I can’t believe testosterone.net would have an article that involved an estrogen man like Matt Fury. On another site that is sponsored by the UFC he is constantly put down. The reason for this is because he will not fight any one who has good fighting skills. He makes huge claims but doesn’t back them up. He will call people out and then when the challenge is accepted he will back down and give some pathetic excuse. He keeps saying he will compete in tournaments and talks about how well he will do and when the tournament starts so does his excuses for not competing.
yeah Frank Shamrock is the best
As far as I’ve seen the article had nothing to do with his fighting skills. It has to do with good conditioning. Regardless of weather he can fight or not the exercises have their merit. I agree that its pretty stupid to talk shit and not back it up, but I’ve done alot of those exercises and they definatley increase your agility and stamina while grappeling.
WHAT ABOUT Ken Shamrock?
First off, Furey lists exercises that I’ve done for over fifteen years in Judo. I agree that they work but who the hell is he to act like some guru when he’s never done anything in the mixed martial arts world and, I’m sorry, but he looks like shit. As far as the Shamrock’s are concerned, Frank is indeed at or near the top of the food chain, but Ken is over the hill, too commercial, and gave up in the Pride tourney to some Japanese fighter who he was beating but could’nt put away. Rickson Gracie is still King.
I for 1 don’t give a shit about the fact that Matt Furey looks like a beached whale and may not be willing to fight my grandmother. The article was about the exercises and the benfit that Mike had got out of them. I hadn’t come accross them before and found it interesting and certainly a good bit of variety. Thanks Mike and I hope that any criticism from know alls on this forum doesn’t stop other readers submitting new and diferent training articles/posts.
i love it, grapplers on this forum
This is the beauty of the UFC - it separates the fighters from the talkers. “Conditioning” maybe but “combat” …? As for glamrock, he never won a UFC tornament, tapped out to Royce Gracie in UFC 1 in about 30 secs, and was at best an above average but juiced up grappler with poor stricking skills and gyno in his right pec. Severn was a far better grappler and beat him clearly in their second superfight. Mark Coleman (?) was by far the best grappler from the early UFC’s and Ive got to say Tank Abbot was the best striker - good speed, timing, power, technique, and KO chin aim.
i liked the article. i guarantee you frank would beat rickson though.
Okay Dre,
Everyone’s got an opinion here’s mine. Yes Severn was a great grappler, but he couldn’t finish a fight to save his life. He had great positioning, movement, control, etc. but he just couldn’t end it. He couldn’t get a submission or a choke, or even strike his opponent out. Also, as far as Abbot is concerned, yeah he hit hard, but he had no technique. I mean the guy would just go out swinging like a novice toughman fighter. And if he didn’t KO his opponent in the first two minutes he was spent. (Maybe he could have used some of Furey’s conditioning drills) By the way, Furey never claimed to have developed these drills. Some of them were from his wrestling days at Iowa, and most were from Karl Gotch.
I don’t care about Matt Furey’s fighting ability. All I know is I have been a competitive athlete all of my life played college football and have had lower back pain ever since I got out of football with all of the power cleans I did. I have been doing the back bridge for over a month and can get my nose to the floor and have been pain free in my lower back and neck for the first time in many years. IF YOU HAVE ANY KIND OF NECK OR BACK PROBLEMS YOU HAVE TO TRY THE BACK BRIDGE. IT HAS TRULY BEEN A MIRACULOUS CURE FOR MY BACK AND NECK PAIN!
tank was great i really miss him. however, he wasn’t a really technical striker. anyone who had boxing/kickboxing experience beat him. Maurice smith and pedro rizzo are two examples. Vitor Belfort too, but i dont like vitor too much.
RE: Ken Shamrock not putting away “some Japanese fighter:”
First off, the Fujita v. Shamrock match wasn’t in a Pride tournament (Pride Grand Prix), it was just a regular fight. As for him not putting away Fujita, Pride is notorious for having fixed fights and is worked almost like a pro-wrestling league, which shouldn’t be surprising since it’s owned and booked by New Japan wrestling. The reason I mention this is because it wouldn’t be out of the question for them to have Ken “work” the fight and put over Fujita in order to elevate Fujita as a “home-grown” talent, a la Sakuraba. The booking of having Ken go strong through the match and then throw in the towel because of “heart problems” would allow him to still save face while throwing the match. When Ken was working in Pancrase, he had to drop their title in a match when it was announced he was going to compete in the UFC against Severn because Pancrase was scared of one of their fighters loosing to another grappler, making their promotion look bad. I know it sounds weird and conspiracy theorist, but everyone who saw that fight noted how weird the finish was…and by having a win over Kerr and Shamrock under his belt, Fujita now looks like a big-time player (in Pride at least).
Matt Furey makes no sense. When he was a competitive wrestler, he lifted weights. When he won the World Shuai-Chiao championships (yeah, there’s a widely practiced sport) he lifted lots of weights, oft times dinosaur style. Now he’s not into weights and claims you only need body-weight exercises. That wasn’t what he was using when he was competing instead of making excuses.
As for the exercises themselves, they’re stupid. My biggest beef is with his bridges. We’ve known for over thirty years that these simply stretch the ligaments of the spine while compressing the discs, destabalizing the back.
Fureyphiles often claim these bridges loosened up their backs. No shit, Sherlock, but that’s not a good thing. Twenty years from now, when you have so many back problems that walking becomes a chore, try to remember what caused them.
Dre-Are you serious? Tank is the best striker? I am not sure how many UFCs you have watched, but Tank got DESTROYED by Vitor Belfort and Pedro Rizzo with, what else, strikes. The only reason Tank beat people was cause he was 270 pounds and yes, he did hit hard as hell. But, like I said, Belfort killed him in like 53 seconds. No contest.
The only good fighter Tank beat was Hugo Duarte and that was because Hugo made a mistake. Tank is big and strong but that is it. He hasn’t beat any big name fighters. I’m not sure he even has a winning record. He is a tough guy with lots of power but he has no skills. I watched the match vs. Pedro Rizzo the other day. Tank got killed. He was gassed after one minute.
SIR, can you back up your claim that we’ve known for over thirty years that Back Bridges stretch the ligaments of the spine while compressing the discs, destabalizing the back. Please give me the scientific evidence. I would like to know if there is some.
Fujita v Ken was not a work, Fujita is legitimate tough guy who is terribly under rated. Pride is not notorious for works, and the rise of Sak is also legitimate. There has never been any question of a ‘work’ in his fights. Sure they have thrown him a few ‘easy beats’ (Macias, Ritch) to pad out his profile, but never any works.
As for Rickson Gracie still being the best, he is way past his prime, fights once a year against washed up former pro wrestlers and never really fought any quality in his youth. The only thing that keeps his status so elevated is the fact that his brothers and cousins concurr that he is the best, which is pretty damn good.
As for Matt, his exercises are not all that new. I’m sure many a high school wrestling coach would have similar. While his fighting ability is not in question here, the way he handles himself in that regard is still a measure of the type of man he is, and that is not real good.
UFC 1-10 and UU 1 and 2 Tank displayed the best striking skills bar none. He was by no means the biggest or the strongest as he KO’d a 400 pounder in about 1 min and the biggest guy was over 600. Its not about size but the leg/hip/shoulder technique you practice in the basic turning/punching drills. If you understand striking at all you have to be impressed with his good speed and punch frequency, % of punches landed and their chin placement, esp. as his were the only real stand up knockouts during this early period. Frye was a pretty well rounded fighter from the early days and while Frye eventually choked out Tank, he looked like hamburger after the fight. While hundreds of fancy shmancy strikers passed through the octagon in this period, NOT ONE other fighter delivered a good standup blow. Too many guys training for years with jump kicks and spinning backfists (and probably hindu pushups) without a solid grounding. Tank had the striking basics down and, like with weightlifting, basis can account for excellent results. You wont get an argument from anyone about how poor his conditioning was but I dont think Fureys fancy exercises would have been the answer - Tank like anyone needed roadwork and sparring for cardio/endurance and weights for size and power. I hear what was said about servern finishing but his grappling eclipsed shamrocks and his finishing skills improved a little with time. He just had the force of habit type problem alot of boxers found that they were conditioned mentally to compete in a regulated sport and werent ready for real combat.
On the conditioning tip - im with SiR. To be properly condition for combat you need strength, speed and cardio. Size and brute force can also be a factor. Fighters would be better served doing the right weight programs and stretching, sparring, jogging, skipping and bagwork. I dont know how long one is meant to spend on these exercises but the time could be much better spent. We did the “hindu push ups” for Jow Ga Kung Fu back in the eighties but we caled them “tiger stretches” and didnt preach them as anything more than another bodyweight exercise that would never substitute for other conditioning. I think the hype with these exercises is that they are fancy and thus attractive to the fancy kata/ jump spin kick crowd that wears a kung fu top or fighting t shirt in public, and their supposed fighting skills, like a badge of honour. Best suited to the bark as oppoossed to bite mentality.