Where Is MMA At?

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:

This is true to a certain extent but real fighters have a different mentality than most athletes.

I don’t think MMA is going to draw too many athletes away from other money making sports unless that athlete already has that fighters edge to him.

It will get interesting. I am going to enjoy watching the growth of MMA as most other sports have lost their luster in my eyes.[/quote]

I think this is a great point. People simply talk about the money. I do not think getting better paydays will suddenly make all the future football and basketball players decide they want to fight. Most people do not want to fight. I think many of these guys would rather catch a football or take a jumpshot than get hit in the head. And that’s fine. Also mma is an individual sport and there is little room at the top. Sure the top guy should get paid and then a trickle down effect. Still the 10th best or 15th best fighter should not be geting paid millions, and it probably would not be possible to pay such an amount, or be justified. Whereas the average salary in the NBA is around 4 million dollars. There are guys sitting on the bench making that.
As for the quality of fighters, I think there will be alot of good grappling and submission fighters coming up in the future, more than enough. I do not think you will see many great strikers like Mirko come along though. To be as good as Mirko you do need specialization. At the very least significant amateur experience, and doing that at a high level. Pro experince is better. The guy having continued success at the highest level of striking is alway going to be better than some guy who trains striking for mma. The mma guy never had a chance to prove his striking ability against top competition.
I think you will see more guys like GSP in the future in the states, well balanced, decent all around striking, good at everything.
I still think the states is lagging behind other countries in turning out fighters who can grapple and strike.

[quote]StevenF wrote:
Xen Nova wrote:
a bunch of stuff

I honestly don’t see what the hype is about Mayhem Miller. Sure he’s a cool guy and all, but he doesn’t really strike me as that good of a fighter. Don’t start saying how he went to decision with GSP, either. He was a bloody mess when that fight was over. He also recently lost to Frank “Twinkle Toes” Trigg.
[/quote]

Honestly I"m not that impressed with him either. But you do always hear about how good his jiujitsu is and that be basically learned from vids.

Of course GSP showed that everyone’s BJJ game is different when you hit them in the fuckign face.

DaMadMonk - Have a read of otoko’s post above - he explains my point better than I did. I don’t want to lose strikers of the caliber of CroCop in MMA just because guys are trying to get too well rounded too soon.

Then again, you have guys like Shogun, who has been training kickboxing and grappling since age 7 and is still great to watch.

Here’s the question… is Fedor equivalent to George Mikan or Wilt?

[quote]Xen Nova wrote:
Imagine if you’ve been able to Throw a jab, shoot a double, get mount, gnp, then armbar since you were 8, and it was as natural to you as jumping or sprinting. Hell the level of techniques may get more extreme. We might just see some of that “cool movie shit” that everyone presumes “Doesn’t work”. You never know…
[/quote]

Just imagine. If you grew up in Thailand you just might have super muay thai powers. There are cultures where significant portions of the population are involved in combat sports. Turns out Thai boxing is really big in Thailand and yet no one seems to pull off that “cool movie shit” in competition. I doubt its the quality of fighters thats preventing these techniques from making it into practice.

It seems that much of the people posting are taking a very US centric viewpoint. Have you considered how big Judo is in Japan? How big Sambo and other fighting styles are in russia? How about Brazil?

Mixed martial arts competitions are not new to the world. They are new to the US. The competitions are already drawing athletes with the kind of athleticism that is required for the highest levels of mma competition. To suggest that fedor isnt athletic… wtf.

I think many people simply do not understand the kind of athleticism required for fighting. This concept that good athletes like Bo Jackson can compete at the highest levels of any sport is absolutely nonsense. All sports have a component of physical specialization. And those that have the characteristics required by their sport excel at the highest levels. No one person is going to fit all of the characteristics required for every sport. It just doesnt happen.

Perhaps we will have some fighters with better reflexes than fedor and crocop enter the ring in the future. We will just have to wait and see. But we are already seeing physical specimens that represent high caliber athleticism for mma competition.

This is a skill sport. In all sports where skill is most important physiques take a back seat. If you are not skilled nothing is going to save you. I dont care if the athlete has a 36" vertical. Fedor is not pretty, but he is VERY skilled. And that, not his vertical leap, or some other arbitrary measure of athleticism, has taken him to the top.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
I don’t think MMA is going to draw too many athletes away from other money making sports unless that athlete already has that fighters edge to him.
[/quote]

Based on this, would you say that earning potential is a deciding factor involved whether a athlete would get into a sport or not?

I don’t know about this. Although there maybe some exceptions, I fail to picture a kid sitting there and deciding to be a baseball player because of the money over the love of another sport (be it MMA or not).

On the subject of specialization, guys like CroCop, Hughes, Gracie, are the best at what they do, Strike, Wrestle, Submit guys. But with this specialization, I believe this will be their eventual downfall.

If your tied to the belief that you are a striker, wrestler, BJJ fighter, you are limited in the unlimited world of MMA. You are bound by certain “forms”. Fighters like Fedor and GSP don’t seem to be bound by this. They adapt. They use what is best at the moment it is required.

[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
I don’t think MMA is going to draw too many athletes away from other money making sports unless that athlete already has that fighters edge to him.

For once, I agree with you. A lot of people commenting here have no idea about the X-factor a fighter must have.

They think someone who can lift heavy weights and run fast just needs to take a few BJJ and jiu jitsu classes, and bang!, he’ll be a contendor. There is so much more to it than that.

It’s really not even worth arguing with such people. They just don’t understand the fighter’s spirit. They think fighting is just like any other sport. [/quote]

I agree that fighting spirit or the x factor as you call it is very important in MMA and fighting sports but that alone is not enough. If you don’t have it you wont make it to the top but athleticism is still a great advantage.

I remember Enson Inoue. He is a BJJ blackbelt and has one of biggest hearts in the ring i’ve seen. However, that didn’t stop him getting choked unconcious by big Nog (because he refused to tap) and beaten to within an inch of his life by Igor V, because he used his head to block punches. The fact was he was WELL beaten by the superior athlete.

[quote]AdamC wrote:
CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
I don’t think MMA is going to draw too many athletes away from other money making sports unless that athlete already has that fighters edge to him.

For once, I agree with you. A lot of people commenting here have no idea about the X-factor a fighter must have.

They think someone who can lift heavy weights and run fast just needs to take a few BJJ and jiu jitsu classes, and bang!, he’ll be a contendor. There is so much more to it than that.

It’s really not even worth arguing with such people. They just don’t understand the fighter’s spirit. They think fighting is just like any other sport.

I agree that fighting spirit or the x factor as you call it is very important in MMA and fighting sports but that alone is not enough. If you don’t have it you wont make it to the top but athleticism is still a great advantage.

I remember Enson Inoue. He is a BJJ blackbelt and has one of biggest hearts in the ring i’ve seen. However, that didn’t stop him getting choked unconcious by big Nog (because he refused to tap) and beaten to within an inch of his life by Igor V, because he used his head to block punches. The fact was he was WELL beaten by the superior athlete.

[/quote]

You’re right that athleticism is needed at the top. However, if you don’t have the spirit and aren’t willing to be hurt and bruised for most of your career, you won’t go anywhere.

I had one full contact fight in my “career” so far. I train Wing Chun exclusively, but have a background in Judo. The guy I fought trained exclusively for sport, by the rules that were used in the ring. However, his conditiong involved pushups, situps, and lsd running. Mine involves circuit training and lifting 3 times a week. I handed his ass to him. However, a long time will pass before I get in the ring again…I don’t like being hit.

[quote]AdamC wrote:
I remember Enson Inoue…

[/quote]

Enson is a very interesting man. He has a long running thread on Sherdog where he talks about his daily run-ins with the criminal underworld and various social scenes in Japan. Definetely hard core, I remember when he fought Mark Kerr with “Death” shaved into his head, or when Igor Vovchachnyn nearly killed him (literally, he suffered massive brain swelling) and he refused to stop.

He broke down in tears and started screaming when the doctor stopped the fight. Someone asked him why he let his arm break rather than tap, and he said:

“I do what I do and fight the way I fight because that’s just who I am. Everytime I’m walking into that square shaped battle zone lit up by spotlights with tens of thousands of people around it, I am accepting the fact that I might die that night. To me its not a sport or game but a fight for life, do or die, live or be killed. This is why I never did and never will tap. I am willing to die every night I step into the ring. That’s why passing out, breaking an arm, or breaking a leg is acceptable to me. I feel that pain is temporary but pride is forever. Maybe my way of thinking is to extreme for the good of the sport.”

[quote]Robert P. wrote:
However, a long time will pass before I get in the ring again…I don’t like being hit.
[/quote]

Yep. That sums up why this thread is pretty silly. You can run all the 40s you want, lift all the weight you want, be the best “athlete” imaginable; but after all that, you have to decide whether you’re going to let someone beat your brains out. There will always be a very limited supply of those types of guys.

[quote]DaMadMonk wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
I don’t think MMA is going to draw too many athletes away from other money making sports unless that athlete already has that fighters edge to him.

Based on this, would you say that earning potential is a deciding factor involved whether a athlete would get into a sport or not?

I don’t know about this. Although there maybe some exceptions, I fail to picture a kid sitting there and deciding to be a baseball player because of the money over the love of another sport (be it MMA or not).

… [/quote]

This is happening already. Kids are going to special sports academies to maximuze their paydays. Kids and their parents are picking positions such as left tackle becaise it pays more in the pros.

Lots of young athletes see sports as the only way to make a living. They are gravitating to the money. It is economics.

Some will gravitate to MMA for the payday but the only ones that will be successful will have the fighters edge. Those without the fighters edge will not make it.

[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Robert P. wrote:
However, a long time will pass before I get in the ring again…I don’t like being hit.

Yep. That sums up why this thread is pretty silly. You can run all the 40s you want, lift all the weight you want, be the best “athlete” imaginable; but after all that, you have to decide whether you’re going to let someone beat your brains out. There will always be a very limited supply of those types of guys.[/quote]

Exactly.

It seems to me that as the talent pool gets deeper, along with more rounded skills - it could get to a situation where it will be extremely difficult to remain a champion.

I say this because of nature of the fights. In other sports, a mistake doesn’t always cause you to lose: corner gets burned, qb throws a pick, pitcher tagged for a homer, even a boxer letting big punches through.

One mistake in MMA will often send a fighter home with the loss, however.

[quote]DaMadMonk wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
I don’t think MMA is going to draw too many athletes away from other money making sports unless that athlete already has that fighters edge to him.

Based on this, would you say that earning potential is a deciding factor involved whether a athlete would get into a sport or not?

I don’t know about this. Although there maybe some exceptions, I fail to picture a kid sitting there and deciding to be a baseball player because of the money over the love of another sport (be it MMA or not).

On the subject of specialization, guys like CroCop, Hughes, Gracie, are the best at what they do, Strike, Wrestle, Submit guys. But with this specialization, I believe this will be their eventual downfall.

If your tied to the belief that you are a striker, wrestler, BJJ fighter, you are limited in the unlimited world of MMA. You are bound by certain “forms”. Fighters like Fedor and GSP don’t seem to be bound by this. They adapt. They use what is best at the moment it is required. [/quote]

I do not think guys are bound by certain forms. Alot of wrestlers are bound to wrestling because they are not any good at striking. And vice versa.
Seriously there are not that many possibilities. Throwing a great punch involves the same mechanics regardless of who does it. Kicks are the same. Takedowns, submissions also. There will be some slight stylistic differences, like the way Mirko throws a low kick(karate style), like the way Melvin Manhoef throws a low kick(Dutch kick style) or the way K-1 MW champ throws one(muay thai).
A guy who does straight mma without specializing in anything won’t be great at anything. Grapplers test themelves at the ADCC. Strikers fight in Holland or Japan. If you are serious about developing your skills you would seek to test them against the best possible competition, eventually I think you will be labeled as something.
As for GSP and Fedor or any fighter. GSP is obviously superior to Matt Hughes striking, GSP kept it standing so he won. It is about being realistic about your abilities. You aren’t going to be better than everybody at everything. That is what I found so shocking about Rich Franklin and Chris Leben’s decisions to stand with Anderson Silva as a strategy, did they they really believe they were as good standing? Or were their camps telling them? They failed to realize or accept that Silva was just better standing and they probably would have a better chance taking it to the ground. In this case they are not “bound” they just have no choice because the other guy is better at something than they are. This will happen, the guys specializing in striking(or bjj) will be better than the guy not. The guys specializing in boxing will be the best punchers, the kickboxers and karateka will be the best kickers, the BJJ champs the best at submissions. If you run into one of these guys in a match they will be better at their specialty than you are.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Robert P. wrote:
However, a long time will pass before I get in the ring again…I don’t like being hit.

Yep. That sums up why this thread is pretty silly. You can run all the 40s you want, lift all the weight you want, be the best “athlete” imaginable; but after all that, you have to decide whether you’re going to let someone beat your brains out. There will always be a very limited supply of those types of guys.

Exactly.
[/quote]

Sure, if you are comparing MMA to golf or basketball. Comparing it to another “fighting” sport, so to speak, like boxing is a good comparison. Historically the top guys paydays in those 2 sports are not even close. Although if they ever released figures on what guys like Chuck get for percentage of pay-per-view sales it might be closer than I think.

[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Robert P. wrote:
However, a long time will pass before I get in the ring again…I don’t like being hit.

Yep. That sums up why this thread is pretty silly. You can run all the 40s you want, lift all the weight you want, be the best “athlete” imaginable; but after all that, you have to decide whether you’re going to let someone beat your brains out. There will always be a very limited supply of those types of guys.[/quote]

Good point. But look at NFL players, hockey players, rugby players. Sure they are not punching the shit out of each others faces (well they seem to do that a lot in hockey actually) but they do take fucking beating on a weekly basis. They are superb athletes and conditioned mentally and physicaly to take a beating. I think a lot of these guys are tough enough for mma.

Having trained MMA and competed in BJJ and being someone who enjoys contact sports, for me the big thing you have to get used to in MMA, and the one thing that seperates it from other contact sports is getting hit in the face. But some people are pretty crazy and they dont mind so much…I remember a guy i trained with once or twice who said he liked getting hit in the face. Maybe it was bravado i dont know. There’s actually a clip of him fighting somewhere on the net where his opponnent kicks his leg and it snaps.

[quote]AdamC wrote:
CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Robert P. wrote:
However, a long time will pass before I get in the ring again…I don’t like being hit.

Yep. That sums up why this thread is pretty silly. You can run all the 40s you want, lift all the weight you want, be the best “athlete” imaginable; but after all that, you have to decide whether you’re going to let someone beat your brains out. There will always be a very limited supply of those types of guys.

Good point. But look at NFL players, hockey players, rugby players. Sure they are not punching the shit out of each others faces (well they seem to do that a lot in hockey actually) but they do take fucking beating on a weekly basis. They are superb athletes and conditioned mentally and physicaly to take a beating. I think a lot of these guys are tough enough for mma.

Having trained MMA and competed in BJJ and being someone who enjoys contact sports, for me the big thing you have to get used to in MMA, and the one thing that seperates it from other contact sports is getting hit in the face. But some people are pretty crazy and they dont mind so much…I remember a guy i trained with once or twice who said he liked getting hit in the face. Maybe it was bravado i dont know. There’s actually a clip of him fighting somewhere on the net where his opponnent kicks his leg and it snaps.[/quote]

I think that those rugby and hockey players are tough enough for mma to an extent. The beating they take is of a different kind though. Anyway by the time those guys are hockey players and rugby players it is to late for them to do mma. And if you start kids out with mma you will eventually weed out ALOT of them when they get older.

If they only grapple it will take longer. And if they start striking too late they will never be any good at it. Most kids do not want to do it anymore once they get punched in the mouth. Part of them gives up. They still train but they you know most likely they won’t be great. You will also weed out the less skillful kids(some people are just gifted to throw punches and kicks), which does not have to do with athleticism so much as to do with being able to pick up complex skills.

I have never had a problem with being hit even as a kid(sparring adults). I just walked through it knowing that it was just something you had to take. It is guaranteed you will be hit, that is something that has to be accepted. It is hard to develop skills if you can’t perform them knowing you will be hit hard.

There are alot of guys who have good skills on the mitts and bag and against unskilled sparring partners, but can’t do it when they get hit in the face repeatedly.

[quote]AdamC wrote:
CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Robert P. wrote:
However, a long time will pass before I get in the ring again…I don’t like being hit.

Yep. That sums up why this thread is pretty silly. You can run all the 40s you want, lift all the weight you want, be the best “athlete” imaginable; but after all that, you have to decide whether you’re going to let someone beat your brains out. There will always be a very limited supply of those types of guys.

Good point. But look at NFL players, hockey players, rugby players. Sure they are not punching the shit out of each others faces (well they seem to do that a lot in hockey actually) but they do take fucking beating on a weekly basis. They are superb athletes and conditioned mentally and physicaly to take a beating. I think a lot of these guys are tough enough for mma.

Having trained MMA and competed in BJJ and being someone who enjoys contact sports, for me the big thing you have to get used to in MMA, and the one thing that seperates it from other contact sports is getting hit in the face. But some people are pretty crazy and they dont mind so much…I remember a guy i trained with once or twice who said he liked getting hit in the face. Maybe it was bravado i dont know. There’s actually a clip of him fighting somewhere on the net where his opponnent kicks his leg and it snaps.[/quote]

Very well might be but I remember the last big NFL player to enter the MMA… He seemed to turn into a big pussy the moment his opponent hits back with force :slight_smile:

Fujita, Sefo, Bonjasky and CroCop made him decide to throw in the towel for good. MMA and K1 is still a step above tackling other NFL players…

[quote]otoko wrote:

I think that those rugby and hockey players are tough enough for mma to an extent. The beating they take is of a different kind though. Anyway by the time those guys are hockey players and rugby players it is to late for them to do mma. And if you start kids out with mma you will eventually weed out ALOT of them when they get older.

…[/quote]

I played rugby for 18 years. There were always a few guys on each team that really had the mentality to be fighters. Most guys didn’t.

Most of my teammates were tough guys. I know I didn’t mind taking a hit but it is different in a team atmosphere.

Many of the guys I have played with and against over the years probably would have been real warriors in the olden days and would have stood shoulder to shoulder to fight the enemy but that is a different sort of motivation than fighting solo.

[quote]ElMono wrote:

Very well might be but I remember the last big NFL player to enter the MMA… He seemed to turn into a big pussy the moment his opponent hits back with force :slight_smile:

Fujita, Sefo, Bonjasky and CroCop made him decide to throw in the towel for good. MMA and K1 is still a step above tackling other NFL players…

[/quote]

Of course Sapp wasn’t really good enough to excel in the NFL. Your point about him turning into a pussy is good.