Course you can. I don’t mind, if the mods won’t mind.
I am reading Josh Waitzkin’s The Art of Learning. Apart from being a chess grandmaster he has won a world title at Tai Chi Chuan and in 2004 won all the US weight divisions from his division middleweight to heavyweight. In the book he frequently discusses fighting guys with huge weight advantages over him. He tells the story of breaking his hand while fighting in Super-Heavyweight as a tune up and beating a 230 lb guy who outweighed him by 60 lbs.
Don’t know about any kind of official fight, but in a run of the mill brawl, it pretty much depends on whoever is willing to throw out the official gentleman’s rule book and fight dirty. If you’re 6’4 and 300 pounds and you attack me, I will knee you in the nuts, jump on top of your torso, gouge your eyes, push on the pressure points on your neck, and bite your fucking nose off if I have to.
Of course, I’m not in high school anymore and if I were assaulted by a brute and there were lots of witnesses around, I’d be more likely to go limp, take the punishment, and then call my dad’s attorney - I’ll sue that asshole for everything he’s got, and I won’t have to risk any battery charges if I happen to hurt the guy too badly and the jury doesn’t come down on my side.
If I got assaulted by someone somewhere with no witnesses and no reason to hold back - there’s no such thing as dirty fighting in my book. You better be a hell of a lot stronger than me, because I am prepared to do anything and everything to you.
Sure, but if you see other fights from Choi, you’ll notice that he’s clumsy and slow. He and Bob Sapp in the ring together was a little sad. Very bad punching, and everything about 20% or so slower than you’re used to seeing.
I still don’t know how Choi lost to Fedor. If you outweigh your opponent by that much, don’t you put your other arm under him and turn him over so he can’t put his weight on your elbow? Even if I’m ignorant and that wouldn’t have worked, watch that fight again and keep count of the actual moves Choi does. It’s a very low number.
I know what you mean, Cardinal. He ain’t the most mobile of guys, is he? Do you think we can safely say a “good little 'un” will always beat an “average big 'un” then…on average?
Smaller guys also don’t have as much behind their punches either. There are a lot less knock outs in the lighter MMA divisions.
Emmanuel Yarborough had a more than 400lb weight advantage over Daiju Takase when they fought. Daiju won.
Ikuhisa The Punk Minowa (~180lbs) has beaten Giant Silva and Butterbean, both ~400lbs.
Royce Gracie (~180lbs) beat Akebono (500+lbs)
Skill matters first, and then size. BJ Penn could probably school your average journeyman heavyweight (he has actually tapped Randy Couture while sparring), but if you look in the top 10 where guys have more skill, they would overwhelm him.
I’ve heard that the best fighters in absolute terms (meaning not pound for pound) tend to be in the 225lb range. Coincidentally right about Fedor’s weight.
Not true at all. BJ Penn, Takanori Gomi, Bang Ludwig, Jens Pulver, Rob Emerson, Joe Lauzon, Melvin Guillard . . . (actually way too many to name, I could do this all day) . . . all have proven 1-punch knockout power.
Punches and the ability to take a punch seem to scale up and down at about the same rate. There’s not a division that lacks KOs, and conversely there’s not really a division that lives off of them, either.
Well, that was certainly Rickson Gracie’s contention, and the reason he started the UFC. He wanted a commercial for Gracie JJ. And he was right.
Rickson Gracie didn’t start the UFC. Rorion did. But it sounds like you’re thinking of Helio.
My father wrestled in high school and college and he has told me that weight is (no pun intended) a really large advantage in the wrestling world just based on leverage. Therefore, it takes some serious training to wrestle up in classes and dropping down is often very easy.
One of the theories on why PrideFC fighters haven’t been quite as successful as expected in the UFC is because they didn’t really cut much weight over there. There are a lot of other theories, too. I posted about them here.
That being said, there are a lot of successful fighters who are small for their weight classes. Cro Cop, Fedor, and Nogueira are all small heavyweights. BJ Penn is small at every class except lightweight. Diego Sanchez is a small welterweight. Lyoto Machida and Wanderlei Silva are small light heavyweights. Cung Le is a small middleweight. These are all top 10 fighters.
I notice PRIDE has only 12 foul restrictions, compared to UFC’s 31, and wondered if the increased amount of discipline required by UFC fighters might make it more difficult for PRIDE fighters to cross over ?
This is what I’d tend to think also. At a certain point, you reach a diminishing return with increased height and/or weight. Of course, what’s best for BJJ is different for UFC is different for Judo, etc, but I’d suspect that there is an optimum zone for each discipline for fighting effectiveness beyond which greater height/weight starts becoming a liability.
If you watched UFC 86 (? The one last Saturday) you would have noticed the not really skilled Brock Lesner fighting that Crazy Horse dude. Though Lesner looked much, much larger, he only outweighed him by 30 or so pounds. Needless to say, when you throw around your weight like Brock did, you can see how size can be such a huge advantage.
I saw the GPS vs Fitch fight, and that was a belter. That Fitch was certainly a tough nut to crack! Brock is certainly an impressive specimen, and I’m sure he’s still learning after just 3 MMA contests, but I’d still back Fedor against him.
D1 NCAA Wrestling Champion
2-time All-American
Not sure how you get not really skilled from that.
Herring was just the perfect matchup for Brock . . . not a technical fighter, not known for submissions or devastating striking. A brawler, basically.
And Brock cuts weight to make the 265lb limit. He’s more like 285-300. And every ounce he has on Heath plus a lot more is muscle.
I weighed 185 lbs in college, and was a -decent- boxer in high school (at 160). I fought a multiple blackbelt a few times in friendly matches in what could be described as MMA boughts (we had no rules, although friendship ruled out eye gouges and groin kicks).
Weight and reach proved a huge advantage. I don’t imagine that any amount of skill can overcome weight when the heavier opponent knows at least the basics of self defense.
Just for fun, here’s a video of Royce Gracie defeating the 306-pound-heavier and 7-inches-taller Akebono in 2004.
Just teaching the age old truth that guy guys need to keep their distance. Twice, Akebono tried to pin him?