We have taken the time to analyze the Pakistani vs. Indian Karate combatants in the lead-up to their respective bouts on April 20th, including Shazaib Rindh vs Rana Singh. Have a read below to help you assess which athletes to look out for on this historic card. Karate Combat 45 goes down live from Dubai.
Karate Combat 45 – India vs Pakistan Fighter Profiles and Breakdown
Shahzaib Rindh vs Rana Singh
Shahzaib Rindh – The Pride of Pakistan, and Pakistan’s Number 1 Wushu fighter for a number of years is the clear favorite. He has an incredibly dynamic kicking game and has solid jabs and punches too. He also has the ability to end a fight via nasty left high kick, as witnessed against his fight with Federico Avella at Karate Combat 43, I expect Shahzaib Rindh to be the aggressor, fighting on the end of his jab to set up his powerful body kicks and potentially set up another head kick KO too. Shazaib will be a huge betting favorite going into this one.
Rana Singh – Primarily a grappler but is tough as nails. An example of this is when he fought Ali Guev at Brave FC and took a clean illegal knee which somehow didn’t put him completely out! He also could have opted for a DQ, so big respect and toughness for this. The hands are primarily used to set up takedowns, so I’m expecting him to use more trips and try to land some quick damage with ground and pound to mix things up from the feet as well. Singh is also no stranger to fighting high-level competition having fought a killer in Ali Guev who is ranked highly amongst Western European Pro Bantamweights and fighting on the Road to the UFC against Chang Ho Lee. I expect him to be able to handle the pressure of the big occasion well going into his high-profile bout with Shazaib.
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Uloomi Karim vs Himanshu Kaushik
Uloomi Karim is very good at closing the distance and extremely durable, he has great leg strength too as shown against his bout with Dhruv Chowdhury at MF 10, Dhruv was landing some solid leg kicks on Uloomi early on in the round (Uloomi does stand quite heavy on his lead leg) and even caught with him a glancing head kick too. Despite this Uloomi, continued to move closer into range, and landed the fight-ending overhand right that put Dhruv out unconscious. He also has very good straight punches down the middle that he likes to land in middle range.
It’s evident that Uloomi isn’t necessarily a huge volume guy, he is more of a patient power counter striker which has given him much success. I expect him to do the same in his Karate Combat debut, try to close the distance, and put his opponent out cold with a big right hand.
Himanshu Kaushik is a guy who is probably closest to a traditional Karate style among all the Indian fighters fighting in Karate. He likes to implement a side-on style and uses his hand as a framing tool to land his fast leg kicks to set up high kicks. He also has very powerful signature slams, so I expect him to go for trips and sweeps in close range too. He is extremely kick-heavy and favors kicks to punches for sure. It didn’t go his way, but this was shown briefly in his bout with Dejdamarong at ONE FC in 2018. He has also competed on the world stage as a veteran of ONE FC too. He has a size disadvantage going into his bout with Uloomi, so I actually expect him to implement more movement to get out of the way of Uloomi’s monstrous power shots. This bout will be a tale of cat and mouse!
Karate Combat 45 – Pawan Gupta vs Rizwan Ali
Pawan Gupta is a very powerful striker, and a Sanda fighter from India, he won a bronze medal in the 2012 Wushu Championships and also won a silver at the Asia Sanda Championships representing India. He is no stranger to fighting strong competition! Based on his style, expect him to be extremely aggressive and press the action from the opening bell. He is a very physically built and conditioned athlete, so I’m expecting some attempted takedowns from the clinch as I’m expecting him to be the physically stronger man leading into his bout against Rizwan Ali at Karate Combat 45.
Rizwan Ali is very measured in his attack, and likes to use his range and long straight punches as well as leg kicks as his primary weapons of choice, I’m expecting him to stay on the outside against Pawan and ultimately use that range to try and tag Pawan with his jab as the fight progresses. I feel Rizwan based on his previous fights will be trying to play the more patient counterstriker heading into this bout for sure.
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