Combat Sports - General Q and A thread: Why are these fights so boring?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Hammer House: Stinger Splash Zone > Combat Sports - General Q and A thread: Why are these fights so boring?

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

henkman posted:

1. Rankings are retarded.

2. Fedor fans are retarded.

3. Most people doing the rankings are Fedor fans.

To give a non-Fedor example for over a year now Vitor Belfort has been in most rankings as a top ten Middleweight, usually between fourth and sixth. This is retarded for two reasons:

Vitor hasn't fought in about eighteen months.
Vitor hasn't fought at Middleweight.

Don't try and work it out.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2011 05:17

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 10:12

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

While in MMA we get to talk about how all championships are meaningless except for the UFC I would like an explanation of what, if any, boxing championships aren't worthless given that there seems to be fifty billion of them for weight classes a pound apart.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2011 06:13

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Solice Kirsk posted:

"Look at my face then look at his. You tell me who won that fight."*

*not to be used in reference to KJ Noons or Gomi fights.

This is the best metric as BJ Penn still uses it to say he won GSP-Penn 1.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2011 08:07

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Butt Scoot: Where a BJJ or Shootist fighter, specialists in grappling and ground based submissions, does not possess either decent stand up striking (offense or defense) or offensive takedowns they default to the move of butt scooting which is quite literally falling on their own rear end and then scooting around the ring essentially begging their opponent to jump into their guard or to grab a leg that they couldn't while attempting an actual takedown. The opponent will mostly just walk away until they get forcibly stood up again, where if you are Thales Leites or Shinya Aoki will drop to their asses again as soon as possible. It is as embarrassing as it sounds and if performed is a sure sign of pathetic.

Lid fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Feb 2, 2011

# ¿ Feb 2, 2011 08:20

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

George Sotiropoulos, Mark Bocek... look for lightweight grapplers.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2011 09:33

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Given Joe Rogan's habit of jumping into 10th Planet lingo I was thinking we may need a guide to those terms so new watchers wouldn't be confused... except I just realised outside of "Rubber Guard" I have no idea what name applies to what move and I don't think anyone else does either so essentially we'd be on equal grounds of confusion.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2011 10:43

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

RobBorer posted:

It may be a good idea to have fight breakdowns and small fighter bios for this weekend's GDT so WrestleFolk who are interested know what's going on.

Gabe Ruediger's may as well be cross posted to "Fighters that are more bizarre than Pro Wrestling characters".

# ¿ Feb 3, 2011 02:30

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Jack Anderson posted:

Anderson Silva sounds like my kind of fighter. I'll try to pick up the PPV and catch the prelims on Saturday.

In exchange for you guys making all these awesome write up's I'll try and do the same with the WWE matches in the GSD/Discussion threads.

The thing to note here is that those weren't dancing before he put his opponent away, he did nothing but dance for 25 minutes against Demien Maia while insulting him in Portugese. It was funny to start with and then it kept happening and happening to in the fifth round he actually hid behind the ref and the ref wanted to know if he could deduct a point for pure cowardice (he could have under the unified rules, but didn't happen).

This is why when he fought Chael Sonnen, pound for pound unlikable insane big talker, that when Sonnen were beating on him for 23 minutes the crowd were cheering even though they were in fact cheering Chael Sonnen.

Edit: it should be noted that Demien Maia is actually a really really good fighter and unlike Thales Leities, the other embarrassment, could have made a legitimate reason to be fighting Silva. Toying with him just seemed obscene and the crowd were in the last two round chanting for Maia because even though he was outclasses he showed heart and wanted to still try.

Lid fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Feb 3, 2011

# ¿ Feb 3, 2011 04:22

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

jeffersonlives posted:

I don't count that fight

I'll edit it

"Winner by SPLIT decision!"

I try to imagine the alternate universe where Rich Franklin KO'd Bisping with a knee.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2011 04:36

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Bubba Smith posted:

The only ones you need to know are

Anderson Silva, the black guy who is the only man to sucessfully out-troll Chael Sonnen.
Wanderlei Silva, the guy who looks like a LoTR creature but he has some pretty sweet highlight reel KOs.
Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva, the only man to KO Fedor

Thiago Silva, played the bongos on Brandon Vera and may be on his way to either LHW title contender or the replacement for Jardine as gatekeeper. Doubles as being one of the hundreds of Thiago's too.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2011 06:11

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

1st AD posted:

Sanchez/Guida could have also gone that way, but judges are bad.

The worst case would be Stun Gun v Karo. The third round was so terrible by both that online reports were jumping between rating it 10-10, 9-9 or 0-0. Karo got the nod, though his round 2 was very meh compared to Stun Gun's spectacular round 1. Of course this fight lead to the discovery of Karo's painkiller addiction so silver lining, but it was the clearest case of a draw due to a round of complete inactivity by both from exhaustion.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2011 04:29

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

henkman posted:

If you're able to control your opponent so much in the grappling aspect that they can't mount an offense or escape I'd say that's pretty effective.

I agree - though the people suggesting that control shouldn't factor would never do it watch Jon Fitch's fights and there is no way to come out of it saying that his opponents won the fight with a straight face. His style may be very very boring to some (most) but to say that it doesn't indicate complete dominance and that the rules should be changed is just because of not liking it.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2011 04:08

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Haraksha posted:

It really was the beginning of the end for Nog, wasn't it?

Retrospectively while a great fight Nog was getting beat up horribly and if Sylvia had better ground and pound striking, even on Mir's level, we could be in a universe where Brock Lesnar had fought Tim Sylvia. Nog at least got to delight us with the Randy fight and its three second homage to Frye v Takayama before he finally hits the end though.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2011 16:00

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Has any fight in a major organisation resulted in a submission victory via omoplata?

# ¿ Jul 16, 2011 15:20

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Thermos H Christ posted:

OK, now that I actually looked up what a grappling sock looks like I'd say that I actually have seen several fighters wear at least one of those in the cage. As for why more people don't use them, I imagine one reason is that they probably make it a lot harder to slip out of foot/ankle locks.

Joe Lauzon complained about George Sotiropoulos exploiting this exception as being against the spirit of the no pants rule before their fight. In the Pellegrino fight Sotiropoulos is wearing two grappling socks and knee braces that go from his thigh down his shin so that his legs were a grapplers dream. Why people don't wear them I am unsure, kicking related perhaps?

# ¿ Nov 23, 2011 06:09

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

What is Luta Livre? I was looking up Jose Aldo's only loss and that was the style listed his opponent had. Have never heard of it before.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2011 05:48

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Bundt Cake posted:

It used to happen all the time. Its an over applied term. usually hating on wrestlers. but it happens, and there are examples of all varieties of outcome on the scorecards. A couple famous examples are Bas Rutten winning the ufc championship fighting off his back against Kevin Randleman and Ricco Rodriguez losing to Big Nog despite handling him from the top. Also Clay Guida has lost a lot of rounds from the top over the years, against Sanchez, Griffin, Aurelio and Din Thomas off the top of my head. Aurelio did almost nothing except a few incredibly lame sub attempts and a judge actually scored the fight for him, Sanchez and Griffin both threw arm punches from their back to win some third round cards, and Din Thomas did a real brilliant job and won it. but theres basically no consistency to it.

Not sure the Nog fight counts as that is more seen as a gift robbery than Big Nog winning from his back. When first getting into MMA "Matt Hughes" was synonymous with LNP but even that seems invalid. At this point the only users of the term are Diaz fans (and how IN A REAL FIGHT...), Guida critics (which shouldn't apply anymore given his stoppages), and the few Gray Maynard critics who failed to watch Edgar-Maynard II and III.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2011 12:50

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

fatherdog posted:

When "first getting into MMA" Hughes had five decisions in his first thirty matches.

I meant when I was getting into it and reading about MMA to learn - at the time LNP and Matt Hughes were synonymous it appeared when people talked about W.R.E.A.M.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2011 20:50

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

JPrime posted:

In the MMA FOTY thread, someone made a mentioned of someone "standing up" someone else...what does that mean?

In events of inactivity, either on the ground or in a clinch against the cage, as with boxing the referee is to move in and break them up and reset to prevent stalling. There is a bit more leeway than boxings case as ground fighting is a low slower and technical but it can happen when one fighter is stifled in guard.

When people through a fit over stand ups is when there is no inactivity. A sadly high number of referees will force a stand up when one fighter is obviously active, striking or moving to a submission on the basis of "come on guys let's work". It can ruin fights as usually the fighter who is on top and working for something now has to expend energy to get back to where they were while the fighter on the bottom has gotten back to their feet simply by lying there and taking punishment/begging to be stood up like a dick.

This gets especially egregious when referees do stand ups from when a fighter has a dominant position or even a simple advanced position like half guard. There have been fights where a stand up has occurred from side control for example, which is insane. One of the most famous was when Roy Nelson faced Andrei Arlovski and was in side control and actively working for a kimura when the referee stood them up.

Stand ups should be a last resort, instead some referees listen to the crowd booing because they're dumbfucks (they being both the crowd and the referee) and will stand up an amazing grappling exchange.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2013 07:33

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Mr. Carlisle posted:

Seeing stuff like this brings up a few questions - Have there been fighters that have been suspended/fired or anything like that for continuing to beat the poo poo out of a guy they just knocked out or submitted long after the ref has called the fight?

Also have there been any major incidents where a fighter was dazed or out on his feet and he struck a referee either intentionally or on accident maybe thinking he was the other fighter? Are the officials required to have any sort of martial arts training for help in handling unruly fighters until they can get someone else inside the cage to assist in case one has a freakout/breakdown?

Sorry to make it all ref chat all the sudden but they're things I wonder every time I see one of these officials trying to pull back a guy like twice their size in the middle of a beatdown.

After the aforementioned Babalu choke this is the other most famous, Paul Daley suckerpunching Josh Koscheck after being 30-27'd. Though it wasn't a continued beatdown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRWSCVcijyQ

Referee striking happens very rarely, the only one that comes to mind is Mike Kyle and Mike Kyle did it on purpose. Sometimes referees have actually been taken down by a dazed fighter - for example Jon Fitch took down and managed to move into Steve MAzzagatti's half guard after he was KO'd by Johny Hendricks, and Keith Peterson got mounted by a KO'd fighter in a b-league show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qibujFWgfY8

# ¿ Feb 3, 2013 07:37

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Why is a basic two handed throat choke throttle of the throat with like thumbs on the airpipe used in MMA? Someone asked me this and I didn't know the answer, nor why if legal it wouldn't be employed.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 10:59

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Has anyone tried to make weight by shaving off all the hair on their body?

# ¿ Jan 28, 2016 09:01

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

vainman posted:

Yeah, the guy in my av, Shamwow Shamhalaev. Before:

and after. He needed half a pound to make weight.

I like how he kept his chest hair anyway.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2016 07:35

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

projecthalaxy posted:

What are some funny/notable stories of fighters missing weight? I just read about Shark Fights 17, where Karl Knothe missed weight by 24 pounds as nobody told him his fight with Ricco Rodriguez was signed at a 230 catchweight instead of the 265 he trained for. He was disqualified. Is there a better story out there?

Lew "The Titan" Polley is a fighter most famous for being a wrestling coach on The Ultimate Fighter Dos Santos v Lesnar. He described himself as a cook, personal trainer, and on the show used some really old school ways to cut weight for some of the fighters. In fact he had his own method for cutting weight on his TUF blog.

quote:

"The Polley Plunge" Part 1

4-6 bottles of Green Rubbing Alcohol

3-4 bags of Epson salt

Add water as HOT as you can handle

Cover your body in Abolene Soak for 20-30 minutes

Part 2

Immediately put on sauna suit and sweats

Put on beanie

Lie on the floor under a blanket for 15-20 minutes

He ended up being fired by JDS for constantly undermining him, and every other coach on the show.

So Lew Polley was meant to fight at World Series of Fighting 4 against Hans Stringer in a light heavyweight bout.

Mr Lew Polley, weight cutting wrestling coach, personal chef, and trainer missed weight.

...

By 32 pounds.

He weighed in at 237 for a LHW fight.

Most recently Polley lost a split decision to Darrill "Titties" Schoonover.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2016 11:16

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

LeftistMuslimObama posted:

bobby southworth on TUF season one couldnt make weight which culminated in chuck and koscheck locking him into a sauna with a bike while he rolled around and moaned pathetically, missed weight, and Dana promised he'd never fight in the UFC.

jason guida was too fat to make 205(?) by like .8 of a pound or something, his coach suggested he shave his head but he refused and kept saying "i cant do it doc" to the commission guy who was in no way a doctor.

Entirely off topic but randomly catching an episode of first season tuf long before getting into mma, and seeing bobby's first weight cut with chuck and josh actualloy really got me interested in the training of maa and mma as a sport. Seeing a man being physically sweated and worked out and dragged into a sauna and locked in just to lose a few pounds was really fascinating to watch.

too bad Southworth was utter trash.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 05:31

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

The big thing is that UFC is a monopoly whereas boxing is a free market. UFC does poorly they lose market share and viewers, and possibly allows rivals to compete. Boxing does poorly they don't care they get purses and payments on guarantees.

McGregor thought he was Floyd Mayweather and look how that turned out.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 08:57

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

dokmo posted:

Have there been any freak show events since Super Hluk? Or at least an epic freak show bout?

Moat Fights has a finalist in last years fight of the year nominees here

It was Boxer v Shaolin Kung Fu

It was amazing

# ¿ Sep 6, 2016 18:30

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Wild Horses posted:

he's trying some roy jones jr punching without the roy jones jr movement

edit: actually feels just like a long, rear hand uppercut without any set up
see video for how its done properly, about 2:15 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0g8-KVp06s

Also this

Stephens torques his hip into the uppercut

Also helps that Stephens hits like a loving truck

# ¿ Sep 10, 2016 05:39

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Carmen Nicole Jones

# ¿ Jul 16, 2017 18:30

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Low Desert Punk posted:

Are there any real catch wrestling promotions/events still? I vaguely remember seeing a "world championship" bout on Youtube a few years ago that was in front of like five people.

On WrestleMania weekend Josh Barnett runs a show called Bloodsport which is pro wrestling but leans heavily into catch wrestling style and is really really fun.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x75e7i3

# ¿ May 13, 2019 11:51

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

STONE COLD 64 posted:

has anyone ever won a fight with a big ol wind up punch?

https://i.imgur.com/AaE0MQZ.gifv

# ¿ Aug 21, 2019 05:49

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Memento posted:

Benson Henderson fought MMA fights at the highest level with a toothpick in his mouth.

I guess my question is, is MMA the dumbest sport in the world?

Yes because when Benson got caught with it it lead to one of the most awkward Rogan interviews as he kept trying to deny it.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2019 09:05

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 10:12

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

The Golden Gael posted:

I'm new to these parts so I apologize if this isn't the right place or this is opening a can of worms. I wanna tell you about a fellow I've been researching though, named George Dillman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfyuAM3ieAI

George claims he can perform no-touch knockouts and swears by pressure points as the deadliest place to strike a foe. He's taken a lot of flack in the last few decades by the next generation of martial artists that don't buy his bullshit. But what if I told you he was once one of the most revered karateka around, even training with Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali?

oh good this got accidentally bumped so i can finally link this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjbSCEhmjJA

# ¿ Jan 17, 2021 09:52

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Hammer House: Stinger Splash Zone > Combat Sports - General Q and A thread: Why are these fights so boring?