MMA: Boxing is dead to me

The Game Room
21

OK fine. If a mere 13 years ago is ancient history to you*, I’ll link to Nobuhika Takada VS Mike Bernardo from 2005. That’s in your time frame.

This fight should perfectly illustrate why your beloved sport is boring as hell. It was the most pathetic display of fighting “strategy” I have ever seen. Strategy and skill, my ass. My four year old nieces have better dust - ups.

To further bring home how lame your sport is, I want you to listen to the music the arena is playing during the fight. It’s pretty standard stuff up until the eight minute mark when they play… wait for it… Barbie Girl. I can’t make that shit up.

I’m a Barbie girl in the Barbie world
Life in plastic, it’s fantastic
You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere
Imagination, life is your creation

*Ah, I remember the dark and ancient times that were the late nineties. Thank God change would be just around with updated MMA rules and the historic creation of the XFL. I ask you, where would modern sports be without those?

22

I enjoy MMA more, but I like watching the individual sports that comprise it as well. Its interesting to see how different rule sets allow a whole range of additional techniques to develop, and it is especially interesting to see how many of these techniques that could only be developed in a sport situation (such as western boxing, or sport jiu-jitsu) with these rules eventually make their way to MMA. For example, spinning kicks and front kicks are becoming more common in MMA after never being thought practical in the early days of MMA.

23

Ah, so disgruntled boxing fan it is. MMA sucks because you can dig up a couple of crappy old fights that . . . feature . . . shitty . . . music . . .

Yeah, I can’t see much future in our discussion of the topic.

24

That fight was from 2001, not 2005.

You are correct there. In fact, it is frequently tossed around as a joke; it is widely regarded as perhaps the worst fight ever. Which makes me wonder how you consider that to be in any way representative of the sport?

Also, while a mere 10 years may not seem like it should mean much to you, you need to remember that the sport of MMA only really got started in the 90s; there is a HUGE difference in the fighters of 2001 and those of today. It is kind of like comparing Lebron James to stars of the 60s and 70s.

25

I like how the announcers have the same tone of voice as the Brazilian soccer announcer from that Simpson’s episode.

26

MMA=WWE

Boxing just needs a real star. To paraphrase the late great Jim Murray – All boxing needs is someone with half the talent and one fourth the flair of Muhammad Ali and it will be back! In a big way.

27

Why? Can you elaborate?

28

You can youtube some bad MMA fights. Boxing also has boring fights and lots of them.

As for the lack of strategy, simply because you don’t understand the strategy doesn’t mean it is not there. Modern MMA is filled with elite college wrestlers, and some who have wrestled at the Olympic level. There are also World jujitsu champs and world class Judo practitioners.

29

Oh, I understand the strategy. It’s been years, but I wrestled in High School and made third in state. I know exactly what Ortiz is doing when he lays and prays. I thought it amusing when StusBlus claimed that only boxers clinch. What the hell is a lay and pray, then? It’s trying to keep anything from happening until time expires.

But the strategy I find the most ridiculous is what I like to call “the kitten”. You see this when a fighter has nothing but a ground game. He flops over on his back with his limbs in the air like a stranded turtle. He’ll throw ineffective kicks from this position, but really he’s just refusing to get up and hoping the other fighter will come down to him. He knows if he does get up he’ll get his ass kicked so he stays on the ground. What kind of lame fighting sport do you have when laying on your back is a valid strategy? Boring as hell. That ain’t chess no matter how much y’all want it to be.

Here’s the kitten, and here is Frank Shamrock teaching the kitten. He doesn’t call it the kitten though.

30

Wow. A guy who has been irrelevant for a decade teaching a technique that will get you a point deducted. That’s your evidence that MMA sucks. I’ve always liked your hair, Mr. King.

31

Quoted in it’s entirety for it’s complete truth.

Just last night I was watching a re-run of Penn-St. Pierre II and on one of the under cards Joe Rogan commented that, “This sport has come a long way. The crowd just cheered when he got back to guard.” In fact, Joe had just completely missed a right hand that connected. Fans don’t give a shit about the guard. They were just happy a punch was thrown. :rolleyes:

It never ceases to amaze me how some fans consider the ground game boring, but fighters circling endlessly throwing half-hearted punches that wouldn’t have a chance in hell of ever delivering a KO completely awesome. You don’t see brawlers like Cabbage anymore because they got so completely destroyed by better all-around fighters. And I don’ think that trend is going to stop and we’re going to see pure strikers even less. Fortunately, I’ll take an opening second clinch/takedown any day.

32

As I said in my last post, I used to wrestle. And I find the ground game boring. There is still too little movement. Fighters still use variations of the kitten and the lay and pray. I’d rather watch the olympic wrestling, or at least a college judo match. Those are good, but if the mma thing is ever going to work it’s got a long way to go.

To my knowledge, I am the only one that has called that particular tactic “the kitten”, but I want all MMA fans in this thread to think "Oh, crap. That’s “the kitten” next time you see it in a match.

33

Good, because I have it on some authority that that move is actually known as the Quad Mitten Defense.

34

You keep bringing up the fact that you wrestled in high school, as if it demonstrates that you have some kind of technical understanding of modern MMA grappling. In fact it is mostly irrelevant once both fighters are on the mat. At this point, the fighters enter the world of jiu-jitsu. Positions here are very different from what you encounter in wrestling, as the man on the bottom seeks to face his opponent (in most cases), rather than regain his base on all fours and return to his feet as in wrestling.

Now, I would expect that your wrestling experience WOULD make you appreciate the various takedowns that are utilized in MMA, and this seems consistent with your posts, as you stated that you also enjoy watching olympic wrestling (takedown based) or judo (almost entirely takedowns).

Again, what we have here (as described in post #20) is an example of what prevents MMA from being more popular – the ignorance (and unwillingness to learn) of the casual fan of the techniques involved in modern MMA. I’m not sure how knowledgeable you are of the technical aspects of striking, but you no doubt (as most people do) appreciate a good slugfest. You are knowledgeable about wrestling, so you appreciate takedowns. But you do not understand what is going on on the ground, so when the fight enters this phase, you quickly grow bored.

Like you, I wrestled, so I always had an appreciation for MMA takedowns. Although I was not as turned off as you seem to be by the grappling aspect of the sport, I will say that when I began doing jiu-jitsu, my enjoyment of watching MMA increased 10-fold. I realized that the sometimes long intervals between takedowns and submissions were filled with techniques – hundreds of battles over minor positional advantages that would end up being crucial to the outcome. It really is a chess match.

The thing is, you don’t have to have actual experience in Muy Thai, Boxing, Wrestling, and Jiu-Jitsu to enjoy MMA. But you do have to have an open mind. You have to realize that your idea of what a fight should look like – two tough guys slugging it out old west style – is not necessarily what a fight will look like when the two fighters have attained a high level of skill.

To illustrate, check out one of my favorite fights: Shinya Aoki vs. Eddie Alvarez. Here we have a slightly built Japanese fighter who might be mistaken for an accountant (were it not for his cauliflower ears) who ends up at one point pursuing Alvarez (a wrestler/boxer with a reputation for engaging in slugfests) around the ring ON HIS BUTT. Aoki is simply that good on the ground that Alvarez thought it best not engage on his terms. It is funny, but it is also awesome – it completely destroys one’s model of what a fight should look like, and it is a very exciting fight between two skilled fighters. Check it out.

35

And the worst thing is when you actually see fighters cave in. Nothing annoys me more than seeing a jiu-jitsu black belt (ie Jorge Gurgel or most recently and sadly, Matt Serra) forsake his years of training and engage in some half-assed kickboxing match in an effort to please the fans and retain his appeal to the UFC.

36

Will you people just quit it. The “but you don’t understand! It’s chess!” defense is what dragged me into this thing to begin with. I am not a big fan of boxing, and I don’t really have a bug up my ass about the MMA, but the pretension of most MMA fans who continuosly claim that they are the only ones who understand it is annoying. Y’all are not the keepers of some arcane combat knowledge. It takes a shit load of training for a fighter to be good, and it uses far more technique than a bar brawl, but come on. The sport is not that complicated. Get over yourselves.

I do understand it. I do find it boring.

37

Besides, I’ve played chess! It’s not all that complicated either!

38

It’s a stall, sure, but it’s a stall dependent on the top guy’s ability to take his opponent down and keep him there. Comparing it to the clinch James Smith used in his fight with Tyson isn’t honest–by the rules of boxing, there wasn’t much Tyson could do about it. If you’ve got good jiujitsu, you can effectively counter the lay and pray.

39

It’s time for some real Chess Boxing

40

I just don’t understand how you are in a position to say that you understand it. It is like someone saying, “Wrestling is just two guys trying to throw one another to the ground and whoever is stronger is the one that wins. See, I understand it; it’s just boring.” I’m assuming you would disagree with this person’s assessment of their knowledge of wrestling. Perhaps if they understood some of the techniques involved they might find it more interesting?

I will say that after a number of years of wrestling, in high school and college, I was blown away by the complexity of jiu-jitsu. I knew there was a huge amount of technique in wrestling, but it pales in comparison to jiu-jitsu. There are simply many more positions to master. And jiu-jitsu is but one part of MMA.

I also have had the experience of seeing things from your perspective. I tend to find uneventful striking focused fights to be somewhat boring. Why? Because I don’t have the experience and knowledge to see what is going on. I remember commenting on how I found one such fight to be boring to my brother. My brother, who had been recently been taking some classes in boxing and Muy Thai was confused. “Didn’t you notice how fighter A was always at the perfect distance – either out of reach or inside the range of fighter B’s power shots? Didn’t you see the angles he was taking that prevented B from unloading on him? That’s why there were no significant punches landing. It was amazing how he was doing that.” Well, no, I hadn’t noticed those things. Clearly, I had found it to be boring because I didn’t have a clue what was going on.

This is not unique to combat sports. I’m sure I would be a hell of a lot more interested in football or soccer if I understood the intricacies of the offensive and defensive strategies involved.

Huge understatement. It IS that complicated. There is a reason why MMA tends to have older fighters that stick around at a high level for longer than other combat sports. Technique is very important and it takes a long time to bring one’s skills to a high level in all the various disciplines.