Ultimate Fighting Championship questions

Cafe Society
1

Inspired in part by the recent UFC thread on this page, although I’ve been meaning to do this for some time.

This is a pretty awesome league. Partly because ultimate fighting is one of the extremely few sports where I can watch an entire event start to finish, and partly because everyone involved makes a genuine effort to make it entertaining and watchable. The constant transitions and reversals and the hard effort put out by both competitors nearly every second engages me like a 12 minute foul ball-a-rama or an endless clinch 'n release dance never could. Personally, I find even writing about the subject to be a blast, for which you only need visit http://home.hawaii.rr.com/dkwff/other/UFCmain.htm for proof.

As for the violence, my view is that, yes, it’s rough (and was far rougher in the early days), but no more so than any of the martial arts employed in it. Furthermore, there’s never been a single fatality or life-threatening injury in over 60 events; cf. that to the hundreds of reported deaths in boxing and a number of highly publicized career enders in football. As long as these guys are going in of their own free will and with their eyes open, I see nothing to protest.

I haven’t read much discussion on the subject, and I’ll have a bunch of questions to ask once I remember them all. Let me lead off with something that’s been bugging me for a while. I’ve read all kinds of criticism about the early matches, how the were like “bar brawls” and were painful to watch, etc. Is there really a standard for how good a match is? And if so, who decided this? Personally, I think this sport would get pretty damn boring if it were the same punches, kicks, and holds every single time. That’s the beauty of mixed martial arts; everyone tries to win the best way he knows how. And you can’t predict. I thought the way Remco pulled out his quarterfinal win was amazing, and when Howard got that unearned win, well, that was just the beauty of an event the proclaimed “There are no rules!” living up to the hype.

So what is a good fight? What should I be looking for?

(Oh yeah, side note…what the freakin’ hell is up with Ken Shamrock? He’s one of the most influential and popular mixed martial artists ever, he should be above this “long past his prime athlete doing anything to keep his career alive” crap. Can’t he just open up a Pancrase workshop or something?)

2

First of all www.sherdog.com is an indespensable resource for fight/fighter info. You might have seen a few fighters wearing Sherdog shirts in the ring, I know I have.

The early UFC bouts were brutal. I mean it. There were mismatches galore. No weight classes, “no rules” etc. I saw some guys get the living shit kicked out of them, when it could have been ended earlier.

The UFC you want, ended several years ago. It’s no longer a “you might die, gladiator fight”. Wanna know why?

Today’s MMA fighters realize a few things, strikes can end a fight if they’re well-placed and have some weight behind them. Most real fights go to the ground ( when was the last fight you saw that was just boxing?)

Thinking that “there are no rules” is just ignorant. See [url=http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=LearnUFC.Rules] The UFC rules page[/ufc].

Ken Shamrock has nothing to do with pancrase. He apparently hates training too. :wink:

I’ve seen masters of many a martial art get overwhelmed by a charging large guy. They may get a strike or two in, but after that, they’re on their back. I’ve yet to see an Aikido master in the octagon. That might have to do with the fact that Aikido is a defensive art.

Today’s fighters realize that you can either try to knock your opponent out, ground and pound them, or submit them. The typical winner uses one or two of these tactics.

3

In the “tale of the tape” what are they measuring as “reach”? You see these 5’10" guys with reaches of 6 feet or more.

4

I’ve tried watching some of those early fights, especially the Gracie domination of everyone. I’d rather watch a Matt Hughes or Chuck Liddell bout from recently. The early UFCs weren’t the competitions that the current UFC is, and I prefer the newer “real sport” MMA.

5

That would be finger tip to finger tip, arms outstretched.

I think I’m the same both ways, an even six feet…

[brag]

…and though I wrestled in high school, I’m a much better striker. Ever seen those “punch measurer doohickys” in a bar? I punch with more force than most guys wayyyyy taller, muscular, bigger, cut, etc…

Usually, (heh my record is 3-1 in brawls going back from 4th grade to 12 years ago) my left comes from nowhere for the knockout, though I’m right handed and couldn’t even really throw a baseball with it.
[/brag]

6

Spoilers Ahead!

’
And rather than start a new thread when I already bumped this one…

Did anybody see tonight’s?

I’m not gonna recap every bout, though afficianados are of course welcome to…

But holy moly that Shark vs. Ken Flo fight was impressive. I mean, Muscle Shark dominated the whole fight but was I still impressed with Ken. Soooo glad they didn’t stop it because of the nasty nasty cut that never stopped. And the full five rounds of mayhem fucking ruled. The conditioning and stamina of both of them was awesome.

The main event: Exactly what I expected… Silva is a monster.

7

Oops gonna break the triple post “rule”…

…but when do they weigh in?

Muscle Shark looked a good ten pounds over 155…

8

What’s the record for consecutive posts?

Just measured, and I’m exactly 75" tip to tip.

9

Wow, almost forgot about this thread (almost afraid to return to it for some reason). Anywise…

dnooman - I found that site a few weeks ago. Some pretty interesting discussions and overall a lot friendlier than what I expected.

You misunderstand…I never wanted any style of mixed martial arts. I never believed that nonsense about “no rules”. I know there was plenty of brutality, although IMO that was mainly due to the extremely uneven matchups (Abbott-Matua, anyone?). I know that the clueless sumotoris and clumsy kung fu-ists and one-dimensional punchers, let alone the abject bums (Matua, Van Clief, Jimmerson, Daugherty, Lucarelli, Son, etc.) are long gone, and it’s defintely for the best. What the thrill of the early days was, for me, was simply that there were two men who were completely different…different styles, different strategies, different mentalities, and in some cases different languages…competing in a serious, hard-fought competition with just a basic rule set, and I had no idea what was going to happen.

So I can’t understand what’s so unspeakably horrible about Steve Jennum’s strange road to glory, or Scott Morris’ all-or-nothing attack resulting in disaster, or Ken Shamrock never finding the nerve to conquer his nemesis. Because that’s what makes sports exciting. Douglas knocks out Tyson! Mickelson wins the Masters! Red Sox and White Sox win the World Series in consecutive seasons! No script, no free rides, no way to predict. Again, please read my writeups; I make a lot of my feelings clear.

As for the modern product…I think it’s a little overregulated and Dana White’s a little too full of himself for his own good (I really disliked the preachy speech he recently gave on The Ultimate Fighter), but on the whole, the change was a good one. Realistically, the league could either keep its no-holds-barred image but never hit it big in the mainstream and always be a target for lazy politicians, or it could go legit, thus hitting it big in the mainstream but sacrificing some fun and excitement. All things considered, they made the right choice.

brianjedi - Oh, no question…the level of competition in at least the first four tournaments was simply horrendous. I’m not taking anything away from Royce Gracie, but his greatest contribution to UFC was preventing a real embarrassment from wininng it. (Okay, Howard slipped through, but luckily he came up just short.) Incidentally, I was stunned when I found out he’d be fighting Matt Hughes in UFC 60. He had serious issues with the direction the league was headed after UFC 5, in particular how it’d was becoming less and less about “real” fighting.

I know that for everyone’s sake, the athletes had to get better and the sport had to get safer. My only problem with this is that because matches are so short now, it very often goes to decision, which is a crapshoot even with established judging criteria. For all the Bad Word Chanting at Ken Shamrock, he won legitimately. The same isn’t always the case now.

everybody - Again I ask (and I’m dead serious about this), what do you think makes a good fight? A tight matchup? A contrast in styles? Simply neither man getting badly hurt?

10

Don’t be afraid, I, for one, am glad you returned.

Heh. Call me whatever, but I was always that guy who liked to see Tyson win in 19 seconds. Tank Abbot destroying somebody in 8 seconds… etc (I was never the dude who paid $50 to see it)

Back during UFC1, I was what, 19 years old?

Was it UFC2 when Patrick Smith almost killed that “ninja”?

It was a fucking rush, and I enjoyed the adrenalin.

Now, however, you’re way correct. UFC has evolved into a true sport.
Anyway, like I said in my various “bumps”, episode 64 had it all over episode 1 and 2.

While it might be fun for sickos like me to watch somebody immediately get overwhelmed and destroyed, it’s way more fun to watch it happen for 25 minutes straight, and still have a chance to win in the last 30 seconds.

11

They did the weigh-in on Friday afternoon. There was one fight on a previous UFC where Joe Riggs had cut about 30 pounds for the weigh-in at 170. In the ring he was close to 200 pounds.