MMA discussion

[bucolic_]

Welcome MMA fans and Sherdog refugees! I don't know how many fans there are...but at the very least, MeanLittleChimp might want to join me.. Hopefully.

Some thoughts on favorite fighters, the current organization situation, or perhaps Fedor's love of fighting 8 foot Koreans?
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I'll get it started by responding to MeanLittleChimp's question from another thread.

Is that Fedor as your avatar? He should stop eating ice cream and take on more challenging fights.

Indeed it is, and indeed he should. He's always been one of my favorite fighters, although I have to admit, I'm disappointed with his current situation, and the fact that he seems content to ride out the rest of his career, when there are so many good heavyweights for him to face. I'm hoping his acceptance to fight Tim Sylvia in July is an indicator of things to come.

[meanlittlechimp]

I didn't know he was fighting Sylvia! I miss having Pride around. Seems like a lot of great fighters are ignored now. I don't think we'll be seeing Gomi or Yamamoto over here anytime soon. I hope Fedor takes on some good fights before he gets too old, but I can't imagine anyone who could beat him. His toughest competition would probably be Nogieura who he's already beat. Maybe Couture, but he's already too old

Lately I've been liking the WEC 145 division more than most UFC fights. If they brought over the top Japanese fighters - that division would have amazing fights every card. The UFC 155 division is looking good, now that BJ Penn moved down to his natural weight - lot of good up and comers in that weight class.

[ShaiGar]

I cannot stand the UFC organisation. Their fouls are what I use to fight...



Butting with the head.
Eye gouging of any kind.
Biting.
Hair pulling.
Fish hooking.
Groin attacks of any kind.
Putting a finger into any orifice or into any cut or laceration on an opponent. (see Gouging)
Small joint manipulation.
Striking to the spine or the back of the head. (see Rabbit punch)
Striking downward using the point of the elbow. (see Elbow (strike))
Throat strikes of any kind, including, without limitation, grabbing the trachea.
Clawing, pinching or twisting the flesh.
Grabbing the clavicle.
Kicking the head of a grounded opponent.
Kneeing the head of a grounded opponent.
Stomping a grounded opponent.
Kicking to the kidney with the heel.
Spiking an opponent to the canvas on his head or neck. (see piledriver)
Throwing an opponent out of the ring or fenced area.
Holding the shorts or gloves of an opponent.
Spitting at an opponent.
Engaging in unsportsmanlike conduct that causes an injury to an opponent.
Holding the ropes or the fence.
Using abusive language in the ring or fenced area.
Attacking an opponent on or during the break.
Attacking an opponent who is under the care of the referee.
Attacking an opponent after the bell (horn) has sounded the end of a round.
Flagrantly disregarding the instructions of the referee.
Timidity, including, without limitation, avoiding contact with an opponent, intentionally or consistently dropping the mouthpiece or faking an injury.
Interference by the corner.
Throwing in the towel during competition.How the hell can a fight exist without using that stuff? If it does, it's certainly not ULTIMATE Fighting.

[bucolic_]

I didn't know he was fighting Sylvia! I miss having Pride around. Seems like a lot of great fighters are ignored now. I don't think we'll be seeing Gomi or Yamamoto over here anytime soon. I hope Fedor takes on some good fights before he gets too old, but I can't imagine anyone who could beat him. His toughest competition would probably be Nogieura who he's already beat. Maybe Couture, but he's already too old

Lately I've been liking the WEC 145 division more than most UFC fights. If they brought over the top Japanese fighters - that division would have amazing fights every card. The UFC 155 division is looking good, now that BJ Penn moved down to his natural weight - lot of good up and comers in that weight class.

Yeah, did you hear about Dreams? It's made up of the old Pride staff, and is being produced in conjunction with the K1 hero's staff. They've only had a couple events so far, but I'm hoping that they do well..

I was first excited when Pride was bought out, because I thought it would mean great cross-over fights, but instead the UFC seems to have just bought them out so that their #1 competition would be destroyed. They could have, at the very least, used it as a chance to heavily increase the quality of their roster, but skipped over a ton of great talent.

And yeah, the Sylvia fight is in July I think, but it's in some new organization, since Sylvia left the UFC.

I take it then, that you're excited about Pulver-Faber? I live about 20 minutes from Sacramento, so I'm thinking about getting tickets for that one ;) It's too bad they can't get Kid Yamamoto here, I think that would excellent to see him take on Faber. I think he'd give Faber plenty of trouble personally.. I'm also really excited for BJ Penn's fight with Sherk, I think Penn's got it in the bag, and that's the way I want it.. If he'd get his work ethic down, he'd be nearly unstoppable.

I cannot stand the UFC organisation. Their fouls are what I use to fight...

[/LIST]How the hell can a fight exist without using that stuff? If it does, it's certainly not ULTIMATE Fighting.

First of all, the UFC does not necessarily equal MMA. There are a lot of other organizations that allow more liberal rules, including many Japanese organizations, where soccer kicks and heel stomps are allowed to the head of a downed opponent.

Or if you want to see even more, there's the early MMA fights where pretty much everything was allowed, or Rio Heroes (which is still active I think), where everything is allowed, but that doesn't change the fact that they suck compared to the more legitimate forms taking place in more modern and high profile organizations, regardless of whether or not you can break somebody's fingers or drop them on their head. Modern MMA literally has Olympic medalists competing. I'll watch an Olympic medalist fighting any day over some random underground fighter, regardless of whether or not he can bite his opponent or stick his finger in a cut.

There are youtube fight videos, bum fights, convict fights, and plenty of other crappy videos you could watch, but the fact of the matter remains, which is that they're not nearly as skilled as the fights in the "fake" organizations. That, of course, is beside the point though, because the UFC hasn't billed itself as anything but a legitimate sport in years.. Personally, I'm not interested in seeing most of what you have highlighted, especially the unsportsmanlike conduct, such as ignoring the ref..

[Americano]

Are any of you into Muay Thai/K-1 MAX?

[meanlittlechimp]

I cannot stand the UFC organisation. Their fouls are what I use to fight...

[/LIST]How the hell can a fight exist without using that stuff? If it does, it's certainly not ULTIMATE Fighting.

They used to allow head butting, groin strikes, kicks to a downed opponent etc back in the early days. There was also no time limits or weight classes and the championships would force people to have multiple fights in the same day.

Problem was that it was banned in a lot of states and they could never get air time, so the sport almost went out of business.

They also changed the rules to give more advantage to the strikers, because people got sick of watching a dominant jujitsu guy holding his opponent down, and the American audience's preference for knockouts. The Japanese seem to prefer submissions more, because they tend to be more educated about the sport. Vale Tudo in Brazil, still keeps the original rules, but everyone tries to go to the UFC or other leagues, because they're is more potential to get $$.


I take it then, that you're excited about Pulver-Faber? I live about 20 minutes from Sacramento, so I'm thinking about getting tickets for that one ;) It's too bad they can't get Kid Yamamoto here, I think that would excellent to see him take on Faber. I think he'd give Faber plenty of trouble personally.. I'm also really excited for BJ Penn's fight with Sherk, I think Penn's got it in the bag, and that's the way I want it.. If he'd get his work ethic down, he'd be nearly unstoppable.

I think Faber is going to just yank Pulver to the ground and handle him quite easily. I don't think he has the grappling skills to win, unless Faber tries to stand with him (which might turn into a lucky knockout for Pulver).

Penn-Sherk will be a great one. I imagine Penn will come in shape, he always seems to be in shape when he fights that weight class. Penn is a lazy shit, but is still one of my favorites for pure raw talent. He has no fear - the guy is a 155 pounder and he went to a decision against undeafeted top heavyweight Machida, whom I think we'll go far in the UFC after his defeat of Sokoudjou.

Nice tip on Dream, didn't know they existed. Doesn't look like you can get them on pay per view. Wish I could have seen the Aoki-Calvancante fight! Kang-Mousasi looks liked a good one too!

[ShaiGar]

I'll watch an Olympic medalist fighting any day over some random underground fighter, regardless of whether or not he can bite his opponent or stick his finger in a cut.
I never liked watching fights in the olympics. Real fights don't have rules to keep things fair or safe. If you don't want to fight there are plenty of ways to avoid it, such as talking. You don't get into a fight, or a ring without deciding that you're going to do everything you can to live, and win at every cost. Otherwise, what's the point?

I've seen street fighters kick the arse of plenty high grade martial artists. Simply because the street fighters refuse to follow rules.


There are youtube fight videos, bum fights, convict fights, and plenty of other crappy videos you could watch, but the fact of the matter remains, which is that they're not nearly as skilled as the fights in the "fake" organizations. That, of course, is beside the point though, because the UFC hasn't billed itself as anything but a legitimate sport in years.. Personally, I'm not interested in seeing most of what you have highlighted, especially the unsportsmanlike conduct, such as ignoring the ref..
Which is exactly why I'd like to see extremely skilled fighters form an organisation that is fighting as opposed to Boxing with a few kicks allowed...

[Aronnax]

They also changed the rules to give more advantage to the strikers, because people got sick of watching a dominant jujitsu guy holding his opponent down, and the American audience's preference for knockouts. The Japanese seem to prefer submissions more, because they tend to be more educated about the sport.


I always saw the rules as heavily restrictive against strikers because of the limitations of where and how you're allowed to hit an opponent. The power of a hard style is that you can end a fight very quickly with a crippling strike to a vital area. By banning high energy attacks against a grounded opponent, pointed elbows, eye, throat, crotch, spine and rear skull attacks you remove the most powerful portion of a hard style.

The rules that affect soft style attacks still allow most of the bars, locks and chokes but slow down the application enough to give the other guy a chance to tap out. The only significant losses to soft style are small joint manipulation and fish hooking but several hard styles incorporate those attacks as well.

The rules make sense, it's a competitive sport and if you're killing/maiming your athletes it's simply not going to stay around. Soft styles allow for control without serious injury, hard styles can't manage that so any rule set that will protect your fighters is going to be biased against hard attacks.

[meanlittlechimp]

I always saw the rules as heavily restrictive against strikers because of the limitations of where and how you're allowed to hit an opponent.

Not at all, the new rules stand up fighters on the ground if there isn't enough "action". In a real fight, there is no one standing you up. Jujitsu sometimes requires setting up your opponent to get in a submission. If a striker doesn't get submitted quickly enough, they are reset to a standing position, where he has an advantage.

In the early UFC days, strikers never won (because of lack of forced stand up) - now it's fairly common for strikers to win. Jutjitsu is actually more effective in a real fight (for this reason) than is shown in the UFC, as long as there aren't multiple opponents.

Also, allowing strikes on the ground, actually benefits grapplers, since they're more likely to have a dominant position once it goes to the ground. But your right to the extent; attacks to the throat, groin, eyes etc, takes away from strikers in a "real" fight. But the old days of Vale Tudo, allowed headbutts, and groin strikes (no eye gouges though) and the jujitsu guys always cleaned house anyways.

[bucolic_]

I think Faber is going to just yank Pulver to the ground and handle him quite easily. I don't think he has the grappling skills to win, unless Faber tries to stand with him (which might turn into a lucky knockout for Pulver).

Penn-Sherk will be a great one. I imagine Penn will come in shape, he always seems to be in shape when he fights that weight class. Penn is a lazy shit, but is still one of my favorites for pure raw talent. He has no fear - the guy is a 155 pounder and he went to a decision against undeafeted top heavyweight Machida, whom I think we'll go far in the UFC after his defeat of Sokoudjou.

Nice tip on Dream, didn't know they existed. Doesn't look like you can get them on pay per view. Wish I could have seen the Aoki-Calvancante fight! Kang-Mousasi looks liked a good one too!

Yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize how good Penn is, he's one of the best. Speaking of Machida, I'm excited to see how he does against Tito.

You can get Dream on HDnet I think, so I can watch it when I'm visiting my parents. Hopefully they'll start doing PPV, did you catch the yarenoka show? That was decent, I liked the Akiyama - Misaki fight. The Fedor fight was of course a freak show, but was somewhat entertaining, simply because Choi is so huge..





bucolic_ added to this post, 14 minutes and 43 seconds later...

I always saw the rules as heavily restrictive against strikers because of the limitations of where and how you're allowed to hit an opponent. The power of a hard style is that you can end a fight very quickly with a crippling strike to a vital area. By banning high energy attacks against a grounded opponent, pointed elbows, eye, throat, crotch, spine and rear skull attacks you remove the most powerful portion of a hard style.

The rules that affect soft style attacks still allow most of the bars, locks and chokes but slow down the application enough to give the other guy a chance to tap out. The only significant losses to soft style are small joint manipulation and fish hooking but several hard styles incorporate those attacks as well.

The rules make sense, it's a competitive sport and if you're killing/maiming your athletes it's simply not going to stay around. Soft styles allow for control without serious injury, hard styles can't manage that so any rule set that will protect your fighters is going to be biased against hard attacks.

Actually, if you look at the history of the sport, the grapplers pretty much dominated when there were *less* rules. Right now, many of the dominant fighters are strikers. Even amongst the top fighters who aren't strikers, many of them are more ground-and-pound oriented, and so the same limits that strikers have would largely apply to them as well, especially knees to the head of a downed opponent. Watch some old Pride, and you'll see how effectively a grappler can use knees on the ground.

In many ways, it's actually oriented against the grappler. The first and most obvious advantage given to them is the fact that they can wear gloves. The knees on the ground are a big one, like I said. Headbutts used to be used extremely effectively by wrestlers like Mark Coleman, but are now illegal. Also, if a fight stalls on the ground, the ref will restart them on the feet. You'll see strikers do this when they're taken down, they'll try to tie up the grappler, and get the referee to stand them up. There's no such luxury for a grappler. If they refuse to engage on the feet, they don't get to restart on the ground.

Actually, I just read how they have the top ten pound-for-pound ranked on sherdog, and only one is what could really be considered a pure submissions specialist, maybe two. The rest either rely heavily on striking, or are fairly balanced. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

[Aronnax]

Actually, if you look at the history of the sport, the grapplers pretty much dominated when there were *less* rules. Right now, many of the dominant fighters are strikers. Even amongst the top fighters who aren't strikers, many of them are more ground-and-pound oriented, and so the same limits that strikers have would largely apply to them as well, especially knees to the head of a downed opponent. Watch some old Pride, and you'll see how effectively a grappler can use knees on the ground.

To clarify my stance I consider ground and pound part of a hard style and the best fighters are balanced with both hard and soft skills. But I still stand by the statement that the rules that make it safer for the fighters remove the most powerful portion of striking.

Looking back at old UFC when there were *less* rules most of the fighters were amateurs with the exceptions of the Gracies (who by no coincidence helped form the UFC and wrote the original rules). Back then the "good" strikers were primarily composed of big street fighters with limited technical ability. Do you really think a guy like "tank" Abbot was indicative of a skilled striker? The way they used to chain fights together also gave a huge advantage to grapplers since they take less damage in a fight than a striker will. Old UFC was cool back in the day but most of the fighters weren't very good, especially if you compare them to guys like GSP.

[meanlittlechimp]

Yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize how good Penn is, he's one of the best. Speaking of Machida, I'm excited to see how he does against Tito.

You can get Dream on HDnet I think, so I can watch it when I'm visiting my parents. Hopefully they'll start doing PPV, did you catch the yarenoka show? That was decent, I liked the Akiyama - Misaki fight. The Fedor fight was of course a freak show, but was somewhat entertaining, simply because Choi is so huge..

Oh I didn't know that, I might have to suck it up and get HDnet, if there next fight card looks good. Yeah I didn't catch the Akiyama fight but read the reviews.

I'm going to put money on Machida-Ortiz. The odds typically underplay the lesser known foreign fighters and I think Machida will take him in the first round or second round. Will be interesting to see the odds. I took a beating when Cropcop lost to Gonzaga and Rua beat Forrest though (I still can't believe that). I think some of the Pride fighters need to adjust to the new rules and fighting in an octagon, rather than a ring.

There is a window now where you should be able to cherry picking bad lines because all the dumb money is on a popular domestic fighter.

Gloves are a good point, it's definitely harder to sink in submissions with gloves.


Looking back at old UFC when there were *less* rules most of the fighters were amateurs with the exceptions of the Gracies (who by no coincidence helped form the UFC and wrote the original rules). Back then the "good" strikers were primarily composed of big street fighters with limited technical ability. Do you really think a guy like "tank" Abbot was indicative of a skilled striker? The way they used to chain fights together also gave a huge advantage to grapplers since they take less damage in a fight than a striker will. Old UFC was cool back in the day but most of the fighters weren't very good, especially if you compare them to guys like GSP.

Keep in mind, the Gracies were fighting people in Brazil for decades in open tournaments where top brazillian boxers, kickboxers, muay thai guys etc got their ass handed to them. Those Vale Tudo rules allowed groin attacks and headbuts btw. Rickson Gracie won over 200 fights without losing once and was much better than Royce.

I think the major difference is that the athletes are so much better now and ALL the top guys absorbed jujtisu into their regimen. Even so, without the standups and time limits, jujitsu would dominate the UFC far more than it does now. Renzo Gracie trained Matt Serra and St. Pierre. Everyone is getting equalized because of the Gracie diaspora. The Japanese weren't really teaching the world Jujitsu, until the Gracies popularized it.

A jujitsu guy can still compete without knowing anything else and being a crap striker. If a boxer comes in without decent ground skills, he'll get destroyed.

[bucolic_]

To clarify my stance I consider ground and pound part of a hard style and the best fighters are balanced with both hard and soft skills. But I still stand by the statement that the rules that make it safer for the fighters remove the most powerful portion of striking.

Looking back at old UFC when there were *less* rules most of the fighters were amateurs with the exceptions of the Gracies (who by no coincidence helped form the UFC and wrote the original rules). Back then the "good" strikers were primarily composed of big street fighters with limited technical ability. Do you really think a guy like "tank" Abbot was indicative of a skilled striker? The way they used to chain fights together also gave a huge advantage to grapplers since they take less damage in a fight than a striker will. Old UFC was cool back in the day but most of the fighters weren't very good, especially if you compare them to guys like GSP.

Well, first of all, the only Gracie to ever fight in the UFC is Royce, and he's not even considered to be the best Gracie. Second, you are right that there weren't many good strikers, but Tank was definitely *not* the best striker. Tank was more famous for his persona than anything, and his overall record is paltry. There actually were a few successful strikers in early MMA, the UFC included. Also, Royce only participated in about 1/3 of the UFCs with such liberal rules.

Actually, this makes me wonder, how would you personally define a "good striker?" I know how I would define one, but that's because they've proven their mettle in competition, although they participate in events that disallow many of what you consider their most powerful tools. You say that the early UFCs had no quality strikers, but who would satisfy your criteria as a quality striker?

As for strikers taking less damage, this is more dependent on the fighter they're opposing than the fighter them self. In other words, in a typical grappler vs. striker match, the grappler will absorb more damage (assuming the striker can fare well), so in that sense, a tournament is more beneficial for the striker. Watch Nogueira vs. Cro-cop to see a good example of this ;) It's about as close as you'll get to a pure grappler vs. striker match in modern MMA. Nog won the fight, but he took a lot of damage in the process, and it's about the best example you'll get of a pure grappler vs. a pure striker in modern MMA.

And yes, I agree that the early MMA fighters pale in comparison to the modern ones. I'm not sure if you realized this, but Royce actually returned to the UFC a year or so ago, and, predictably, got destroyed. He's a legend, but the sport has passed him by, and the vast majority of his contemporaries.





bucolic_ added to this post, 13 minutes and 18 seconds later...

Oh I didn't know that, I might have to suck it up and get HDnet, if there next fight card looks good. Yeah I didn't catch the Akiyama fight but read the reviews.

I'm going to put money on Machida-Ortiz. The odds typically underplay the lesser known foreign fighters and I think Machida will take him in the first round or second round. Will be interesting to see the odds. I took a beating when Cropcop lost to Gonzaga and Rua beat Forrest though (I still can't believe that). I think some of the Pride fighters need to adjust to the new rules and fighting in an octagon, rather than a ring.

There is a window now where you should be able to cherry picking bad lines because all the dumb money is on a popular domestic fighter.

Gloves are a good point, it's definitely harder to sink in submissions with gloves.

Yeah, I still can't believe that either, there's been a bunch of weird upsets recently. This is partly why I avoid the sherdog forums, they go from one bandwagon to another, and as soon as a fighter loses, they think they were overrated or suck now..

Actually, Crocop went to Dream, I heard some rumors that he's slated to fight Sergei Kharitonov in a couple months. That should be a good fight, if the *real* Crocop shows up. I know he's always been a bit of a flake, it's unfortunate that he had to flake out again when he came to the UFC, and make the American fans think he was overrated.

And yes, I was pretty pissed when I saw the Shogun - Forrest fight. It's like he wasn't even trying. I felt pretty good about Wanderlei's performance, although I would have liked to see him clinch up with Chuck ;)