Fight Club

Also, the fact that CM Punk was on the actual UFC PPV main card is one the dumbest fucking things I’ve seen in professional sports. I don’t know why that idiot thinks he should be in the UFC and I have absolutely no idea why Dana White let him, but I hope it never happens again. He’s not a fighter. He’s not a martial artist. He has no business in there and watching him is not entertaining. Maybe he’s entertaining as a pro wrestler or whatever. I have no idea and I don’t care. I don’t want to see the UFC turn into the WWE.

^ Agreed, the whole CM Punk debacle was pretty dumb. However, we've seen time and time again over the years that Dana will sacrifice sport/organization legitimacy for PPV buys, it's just CM Punk was probably the most extreme example.

How about DC knocking out Stipe to become the Champ Champ? I have always been a huge DC fan and am happy he got the job done. Hope Stipe bounces back and reclaims the title after DC retires. The DC/Brock promo was full-WWE (and pretty funny imo), but DC adamantly denied that it was staged. Dana confirmed that they are making that fight even though Brock can't fight until January due to his USADA suspension. Since DC is retiring in March 2019, he has maybe 2 fights left. Would love to see him go out against Brock and Bones at HW, but that probably won't happen since Bones is such a moron.

Daniel Cormier is a beast. What can I say? I was dead wrong. Some guys do get better even into advanced age.

He’s just awesome. I can’t explain it either other than to say DC is just one of the best fighters to ever get into the cage. Size doesn’t matter. Age doesn’t matter. Looks literally don’t mean a thing. DC is 5’11” and weighed in at 246 for this fight. He just looked like a 40 year old fat guy who used to lift weights. Lol. Incredible.
That shit show with Brock Lesnar in the cafe afterward stupid but whatever. Another thing that makes DC so great is he’s an entertainer. I want to see that fight with Brock.

Also, Brock is just a fucking asshole. Yeah I know he got called out and he’s selling a fight and all the rest but he’s still a fucking asshole. He’s calling Stipe Miocic a piece of shit as he’s still clearing the cobwebs from getting KOd. That’s pretty bad. The man just lost his belt. He didn’t have to bring him into a beef with DC. I don’t expect him to show respect but he could have at least had the decency to keep him out of it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hugh

He’s just awesome. I can’t explain it either other than to say DC is just one of the best fighters to ever get into the cage. Size doesn’t matter. Age doesn’t matter. Looks literally don’t mean a thing. DC is 5’11” and weighed in at 246 for this fight. He just looked like a 40 year old fat guy who used to lift weights. Lol. Incredible.
That shit show with Brock Lesnar in the cafe afterward stupid but whatever. Another thing that makes DC so great is he’s an entertainer. I want to see that fight with Brock.

---

This was always the joke with Fedor back in the PrideFC days. He had the build of a teddy bear but he wrecked people.

I miss the hell out of Pride, I liked it a lot better than the UFC. I was always bummed that Mirko Cro Cop got to the States so late in his career because he just barely missed MMA getting hugely popular. He was a beast when he was still in his prime. Probably my favorite fighter of all time. It was like watching the terminator fight.

It's looking like I'm stepping back in a ring soon. It's been two years since I've fought competitively. I'm dreading cutting weight though. I'm a flyweight so I have to cut from about 133-ish to 125.

I liked Cro Cop too but he made his UFC debut in 2007. He was only 32 years old. I always wondered why he didn’t have more success in the Octagon. I don’t think he ever got comfortable in the UFC. He always looked out of place and tentative, completely different from the guy who dominated the PRIDE Absolute tournament the year before. He was unstoppable. Just walked people down and kicked their heads off.
UFC and PRIDE were different though. Significantly. Different rules and regulations, in and out of the ring. Or cage. Whatever.

Pride catered way more to strikers whereas modern UFC cateres way more to wrestlers. I've fought in rings, circular cages, square cages, and octagon cages.

The thing with fighting in a ring is there's no way for a wrestler to grind you up against something. In a cage they have something they can just muscle you into to do their thing. The opposite is true with a square ring, because a striker can take the center of the ring and push you into corners. I'm much more of a kick boxer, for context. I can wrestle but not nearly as good as I can go toe to toe with someone.

Cro Cop too, despite being only a few years older than I am now, was a pretty tired man by that point. He'd lived a long life for someone that young. He had a famous quote saying he was thinking more about fishing than he was fighting. He went through some crazy shit with the fall of the Soviet Union too in terms of war. He was like ex-special forces and went through the downfall of the reds. So he was older than his age to be honest.

The problem with Pride was people with kick boxing backgrounds could school you if they played the rules right. The UFC is the opposite. If you can wrestle and use the three point rule (Randy Couture famously did this in Tim Sylvia fight when he came out of retirement. He put one hand on the ground with both legs planted and because he had three points on the ground Tim Sylvia couldn't knee his face into oblivion because of it. In a real fight Sylvia would have rearranged his face), you can navigate the rules in the UFC in a really unfair way.

There's obviously no way to do it correctly. People would start dying. I'd say a square cage would be the best way to even it out between strikers and mat rats though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Achilles

It's looking like I'm stepping back in a ring soon. It's been two years since I've fought competitively. I'm dreading cutting weight though. I'm a flyweight so I have to cut from about 133-ish to 125.

---

Let me know if you need any help cutting weight. 8 pounds is very easy, even at 133 pounds. Assuming you have a day to recover, there should be zero impact on your performance.

I've done it a bunch of times but thank you. I lose weight super easily. I actually struggle to keep weight on, I have the most inhuman metabolism on the face of the Earth. I could like inject butter directly into my veins and I would lose ten pounds. It's not hard to do, I just hate being super dehydrated.

I'm going to go flyweight this time but I'm honestly considering fighting up, which I've done plenty of times. I hate fighting guys my size, it's fucking exhausting. I'd rather fight someone with fifty pounds on me than another spring loaded 135 pound guy whose bouncing off the walls and going a million miles a minute. I don't have a ton of knockout power but I can outlast just about everyone I spar with and exhaust them. I can pull off some pretty freaky submissions too because I'm so small and wiry, I probably gogoplata people more than anyone should be able to with how flexible I am. My fight nick name was always monkey legs because I'm a bastard to hold down because I can bend such weird ways. I'm not even that good of a grappler either, I can just do weird shit because I can like put my legs behind my head and stuff so rather than being a great Jits guy I'm just preposterously annoying to force into anything on the ground.

The heaviest I could realistically fight is featherweight though. And I wouldn't even come in at 145, I'd be well under it. The heaviest I've ever been was 140 and that was with intense weight lifting and dieting. I don't mind being lighter though, I fought open weight for most of my career and would fight guys as big as 250. That's kind of my bread and butter actually. Eventually you get sick of getting your head caved in and accept that you're small and learn how to fight small, which is honestly a really interesting thing if you get into the technical fighting details about what it's like being someone my size fighting big dudes.

What open-weight events are you referring to?

I fought as far back as when MMA was very loosely regulated and it was sort of a grey area in my state. So I could fight openweight if I wanted to. I caught the tail end of it before the boxing commission started really getting heavily involved with it. And this wasn't MMA in a cage, it was still just in a ring. I've fought since then but it's been much more strict since the old days. Like I said, I need to fight between flyweight and featherweight now. Some of the shit they used to get away with in terms of classes is insane in retrospect. I could make featherweight for sure but I'd certainly come in very light.

Interesting. I was going to mention "excluding the dark ages" in parenthesis, but I figured you weren't old enough to be fighting around that time. It sounds like this is more of a special occasion for you (regardless of your past), but it would be foolish to disregard weight advantages/disadvantages if you are competing against quality competition (i.e. any high-level wrestler with a well-rounded skillset). Dehydration sucks, but there's almost no reason not to do it with only a minor cut and a day to recover. You can obviously win either way, I just think it would be in your best interests since it's a small cut and you're admittedly not the strongest grappler.

I admittedly actually think weight cutting is fucking stupid. I 100% agree with your points, but if you think about it, it's the most pointless thing ever. Realistically what they should do is make you weigh in three or so hours before the fight so that everyone just comes in walking weight. I certainly understand the logic behind it, you cut weight to gain a weight advantage. The aforementioned pointless aspect of it though is everyone does it, so there's inherently no reason to do it. Make it so you weigh in the day of the fight so if you cut a ton of weight you're gassed and pay for it. I'd argue the fights would be better too.

That said, I will be cutting this time. I can realistically fight across three or so weight classes. 125, 135, and 145. One I cut, the other I do nothing, the other I bulk a little. I do hate fighting down at 125 though. I don't know your background but fighting little shits like me is so tiring. I'd rather have some monstrosity of a dude lumbering away at me all day. You're right in that grappling big dudes sucks; I can grapple very well but I'm not a world beater with it. But I'm not a slouch either.

And it's not really a special event. I'm 29 and I've been fighting since I was 3. I just haven't competed in two years. I've still been banging around regularly full contact the whole time though. It ought to be fun though. I broke my damn hand my last fight though which certainly worries me a bit.

And as far as the dark ages stuff goes, yeah, like I said I caught the tail end of it. If you go straight kick boxing though instead of MMA you can still find open weight fighting. Though open weight is a relative term, it's mostly gigantic dudes.

What a UFC card tonight. I was on the edge of my seat for both main events. Cejudo finally dethroned Mighty Mouse, something I was starting to think I’d never see. He had such a brilliant game plan and executed it perfectly, then he called out the 135 lb champ, whoever it was at the end of the night. Huge balls.
Turns out it’s still TJ. I thought it was No Love’s night but he was way too emotional and went in head first. TJ had Cody beat the minute the bell rang. Impressive. I’m glad. Cody is a great fighter but he’s just an immature douchebag and it got him knocked out again.

Greg Hardy is an interesting fighter. He won Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender tournament easily, knocking out both opponents in the first minute of the first round. He had 3 amateur fights before that and won them all the same way. KO, first minute of the first round.
He’s really fast. For 6’5” and 265 lbs he’s really fucking fast. I’ve watched a lot of heavyweights in the Octagon and he moves and throws punches as fast as anyone I can recall at that size. Maybe faster. And his power is legit. He throws bombs.
He might get crushed in the UFC but he’s huge, powerful, fast, insanely athletic and, let’s face it, a mean motherfucker. And he’s only 30, which isn’t old for a heavyweight. Shit Cormier and Lesnar will be fighting for the belt soon and they’re both 40.
I think Hardy is going to make some noise.

He reminds me of Arlovski when he was in his prime. Arlovski was awesome to watch when he was younger, he was a huge guy but he was so insanely athletic. He used to move like a middle weight but he'd absolutely crush people. It was all down hill for him after Fedor knocked him out, which was his own damn fault. He was actually pretty handily besting Fedor and if he just stuck to that game plan I think he would have beaten him. But then he decided to try to pull off a crazy flying knee super early in the fight and left himself wide open and Fedor dropped him. He was doing just fine kick boxing with him.

Yes Arlovski is a good comparison. No idea what kind of chin Hardy has yet but that was The Pitbull’s weakness for sure.

Yeah, if Tim Sylvia knocks you out, you have a problem. I hated that damn guy. He hijacked the heavyweight division for like a year and just used his reach to coast to decisions. He's inarguably the most boring MMA fighter of all time. When Randy Couture came out of retirement and beat the ever living fuck out of him was possibly my favorite fight of all time. Hell, I would happily fight Tim Sylvia and I'd bet on me to win. That guy was a joke who just happened to have very long arms and could outreach people. He wasn't a fighter, he just perfected using the rules to his advantage. He had no knockout power at all, no speed, can't roll. He temporarily ruined the heavyweight division. Thank god Couture kicked his ass into retirement.

Sylvia derailed two awesome fighters too. Jeff Monson and Brandon Vera were both amazing up and coming fighters, and Sylvia just jabbed for five rounds and basically ruined their careers. He didn't fight to win, he fought not to lose. I loved Monson and he should have amounted to a lot more, but in his title fight Sylvia basically just jabbed him for 25 minutes.

Arlovski definitely suffered from a weak chin though, you're right about that for sure. He was able to hide it for years because he was so talented.

That fight was incredible but the decision was absolutely wrong

I scored it 8 rounds to 4 in favor of GGG. Super close those so I can't argue I guess but there's no way imo GGG didn't win a lot of those middle.rounds.

McGregor is a God.

https://deadspin.com/conor-mcgregor-...tab-1829212832

McGregor is a God.

https://deadspin.com/conor-mcgregor-...tab-1829212832

I think Conor KOs Khabib and Pettis beats Ferguson by decision.

Well I sure called that one. Lol.

I honestly think McGregor is wildly overrated. I always have. He's certainly very good, but not as good as he's played out to be; he's just extremely marketable between his persona and the fact that he's fun to watch. But in a technical sense I've honestly never been impressed with him. He absolutely scraps, but he's not as good as the media will have you believe.

I think everyone knew Khabib was gonna win Hugh.. and you didn't get the Pettis one right, i wouldn't be too proud of that one :P

I was supremely impressed by Ferguson though, I've never seen him fight and I thought he was incredible. Can't wait to see him vs Khabib

As for McGregor, I will always love the guy. His striking is supreme... but so was Dominique Cruz's and we saw what one fighter did to him. It is what it is, I think Khabib's fighting style is pathetic cheap and boring, but yeah, it'll win fights.

I dunno about him vs Ferguson though.. I've never seen that kind of pressure. Khabib is gonna have to get ahold of him even more than he did with Connor to win, otherwise he's gonna get pummeled

I actually got them both wrong. I was being sarcastic.:)
I don’t know. I’ve seen Khabib take a lot of shots closing the gap and I thought Conor would catch him. Conor obviously got dominated but he was so hesitant when they were standing. He would press but not engage. He kept waiting to counter but he waited way too long.
I called Pettis because of what a great kicker he is and the fact that Ferguson was coming off that horrible knee. Pettis hurt him with kicks early, and almost knocked him out in round 2, but Tony was started to stalk him and really busting him up. It was a great fight until Pettis broke his hand, but yeah. Tony was walking him down. He was going to finish Pettis at some point.
I’d like to see Ferguson fight Khabib. The pressure like you said, but Ferguson has an amazing ground game too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Butcher

As for McGregor, I will always love the guy. His striking is supreme... but so was Dominique Cruz's and we saw what one fighter did to him. It is what it is, I think Khabib's fighting style is pathetic cheap and boring, but yeah, it'll win fights.

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McGregor actually isn't that proficient of a striker. He's actually pretty sloppy. The reason I know this is because he's close to my size and he fights like I do.

I knew two people who in a technical sense were far superior to me, and the way I bested them almost every time was the same thing as McGregor. While they had a better technical understanding of the fundamental framework of fighting - I was way better and pulling the trigger. So even though if you put us under a microscope and saw who was performing strikes and deterring strikes and moving correctly, it didn't matter. Even though they were both better than me they didn't have that ability in a mental capacity to just go for broke and start throwing right hands from the cheap seats.

McGregor is basically the same thing. There's being extremely technical, like Anderson Silva, then there's being someone who's athletic and just knows how to initiate without fear, like McGregor. I was the latter of the two. I could find loads of people who are way better strikers than him, he just has the balls to jump right into it. Which takes a lot of guys off guard, hence his success.

I'm not saying he's a bad fighter, I'm saying he isn't as good of a striker as people think he is. He scraps. He isn't Anderson Silva but nobody can deny he's a tough dude who isn't afraid to jump into it with someone and square up. Which works for some people if you execute it well. A lot of guys, no matter how good they are, lose their sack if they hit you and you keep coming at them. They're used to and even bred to think they can outclass people; there's an old saying about it - "I don't care how good at Jits you are and how much gi rolling you did, you can't hit in straight Jits. So when you get me on the ground you might be a black belt, but when I punch you in the face once, you're a brown belt. When I punch you a couple more times, you're a purple belt. Eventually I'll punch you enough until you're a white belt." That's more or less McGregor's approach - he just gets in your face.

I'm not saying he's a bad fighter, I'm just saying he's not technically as proficient as people give him credit for.

We will have to agree to disagree Ach. I really like Connor's striking, that's just me. I do agree that his style has gotten him beat twice, but it's also gotten him a couple of belts and I just enjoy it. I see the confidence he has in picking his shots etc. But, i like Ferguson better, i'm starting to REALLY like Ferguson tbh. I would love to fight like him.

And Hugh sorry buddy I misread you. I know you know what you're talking about though FWIW :)

I would love to see this card:

Khabib vs GSP for title
McGregor vs Ferguson

winners fight

then round out the card with a couple of huge heavyweights, a women's bout and someone else.

EDIT- Sorry. Misread.
I’d like to see McGregor/Ferguson for sure.
I think Khabib would destroy GSP. I’d like to see GSP fight Kevin Lee though. I think Lee would destroy him too but I think it would be a more interesting match.

I think GSP is a better match up for Khabib than Connor was. The guy isn't invincible, he's gonna get smashed, soon

Nate Diaz is a joke, btw.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Butcher

We will have to agree to disagree Ach. I really like Connor's striking, that's just me. I do agree that his style has gotten him beat twice, but it's also gotten him a couple of belts and I just enjoy it. I see the confidence he has in picking his shots etc. But, i like Ferguson better, i'm starting to REALLY like Ferguson tbh. I would love to fight like him.

And Hugh sorry buddy I misread you. I know you know what you're talking about though FWIW :)

I would love to see this card:

Khabib vs GSP for title
McGregor vs Ferguson

winners fight

then round out the card with a couple of huge heavyweights, a women's bout and someone else.

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Sorry, I only just saw this now.

I'm not saying McGregor is a bad fighter. McGregor is a great fighter. I'm just saying I'm at almost twenty eight years of kick boxing and I can offer some worth while insight. I'll try to quantify it better as someone who, and I'm not bragging here, easily has more time in a ring than most UFC fighters. I'm not saying I'm better than any particular UFC fighter, not at all. I'm not. But I've been doing it way longer than most of these guys, I've taught it professionally for years, so I'm just politely trying to give some perspective from someone with a ton of experience.

McGregor is not a good technical kick boxer. I know this because I've been fighting some of the best technical kick boxers in the world for years. I'm not saying he's bad, but he's far from great. However, me saying he's not a great kick boxer does not mean he's not a good fighter. Those two things aren't the same.

McGregor can scrap, and he's intimidating because he can take a beating. I'm not even saying that's a bad thing either - that's how I fight. I had this one dude I fought more times than I can fucking count, and he was a way better kick boxer than me. In every sense. He was more technical, more efficient, he in a biomechanical sense executed his strikes so well that he got the absolute highest output of power out of them. He was a better kick boxer, plain and simple. If you put him and I (him and I are good friends just to note), next to each other hitting mitts, and had one hundred kick boxing instructors watch us, 100 out of 100 of them would say he had a much more fundamental understanding of the inherent biomechanical framework of kick boxing. I have absolutely no problem admitting he's a better kick boxer than me.

However, he never beat me once.

The thing about fighting, is you have to remember... it's a fight. And there are some dudes - a lot of dudes - who totally fold despite how good they are when they have someone get in their face and throw down. This is actually the downfall of a lot of kick boxers in street fights. They can do crazy shit all day hitting mitts and bags, but when someone throws down and scraps with them and they're in a fight, they fall apart. The best thing you can do, in my opinion, if you want to be a successful fighter, is kick box with people that have no problem beating the ever living fuck out of you. Because you can go toe to toe with other super technical kick boxers that are playing the game, trying to read you and counter you, pick up on everything you're telegraphing, but when you have another kick boxer who is a really good kick boxer, who might not be as good as you but is still really good, but he's willy to just jump right into it with you and swallow some teeth in the process, you have a problem. And this obviously doesn't apply for everyone. Like an Anderson Silva level kick boxer is just so good it doesn't matter how much I want to scrap with him he's just going to out class me.

So with this dude I mentioned, despite how much better he was, I'd just get in his face every time we fought and it'd always end with him getting so disheartened that within a minute or two I was beating the ever living fuck out of him like it was a hockey fight. A lot of super technical kick boxers get into the (bad) habit of way too much so treating fighting like chess with people they fight that approach it the same way. Then they face someone like me who they punch in the face and I spit, kick them in the liver, and start donkey konging their head, pick them up and slam them on the ground, and tenderize them like meat. And they don't know how to deal with that level of aggression because of the way it's taught is like a board game and they don't expect someone to turn it into a back alley brawl. And they crumble when you do.

I live in the worst neighborhood in Boston and have gotten into tons of fights, and I'm also extremely small. I have a target on my chest because I look easy to pick on. I'm 5'9 and 120 pounds. Dudes think they're going to wreck me if I'm out at bars (not recently, but it's happened a lot). Most guys, if they try to hit you and you don't stop, and then you just come at them like a freight train, are going to absolutely fold. I'm not saying swing like an idiot, I'm a damn good kick boxer. But when people hit you and you don't stop, as long as you're smart enough and don't let them catch you on the chin or the temple, you're going to totally take the wind out of their sails. They're going to realize "oh man this guy can take a beating."

This is Connor McGregor. He's not a bad kick boxer. But he's by no means a great kick boxer. He's willing to scrap, and because of how dudes are trained, like I elaborated on, they'd totally fold under him. That's why he was so successful. Same thing, you could find a ton of kick boxing trainers, sit down and have them watch film of him, and while they'd say he wasn't bad, and he's even very good, he's not great. He's just so willing to throw down that people would start back pedaling, and then it was his time to shine because he was in his element and he'd throw them a beating.

Butch should reply to Ach’s post in 10 months. Let’s see how long we can keep it going.,

Jorge Masvidal was brilliant against Nate Diaz last night. They stopped it in the 3rd because of a bad cut from an early elbow but Diaz was beat to shit by then anyway. It’s Nate Diaz so he could have come back I suppose, but not likely. Masvidal’s body kicks were fucking brutal. He dropped Diaz twice, took him down and beat on him. He dominated the clinch. He just kicked his ass. I was truly surprised.
The Rock put the BMF belt on him in the ring, which was awesome. He is.
Also, if you didn’t see Kevin Lee knocking out Gregor Gillespie, look it up. The whole fight lasts 20 seconds but it’s worth watching. Out fucking cold.

That was a great fight. Nate Diaz and his brother Nick are like the weirdest fighters I've ever seen. They both have this super goofy, dumbass orangutan unorthodox style of fighting. The weird thing though is that when it works, it works incredibly well. Not even because it's practical, I think it's just so weird it massive throws people off. I actually have had tons of conversations with people I bang around with. Every now and then over the years someone will come into the gym, and have like an odd disposition and be physically awkward. In a purely fundamental sense you're an all around better kick boxer. But then he just starts doing some weird shit and even though he's not better than you, he's catching you. You catch on after fighting people like that after a few rounds, but I've had my clock cleaned tons of times by weird gangly people, or people with any type of weird sense of movement. That's basically the Diaz brothers to me.

So people like Diaz and his brother, they need a lot of attention to train for. I know you love this stuff so I can give you a first hand account of how I'm in a similar situation.

So I fight 125. Hopefully again in a few months (it's been a while so I'm taking my time). I'm right handed, but I fight with my lead hand forward when I box, which I've just always done. So my jab and lead hooks are right in your face basically. Now I'm not claiming this is a better way to do things, it's probably not for most people. It's just what I've always done, and relative to my size it works for me because you basically can't catch me in a fight. The unorthodoxy throws people off and it's a huge advantage.

So the fact that Masvidal schooled Diaz that bad definitely means that guy did his homework. It'd be like if you and I fought. I'd probably wreck you at first because I'm this super small unorthodox fighter, but if we kept at it and you paid enough attention to what I was doing you'd eventually figure me out. I might be weird but you can figure out weird if you take the time.

Check this out Hugh.

https://www.reddit.com/r/holdmyfeedi...m_source=share

Holy shit. That looked like anime or something.
That’s the most knocked out anyone has ever been.

Yeah dude, if you watch it again, he took a few seconds to fall. I know this part from being a medic - typically with significant head trauma your whole body stiffens. So like if you watch videos of people getting hit by cars they stiffen up right after. That's why that dude took so long to fall, he got his clock cleaned so bad he stiffened up and stayed standing clean unconscious for a few seconds.

What that dude did worked, but it's a pretty huge roll of the dice to try to pull off. He did it, and it was spectacular and probably one of if not the best knockouts I've ever seen in terms of how shocking it was. But it was a huge gamble because typically what they teach you is you NEVER spin for anything because you have to turn your back. He did something that in my opinion is stupid and I would never teach anyone to do and he pulled it off and got, like you said, an epic anime knockout. That was like a one in a million head kick.

Like I taught professionally for years and I've cornered for people and I would NEVER be like dude, forget all the boxing and footwork we did, just go Dragonball Z on him. But I mean hey, he pulled it off.