It was great, huh? I have no doubt he could’ve kept stomping mudholes in people’s asses for a few more years, but he just didn’t have anything left to prove.
Or Gabriel Gonzaga! :eek: <---- Not for the squeemish, then again if you were squeemish, what are you doing in an MMA thread?
Wow! I was surprised to still see Sakuraba in the lineup so I Wikied him. He’s a full 6 years younger than Randy Couture.
Saku is actually a year older than Couture. He aged 7 years the night he fought Arona.
I was watching some MMA fights last night. They were leg grabbing boredom. Guys stand around and make a good fight a bore by rolling om the floor until they get a hold on a leg .
Great thread! I’ve been wanting to start a thread on mma for awhile now, but kept putting it off.
Have you guys heard of the WEC/UFC merger? I think it’s the greatest thing to happen to the UFC in a long time. The WEC was tied with Pride in my mind as the promotion with the most exciting fights and was pulling ahead and I couldn’t understand how it got such little audience when it was basically for free. Now everybody will get to know the little guys, they’ll get paid more and José Aldo will be recognized as the most exciting fighter alive.
I just got home and finished today’s paper, and came in to ask the same, thing, vdgg. This is HUGE news here in Las Vegas. Frankly, I can’t see how it could be a bad thing. It just makes sense to consolidate all the fighters under one (very recognizable, profitable) banner, IMO.
It definitely makes sense to add the lighter weight classes to the UFC – the WEC 35 and 45 pounders are tops in the world. I just wonder what happens to the duplicate weight classes now. The WEC had kind of served as a developmental league in that respect.
If you don’t like the grappling aspect, MMA is definitely not for you. Since grappling is such an effective part of actual fighting, you’ll see a lot of it in MMA.
What’s truly ugly is taking a guy who just got nearly knocked out, counting to 8, and sending back in with the mental abilities now of a 10 year old. That’s mean. After seeing the MMA rules, I truly do not understand how someone who couldn’t stand for 8 seconds is judged to be able to get back into a punching match.
How much blood do you need? Boxing is still a sport. MMA is a hyped bar fight.
It’s possible that MMA is safer than boxing, where the pounding to the head is relentless. [1]
It is ugly. But I’ll note that participants are not permitted to pound the head to the mat: they deliver roundhouse punches for a reason.
[1] There’s an oft-quoted study that downplays the risks of MMA. It’s a decent study, but its conclusions tend to be exaggerated in the media. For example, the authors stress that their dataset is wholly based upon post-fight medical exams. IMHO, combat sports should be under stricter regulations: there should be mandatory long term health tracking. And to the extent that the tax payer will be paying the fighters’ medical bills later on, this form of entertainment should be heavily taxed.
I denounce all combat sports. I also watch them on occasion with a high level of interest.
I am a pacifist and I have trouble reconciling my interest in boxing.
Your first misunderstanding is evident in your use of the word “defenseless”. Although it may seem counterintuitive, having somebody you are fighting on top of you while on the ground is not necessarily a bad place to be if you know what you are doing. At one point in time, before wrestlers and strikers learned to defend submissions more effectively, a jiu-jitsu expert might see such a position as clearly advantageous. Even now there are some fighters who are so good at grappling from the bottom that they will purposely put themselves in such a position. And even being on the bottom for most fighters these days is seen as a temporary disadvantage rather than as the end of the fight.
Your second misunderstanding is the idea that it is somehow more dangerous to be struck on the ground as opposed to say, against the ropes of a ring. The difference is that in MMA, if the man being struck looks like he is no longer mounting an intelligent defense, the ref stops the fight. In boxing, that is much more unlikely. In fact, as a poster noted above, rather than end the fight, the losing fighter in boxing is often given a brief recovery period, which often serves only to prolong the beating.
I made no claim about a guy on the ropes. None at all. I said holding a guy down and beating him in the face when he is unable to defend himself is cruel, ugly and base. I do not see it as something i would watch . I have watched several times and it does not appeal to me. It is artless .
Well, I already noted that I disputed the “unable to defend himself” part. If a fighter is skilled enough, he can win the whole fight from that position.
I am also curious: if you want to win a fight by punching a guy in the face (MMA or boxing), why is it any more or less cruel, ugly, and base to do it by (a) punching him in the stomach so that he is unable to defend his face, or (b) outmaneuvering him in grappling so that one has openings to punch his face?
They seem to me simply different means to achieve the same end (although it should be noted that in MMA there is a fair chance that once the opponent is outmanoeuvred in grappling, there may be no need to punch him in the face at all).
Again, I think the dislike stems from an outdated notion of what a fight should look like, which is only a result of the lack of exposure to grappling arts through much of our history in this country.
Well… i consider art Diego “Nightmare” Sanchez versus Paulo Thiago it was on the card with the Lesnar cain match… that fight was everything that MMA is about. The moves… the cardio… the never give up will that both guys put out their. Fighting about boxing versus MMA is pointless… as long as the main guy in Boxing carrying the banner is that asshole Floyd Mayweather you lose… as long as those boring ass Klitcho brothers carry the heavyweight banner… you lose. They suck so bad i refuse to google them to properly spell their name. I’ve watched both fight too many times to remember… call me when you get some guys worth watching…
I am not defending the present boxers. The heavy weights have been bad for a long time. When Hearns, Hagler and Sugar Ray were fighting, boxing was great sport. There have been some great fights in lighter and middleweight classes.
Boxing managers found out they could make their fighters careers last longer and be more lucrative by picking fighters they could beat. So the last decade or so there are mismatches in championship fights. But that does not mean it will be that way forever.
Nov. 20, Paul Williams vs. Sergio Martinez rematch. Guaranteed to be a great fight.
Unification bouts, like when UFC bought Pride. These have a lot of potential, especially with UFC’s 155 division being kind of stressed right now. Time for some new blood.
It will be interesting to see how fighters like Don Cerrone do in the UFC. He’s an exciting fighter with some great striking and jiu-jitsu and with the right matchups, he could give some top quality guys problems. The thng is, I’m not sure how great he is against wrestler types, and the UFC is full of them. If Ben Henderson gives him problems, how will he handle Griffin, Edgar, Maynard, etc.?