Heh. One of the Shotokan instructers I had actualy emphasized fighting a bit closer to the nasty street stuff, actually. He even brought in a special grappling instructor for a scouple sessions. Sure, we practiced some kicks, but never for serious combat. That’s why I liked Karate. I figured it would teach me how to kick someone in the crotch real good if I ever needed to do so badly. 
The most effective weapons in the UFC are no bigger than your hand:
Steroids and Human Growth Hormone.
Go learn all the Muay Thai and Bikini Bottom Modified Street Fighting you’d like. If you run into a 'roided up beast, kiss your ass goodbye.
Cite that any of the successful UFC fighters are using either steroids or HGH? Cite that there is any widespread use of either of these substances among any UFC fighters, successful or otherwise?
Note, however, that Abbott’s record isn’t all that good (9-11-0). He’s vicious, sure, but he needs to win in under a minute. After that, the man can hardly breathe, let alone stand up. Avoid him, weather some punches, and he’s yours.
Granted, I couldn’t do it. But he’s far from unbeatable, and Bruce Lee would mop the floor with him.
In general: my take on this is that many martial arts are very incestuous. that is, training in Tae Kwan Do teaches you how to defeat other practioners of Tae Kwan Do. When you have a pretty good expectation what the other person is trained for, and the rules are clearly laid out, it’s effective within than framwork. The further outside that you go, the less relevance it has.
Keep in mind, unlike the vast majority of Martial Arts guys these days, Bruce was very open to the idea of MMA.
And he is purported to have spent a lot of his time in Hong Kong beating the crap out of guys how wanted to fight him to prove how tough they were.
So I think that Bruce Lee would have done ok. Not great, in that size matters, but good for his size.
Jackie Chan, Steven Segal, van Dame, and the rest of those guys would probably get their heads pulled off.
The other thing to consider is that training for “Two men enter, one man leaves” gladiatorial combat is also pretty much useless in the real world. In the real world you’re not going to have fairly evenly matched fighters and the top of their game going toe to toe, one on one. If you’re doing a lot of fighting in the real world a better idea would be to have some buddies along to back you up, or get yourself a gun and learn how to use it, and avoid getting into fights in bars in the first place.
I would imagine most real world fights are over when the first really solid blow lands. And the most effective way to land that first blow is by surprise, from behind.
So your liked to rip out the trachea of your apponent whilst biting through their spine too:). Most of the rules make sense from an avoid permanent damage perspective. But why no hair pulling, pinching, or twisting flesh rules? Are they affraid a girl might get in the ring and win? 
I’d also be interested in the reason why striking downward with the point of the elbow is not allowed. I am not aware of why that is a particularly dangerous move.
Something incongruous about seeing the word “whilst” mixed in with ripped-out tracheas and tooth-severed spines.
Downward elbow strikes cause cuts to occur at a much higher rate than other strikes. No one wants to watch a fight that has to stop because a fighter can’t see because of blood pouring into their eyes.
Strength alone, even the kind of strength one gains from steroid use, isn’t going to make Clark Kent into a killing machine. Untrained fighters who get in the ring with attitude that “bigger muscles automatically means better fighter” get destroyed.
You can take enough steroids to power the whole 1976 East German women’s swim team, but unless you train to learn how to effectively transfer your newfound strength into your punches and kicks and develop the muscular and aerobic stamina to last more for more than thirty seconds of wild swings, you’re like a car with a 500 horsepower engine, 1/8th tank of gas, and no transmission. You’re going to get slaughtered by a 125 pound featherweight boxer from Tiajuana or a 122 pound super bantamweight muay Thai fighter from Bangkok, and being in a true Thaiboxer’s clinch is a withering, sickening experience.
Elbows generate a lot of force in a tight space and have a tendancy to cut; many organizations disallow elbow strikes altogether. Downward elbow stikes are especially dangerous, both offensively and defensively. Defensively, a downward elbow stirke is likely to be used when the opponent is shooting in for a takedown, and has a tendancy to end up striking either the back of the head or the spine. An offensive downward elbow strike can allow the striker to put almost his entire bodyweight on the point of his elbow and can be a crippling blow.
IIRC, Bruce Lee (and young Chuck Norris) was probably one of the few men in the world who really could kick you in the head in a real fight and get away with it. Those two were astoundingly fast with their feet. That one kick wouldn’t do you in, but it would set you up for a nasty second shot.
No one else try that unless you have a death wish. It won’t turn out well.
Big fan of MMA. Pride to be exact. Can’t seem to get into UFC for some reason.
Just find it facinating how the sport continues to evolve.
You have a guy like Yoshida (who choked out Abbott by the way) who still fights in a gi. Common sense dictates that you don’t fight in a gi, because it makes it easier for your opponent to choke you out. Not only does he manage to not get choked, but he uses it to get choke holds.
You have Mirko Filipovic who used to knock people out with high head kicks. Again common sense dictates that you don’t attempt these moves becaue they leave you too vulnerable.
Doesn’t he still do this? All that I’ve seen of Pride is what Fox Sports shows every once in a while, but every time they’ve had a Filipovic fight it seems like he’s finished it with the high head kick.
This is why you don’t see it, mostly.
Also, I don’t know one way or the other about steroid use, but I would imagine there’s only so much advantage sheer bulk will get you.
Also bear in mind that Bruce Lee began his career as a martial artist and eventually became a film star (and pop legend). Jackie Chan began his career as an actor/acrobat in Chinese theater. In his films one of his main “schticks” is avoiding being hit in creative ways. He actually doesn’t dole out that much damage, at least at first.
I wonder how a military-trained person would fair in UFC. I wonder how they would fair in a bar fight, assuming it didn’t start with someone smashing them in the back of the head with a fire extinguisher. I know that they are trained to be highly aggressive and to kill their opponent rather than defend themselves. I was reading something by someone in the SAS who said that one concern was that if an operator looked too professional, the players would know he was not some local on the piss. The instructor recommended, IIRC, “a good old scrap with ears torn and noses bitten off.”
For that matter, I always wondered how I would fair in a bar fight. I worked as a bouncer for two and a half years without getting into anything really physical. I used to study Tae Kwon Do, but I am out of shape and out of practice. The things that saved my ass were my size, my title (people think that bouncers can fight or they would be bouncers) and the fact that it wasn’t a rough place anyway.
From what I can read of the linked rules, avoiding him would be a foul, namely “timidity”. Which makes no sense at all to me; in any real fight you can be damned certain that any decent fighter would be attempting to avoid contact with the opponent, except on one’s own terms. And it’s not like “timidity” makes the sport more dangerous, as would, say, eye gouges.
As for genuine fighting, as opposed to any sort of sport, not only will there be surprise attacks, sucker punches, and double-teaming, there’s also very likely to be weapons, ranging from the bar stools, empty bottles, and other improvised clubs, to knives, to submachine guns. And while there are fighting styles both for using and opposing such techniques more effectively, they’re very different, in general, from the techniques used by unarmed humans 1 on 1. Put scrawny, nerdy me in a fight with “Tank” Abbot, and I’ll win, if I’m in a tank.
Apparently he’s been working really hard on his submissions, and it looks like it’s changed his focus.
In the last few fights he seems to no longer be looking to knock people out with that high kick.
As far as Bruce Lee, isn’t the legend that he was formally challenged by Chinese masters to a fight to stop teaching non-Chinese students. He took the fight, but was discouraged at how long the fight took and how exhausted it left him, which led him to re-evaluate kung fu as an effective fighting system. Which led to him creating Jeet Kune Do. Sounds like the MMA philosophy.
This got me thinking about a clip from an early UFC that’s pretty much exactly what you describe, wrestler Dave Benetau versus wing chun stylist Asbel Cancio. Cancio stood with his arm extended with his weight on his back foot waiting to catch a punch from Benetau and Benetau just charged him like a rhino, took him to the ground, and beat him viciously. Cancio was expecting to to do a chi sao trapping drill with him and trade blows standing up and just wasn’t expecting the ferocity of Benetau’s takedown.
I don’t give that as an example of how wing chun is a useless art or how trapping is worthless: it isn’t, and it isn’t. I think trapping can be effective, but its effectiveness appears to drop as the striking skill level of your opponent rises. By the time you’re fighting professionally, that level is pretty high. So I guess the moral is don’t expect the other guy to fight by your gameplan, learn how to take a punch, and either learn some grappling or some takedown defense.
Cro Cop hasn’t knocked someone out with a high kick in his last seven fights.
He really is trying to expand his game beyond striking. His sprawl has improved immensely from his first few fights and he’s no longer petrified about being on the ground. Training with Fabricio Werdum really has helped him out.