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Michael Transactions
Nov 11, 2013

lmao Teila Tuli versus that skinny guy

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manyak
Jan 26, 2006

tumor looking batty posted:

lmao Teila Tuli versus that skinny guy

i always point out even though he just looks like a skinny dude next to Tuli, Gordeau actually is 6'5 and 210 lbs and a pretty decent kickboxer especially for that time. Hes also a dirty SOB who bit Gracies face and arm in their fight and later eye gouged the poo poo out of a tiny japanese guy he fought and blinded him permanently

fatherdog
Feb 16, 2005

manyak posted:

i always point out even though he just looks like a skinny dude next to Tuli, Gordeau actually is 6'5 and 210 lbs and a pretty decent kickboxer especially for that time. Hes also a dirty SOB who bit Gracies face and arm in their fight and later eye gouged the poo poo out of a tiny japanese guy he fought and blinded him permanently

The guy he blinded (in one eye) was Yuki Nakai, who not only won that match (heelhooked Gordeau) he then went on to win his next match in the tournament and lose to Rickson Gracie in the finals. He then proceeded to keep the fact that he'd been partially blinded secret for years because he feared that it would damage the image of mma as a legitimate sport.

Dangersim
Sep 4, 2011

:qq:He expended too much energy and got tired:qq:

I'M NOT SURPRISED MOTHERFUCKERS
After losing to Rickson he went and trained with the gracies and became (I believe) the first Japanese bjj black belt.

Really a guy who should be remembered.

Bluedeanie
Jul 20, 2008

It's no longer a blue world, Max. Where could we go?



Sorry the FAQs took me this long to get posted, it took me longer than I thought!

If you are super new to MMA, please don't hesitate to ask for anything else to be added to this and I will do my best. I want this to be helpful and informative.

Bluedeanie posted:

Completely new to MMA and want to figure out what to do with yourself? Look no further than this FAQ!

So how did this MMA stuff all start?
Blind Side made a really good detailed post about the origins of the UFC on page 4 of this thread that I suggest you read.

If you want to be pedantic (and many people both in Rowdy Ringsports and in the sport itself do) you can arguably trace MMA all the way back to the ancient Greek bloodsport of pankration, and if that’s too distant for you, you could trace it to things like vintage pro wrestling shoot matches or old-school “master vs. master” exhibition bouts like Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki. “Judo Gene” LeBell, who himself was the referee in Ali vs. Inoki, likes to claim he was in the “first ever MMA match” when he won a bout in 1963 with boxer Milo Savage after fellow boxer Jim Beck issued a $1,000 challenge that a boxer could defeat any practitioner of another martial art in a straight fight.

MMA as we understand it today really began to form in 1993, when pay-per-view broadcasting pioneer SEG aired an eight-man “no holds barred” one-night fighting tournament called The Ultimate Fighting Championship, which really was not all that dissimilar to the LeBell-Savage stunt. The goal was to pit eight practitioners of various martial artists against one another in a tourney format to “determine” the baddest dudes and best styles; it was won by Royce Gracie of the Gracie Family, a martial arts dynasty that developed the Brazilian style of jiu jitsu. In some ways that night set the tone for the future of MMA training and talent development — everyone seemed to realize that submission grappling was a really strong base as it provided a problem that no pure striker really had an answer to at the time, plus it can be seen as the catalyst for there being so many fiercely nationalistic Brazilian fighters in MMA who came to view Royce as something of a folk hero. In time it was bought out by Zuffa and cleaned up from being super unregulated kumite bullshit to the growing institution you see today.

What are the rules? How does it work? Why does the fight end when that guy slaps the other guy’s arm or leg like that?
Under the Unified Rules, professional MMA consists of five-minute rounds with a one-minute break between each round. In the UFC, most fights are scheduled for three rounds, while all title fights and most main events are scheduled for five rounds. There are a lot of rules and specific things that I could spend quite a while naming, but the big ones are fighters aren’t allowed to eye gouge, fishhook, bite, strike the groin region, pull hair, hit their opponent in the back of the head, kick or knee the head of a downed opponent, grab the fence, etc. Fights can end in one of many ways:
Knockout/technical knockout: If a referee determines a fighter has been rendered unconscious by strikes or is unable or failing to intelligently defend themselves from an opponent’s strikes, the referee can separate the fighters and wave the fight off in favor of that fighter’s opponent. If a fighter is straight up out cold it’s typically called a KO, if they were technically conscious but not doing much more than being pummeled ceaselessly it’s typically called a TKO. The difference between a KO and TKO is sometimes incredibly nuanced and virtually impossible to really differentiate, but they both have the same effect in ending the fight.
Submission/technical submission: In this case, the fighter wins if they get their opponent in a successful submission lock — common ones include the rear naked choke, the guillotine choke and the armbar, though there are all sorts from various disciplines and of varying complexity and rarity. Here the difference between a sub and a technical sub is a lot more straightforward: if the fighter indicates they cannot escape and wish for things to end before something bad happens to them, they tap out to indicate to the ref it is time to stop the fight and declare their opponent the winner. In a technical submission, the referee had to step in before you because you failed to tap before you went unconscious or — much less pleasantly but thankfully far more rarely — go to sleep or break/severely hyperextend a limb or other body part. I can’t stress this enough as some people in the 200 GDT seemed confused that submissions happened so fast and ended the fight simply because “a fighter couldn’t escape” and suggested solutions like “making them worth fewer points so fights can be more interesting.” It isn’t a matter of simply being unable to escape, otherwise fighters would get submission wins for ugly high school wrestling pins. It is a matter of being stuck in a grappling position from which you cannot escape and the consequences of remaining in that position are dire enough that you need to declare yourself the loser for the overall sake of your health. Subs are oftentimes pretty cool!
Doctor’s stoppage: Ringside doctors frequently check fighters in between rounds if they took a bad beating, and sometimes the ref will even call a time out during a pause in the action to have a fighter inspected by the ringside physician should they be concerned. If the doctor declares the fighter unfit to safely continue, the fight will be waved off and their opponent will be declared the victor. Doctor’s stoppages are most commonly seen for bad cuts that are bleeding into a fighter’s eyes or for an eye that is swollen shut to the point that a fighter cannot see out of it, though sometimes they call fights for other injuries or causes for concern like Jamie Varner’s nasty ankle break against James Krause.
Retirement/corner stoppage: Sometimes a fighter is too beat to poo poo or too exhausted to return from their corner break and either fails to answer the bell or explicitly quits on the stool. Other times their corner (coaches and teammates who offer advice between rounds) call the fight on their behalf, either between rounds or rarely during the round. This is often signaled by throwing in the towel like in boxing, although some nerds like to argue about whether that is truly a legal means of ending a fight according to the rules as written.
No contest: No contests are ruled if something fucky happened during the fight that makes it impossible for a fight to continue but also impossible to legally declare someone the winner. 99% of the time this is due to a foul that the referee determined was unintentional (like an accidental eye poke or groin shot) that unfortunately the receiving fighter was unable to recover from within their five-minute foul recovery period. You will also frequently see athletic commissions render No Contests retroactively if the winner fails a drug test. Basically the fight becomes null and void and does not count as a win or loss on either person’s record.
Disqualification: the No Contest’s uglier and rarer cousin, the DQ comes when a foul was in fact determined to be intentional, malicious or reckless (say a fighter gets warned for throwing their hand out like a monkey paw after poking their opponent 15 times and on the 16th time it does enough damage for them to call it.) The offending fighter is declared the loser and the poor broken person who’s eye fell out is the winner. Justice!
And then there’s the dreaded judge’s decision. This has many forms and rules so it gets its own special category!

How does judging work?

If a fight reaches the end of the allotted time and these none of the aforementioned things have transpired*, we go to the judge’s scorecards. First, let’s look at who the judges are, and how the fights are scored.

Judges are selected by the athletic commission presiding over the event (more on that later) and there are three judges sitting at separate points ringside during each fight. Judges review fights using a 10-point must system, which means the winner of reach round gets 10 points and the loser gets nine or fewer points. Exceptions to this are if a referee docks points from a fighter for fouling, which judges register on their scorecards for the round in which the deduction took place, or much more rarely if a judge scores a fight a 10-10 draw. At any rate, the judges score bouts on the following criteria *Mike Goldberg voice*:
STRIKING: Judges score fights first and foremost on effective striking. This is determined by considering things like volume, accuracy and power.

GRAPPLING: Effective grappling is the next thing judges are to consider when determining a winner for each round. This includes things like takedown success and positional dominance or control.

AGGRESSION: Following striking and grappling, judges are asked to consider who actually pressed the action and was the aggressor in each round.

AAAND OCTAGON CONTROL: The final criteria, “octagon control,” basically amounts to what it sounds like — effective footwork and the ability to control where in the cage the action is taking place. You kind of saw this at play in Aldo vs. Edgar: Edgar moved forward a lot but Aldo was more effective in moving backwards. He never let Frankie back him into a corner or cut off his movement, so Aldo was never really stuck somewhere he didn’t want to be for any prolonged period of time.

So there’s the ruleset. Let’s look at different options for a judge’s decision, as there’s oftentimes confusion here as well.
Unanimous decision: This means all three judges agreed on the winner. Note this doesn’t mean all three judges and the same scorecard, as oftentimes they might differ on who won what round. (This is especially relevant in close five-round fights, as there’s more opportunity for difference of opinion on a per-round basis without dissenting on the winner.)
Split decision: This occurs when two judges score the fight for one person, determining them to be the winner by majority opinion, but one judge disagreed and gave the fight to the loser. This is not uncommon in very close fights, but oftentimes it happens because one judge just happened to be very bad at judging fights.
Majority decision: A majority decision is a lot like a split decision, except instead of one judge scoring the fight for the other person, one judge scores the fight a draw. This is pretty uncommon and usually will happen because of a point deduction.
Draw: Draws happen when for various reasons the fight was close enough that you could not determine a winner. If we see a unanimous draw it will almost invariably be because a referee’s point deduction brought what would have been the unanimous decision-winning fighter’s score down to tie with the losing fighter’s. There are other kinds of draws though. There’s the split draw, where Judge A scores the fight for Fighter A, Judge B scores the fight for Fighter B, and Judge C scores the fight a draw. Then there’s the majority draw where two judges score the fight a draw and one judge scores the fight decides there’s a winner, but this is uncommon enough that we’re getting into Quantum Judging Theory just talking about it.

*Although rare, there is such a thing as a “technical decision.” If a fight-ending foul occurs after the halfway point of the match, rather than calling it a no contest the ref figures the judges have seen enough to basically call the fight early and ask the judges to render a scorecard for the amount of fighting that happened. This is considered more fair as there was still enough of a fight to judge, and sometimes the fouled fighter is actually the one winning so that gets recognized instead of a NC appearing on their record. This is very uncommon, you could watch high-level MMA for years and never see it. One example is Michael Bisping winning after poking Alan Belcher in the eye so badly at 4:29 of the 5th round that Belcher retired afterward.

Why do you all poo poo on the judges so badly?

Because they are fairly frequently observably bad to the point that pretty much the entire viewing public clearly has it one way, but two or sometimes even all three judges score it the other way. Odds are if people know your name as a judge, it’s not a good thing. Here’s looking to you, Adalaide Byrd and Sal D’Amato. The lone exception here is Greco Roman Olympic gold medalist Jeff Blatnik, who was such a consistently good judge he was posthumously inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.

Bad judges often stick around because like any government agency, athletic commissions are rife with nepotism. Adalaide Byrd looks like the lady with the huge glasses who Joe Pesci debunked as a witness in “My Cousin Vinny” and she judges both MMA and boxing exactly like you’d expect that character to, but her husband is World Boxing Hall of Fame ref and judge Robert Byrd so she likely has a job with Nevada for as long as she cares to. In the interest of fairness, MMA is a much less cut-and-dry sport to judge than, say, boxing, and while most fans would kill for cageside seats so they can feel the blood and sweat flying off their favorite fighters, there’s no such thing as the best seat in the house for someone who is actually actively trying to score a fight. Judges are only watching the fight from one seat on the floor and each judge is at a different spot, so while the viewers at home or up in the nosebleeds where they can see the jumbotron have the advantage of the shot rapidly shifting to the camera with the best view of the action, judges do not. So if a fighter is in a position where their back is to the judge and they throw a combo, that judge is going to have a hard time determining if those shots landed flush, if their opponent defended them really well, if they were wildly inaccurate and mostly hit their opponent’s biceps or what. So tbf I can understand a handful of bad or screwy decisions.

If the judges are so bad, why doesn’t the UFC fire them and hire better ones or change the rules?

Because that’s not how it works. Like I noted above, referees and judges are not employees of the promotion, but appointed through the state. Sanctioned professional MMA bouts take place under the purviews of the athletic commission of the state in which the bout takes place. One of the biggest is Nevada’s seeing as many huge title fights and major PPVs for both boxing and MMA take place there, but California’s is a big deal too. These commissions (when actually doing their job, anyway) enforce the rules, apply sanctions for failed drug tests and other problems, make sure fighters are healthy enough and medically cleared to fight before issuing fight licenses, oversee promotions and ensure they follow safety standards, and hire regulatory officials — this includes referees and judges. (The UFC occasionally does shows in smaller states or foreign countries like Japan that do not have their own official athletic sanctioning bodies, in which case the UFC actually self-regulates and brings in many of the same refs and judges you see working cards in Vegas or LA. While this sounds like it’d present an opportunity for some super shady bullshit on the UFC’s part, surprisingly by all accounts they handle this very well and let things carry on as unabated as possible. This is probably due to the fact that “commission shopping” is a pretty drat good way of getting blacklisted from being allowed to do shows in your huge consistent money markets so they want things to go as professionally and above-the-table as possible regarding regulatory affairs.

That all sounds pretty neat. Who is the Ultimate Fighting Champion?

Well, there are several champions, one for each weight class. In fact, sometimes there are TWO for each weight class, based on the increasingly transparent marketing whims of the UFC! So I will share with you a current list of champions as well as contenders and rising stars in each division. Please note that MMA changes very rapidly and this list could be laughably obsolete tomorrow and without a single fight even happening, based on any number of injuries, conduct problems or other tomfoolery.

Heavyweight: 206-265 lbs
Historically an awful division of great big fat guys who were not athletic enough to go into safer or more stable sports, heavyweight actually owns if you go into it with tempered expectations.

Current champ: Stipe Miocic
Current contenders: Alistair Overeem, Cain Velasquez, Junior dos Santos, “Big” Ben Rothwell
Rising stars to watch: Derrick Lewis, Francis Ngannou

Light Heavyweight: 205 lbs
This division is secretly even worse than heavyweight. Many people don’t realize this as it had a long period of being a marquee division for the UFC, mostly due to having a poo poo-ton of aging and deeply flawed but very popular and marketable fighters who all played hot potato with the belt. This all came to an end with the long and horrible winter of Jon Jones, when he unceremoniously slaughtered all of them and left them to fight each other as broken husks in bad fights forever. Now he’s out of the picture due to his own fuckups and Cormier’s already beaten two of the three most likely next challengers for the belt.

Current champ: Daniel “DC” Cormier
Current contenders: Anthony “Rumble” Johnson, Glover Teixeira, Alexander Gustafsson, Jon Jones (ic) (if he can manage to worm his way out of a two-year suspension for his positive drug test and retain his meaningless interim championship, which presently seems highly unlikely.)
Rising stars to watch: Lol. Alexander Gustafson’s Friend Ilir Latifi? Chris Weidman’s Friend Gian Villante? Mother Ukraine’s Friend Nikita Krylov, I guess? They’re all reasonably likeable enough and have had some fun if not bad fights, but none of them are really particularly good.

Middleweight: 185 lbs
Middleweight has been a wild ride since Anderson was dethroned, but actually that owns. There are a lot of good and cool fighters there who all have very realistic shots at a title within the near future.

Current champ: Michael “the Count” Bisping
Current contenders: Chris “the All-American” Weidman, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, Yoel “Soldier of God” Romero, and somehow for some dark and tragic reason immensely popular goon favorite but elderly grandfather Dan “Daniel” Henderson.
Rising stars to watch: “Smile’n” Sam Alvey, Thiago Santos

Welterweight: 170 lbs
Similar to middleweight, this division lost a long-time dominant champ in Goerges St-Pierre a few years ago and has been all the more interesting for it ever since. Aside from Johny Hendricks, this division has been ruled by Robbie Lawler, who is insanely loving awesome to watch although in my honest opinion he should have lost two of his three winning title fights in that time. I am not complaining too much though because it means I get to watch more kick-rear end Lawler fights.

Current champion: Robbie Lawler
Current contenders: Tyron Woodley, Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson, NEIL MAGNY, Kelvin Gastelum, Rory MacDonald
Rising stars, goon favorites and fringe contenders to watch (because this division is really talent-rich right now): Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, Gunnar “Gunni” Nelson, Erick Silva, Dong Hyun “Stun Gun” Kim, Carlos “the Natural Born Killer” Condit, Rick “the Horror” Story, Bryan “Bam Bam” Barberena

Lightweight: 155 lbs
Historically lightweight has been a great division that never got enough respect from many drive-by fans. Currently it’s kind of in a weird state where it’s hard to define a very long contender list, but it will shake itself out.

Current champ: Eddie Alvarez
Current contenders: Tony “el Cucuy” Ferguson, Khabib “Somehow I can spell this without double checking” Nurmagomedov
[/b]Rising stars to watch:[/b] Dustin “the Diamond” Poirier, “Irish” Joe Duffy, Will Brooks, Bryan “Super” Sage Northcutt, Bobby Green

Featherweight, 145 lbs
Featherweight’s finally getting some long overdue attention due to the massive popularity of Conor McGregor, but because McGregor is taking two Diaz fights in a row at welterweight for no good reason there’s a bit of a logjam at the top. It’s a good division though.

Current champ: “The Notorious” Conor McGregor
Current contenders: Jose Aldo (ic), Max “Blessed” Holloway, Frankie “the Answer” Edgar
Rising stars to watch: Dennis “the Menace” Bermudez, Alex “Bruce Leroy” Caceres, Lorenzo Lamas, Cub Swanson.

Men’s bantamweight, 135 lbs
There are some excellent fighters here, and then a sizable skill gap after that.

Current champ: Dominick “Dominator” Cruz
Current contenders: TJ Dillashaw, Bryan Caraway, Raphael Assuncao
Rising stars to watch: John “the Magician” Dodson, John Linekar, Michael “Mayday” McDonald, Cody Garbrandt, Aljamain Sterling

Women’s bantamweight
This division has struggled with its image as it was the first women’s division in the UFC, which means it was the first opportunity for women to eventually make money in MMA, which means that the talent pool the UFC had to bring in was largely populated by hobbyists who couldn’t afford any decent degree of training. Now it’s in the midst of a big power vacuum left by Ronda Rousey losing the title and needing a lot of time off to both recover and do movies.

Current champ: Amanda Nunes
Current contenders: Holly Holm, Julianna Pena, Ronda Rousey if and when she should return
Rising stars to watch: Cat Zingano, Alexis Davis

Mens’ flyweight: 125 lbs
This division is full of tiny, tiny men. Many of them are good, but many of them have already been wiped out by the champ, so few of them left have any compelling tidbits to add to the title equation.

Current champ: Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson
Current contenders: Wilson Reis, *crickets*
List of good fighters Mighty Mouse has already owned but could easily be champ one day should Mighty Mouse move to bantamweight for a Cruz rematch or retire to be a professional Twitch streamer: Joseph Benavidez, Kyoji Horiguchi, Henry Cejudo, John Dodson if he returns from exile imposed by King Johnson.

Women’s flyweight
Technically this division doesn’t exist as a whole yet, and there has only been one w125 fight in the UFC. They’re talking about actually adding it in the near future though.
Women’s flyweight fighters: Joanne “Jojo” Calderwood, Valerie Letourneau

Women’s strawweight, 115 lbs
This division in general is more talent rich than w135, though it also looks like it’s going to have a longtime dominant champ at this point.

Current champ: Joanna “there’s no way I can spell this without fucktuple checking” Jedrzejczyk
Current contenders: Rose Namajunas, Jessica Agular, Claudia Gadelha
Rising stars to watch: “12 Guage” Paige VanZant, Michelle “the Karate Hottie” Waterson, Jessica “Jag” Aguilar


I heard the Chinese have bought Conor McGregor for $4.2 billion USD. While Conor will surely die of tuberculosis in a Shanghai whorehouse as a result of this sale, what does it mean for the rest of the UFC?
It is true that the ]UFC has been sold for$ 4+ bil. While there was quite a bit of Chinese skin in that game as co-investors, that bid was also spearheaded by talent and investment agency WME-INC (co-owned by the guy who inspired Entourage) and a number of other investors, including NE Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Dana White was technically bought out of his original 9% share of the company for several hundred million, but was also signed for another five-year stint as the company president for 10% of the net profits earned in that time. Reports are White is building his Scrooge McDuck money pit in Boston. The Fertitta brothers, who originally were majority owners of the UFC, will also retain a minority share of the company going forward. No one really knows what the long-term might look like here, especially in terms of many fighters’ attempts at unionization that had previously been blocked by the Fertittas or the slightly [url= http://www.mmamania.com/2016/6/24/12027840/matt-mitrione-not-concerned-about-ali-acts-effect-on-mma]contentious[/url] possibility of the Ali Act being widened to include MMA, but in the short-term they say nothing much is going to change and I mostly believe that. There are some questions that everyone has right now though, like what will Dana White be like when given free reins after he has historically had Lorenzo to act as good cop to his bad cop, or what will Ronda Rousey continuing to have WME-Inc as her talent agency be like while they are now her bosses, (because that sure as poo poo seems like a conflict of interest to me.)

Bluedeanie, I am completely captivated by this fake, gay and sweaty sport you and your approximately 12 internet friends have discussed at length in a small corner of a comedy website. What are some other organizations besides MMA that I can follow, so I can continue to mindlessly consume sanctioned violence well beyond even the hundreds of bouts the UFC puts on each year?

We have a B-league thread that acts both as a news and discussion platform for the smaller shows and a low-volume GDT for all the various lower-level MMA cards that take place.

Right now there is one big b-league organization though, and that’s Bellator. Since being taken over by former Strikeforce President Scott Coker, Bellator has specialized in putting on freakshow fights that lots of people want to see. Within the last year they had the trilogy match between Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock, the two opponents in the very first UFC finale in 1993. They’re also currently facing litigation regarding allegedly falsifying fighters’ medical records and putting events on in unregulated Native American reservation territories and states with absolute dogshit athletic commissions so they can get away with it. This is bolstered by the fact that they recently put on Kimbo Slice vs. Dada 5000, a bout where in the time frame from between the opening bell to four months after the fight, both fighters literally died a combined total of three times, and one of them stayed dead.

Another worth mentioning is Invicta FC, a small all-women’s promotion based out of Kansas City. It acts as a quasi-official feeder league to the UFC and all of their cards are broadcast on Fight Pass.

Speaking of which, is Fight Pass worth it?
If you’re in the US, hell yeah. It’s anywhere from $7-10 a month depending on how long you sign up for, it’s got at least a few live prelims for every event and occasionally whole Fight Pass exclusive cards, it’s got live events from other organizations like Invicta and Shooto that have signed special broadcast deals with the UFC, and perhaps most importantly it has the entire fight library of not only the UFC but all of the major organizations it absorbed (Pride, WEC and Strikeforce) and other organizations including K1. That’s a hell of a deal if you’re a new fight fan who wants to get caught up.

Outside of the US, it’s a mixed bag due to various blackouts based on the UFC’s numerous international broadcast deals. In some countries like Canada it’s pretty much the same product, but in countries like Germany it’s almost completely worthless. Look into it for your country before buying.

What older fights should I watch?
This thread is extremely good if you want Fight Pass listings. handsome only face posted his own list in this thread that is very good from the past two years. If I were to call any two fights out beyond what I mentioned in the UFC 200 recaps for each fighter, it’d have to be the single fight that took me from a casual viewer to probably lifelong fan, Chris Leben vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama, and the all-time great fight Robbie Lawler vs. Rory MacDonald 2. I will not ruin anything telling you anything about them, but I beg you to watch them if nothing else.

I AM FROM JOHANESSBURG AND EK SÊ WHY DON’T YOU TELL ME HOW TO WATCH THE FIGHTS IN MY COUNTRY IN THE GDT YA DOMKOP DWANKIE
Because there are a loving billion different broadcast deals unique to each country in the world and there’s just no way for me to include all of that in a GDT, I am sorry but please google that yourself.

e: fixed some html tag issues

Bluedeanie fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Jul 19, 2016

Marching Powder
Mar 8, 2008



stop the fucking fight, cornerman, your dude is fucking done and is about to be killed.

fatherdog posted:

The guy he blinded (in one eye) was Yuki Nakai, who not only won that match (heelhooked Gordeau) he then went on to win his next match in the tournament and lose to Rickson Gracie in the finals. He then proceeded to keep the fact that he'd been partially blinded secret for years because he feared that it would damage the image of mma as a legitimate sport.

holy poo poo


Bluedeanie posted:

Sorry the FAQs took me this long to get posted, it took me longer than I thought!

If you are super new to MMA, please don't hesitate to ask for anything else to be added to this and I will do my best. I want this to be helpful and informative.

holy poo poo

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad

Bluedeanie posted:

MMA as we understand it today really began to form in 1993, when pay-per-view broadcasting pioneer SEG aired an eight-man “no holds barred” one-night fighting tournament called The Ultimate Fighting Championship, which really was not all that dissimilar to the LeBell-Savage stunt. The goal was to pit eight practitioners of various martial artists against one another in a tourney format to “determine” the baddest dudes and best styles; it was won by Royce Gracie of the Gracie Family, a martial arts dynasty that developed the Brazilian style of jiu jitsu. In some ways that night set the tone for the future of MMA training and talent development — everyone seemed to realize that submission grappling was a really strong base as it provided a problem that no pure striker really had an answer to at the time, plus it can be seen as the catalyst for there being so many fiercely nationalistic Brazilian fighters in MMA who came to view Royce as something of a folk hero.

I think it's important to note that the Gracies were involved with the UFC to a greater degree than implied in this section. Rorion Gracie worked with Art Davies and SEG to plan the first UFC. Here he is with Art Davies at UFC 1's rule meeting:

It wasn't that Royce was a random competitor that managed to get picked randomly -- he was a ringer that the organizers knew would have a good shot at winning.
So Royce won like the Gracies were counting on him to, which not only kicked off the sport, but also brought folks in to train at Gracie BJJ schools, leading to a separate history of the commercialization of BJJ.

Some more reading on how the Gracies were involved with UFC 1:
http://mmajunkie.com/2014/06/ufc-co-founder-art-davie-gracies-group-of-alpha-males-trying-to-impress-the-old-man
http://www.mmafighting.com/2013/11/12/5043630/rorion-gracie-and-the-day-he-created-the-ufc
http://www.foxsports.com/ufc/haymaker/the-story-of-how-ufc-1-was-almost-derailed-at-the-11th-hour-070114

CommonShore
Jun 6, 2014

A true renaissance man


And no Gracie has won a UFC bout since torsion quit his rules czar position, which actually saw him changing the rules mid fight at one point to allow Royce to walk away with a draw.

fatherdog
Feb 16, 2005

Bluedeanie posted:

MMA as we understand it today really began to form in 1993, when pay-per-view broadcasting pioneer SEG aired an eight-man “no holds barred” one-night fighting tournament called The Ultimate Fighting Championship, which really was not all that dissimilar to the LeBell-Savage stunt.

As a piece of trivia - this is broadly true, but Shooto was actually putting on professional mixed rules striking-grappling shows as early as 1989. While you could point to that as the beginning of mma as we know it, it's largely academic as you are unlikely to ever talk to anyone who's actually seen early Shooto, unless the yellow brick road leads you past Joe Silva's house.

LobsterMobster
Oct 29, 2009

"I was being quiet and trying to be a good boy but he dialed the right combination to open the throw-down vault and it was on."

"Walter Foxx is ten times brighter than your bulb at the bottom of the tree merry xmas"
Great work, Bluedeanie

I do just want to add that not only was Blatnick a great judge, he was also an early UFC commentator and commissioner and he helped develop the unified rules.

Bluedeanie
Jul 20, 2008

It's no longer a blue world, Max. Where could we go?



fatherdog posted:

you are unlikely to ever talk to anyone who's actually seen early Shooto, unless the yellow brick road leads you past Joe Silva's house.

Well, he is a munchkin.

Zwachro
Mar 7, 2003
C808BEA

Bluedeanie posted:

Sorry the FAQs took me this long to get posted, it took me longer than I thought!
Good post! Might want to add Jessica Andrade to the strawweight discussion though; she was competitive at Bantamweight and debuted at Strawweight by beating Penne almost as badly as JJ did in about half the time. Right now I'd probably favour her over JAG, although her big weakness is getting stupid and giving up submissions so she's also capable of losing against anyone with a half-decent submission game.

e: fun fact for newbies: I mention four fighters in this post and three of them have the first name 'Jessica'. Can you spot the aberration?

Zwachro fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Jul 18, 2016

Wise Fwom Yo Gwave
Jan 9, 2006

Popping up from out of nowhere...


I'm still having issues not conflating "bjj" and the Klingon word for pain, "bij." Does this ever come up in these threads and if so, how often? (This is an honest question. I'm not trying to make my own joke with it)

Bluedeanie
Jul 20, 2008

It's no longer a blue world, Max. Where could we go?



Wise Fwom Yo Gwave posted:

I'm still having issues not conflating "bjj" and the Klingon word for pain, "bij." Does this ever come up in these threads and if so, how often? (This is an honest question. I'm not trying to make my own joke with it)

I can safely say this has not once come up in any combat sports thread I have seen on Something Awful, although a few days ago b league fighter Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos received a complimentary set of klingon forehead ridges.

Bundt Cake
Aug 17, 2003
;(

Wise Fwom Yo Gwave posted:

I'm still having issues not conflating "bjj" and the Klingon word for pain, "bij." Does this ever come up in these threads and if so, how often? (This is an honest question. I'm not trying to make my own joke with it)
10 years. never seen it

Marching Powder
Mar 8, 2008



stop the fucking fight, cornerman, your dude is fucking done and is about to be killed.
can someone give me a brief (or not-so-brief, if you're so inclined) history of joe silva / sean shelby? i've heard bits and pieces about joe and he fascinates me insofar as he's a way bigger fan of this than i can ever be but i know loving nothing about sean shelby and they have both gotten insanely good at their jobs.

JKong
Sep 11, 2003
This doesn't dive deep into their backgrounds, but I always liked this article about the things that Joe Silva and Sean Shelby have to deal with: http://mmajunkie.com/2013/08/powerful-but-a-little-misunderstood-ufc-matchmakers-joe-silva-and-sean-shelby

fatherdog
Feb 16, 2005

Marching Powder posted:

can someone give me a brief (or not-so-brief, if you're so inclined) history of joe silva / sean shelby? i've heard bits and pieces about joe and he fascinates me insofar as he's a way bigger fan of this than i can ever be but i know loving nothing about sean shelby and they have both gotten insanely good at their jobs.

Joe Silva was a wrestling fan who got keyed into Pancrase even before the UFC. He started watching UFC with the first show because Shamrock was in it, and instantly became a fan of MMA. He got in on watching the early Japanese Shooto stuff through tape trading and may very well have seen more mma than anyone else on the planet. he got hired as matchmaker by SEG (iirc, because he was writing them letters complaining about matchups/recommending fighters from other feds) and I think was the only employee that Zuffa kept when they bought them out.

I don' tknow nearly as much about Sean Shelby; he was the matchmaker for WEC (and did an obvjectively fantastic job) and when Zuffa folded in the WEC they wisely kept him on to matchmake for the lower weight classes.

Marching Powder
Mar 8, 2008



stop the fucking fight, cornerman, your dude is fucking done and is about to be killed.
thank you both that's good poo poo


rad article posted:

As I would learn during my hour-long conversation with the two, the paranoia wasn’t unfounded. Turns out that the last time someone told Shelby he had to have his photo taken was when Zuffa needed new ID badges for all employees in the Las Vegas office. So Shelby did his part, sat for his headshot, then went about his day.

Only later did he learn that there were no ID badges, that it was all a ruse set up by UFC President Dana White, who had planned to use Shelby’s photo for a “40-Year-Old Virgin”-themed billboard in Vegas. You know, as a prank. Which White was willing to spend $12,000 on, according to Shelby.

lol

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad

Bundt Cake posted:

10 years. never seen it

Too busy experiencing beejs :ortiz:

vainman
Nov 2, 2012

I find your lack of faith... disturbing
Sean Shelby ran this defunct site back in the day and I'm insanely jealous that his nerdiness got him a cool job

vulvamancer
Oct 2, 2006

Yes! It all makes sense! We may be freaks, but we're freaks with teeth, and claws, and magic wands! And together, we can stand up to Farquaad!
I was reading the FAQ and thinking about what a let-down it was that UFC 200 was a let-down. I had watched the first UFC when I was a kid, and then started watching a few around ~75 but UFC 100 was what really got me hooked. It's too bad that the 200 card was such a stinker because it was a huge opportunity to draw new people into the sport. We won't ever know if playing hardball with McGregor was the right move long term for the UFC, but it will have long term effects I think because of how many fans they could have added.

homercles
Feb 14, 2010

On the subject of judging/refereeing, Big John McCarthy did a great podcast with Joey Diaz where he covered a bunch of topics you'd expect a referee to cover. The podcast was 3 months ago but was recently uploaded to youtube, so:

When to stop a fight: 8m24s
Explains how Jackson/Winkeljohn influence judge scoring in a fight: 35m35s
Process for becoming a judge: 52m18s
Stopping a fight without assigning blame on a judge: 1h13m44s (him doing it I guess: Tank Abbott vs Cabbage, 4m22s)

Lots of other gold in this podcast.

Shirkelton
Apr 6, 2009

I'm not loyal to anything, General... except the dream.
Yeah, that's a real good watch.

Josuke Higashikata
Mar 7, 2013


The scoring talk after the Jackson/Winkeljohn time tag there should be mandatory listening for all.

Lloyd Boner
Oct 11, 2009

Yes officer, my name is Victoria Sonnen...berg

Josuke Higashikata posted:

The scoring talk after the Jackson/Winkeljohn time tag there should be mandatory listening for all.

Yeah that was fantastic

Michael Transactions
Nov 11, 2013

homercles posted:

On the subject of judging/refereeing, Big John McCarthy did a great podcast with Joey Diaz where he covered a bunch of topics you'd expect a referee to cover. The podcast was 3 months ago but was recently uploaded to youtube, so:

When to stop a fight: 8m24s
Explains how Jackson/Winkeljohn influence judge scoring in a fight: 35m35s
Process for becoming a judge: 52m18s
Stopping a fight without assigning blame on a judge: 1h13m44s (him doing it I guess: Tank Abbott vs Cabbage, 4m22s)

Lots of other gold in this podcast.

Very cool, ty

Shine
Feb 26, 2007

No Muscles For The Majority

Josuke Higashikata posted:

The scoring talk after the Jackson/Winkeljohn time tag there should be mandatory listening for all.

Yeah, massive pro-click. John basically says "the graphics UFC shows and the stuff Joe Rogan says about judging are total horseshit," and then he explains what the judges are actually looking for.

The MUMPSorceress
Jan 6, 2012


^SHTPSTS

Gary’s Answer

Shine posted:

Yeah, massive pro-click. John basically says "the graphics UFC shows and the stuff Joe Rogan says about judging are total horseshit," and then he explains what the judges are actually looking for.

All those graphics basically stem from the whole "trying to look like a real sport" thing, same as the Reebok uniforms. The big sports all have all sorts of stats and metrics the broadcasters can ramble about endlessly without having to do real analysis so in an effort to let the announcers imitate the NFL-ish "Well, Aaron Rodgers have a passer rating of 124, and his ball holding time per play is really high so that means he is good" they've added all these vaguely meaningless metrics about "head strikes attempted" and "distance traveled in the octagon" and so on.

STING 64
Oct 20, 2006

in response to the Becoming A Judge topic mccarthy went over, in mississippi i became a sanctioned judge for MMA and boxing by literally just filing an application and sending it in, no interview process or anything. i was assigned to two shows even.

BlindSite
Feb 8, 2009

JOHN CENA posted:

in response to the Becoming A Judge topic mccarthy went over, in mississippi i became a sanctioned judge for MMA and boxing by literally just filing an application and sending it in, no interview process or anything. i was assigned to two shows even.

What do you get paid?

STING 64
Oct 20, 2006

BlindSite posted:

What do you get paid?

i couldn't make one show because it was on the opposite end of the state and they werent covering transpo (MS Boxing commission for ya lol), the show i went to at imperial palace was a $200 gig. i was assigned to no fights despite being assigned to the show.

Eat This Glob
Jan 14, 2008

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Who will wipe this blood off us? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent?

JOHN CENA posted:

i couldn't make one show because it was on the opposite end of the state and they werent covering transpo (MS Boxing commission for ya lol), the show i went to at imperial palace was a $200 gig. i was assigned to no fights despite being assigned to the show.

Thank God for Mississippi

Eat This Glob
Jan 14, 2008

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Who will wipe this blood off us? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent?

And that's not a slight on you, just the fact that you can send in an application on a whim, get approved, get assigned, and then not judge a fight. Thank God for Mississippi. Y'all saved Iowa from being the last state to send a woman to Washington/and or elect a woman governor. I appreciate that on a personal level.

Bluedeanie
Jul 20, 2008

It's no longer a blue world, Max. Where could we go?



Eat This Glob posted:

And that's not a slight on you, just the fact that you can send in an application on a whim, get approved, get assigned, and then not judge a fight. Thank God for Mississippi. Y'all saved Iowa from being the last state to send a woman to Washington/and or elect a woman governor. I appreciate that on a personal level.

From what I've researched, it's more or less like this in Missouri as well. Fill out a form, pay a fee, judge fights to your heart's content.

Bluedeanie fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Jul 20, 2016

Eat This Glob
Jan 14, 2008

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Who will wipe this blood off us? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent?

Bluedeanie posted:

From what I've researched, it's more or less like this in Missouri as well. Fill out a former, pay a fee, judge fights to your heart's content.

That's awesome/ridiculous. I'll have to see what iowa's are. I don't even know if we have a comission.

C. Everett Koop
Aug 18, 2008
One nitpick: UFC's new owners are WME-IMG, not INC. I know this because I had a cup of coffee with the latter a lifetime ago, before their merger.

regardless of that you should join my petition to make Koop the new UFC booker where I mandate all title fights take place in a Lego Deathmatch where we scatter legos all over the canvas

Eat Bum Zen
Jul 19, 2013

*mumbles*
Rated T for Teen
Yeah

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad

C. Everett Koop posted:

One nitpick: UFC's new owners are WME-IMG, not INC. I know this because I had a cup of coffee with the latter a lifetime ago, before their merger.

That's cool you had coffee with the whole company.

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Eat Bum Zen
Jul 19, 2013

*mumbles*
Rated T for Teen

kimbo305 posted:

That's cool you had coffee with the whole company.

who do you have coffee with motherf***er?

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