Ultimate Fighting: Where's Jackie Chan?

Factual Questions
1

…or the Jackie Chan wannabe?

I’ve seen these ultimate fighting things on TV. Spike is good for a couple of these a week, it seems.

OK, fine - as a sport - it looks nastier than boxing. But where the heck are the martial arts? I see the occaisional head kick or knee to the calf but where’s the jumping in the air, fantastic leaps & punches, breaking of boards, & shouting of “Hai!”?

Is it possible that martial arts is not the offensive practice that we’ve all been taught by countless Kung Fu movies or is this type of fighting somehow prevented from entering [echo] the octogon [/echo]?

2

Yeah, “real” martial arts isn’t what is shown in the movies. For one thing, if Jackie Chan drank a huge decanter of rice wine like he did in Drunken Master, his fighting skills would not improve. He’d probably go into an alcohol induced coma.

When you watch those fighting contests, you’re seeing martial arts. When you’re watching movies, you’re watching actors stage fight.

3

First off, you’re 100% right that movie martial arts are exactly that: movies. Flashy sooper-flying dragon kicks that look great on film tend to not be practical for real life self defense. You don’t see much of that in the ring or in the street, because very few martial artists actually fight that way.

As to where the martial arts are, they’re right there in front of you, or at least sport versions of them are, Boxing included; Boxing is every bit as much of a martial art (or martial sport, if you prefer) as, say, Judo. The style of fighting used in the UFC is what’s known as “mixed martial arts,” which generally employs kicks from International Rules Kickboxing, Muay Thai, Tae Kwon Do, and other kicking arts; the hand strikes and elbow stikes mostly come from modified western boxing and Muay Thai. The takedowns and ground submission techniques are largely from western Wrestling, Judo, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

A good number of MMA fighters hold belts or ranks in various schools of martial arts; Chuck Liddell fights for John Hackleman’s “the Pit” school of Hawaiian Kempo, which is Hackleman’s school of Kajukenbo under Grandmaster Walter Godin. Erik Paulson is associated with Dan Inosanto’s Jeet Kune Do Concepts.

4

In the early days of the UFC, before anyone knew what a winning style would look like, there were plenty of Karate guys entering. They’d announce so-and-so, a sixth degree blackbelt in Shotokan karate. He’d come out and get into a Karate stance, prepared to kick and punch the other guy silly.

And he’d get slaughtered.

So people learned. Karate does not work well in an enclosed ring situation with no rules against a 250lb opponent who knows how to grapple. It just doesn’t. You have time to get in maybe one kick and one punch before you’ve got 250lbs of slobbering crazy man slamming into you, headbutting you, and manhandling you to the ground. And once on the ground, all those karate skills are completely useless.

Since then, a few high ranking Karate black belts have done okay, but not because they used Karate. They adapted, learned how to grapple or use other techniques.

There is a lesson here for streetfighters, too. Don’t think that you’re going to go get a black belt in Tae Kwan Doe and become a human killing machine. If you get in a street fight against someone who’s a good street fighter and who’s meaner than you are, you WILL lose, unless you get very lucky.

There’s also a lesson about grappling, though. It works great in the UFC, but on the street, I’m not sure. Because it requires you to immobilize yourself along with your opponent, and that’s a good time for his buddies to start kicking you in the head. I’ve seen it happen.

Karate is useful against an untrained attacker, and it’s especially useful in a surprise situation where your Karate-trained reflexes and your comfort level with hitting and being hit prevent you from turning into a gibbering idiot at the first application of violence. But it’s not the guaranteed fight-winner most people think it is.

5

I couldn’t agree with this more. I think the thing that seperates good fighters from bad fighters is not how hard they hit or how fast they are, it’s how they handle being hit. If you get popped in the face and start blubbering like an idiot or crying (which happens alot) you are going to get hit again, and again, and again. This is one of those things that very few “martial arts” outside of boxing teach you even in the amatuer stages.

You take the most badass fighter in the world and put him in the ring and if he can’t take a few shots to the face without losing his bearing he’s toast.

6

You probably want to check out K1 and Pride for the international mixed martial arts series.

7

As others have noted, the karate guys are there but left what doesn’t work back at the dojo.

You can see this illustrated personally if you first learn non-contact karate and then try full contact karate. Big difference. You rapidly learn not to take your eye off of your opponent and forget about getting your legs very far in the air. You learn to take your time and wait for your opponent to try out that sexy spinning back kick that he saw on some Texas Rangers TV show (taking his eyes off of you AND getting his legs up high - it just does not get any better than that!) Then it’s simple - grab a foot and look for a sensitive target to kick. That, on the other hand, works very well.

Pain is a great teacher.

8

Basically, Sam Stone nailed it.

Early UFC MMA fights had some really rough lop-sided fights. A few karate, tae-kwon-do, kenpo guys did ok, but alot of them got pounded buy a guy that just overwhelmed them with punches to the face.

The best way to win an MMA fight these days, is to land so many punches in a row, that the ref calls the fight (usually the guy is ko’d after a good salvo of punches).

One can get a submission via a choke, which is easy if the opponent does not guard themselves well. Consequently, any fighter in a chokable position is highly aware that they are in danger of said choke. Same goes for joint locks (arm bars, ankle locks, kimuras, omaplatas (sp?)). They are effective, but good fighters know when they are vulnerable to them.

I was a purple belt in Kempo (yes with an m) and decided that I didn’t want to have to beat the shit out of someone to survive. Punching and kicking is only usefull if you can deliver heavy blows.

I tried Aikido, and loved it. My Sensei had MS, couldn’t walk without crutches, and could kick anyone’s ass you could think of. There were limitations though. Aikido is a very effective martial art if one is engaged in a stand up fight. It is all defensive, and ultimately immobilizes you opponent via joint locks, center of gravity manipulation, and momentum reversal. It is not usefull if you have a guy sitting on your chest that is punching the shit out of you though.

After weeding out the impractical martial arts, the only real elements that remain effective are those of boxing, muy thai, Brazilian ju-jitsu, and Greco-roman wrestling. The vast majority of MMA fighters win using an element of one of the aforementioned styles these days.

If Jackie Chan (or even Bruce Lee for that matter) fought like they do in movies (meaning various annoying strikes that do little real damage) they would get the shit kicked out of them. A more muscular fighter would absorb a few blows, take them to the ground, and either submit them or pound them untill stoppage.

As Cerowyn said, Pride is a bit more respected internationally as opposed to UFC. They do have one of the best MMA fighters in the world too Fedor Emelianenko. He hurts people.

9

I remember one of the announcers in one of the early UFC matches (like IV or V) asking “How would Bruce Lee have fared?” The other announcer, a martial artist himself (whose name I do not remember, but he looked like wrestler Ricky Steamboat), said, “Probably not too good. Lee’s favorite weapon was the finger to the eye, and that’s illegal here.” :eek:

10

Don “The Dragon” Wilson

11

I thought that was Moe’s favorite weapon.

12

I don’t know a thing about ultimate fighting, but are fighters allowed to gouge eyes, break knees, punch throats, etc?

What is NOT permitted?

13

UFC Rules.

These have changed over the years, much more restrictive than they were in the beginning. I remember one fight where a guy was submitted by multiple fist punches to the groin. Can’t do that anymore.

14

Personally, I’d like to see them drop in a hockey player; a real goon that racks up 250+ penalty minutes a season. He’d just whale on his opponent, with no linesman to break it up. He wouldn’t know how to kick, though.

15

Has there been any Krav Maga practitioners in these competitions?

16

Let’s also note that a well-known name fighting in the UFC might earn a few hundred thousand for a fight (I read that Randy Couture got $250k for his third fight against Chuck Liddell) and the bulk of the fighters are under contract (so they earn five or six figures a year total), while Jackie Chan makes many millions of dollars for one movie. There’s no big financial incentive for him to step in the ring.

Hit your local video store and look for some of the earlier UFCs (at least UFC1 and UFC2) to see what DNOOMAN is talking about. Many of the profiled fighters look like they might be incredible in their local dojo and their form is impeccable, but they simply aren’t used to getting attacked at full speed by an opponent who really wants to hurt them; as soon as the first punch lands all the special stances and whatnot go right out the window. By and large the people who did best in those early events were all used to training and fighting full-contact; Gracie, the judo players, competition kickboxers, Greco-Roman wrestlers, Ken Shamrock, etc.

17

I second this. As a Taekwondo instructor, I could not agree more.

A well rounded martial artist of today will have superior expertise in one style and a good working knowledge in one or more other styles. I liken this to college: you’ve got a major and you take electives to support that major. In my own case, my major is Taekwondo, but I have electives in Pressure Point Control Tactics, Joint Locks and Groundfighting, as well as various impact weapons.

You won’t see jump spin hook kicks and the like because they are not practical. We teach them in training because they serve to help the student gain control and mastery of the mind and body. But the practicality of them? Well, let me ask this question: What kind of hand wins more often in poker, two pair or a royal flush? The answer, of course, is two pair because there are far more opportunities for it to occur.

It’s the same in combat. There are far more opportunites for me to use a plain vanilla sidekick to keep my opponent off of me than there are for me to take the time, jump up, spin around and hook kick him in the head. For me to do the latter, I would have to have set him up and stunned him beforehand. The odds just are not with me.

18

A Slate author wrote a funny article about what would happen if various movie tough guys (including Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan) got in the ring at UFC. It ends thusly:

19

Well, that’s all my best moves ruled out for a start! Ultimate? I got into fights at school that were dirtier than that. :stuck_out_tongue:

20

In one of the early UFCs (like under 10), there was one dude straight from the Israeli army. His training film looked incredible. I was like, “Man, I’ve never heard of that style before, but it looks fierce.” Then, he got his ass handed to him. Krav Maga teaches you how to get hit, too. What it doesn’t teach is how to grapple, and from what I learned from my Israeli friends, its really teaches you how to b/c an effective fighter from not knowing anything at all. From what I’ve seen, personally, it’s all attacking and not much defense. The attacking is organized and calculated and will be the difference b/t someone who knows what they’re doing and someone who is in a mad bull rush.