The Official MMA Discussion Thread

[damonster]

No. Do the amateur controls present a disadvantage in any way?

 

You can't cancel your move, easier to be countered.

[bigtplaystew]

You can't cancel your move, easier to be countered.

 

Dayum. OK so there is a reason for it.

[brashleyholland]

what I don't understand is why do some many people hate Jones?

 

The 'go win some fans' thing certainly did him no favours. Not that that was his fault. It's a pretty common thing to hear in the MMA biz that the whole Jackson/Winklejohn/Jones 'stopping a robber' thing was actually a PR stunt too.

 

Let's not be naive either - He's a young, rich, successful, well-spoken, upwardly-mobile black guy. There's a big chunk of TapouT wearing, white trash Neanderthal UFC fans who don't take kindly to that. Infact, I've seen market research that suggests that image-wise, young, black UFC fans find it harder to relate to Jones than they do to guys like Rampage and Rashad Evans. That research was done a while ago mind - it's entirely possible that it was simply a familiarity thing at the time.

 

I don't think it's a big deal personally. It happens with absolutely everyone who goes on a big streak. GSP was THE MAN up until his last 4/5 fights. Nobody had mentioned the words 'GSP' and 'boring' in the same paragraph. Now look at him.

 

Same with Anderson Silva when he had what, 2/3 crap fights out of a career filled with some of the sport's most highlight reel worthy performances? Liddell had it when he was mowing through the 205 division..."Pride guys would beat him!" Fedor has had it his entire career up until he lost. Manchester United get it. Floyd Mayweather gets it.

 

They're victims of their own success. What will determine Jones' legacy is whether or not he believes the hype. GSP didn't, and is still on top. The sport is teeming with guys that did, and paid for it.

[ampulator]

They're victims of their own success. What will determine Jones' legacy is whether or not he believes the hype. GSP didn't, and is still on top. The sport is teeming with guys that did, and paid for it.

 

This is true. But this is so strong and applicable to many things in life, I think it should be like this:

 

They're victims of their own success. What determines legacies is whether or not believing the hype. Guys that did, paid for it.

[CoutureLegend]

I think it was a case of Hendricks saying he wasn't correctly preparing for Story. And Story himself was outwrestled by Brenneman, who Story said wasn't prepared for because he was preparing for another guy (Brenneman was a replacement).

 

But I necessarily disagree about Rashad's MMA wrestling, but I disagree on your assessment on Davis's MMA wrestling-we won't know yet, until happens

 

Hendricks also outwrestled Brenneman when they fought a year or so ago. My point is that an outstanding college wrestler won't necessarily be of the same level in MMA. If i asked you to name 5 fighters in the UFC with better collegiate credentials than Koscheck, you would struggle to name 3 let alone 5, yet he was outwrestled by St. Pierre, who has no wrestling credentials at all. I used to find it crazy when people used to talk about how great Brock's wrestling is. I mean there's no doubt Lesnar was an outstanding college wrestler... 10 years ago! He would get soundly outwrestled by someone like Ryan Flores or Zach Rey.

 

I agree that Rashad is the biggest test for Davis in terms of wrestling but again Ryan Bader was able to deal with Lil' Nog easier in terms of wrestling than Davis did. For the record, i'm not slating Davis' wrestling at all, i think he's very good but i don't see any evidence to suggest he's much better than Rashad.

[Blackman]

I agree. It's a different thing entirely. It will assist you if you make the correct transition, otherwise it won't do you much good. Jones (if he is indeed a wrestler, I forgot) adapted and does not portray himself like that at all. Nor should he.

[ampulator]

Hendricks also outwrestled Brenneman when they fought a year or so ago. My point is that an outstanding college wrestler won't necessarily be of the same level in MMA. If i asked you to name 5 fighters in the UFC with better collegiate credentials than Koscheck, you would struggle to name 3 let alone 5, yet he was outwrestled by St. Pierre, who has no wrestling credentials at all. I used to find it crazy when people used to talk about how great Brock's wrestling is. I mean there's no doubt Lesnar was an outstanding college wrestler... 10 years ago! He would get soundly outwrestled by someone like Ryan Flores or Zach Rey.

 

I agree that Rashad is the biggest test for Davis in terms of wrestling but again Ryan Bader was able to deal with Lil' Nog easier in terms of wrestling than Davis did. For the record, i'm not slating Davis' wrestling at all, i think he's very good but i don't see any evidence to suggest he's much better than Rashad.

You know, there has been rumblings that Brock Lesnar wasn't a particularly technical wrestler to begin with during his days of wrestling (the real kind). Some people would complain that his technique wasn't where it was supposed to be, and that imply that he was mostly his natural abilities, not his skills or training, that got him to where he was.

 

I was extremely skeptical about that, but looking back, I think Kurt Angle schooled him several times in private sessions, and his single leg on Overeem was just bad. Very bad.

 

Now, I'm no Brock hater. But maybe MMA exposed his incompleteness, even in his wrestling.

[Daffanka]

The Undisputed demo feels real, real bad to me. Seems like they mucked with the ground game and made it even worse, and the improved striking is useless because hooks are just as fast as straight punches so you're best off doing Wanderlei rock ape flurries.

[bigtplaystew]

Amp I see your point. I mean if Kurt Angle did "school" him... the guy's an olympian so that wouldn't shock me. But Brock WAS just a freak athlete. He wasn't technically superior to anyone in MMA but he was dynamic and able to do things other people weren't, so he succeeded for a little while.

 

Brock lost to 3 excellent fighters, three fighters who were champions and were all extremely well respect fighters. I don't think he has anything to be ashamed about. Brock might have "Gotten by" on natural gifts, he picked up MMA quickly and did work really hard. I'm telling you with my experience in healthcare the fact that he got a foot of his colon out and a year later was fighting in a UFC octagon is no small task.

[brashleyholland]

The Undisputed demo feels real, real bad to me. Seems like they mucked with the ground game and made it even worse, and the improved striking is useless because hooks are just as fast as straight punches so you're best off doing Wanderlei rock ape flurries.

 

It's got a bit of a learning curve on it, the striking. At the media day last week folks played pretty much solidly for a good nine hours, and you definitely pick up little tricks with the striking. By the end of the day we had guys barely blocking at all, using quick strikes to counter power shots.

 

Quick strikes also allow you to set up your own combo's easier. Second, third and fourth shots have a better chance of landing if the previous strike is a quick strike, so you can get you switching between quick and power shots to chain up some massive combos.

 

Not played the demo yet, but I hear you can only play one round? If so, that's deff not enough to appreciate the long game.

 

What didn't you like about the ground game?

[Daffanka]

It might've been because I played against the AI but it felt like the transitions were very unresponsive and it was impossible - even more so than last year - to keep anyone on the ground for any appreciable amount of time. I was still stood up from mount and half guard, posturing up was pointless because I got off at most one strike before I was kicked off, dominant positions were all but useless since it seemed like everyone had the side control bottom > takedown transition, or could get back to full guard without much trouble if I tried to open up with strikes, and Anderson could even sweep from mounted to full guard top which is absurd.

 

Again, against the AI it felt like the ground game was more unresponsive and even less meaningful than last year. It's unbelievable that standups from mount are still in the game.

[damonster]

My head says Evans, heart says Davis. Well I am known to pick the underdog and them preforming well, Hominick vs. Aldo, Edgar vs. Penn I.

 

As for UFC Undisputed 3, absolutely love it, the combos feel so natural, jab then leg kick, man can't wait to get the full game.

[Bigpapa42]

Regarding the previous page talk of Lesnar's wrestling background... A buddy of mine is pretty into amateur wrestling. His assessment was that Angle was really good all around, strong technique, no real weaknesses. Brock was a big powerful athlete without great technique. He was successful in college, obviously, but its not as if he was unbeatable. He was apparently not considered a lock to be highly successful if he had continued on as a wrestler. Angle was about as successful in college and continued to find success at the highest levels of the sport.

 

Basically Brock was a good college collegiate wrestler. But those aren't that rare. He wasn'at a truly epic wrestler, despite his athletic gifts.

 

Guys like Cae Sanderson have truly epic college records in wrestling. And not even getting to guys like Karelin and Satiev on the international scene.

[bigtplaystew]

In college, Lesnar was 106-5, was an all american 4 years (two NCJAA two NCAA), won two conference championships and one national championship.

 

"Epic"? I dunno. But there is an extremely short list of guys with more decorations from his college years as a wrestler. Kurt Angle is one of them. I'm sure if you dug it up you could come up with names, but I can't off the top of my head. Lesnar EASILY could have continued on and tried out for the olympics. Most "in the know" at the time thought he had a ton of potential. However, WWE offered him a buttload of money (I believe at the time he was the highest paid developmental worker in the company's history) and he took that instead.

 

Make no mistake, Lesnar is a gifted wrestler. Was his MMA wrestling the greatest? Hard to say. When he was on fire no one was stopping his takedowns. I mean Cain did, but Cain's another gifted wrestler. And Cain hit him harder than he'd ever been hit. That fight was no where near long enough to determine one way or the other who was the better overall wrestler. Anyone who'se actually grappled knows it's easier to stop a takedown when you know it's coming than it is to get one.

 

And did he look bad against Reem? Yep. But again, Reem took alot of fight out of him really quickly with those heavy shots. I'm not making excuses for the man, but you must remember he'd been out for a year after getting A FOOT of his colon removed. That's a seriously significant surgery. Going up against a top-class heavyweight in Reem, a guy who honestly doesn't get enough credit in the MMA grappling department, is nothing to scoff at.

[bigtplaystew]

My point is Lesnar the college wrestler WAS a beast. Lesnar the MMA wrestler was pretty tough for awhile. Lesnar the complete mixed martial artist... maybe never really was there. But he was a great athlete and maybe the last of his kind: a guy who was fairly two-dimensional that was so good at what he did that he found success.

 

Modern MMA fighters are so complete and so well-rounded. Lesnar was a bit of a throwback in that regard. Never will he be "the best" but he was definitely something special and a man who helped rise the general awareness level of UFC and probably MMA in general.

[ampulator]

Some accuse, I'm not decided on this, Brock Lesnar of mostly using his natural abilities to be a wrestler, rather than any actual wrestling technique.

 

This is very hard to prove and tease out. It's sort of what comes first: technique or athletic ability? Lesnar clearly has the latter. There's no doubt about it. But Brock, at the very least, has SOME wrestling technique. Otherwise, he would have been schooled early into his MMA career. But his single leg was very half-arsed. I think it was mostly because of coming back from surgery, and his pre-fight mindset about quitting MMA if he lost that fight. But it does beg the question, other than his explosive and devastating double, how much else does he have?

 

The thing I dislike about Brock is, whether he runs into trouble, his instinct is to bypass. It's not that he lacks heart, but things don't seem to come hard for him, most of the time. He had a good if short career in the WWE. He had a dominating career in his early wrestling days. When he's winning in fights, he DOMINATES. But ran into trouble with his football career, so he left and went to Japan to pro-wrestle for a while. When he gets hit, he backs off. It's as if he had not been trained to face much adversity. It's a shame, because if he was used to being dominated, at least once in a while, he might be still be in MMA.

[brashleyholland]

Some accuse, I'm not decided on this, Brock Lesnar of mostly using his natural abilities to be a wrestler, rather than any actual wrestling technique.

 

 

Some people are idiots. Brock was one of the best HW wrestlers of his generation and him being on the US Olympic squad was all but a formality.

[Bigpapa42]

In college, Lesnar was 106-5, was an all american 4 years (two NCJAA two NCAA), won two conference championships and one national championship.

 

"Epic"? I dunno. But there is an extremely short list of guys with more decorations from his college years as a wrestler. Kurt Angle is one of them. I'm sure if you dug it up you could come up with names, but I can't off the top of my head. Lesnar EASILY could have continued on and tried out for the olympics. Most "in the know" at the time thought he had a ton of potential. However, WWE offered him a buttload of money (I believe at the time he was the highest paid developmental worker in the company's history) and he took that instead..

 

Cael Sanderson.

Pat Smith.

Ben Askren.

Cole Konrad.

Johnny Hendricks.

Chris Pendleton.

Phil Davis.

Kerry McCoy.

Mark Munoz.

Stephen Neal.

Jake Roscholt.

Jordan Burroughs.

Les Gutches.

Steve Mocco.

John Smith.

TJ Jaworsky.

 

That's without doing much research and not going as far back as guys like Danny Hodge and Dan Gable. I'm not claiming that Lesnar's accomplishments - strong won-less record, national chamionship, All American honors - are easy or small. But they really aren't particularly standout. There are mulitple guys in MMA who have stronger collegiate credentials than Lesnar, including mulitiple national championship titles to their name. Consider that someone like Cael Sanderson never went 159-0 and won 4 National titles - that's epic. What Angle and Lesnar accomplished is pretty good but again, it doesn't really stand out from a crowd of other who also accomplished pretty good in a twenty or thirty year period right around them.

 

I just feel like there is this perception amongst some MMA fans that Lesnar was a true all-time great collegiate wrestler who massively dominated and that really isn't accurate.

[bigtplaystew]

Amp, like I said I saw where your point was. I understood what you said. I was simply trying to emphasize that if anyone was getting the idea that his college career was anything but excellent they'd have it wrong. I'm not the foremost expert in NCAA wrestling but I do follow it casually and I can assure you, the man was extremely dominant.

[bigtplaystew]

Cael Sanderson.

Pat Smith.

Ben Askren.

Cole Konrad.

Johnny Hendricks.

Chris Pendleton.

Phil Davis.

Kerry McCoy.

Mark Munoz.

Stephen Neal.

Jake Roscholt.

Jordan Burroughs.

Les Gutches.

Steve Mocco.

John Smith.

TJ Jaworsky.

 

That's without doing much research and not going as far back as guys like Danny Hodge and Dan Gable. I'm not claiming that Lesnar's accomplishments - strong won-less record, national chamionship, All American honors - are easy or small. But they really aren't particularly standout. There are mulitple guys in MMA who have stronger collegiate credentials than Lesnar, including mulitiple national championship titles to their name. Consider that someone like Cael Sanderson never went 159-0 and won 4 National titles - that's epic. What Angle and Lesnar accomplished is pretty good but again, it doesn't really stand out from a crowd of other who also accomplished pretty good in a twenty or thirty year period right around them.

 

I just feel like there is this perception amongst some MMA fans that Lesnar was a true all-time great collegiate wrestler who massively dominated and that really isn't accurate.

 

I never said he's the "only guy with these credentials" or anything crazy like that. I said it'd be a short list. And this, my friend, is a short list. When you take heavyweights into account, it's even shorter.

 

Brock was pretty awesome in college. I never said "Greatest wrestler ever ZOMG". But he was good. And he was a damn good MMA wrestler.

[Bigpapa42]

I never said he's the "only guy with these credentials" or anything crazy like that. I said it'd be a short list. And this, my friend, is a short list. When you take heavyweights into account, it's even shorter.

 

Brock was pretty awesome in college. I never said "Greatest wrestler ever ZOMG". But he was good. And he was a damn good MMA wrestler.

 

That's 17 names from about 10 minutes of quick research. And I forgot guys like King Mo and Daniel Cormier. Brock Was definitely good. Even really good. One of the better HWs of that period. Don't think I'd go as far as Brashley as I don't think he's an auto-pick for the Olympics over guys like Kerry McCoy, Daniel Cormier, or Rulon Gardener. He may have made it if he went that route but if someone like Sanderson isn't an auto-pick, Lesnar definitely wasn't.

[brashleyholland]

Rulon Gardener.

 

True fact: Rulon Gardener is invincible and cannot be killed.

[bigtplaystew]

I'm not trying to argue semantics. Brock was good. Everything else I said is self explanatory and refuse to reiterate points that sit well on their own.

 

I am saying Brock's wrestling was good. That a fair assessment. If anyone had the idea of Brock "getting by" on athletics alone, I would say they were also at least a little off. He did enough to earn a bit more recognition than the phrase "get by" insinuates.

[brashleyholland]

Just realised I didn't actually give the answers to all of these!

 

Tito Ortiz wasn't paid by the UFC for two of his fights with the promotion. Why?

 

Someone got this, he was still enrolled in the NCAA programme so he could not accept $ to play sports.

 

 

Mark Coleman's Pride 2000 GP win is forever tainted due to the towel being thrown in his semi-final fight with Kazuyuki Fujita before a single blow was landed. Had Pride not pulled this little trick, who would Coleman have fought in the semi's?

 

Wanderlei Silva, who had won the reserve bout for the tourney against my old pal Bob Schirjber.

 

What was the outcome when the two unofficially fought years later?

 

Coleman ended up stood on his neck, after Phil Baroni double-legged Wandy during the infamous Hammer House vs Chute Box brawl.

 

Name two UFC fights claimed to be fixed by an official (ref or judge) who was involved in the fight?

 

Frye vs Hall, and Taktarov vs Macias were both named in Big John's biography as fights he was sure were fixed.

 

Royce Gracie's legendary bout with Sakuraba should never have happened. Why?

 

Because Sakuraba didn't technically beat Guy Mezger to advance to the Pride GP Finals. The pair fought a close, 15-min bout, but Mezger clearly edged it. The Japanese judges called the bout a draw, and demanded an overtime round. Trouble was, no such overtime round had been discussed or agreed upon. All other time limit bouts were decided by the judges. Ken Shamrock blew a gasket and forced Mezger (who had a broken foot and took the fight on short notice anyway) to walk out of the ring, and the officials gave Saku the win by forfeit.

[brashleyholland]

Brock was good.

 

I think that this is the key thing that should, but probably wont, be remembered about his career.

 

There is literally nobody in the sport of MMA that faced the same kind of competition in their first 8 fights that Brock did. Nobody.

 

The fact that he beat Mir, Carwin, Herring and Couture in his first six competitive MMA bouts is absolutely astounding. I have massive, massive amounts of respect for Brock Lesnar.