on several occasions.
Smith took the decision win over Coleman and went on to defend his title against David ‘Tank’ Abbott, stopping Abbott by way of leg kicks. Smith would go on to lose the title to future-UFC Hall-of-Famer Randy Couture in a close fight.
Maurice Smith is an MMA and kickboxing legend, who played a pivotal role in the transition phase that MMA went through, from being dominated primarily by grapplers to the inclusion of world-class strikers. Smith proved that a world-class striker deserves as much respect as a world-class grappler and thereby negated the Gracie family adage that claimed that the ‘grappling’ arts were superior to the ‘striking’ arts.
This MMA pioneer brought in the influx of strikers in top MMA promotions such as the UFC and PRIDE FC and was followed by several other notable kickboxers-turned-martial artists such as Mirko Filipovic, Alistair Overeem, Gegard Mousasi, Stephen Thompson and many others.
