Underground Fight Club design

Hey ya'll
So I decided I needed a side project so I don't get demotivated from my current one, So I was thinking of what I could do that is overly different but keeping the MV feel kinda. and since I love MMA/Wrestling/street fights. I decided I would give it a shot.

So I got the Cliche' story, I have some plugins to help with location Damage, I even plan on using Daz to make pictures of the moves being pulled off. but my issue is how I can make combat truly interesting? I have a list of techniques but I don't want it to feel like the standard RPG...maybe RPG maker meets Defjam fight for NY. and where Combat is the main focus of the game I don't want something Run of the mill.

Anybody got any help with making the combat not overly Boring?

Seems to be an extremely similar question to this topic so you might find some good answers there.

Maybe an action-based real-time event battle system could work?
Like imagine how you play a song on the ocarina in Zelda but different button combinations do different moves?

Just a thought.

Really recommend you to take a look at the Neo Scavenger combat system. It's turn based with actions like Tripping, Grabbing, etc. The battles end up with the characters rolling in the mud half dead until one of them takes the upper hand and breaks the bones of the other one with a pipe, crowbar or something else that he may have found earlier (weapon stats and damage are hidden from the player).

@eXalted I love Neo Scavenger I was playing back in Alpha stages.....kinda forgot about it to be honest may need to look into it for some inspiration