Lets Try To Clear Up Some Of The Misconceptions Of Grappling and MMA

[JT Rock]

JT

As you'll remember I used to be a hater of all things MMA but since I've started to watch more of it I think it's an excellent and exciting sport.

As you say, boxing is a western world form of mixed martial arts and is an icomplete system. If you take all of the various fighting styles and matial arts needed for a complete combat system and made a pie chart boxing's hand to hand would occupy only 1 small section of that pie chart, maybe an 8th of the entire chart.

I personally really like the concept of all unarmed combat athletes fighting each other to determine who are the best athletes and which martial arts system is the most effective.

Right now the strength in depth in MMA is nowhere near the strength in depth that is in boxing, but let's be fair here, boxing has had a 100 year headstart.

MMA now, with organistaions like the UFC, K-1 and Pride is roughly where boxing was 100 years ago, a massively popular sport especially popular with celebrities in America and a huge fanbase, especially in America and Japan. Boxing during the days of Gentleman Jim Corbett, John L Sullivan and James Jeffries is looked back upon as the pionerring golden years of the sport and I believe in 30 or 40 years time this period in MMA history will be seen as much the same.

One thing I did find hilarious on the Rogan vs Dibella debate on ESPN last week though was when Dibella called UFC human cockfighting.

Am I the only one who thought that a massive irony? The sport of boxing, hated by most of the medical profession and which routinely has calls made to ban it, feels that the UFC is cockfighting?

That's like a pornstar looking down her nose at a prostitute saying 'I would never sell my body for money like that' 

Thanks Bilbo # 835   to you

[southakron314]

What kind of disrespectful asshole would call mma fighters Clowns?

Just go to east Cleveland .

[Mar]

Good post...i wouldn't call mma fighters clowns it just happens to be a sport i don't like and cant get into....i don't like the recent competetion between the two, since i don't see the simalarities, just like some like football some like baseball some like both etc.....i can dislike the sport without disrespecting it...as for me the story behind mma which was interestng and mentioned above in this post is much more exciting then the actual sport...im my opinion and mine only i just find it to be full of horrible boxing and or two opponets laying around on each other...the quick stoppages and one lucky punch factor (as was seen in the liddel jackson fight this past weekend) is just some of the turn-offs for me. All the background this guy has was nulled by one punch anyhow i'm very open minded to any sport especially one that hard so as mentioned before i'm actually going to an event in july with tito ortiz to get a real feel for the sport...but at this point i can see where people prefer the skill of boxing over what seems to be regulated bar fighting and self defense moves that require ligaments torn and people choked etc...

[RP33]

So even though it may not be your choice of entertainment, its got Great Roots and tradition too and thats why it isint some fad that will go away like MC HAMMER pants But it deserves a little more respect than the shat that gets heaped all over it

No one argues the roots of MMA.. here is my deal with it.. when you look at what the UFC used to be, when it really didn't have any weight classes or gloves or really any rules, it had a much smaller fan base than it has now.. and now that it has this new wave of fighters it's a completely different sport, and i'll tell you why..

A lot of UFC fighters are "strikers".. when a fighter walks to the ring, the graphic comes up on the bottom of the screen that show his strengths and what not.. and it will say 'strong striker' 'good ground and pound'.. this has nothing to do with Martial Arts.. My deal is that MOST of the UFC fighters just learn the jiu jitsu and grappling and submission aspects of the sport when they become a UFC fighter.. they're just brawlers who are in shape who learn submission moves..
NOW.. coming from your standpoint i wouldn't be mad at the people on this board dissing the "ROOTS of grappling blah blah" i'd be pissed at the wannabe martial artists of the UFC!

[Kev]

So even though it may not be your choice of entertainment, its got Great Roots and tradition too and thats why it isint some fad that will go away like MC HAMMER pants But it deserves a little more respect than the shat that gets heaped all over it

No one argues the roots of MMA.. here is my deal with it.. when you look at what the UFC used to be, when it really didn't have any weight classes or gloves or really any rules, it had a much smaller fan base than it has now.. and now that it has this new wave of fighters it's a completely different sport, and i'll tell you why..

A lot of UFC fighters are "strikers".. when a fighter walks to the ring, the graphic comes up on the bottom of the screen that show his strengths and what not.. and it will say 'strong striker' 'good ground and pound'.. this has nothing to do with Martial Arts.. My deal is that MOST of the UFC fighters just learn the jiu jitsu and grappling and submission aspects of the sport when they become a UFC fighter.. they're just brawlers who are in shape who learn submission moves..
NOW.. coming from your standpoint i wouldn't be mad at the people on this board dissing the "ROOTS of grappling blah blah" i'd be pissed at the wannabe martial artists of the UFC!

I think you make a good point. We have to remember though that all of these mixed martial arts organisations are in their infancy and have really only hit the mainstream in the past couple years. I would imagine the skill level would improve immensely over the next 5 or 10 years as more and more elite martial artists are tempted into the sport as a way of being able to practise their skills professionally.

[VictorCharlie]

So even though it may not be your choice of entertainment, its got Great Roots and tradition too and thats why it isint some fad that will go away like MC HAMMER pants But it deserves a little more respect than the shat that gets heaped all over it

No one argues the roots of MMA.. here is my deal with it.. when you look at what the UFC used to be, when it really didn't have any weight classes or gloves or really any rules, it had a much smaller fan base than it has now.. and now that it has this new wave of fighters it's a completely different sport, and i'll tell you why..

A lot of UFC fighters are "strikers".. when a fighter walks to the ring, the graphic comes up on the bottom of the screen that show his strengths and what not.. and it will say 'strong striker' 'good ground and pound'.. this has nothing to do with Martial Arts.. My deal is that MOST of the UFC fighters just learn the jiu jitsu and grappling and submission aspects of the sport when they become a UFC fighter.. they're just brawlers who are in shape who learn submission moves..
NOW.. coming from your standpoint i wouldn't be mad at the people on this board dissing the "ROOTS of grappling blah blah" i'd be pissed at the wannabe martial artists of the UFC!

There are some MMA fighters with backgrounds in traditional Martial (TKD/karate etc) mainly the guys who come over from kickboxing, but in MMA's history these disciplines have not been very successful. MMA is full of world class atheletes, calling them in shape brawlers is a little shortsighted. To name a few:
Matt Lindland-Olympic Silver Medalist Wrestler
Kevin Randleman- All-American Wrestler and NCAA champ
BJ Penn- BJJ World Champ
Fedor Emelianko- Sambo World Champ
Mark Hunt- K1 Grand Prix Champ
Jeff Monson- Abu Dhabi Champ (world submission wrestling champ)
Yoshida- Olympic Judo gold medalist
Martial Artists are just that artists....Mixed Martial artists are fighters

[JT Rock]

So even though it may not be your choice of entertainment, its got Great Roots and tradition too and thats why it isint some fad that will go away like MC HAMMER pants But it deserves a little more respect than the shat that gets heaped all over it

No one argues the roots of MMA.. here is my deal with it.. when you look at what the UFC used to be, when it really didn't have any weight classes or gloves or really any rules, it had a much smaller fan base than it has now.. and now that it has this new wave of fighters it's a completely different sport, and i'll tell you why..

A lot of UFC fighters are "strikers".. when a fighter walks to the ring, the graphic comes up on the bottom of the screen that show his strengths and what not.. and it will say 'strong striker' 'good ground and pound'.. this has nothing to do with Martial Arts.. My deal is that MOST of the UFC fighters just learn the jiu jitsu and grappling and submission aspects of the sport when they become a UFC fighter.. they're just brawlers who are in shape who learn submission moves..
NOW.. coming from your standpoint i wouldn't be mad at the people on this board dissing the "ROOTS of grappling blah blah" i'd be pissed at the wannabe martial artists of the UFC!

There are some MMA fighters with backgrounds in traditional Martial (TKD/karate etc) mainly the guys who come over from kickboxing, but in MMA's history these disciplines have not been very successful. MMA is full of world class atheletes, calling them in shape brawlers is a little shortsighted. To name a few:
Matt Lindland-Olympic Silver Medalist Wrestler
Kevin Randleman- All-American Wrestler and NCAA champ
BJ Penn- BJJ World Champ
Fedor Emelianko- Sambo World Champ
Mark Hunt- K1 Grand Prix Champ
Jeff Monson- Abu Dhabi Champ (world submission wrestling champ)
Yoshida- Olympic Judo gold medalist
Martial Artists are just that artists....Mixed Martial artists are fighters

Glad you brought that up, cause I was gonna touch on that today.... Grappling Arts are the most succesful arts to have in MMA.... A strictly KungFu, TKD, Karate, etc. arent gonna be succesful because they are incomplete foundational Arts and wouldn't be effective in MMA