The Official MMA Discussion Thread

[alphadraighon]

Originally Posted by brashleyholland

Anything that gets MMA out to wider audience is good with me.

With that said, I've refused to cover any promotion that pays Bob Sapp to fight. Now, the world over there are guys who will turn up and get knocked out or tap out in seconds for a quick payday. Trouble is, they're not getting paid five figures for it, and Sapp is.

Personally I think that money could be better spent - maybe split between the fighters who have actually trained more than just lifting weights for a fight, and turn up with the intention of fighting, not just tapping out as soon at they get hit.

So yeah, no Super Fight League for me!

That was my concern when I saw that the headline match was Bob Sapp...he's not a go-to guy for a good fight. I'll admit that at one time I was a fan, but that was before I realized he was an egomaniac and comes across as a bit of a coward when he fights.

I think having someone like Sapp in the main event of their first show could hurt their image. For what they're paying him, I'm sure they could have gotten a better free agent, someone who has some legit skill and hasn't been on a loosing streak, and who would fight with is heart, not his wallet.

I'll probably watch the event if I can, because I'm interested to see some new fighters, but I'll probably skip the main event.

[Couture=Legend]

Originally Posted by brashleyholland

Most embarrassing loss ever?

Fighter KO's himself attempting switch kick

I agree with the post in the comment section.. looks like a bit of a dive, albeit an embarrasing one. Highly unlikely he would knock himself out the way he landed.

[Target Practice]

I dunno, that was a pretty nasty landing - sometimes you only need the smallest jolt in the wrong place to put out the lights.
Still, guess it could easily have been a dive. Would be a pretty unsubtle way of doing it though - surely it would be easier just to leave your chin out for a left hook?

[LoNdOn]

Originally Posted by Target Practice

I dunno, that was a pretty nasty landing - sometimes you only need the smallest jolt in the wrong place to put out the lights.
Still, guess it could easily have been a dive. Would be a pretty unsubtle way of doing it though - surely it would be easier just to leave your chin out for a left hook?

I see you went to the Keith Jardine seminar.......

[Couture=Legend]

Originally Posted by Target Practice

I dunno, that was a pretty nasty landing - sometimes you only need the smallest jolt in the wrong place to put out the lights.
Still, guess it could easily have been a dive. Would be a pretty unsubtle way of doing it though - surely it would be easier just to leave your chin out for a left hook?

It's possible that he was getting beat up & just wanted out of there. Tough to tell from a few seconds of video.

[Target Practice]

Originally Posted by LoNdOn

I see you went to the Keith Jardine seminar.......

Heh, I can assure you I don't tweak my nipples nearly enough.

Originally Posted by Couture=Legend

It's possible that he was getting beat up & just wanted out of there. Tough to tell from a few seconds of video.

Yeah, could be any number of reasons. Still, you'd think it'd be easier to just pretend you tweaked a knee or an ankle or something... although I guess if you're having a bad day already and then you end up screwing up in an embarrassing manner, I guess your shame gland might keep you down.

[brashleyholland]

Originally Posted by brashleyholland

Nate Marquardt is pretty much back in the UFC.

Well my source was half right, lol. I'm told the plan *was* for him to fight in the UFC, but the contractual need to keep Strikeforce going led to him being slotted in there instead.

He'll fight Tyron Woodley for the strap in a few months time. The winner will likely fight Paul Daley (assuming he beats Mizaki) later in the year.

[bigtplaystew]

Nate is a great fighter. Woodley and Daley offer two possibly very nice fights for him in Strikeforce and it adds a little much-needed star power to their roster.

[Target Practice]

I spotted this in the WWE discussion thread, and was all set to reply to it when I figured it'd probably be better off in here as it's likely to start an off-topic discussion:

Originally Posted by bigtplaystew

I have problems with Joe Rogan when it comes to this issue [Bored fans booing]. Many times he's made comments as if the fans are somehow "not educated" or something when they boo a hugging contest in MMA. The fans dont have to be "educated" they need to be entertained.

I'd disagree there - I've seen Joe Rogan take issue with fans booing anything that isn't the opening 60 seconds of Diego Sanchez/Clay Guida, and rightly so - I don't watch MMA just so I can see two guys stand in front of each other and take turns to punch the other dude in the face. I can get that outside any bar you care to name - I want to see a variety of skills on show, but there are fans out there who will start to shout and boo the second a fight goes to the ground.
Take a fight from a while back (think it was on the Silva-Belfort card) - Demetrious Johnson vs Miguel Angel Torres - fascinating fight, with most of it taking place on the ground, and Mighty Mouse won the decision despite spending most of the fight on his back. But there are plenty of 'fans' out there that would have been booing that, simply because they weren't standing in a phonebooth throwing leather. Those are the 'uneducated' guys.
I've got no problem with fans booing a guy like Jon Fitch, who just lays on his opponents, or Anthony Johnson when he fought like he did against Dan Hardy, where he made no attempt to finish the fight at all.
However, we do need to remember that as fans, whilst we have a right to be entertained, MMA isn't Wrestling - these guys really are fighting for supremacy, and more often than not, their livelihood depends on their ability to win matches, and that means that if they have to hug a dude against a cage for 60 seconds in order to take him down into their strongest area, then that's the way it goes.

Having said all that, for their part in it, the UFC do make a point of pushing "exciting" fighters harder than "boring" fighters - Dan Hardy is a perfect example - he got a WW title shot (admittedly in a very weak division) on the back of a chain of exciting wins against pretty mediocre opposition. Then he went on a big slide in a suddenly considerably stronger division (he lost to the undisputed champion, the soon-to-be interim champion, a guy who was basically a LHW who laid on him for 15 minutes and then dropped a war to a Chris Lytle who knew he was in his last ever fight), but was saved from the cut because Lorenzo Fertitta "likes guys who WAR". A lesser example is Roy Nelson - not the most talented dude, clearly has fitness issues, but apart from the Frank Mir abomination, he puts on entertaining fights - even if most of that entertainment is derived from watching his opponent use his skull as a pinata - and hence he's generally featured quite a lot more than Brendan Schaub, who's probably a better fighter on balance.

Bottom line is, I guess, that any fighter who deliberately goes out there to put on a dull fight probably won't achieve any serious success (and deserves to be booed), but even the best and most exciting fighters can sometimes find themselves in a situation where the smart move is to take a guy down and just lay on him for thirty seconds until your eyesight clears and you've worked out what state you're in.

[bigtplaystew]

Target Practice, you make excellent points. Your post is long so I can't address each one of your points, nor do I need to. Because they're valid.

A fan does NOT need to be "educated" to enjoy something like a MMA fight. If they boo, I don't feel it's up to Joe Rogan to condescend to the very people who are looking to him to do some of the "educating". He's often taken the side that when fans boo a fight or fighters, that they just don't know any better. Is this the case? Maybe. But your average adult male doesn't want to be told their opinion. They want to formulate one of their own. Right or wrong.

And your average adult male consumer in the age bracket UFC is trying to target doesn't wish to be "educated" on grappling. They want to be entertained. So if UFC wishes to move forward and really become a major league that the casual fans tuen in to on a regular basis, they might have to reel Rogan in a bit when he does that crap.

I'm not saying Rogan's incorrectly stating that fans might not know any better when they boo. He's just unwise to do so if the company wants to embrace the 18-29 male demographic in the mainstream.

[Target Practice]

I think there needs to be a balancing act. On one hand, of course the UFC wants to appeal to the male 18-29 bracket, because it's their core audience, and the one that's going to be by far the most profitable. If they ignore that demographic, they'll eventually fail. No two ways about it.
On the other, they need to be careful not to pander to the lowest common denominator and end up marginalising the 'real' fans - the guys who go to their local shows, who can tell you in what round Ryo Chonan managed to pull off that flying heel hook, and who have been following the sport since long before anyone had ever heard of Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar (I should note that I can't and don't classify myself in that bracket - I'm a relatively recent convert to MMA, but I've fallen hard! ).
My point is - Joe Public has a notoriously short attention span. Remember two years ago when everybody wanted to be a Poker pro? Or back in '97-98 when the whole world was wearing an Austin 3:16 shirt? Most of those guys were in that 18-29 bracket.
I'm obviously all for anything the UFC (or MMA in general, I'm just sticking with the UFC as it's what I'm most familiar with) does to bring in new fans, because the more fans they have, the more money they make, and the more shows they can put on, etc etc etc. However, what I don't want them to do is to try so hard to reach for something that's never going to stick around that they end up diluting the product that got them to where they were in the first place.

I actually really like Rogan as a commentator - you get the impression that he genuinely knows what he's talking about, particularly when a fight goes to the ground, it can be massively enlightening to the uninitiated (like myself) as he elaborates on the significance of placing an arm in a certain position. Okay, so he has a tendency to play favourites a little sometimes (the Assuncao-Pearson fight springs to mind), and he can be a little over-eager to put his own views across rather than call the action, but overall the pros of having him there outweigh the cons considerably for me.

[Target Practice]

Oh, also (apologies for doublepost) it's coming through on Twitter that Dan Hardy and Duane Ludwig have agreed to fight at UFC 146.

Should be an interesting fight, both guys like to stand and bang, but I reckon Hardy should probably win that - if he doesn't, he's gone - WAR or not.

[bigtplaystew]

Haha... you know what poker and pro wrestling had in common? Nerds that like to wax philosophical and talk about how much "they know". You get alot of that with MMA too. There's a segment of fans that separate themselves from "the mainstream" with their self-professed knowledge. In turn, embracing that too much can turn off the mainstream fan who doesn't care as much as it's hardcore fans do.

I mean any sport has that, but you're right, it's a balancing act.

The perfect color commentator educates the fans without condescending to them. And that's extremely difficult to do and I get that. All in all Rogan is very good he just bugs me sometimes.

[brashleyholland]

I think the fans that Rogan refers to as 'uneducated' probably aren't going to pay any notice to what he says anyway.

At the end of the day, his job is to sell what's on the screen as the best and most exciting thing you've seen all week. I don't know if the UFC does this - though I assume they do - but I know guys who commentate on MMA who are told by the guys in the truck play down negative reactions in the crowd, warranted or not.

In fairness to Rogan, he's a GREAT BJJ player by all accounts and knows exactly what he's looking at. I don't think it's a case of him calling fans who don't understand the ground game idiots - its a case of him saying "You know what? This is MMA and sometimes there will be stalemates, just like there are boring footballs games, etc"...and that's fair enough.

I've seen him call straight up boring fights boring on many occasions. I've also seen him criticise morons who boo the second two guys stop swinging or someone gets a takedown - good on him.

[brashleyholland]

Originally Posted by Target Practice

Oh, also (apologies for doublepost) it's coming through on Twitter that Dan Hardy and Duane Ludwig have agreed to fight at UFC 146.

Should be an interesting fight, both guys like to stand and bang, but I reckon Hardy should probably win that - if he doesn't, he's gone - WAR or not.

Hardy vs BANG will be a sick fight. Ludwig was always one of the best pure kickboxers in MMA, and even in his advanced years is a dangerous, dangerous dude on the feet. He used to be Bas Rutten's (at HW) sparring partner when he was a lightweight for gods sake - dude is lethal.

Hardy is probably the better all round fighter that this stage in their careers, but he's in a massive rut and this really is do or die for him. Don't be at all surprised to see Dan go for takedowns here, because a stand-up fight with Ludwig is a roll of the dice.

Crazy thought that someone threw at me on twitter today - Hardy could lose via a controversial split decision, or lose and absolute war and get fight of the night and NOT get cut. Very possible! :-p