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Dada doesn't really strike me as a tank abbott style guy for some reason He's just some guy who wanted to fight.The mma wasteland is littered with failed tank abbotts who tried to make their hobby of violence into a professional career, dada barely lasted 3 fights (and it nearly killed him) Would you consider chuck the successful tank? ilmucche fucked around with this message at 19:30 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 19:25
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If this was almost any other matchup, Dada 5000 would probably walk away with it. But unfortunately he had the misfortune to be against the Tank Abbott. Someone who Vince Russo thought should be the WCW World Champion, and then quickly relegated to pulling knives on his supposed friends at PPVs and being 3 Count's number one fanboy.
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May 25, 2023 19:28
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Tank Abbott also paved the way for the ruling against fighters holding and/or using the cage itself as a weapon after he held onto it while grating the side of Paul Varelans face into the links as he punched down on him during their match at UFC 6. Then in his next fight at UFC 7.5 while he had Steve Jennum grounded and against the fence he pressed the dude's head into the cage so hard it forced him to submit via neck crank and left a visible dent in the wall.
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May 25, 2023 19:47
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Would Tank Abbott losing in the first round of the Tank Abbott tournament be the most Tank Abbott thing ever?
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May 25, 2023 20:15
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I voted for Tank but I was so, so tempted to vote for Dada based purely on the only time I ever saw him fight. If you have not seen that fight, you have read it was the worst fight of all time, and intellectually you understand that. You have read about the poor quality on display, the gassing out, the collapse, the bullshit finish, the fact he literally loving died during the fight etc, and you nod and say,"Well that sounds terrible." You do not understand. You cannot comprehend just how bad that fight is unless you have seen it. It is astonishing. It's an accidental work of art, something that transcends the word "worst" and becomes its own bizarre, weird and unfathomable thing. Anybody other than Tank or maybe Derrick Lewis, I would have voted for Dada. But that's not how things worked out. Tank Abbott is more Tank Abbott than Dada 5000 could ever be. But Dada 5000 is his own utterly surreal thing.
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May 25, 2023 21:11
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Dada 5000 showed me that video games are real. Specifically, the way human beings fall in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! This is not enough to get my vote. The fact that of the two people in Kimbo vs. Dada 5000, the one who died is the only one alive is also not enough, because Tank is Tank. But it is enough that I will never forget Dada 5000.
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May 25, 2023 21:18
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I think what ultimately pushes me to vote Tank over Dada is the love of violence Tank displayed. Sure, Dada threw big dumb hooks, but possibly more because he had no idea at all what to do than because he lusted for destruction. Tank was a big, mean, angry dude who loved to smash people. The Dada story will always have a place in my heart though, if for no other reason than that he still managed to be half of the worst fight Kimbo ever had, despite being up against Houston Alexander, a fight I watched the entirety of back in the day for some reason.
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May 25, 2023 21:43
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that's kind of what i was trying to get at with my post too. dada fought, he wanted to fight. tank really seemed like he was there to hurt people
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May 25, 2023 22:34
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ilmucche posted:that's kind of what i was trying to get at with my post too. dada fought, he wanted to fight. tank really seemed like he was there to hurt people You gotta look at where the UFC was at that point in time and how it was marketing itself. They would push the narrative of how they pulled Tank Abbot right off street/barstool so they could lock him in the octagon. The quintessential parking lot brawler archetype. He was there for hurt people and the UFC wanted him there to hurt people.
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May 25, 2023 23:50
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ilmucche posted:that's kind of what i was trying to get at with my post too. dada fought, he wanted to fight. tank really seemed like he was there to hurt people To be fair to Dada 5000, there's a whole lot of video footage of him very clearly enjoying beating the poo poo out of untrained people on the street. I don't think there's actually that much air separating the degree to which they ENJOYED beating people up, I think Tank just had the benefit of both being slightly better at beating up actual trained fighters and, most importantly, coming in at a time where other people had no loving idea what they were doing and would get scared shitless of this weird grizzly bear wrestler man trying to break their skull. Like, it's one thing when Tank Abbott is fighting John Matua or Steve Nelmark; if you watch Tank vs Cabbage, or Mo Smith, or basically anyone he knows is actually decent, he visibly shifts out of 'I LUST FOR VIOLENCE AND AM COMING FOR YOUR HEAD' mode and into 'alright i'm gonna jab and clinch and boy i sure wish you would stop kicking my leg' mode. They're similar in that way, it's just for Tank "anyone I know is better than me" was the upper grade of professional heavyweights and for Dada it was just, y'know, almost everybody who had actually bothered to train.
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May 26, 2023 08:02
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thank you
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May 26, 2023 08:24
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ilmucche posted:Would you consider chuck the successful tank? Also I missed this question initially and I think it's an interesting one, because honestly, I don't think Chuck was really much of a brawler at all. Chuck gets lumped in with brawlers because he was a knockout artist with weird, lumpy-looking technique, but his striking offense was actually pretty ahead of its time--at a point in the sport where most people were still bullrushing and sticking to specific striking styles, he was actually pretty patient and good at mixing up his game and using his weirdly square footwork to frame people for counters. The whole "Chuck is so powerful he knocks people out going backwards" meme has always been kind of incorrect; it's not that he was brutally powerful, it's that he was accurate as hell. If you go back and watch those knockouts now, he's remarkably good at timing his strikes, and that plus getting people to chase him earned him a ton of success. But his defense was absolute garbage and he only ever made that offense work because he was fast enough to skirt out of the way and had enough of a chin to take lumps when he hosed up, so the moment his reflexes started slowing down and he started feeling the effects of ten years of fighting and/or cocaine, he just sort of collapsed. Either way I'd say his fighting was too focused on timing and accuracy to qualify for the singleminded violence required for Abbotdom.
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May 26, 2023 08:55
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that's some great writing as usual, thanks for the answers 
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May 26, 2023 10:58
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When I wrote for Uproxx, I had written up the announcement of Dada's Barge Fights, and then one of the sports editors asked me if I wanted to go to Miami (where I knew no one) and then get on a barge that was going to international waters to cover the bouts live Since I didn't want to be murdered, I politely declined the opportunity Also, for Uproxx, I did a breakdown of Tank's novel, "Befor There Were Rules". I am still waiting for the 2nd and 3rd installments that are obviously never coming. This has been my contribution to this matchup
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May 26, 2023 16:00
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LobsterMobster posted:When I wrote for Uproxx, I had written up the announcement of Dada's Barge Fights, and then one of the sports editors asked me if I wanted to go to Miami (where I knew no one) and then get on a barge that was going to international waters to cover the bouts live   forever at tank
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May 26, 2023 18:22
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LobsterMobster posted:When I wrote for Uproxx, I had written up the announcement of Dada's Barge Fights, and then one of the sports editors asked me if I wanted to go to Miami (where I knew no one) and then get on a barge that was going to international waters to cover the bouts live My friend, you need wait no longer.    Published in 2019 and 2021 respectively, and on sale on Amazon for the low, low price of $20 per paperback copy or free with your kindle unlimited membership.
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May 26, 2023 19:24
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Tank was my dad & older brother's first ever MMA hero from the moment we black-box stole the PPV. He looked like every lovely divorced roofer that we knew growing up in my hometown so I think my also white trash blue collar divorced dad heavily identified with ol' Tank. He was obsessed with boxing and hockey fights, and the fact that Tank "didn't do any of that kung fu pussy poo poo, he just beats the crap out of you" was just the icing on the cake. Tank losing to Dada would be the most Tank thing I can think of, therefore Dada gets my vote. Side note: anyone else remember the PPV where, I'm pretty sure but my memories hazy, it was hosted by Tank and his biker friends and it might have been his "greatest hits" or just best UFC knockouts? I do have a distinct memory of watching as a kid and Tank got progressively drunker & more belligerent throughout the PPV during his talking segments.
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May 26, 2023 20:44
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I had no idea Dada had so few pro fights lol
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May 26, 2023 21:37
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CarlCX posted:My friend, you need wait no longer. oh shiiiiii
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May 26, 2023 22:45
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LobsterMobster posted:Also, for Uproxx, I did a breakdown of Tank's novel, "Befor There Were Rules". Haha, I wish that typo had been the actual title of the boo- CarlCX posted:My friend, you need wait no longer. 
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May 26, 2023 22:52
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  Dada 5000, the Revenant Abbott, has been eliminated. Match four begins this afternoon. CarlCX fucked around with this message at 10:19 on May 27, 2023 |
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May 27, 2023 10:17
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Dasa did way better than I thought he would, but I suppose that's thematically appropriate for this thread - everyone's got at least a puncher's chance.
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May 27, 2023 12:48
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 ALEXANDRU LUNGU vs CHRIS BARNETT IN THE RED CORNER:  ALEXANDRU "SANDU" LUNGU 6'0" / 352 lbs Active at 21-5 Winning ratio: 81% Victory method ratio: 48% KO, 52% SUB, 0% DEC Once disqualified in a kickboxing match for shooting a takedown and throwing ground and pound Best win: Tom Erikson Worst loss: Tomasz Czerwiński Record against other Abbotts: Beat Jimmy Ambriz, lost to Chris Barnett A recurring theme of Tank Abbotts is a core competency in martial arts of their youth. Alexandru "Sandu" Lungu was, for a time, one of Romania's best judoka. He won twelve championships across multiple countries and even three world championships, and for most of it, he competed around 210-220 pounds, at which weight he was already a broad, imposing figure. By the time he had his final official judo competitions in 2004, he was competing in openweight, anything-goes contests. By the time he made his 2005 mixed martial arts debut in Pride, he weighed 368 pounds. His flexibility, his throws and his stamina were gone, and in their place he had learned how to swing his entire mass behind his fists. The very first punch of Alexandru Lungu's career was a big giant right hand, and it made James Thompson faceplant on the canvas. Of course, Lungu still lost by TKO. He didn't really get knocked out--he just swung one last big right hand with so much force that it spun him a full 180 degrees, decided he was done, and simply put his head outside of the ring and waited until the referee stopped the fight, and thus, a legend was born. Lungu blazed a trail across the Romanian regional circuit, but his 81% success rate looks less impressive when you realize the combined records of everyone he beat measures out to 65-75--and 29 of those wins come from exactly two people. As you can see from his submission record, a surprising number of Lungu's fights have ended on the ground--but he doesn't really take people down, he just fights the calibre of competition that tends to sort of get tired and fall over because the alternative is Alexandru Lungu bolo-punching them in the face. His most common submission method is, in fact, the Smother Choke, where he just buries people under his bulk until they give up. IN THE BLUE CORNER:  CHRIS "BEASTBOY" BARNETT 5'9" / 268 lbs Active at 23-8 Winning ratio: 74% Victory method ratio: 78% KO, 0% SUB, 22% DEC Won and defended the Island Fights Super Heavyweight Championship, managed to actually miss the UFC heavyweight weight limit Best win: Walt Harris Worst loss: Hyun Man Myung Record against other Abbotts: Beat Johnathan Ivey and Alexandru Lungu Before he was Beastboy, Chris Barnett was an unsigned regional superheavyweight champion known mainly as Huggy Bear. His past reads like a martial arts movie: He was raised and trained by a married pair of Taekwondo black belts, he excelled enough at wrestling to earn a college scholarship for it, and his entry into the world of mixed martial arts came not from an intentional attempt to seek it out, but from a friend seeing Barnett's surprising agility in a college dance battle and inviting him to train. Just a couple years later Barnett was tearing up the regional scene, and just six years after that, he was 13-1 and had victories over successful UFC fighters. And he couldn't get into the UFC. Because he didn't fight at a weight class the UFC offered. For most of his regional career, Chris Barnett was one of the world's greatest superheavyweight fighters. He tilted the scales at 300-340 pounds--and that helped make him a star, because in what seemed like a physical impossibility, 5'9", 340-pound Chris Barnett would dance his way to the Inoki Genome Fight ring, brutalize people with spinning hook kicks, do a cartwheel for funsies, and leave. It was a fantastic act! And it kept him severely limited, because by god, if he had to fight for more than a few minutes every one of those 300+ pounds made their presence clear on his cardio. In 2019 he decided to get serious about making it to the big show before he retired, he successfully dropped to the heavyweight limit, and a couple years later he was wheelkicking people in the UFC. And, y'know, becoming the first UFC fighter to ever miss the weight limit for heavyweight. It would be easy to cite that as a monolithic achievement in itself, but it turns out a big part of his renewed weight struggle was grief over the death of his wife, so let it instead stand quietly as a testament to love.  In direct spite of our randomly-selected matchups, this is the statistically unlikely case where two of our Tank Abbott candidates have actually fought one another. Beastboy and Sandu did battle for South Korea's Road FC back in 2018, and like many of Lungu's opponents Barnett fell over--because, of course, he threw a spinning wheel kick--and nearly got smothered for it, but he managed to buck Lungu off his back, sit on him and punch him until it became clear that while he wasn't in an enormous amount of trouble, Alexandru Lungu had made the command decision not to even bother trying to get back up. So there is no question about which of the two is a better fighter. But does that mean Barnett is the better Tank Abbott? Alexandru Lungu is definitely the most classically accurate of the two. He has grappling expertise he chooses to barely use, he swings giant hamhock fists at people with little regard for strategy, his cultivation of mass both enables his punching power and places a strict time limit on his ability to use it, and he violently crushes the world's half-trained scrubs but generally-speaking gets crushed by fighters who actually know what they're doing. He even brought his talents to the Romanian kickboxing scene and is, as of now, 15-2! And almost all of those wins are against people who hadn't really kickboxed before. And one of his two losses came from getting disqualified after he got tired of kickboxing and decided to just throw his opponent down and start punching him on the floor. Disqualifying, as a kickboxer. In character, as an Abbott. Chris Barnett, by contrast, is another Tank with a twist, except the twist is literal and it's the way he kicks people. We've already discussed the way technique and the practice thereof can interfere with the traditionally blunt-force-trauma-centric ways of the Tank, but I posit Barnett is an interesting case study in how obsession with a specific kind of violence, and a dedication to being out of shape, can pen a fighter into a reputation they would otherwise easily escape. Chris Barnett is, genuinely, an extremely talented fighter. He hits like a truck, he moves remarkably quickly for a heavyweight let alone a superheavyweight, he's got a rock-solid chin and his ability to mix his attacks together is notable for a division that still relies on 1-2s as much as trashweight does. He's even a solid offensive wrestler who has, demonstrably, suplexed the poo poo out of people. He could be a champion. But he's not. Because he cannot ever stop himself from fighting like Chris Barnett. He will throw 360-degree double-jump spinning heel kicks where a jab would have sufficed. He will exhaust himself attempting low-percentage attacks because those are what make fighting interesting for his heart. And he will absolutely refuse to manage his cardio well enough to let him actually get away with it. Lungu is clearly the stylistically more violent fighter. Barnett is clearly the fighter more hurt by his conditioning. The only question marks are achievement. Lungu has more wins, but they're predominantly over all the rookies Romania has to offer: Does that mean rather than overachieving or underachieving, he's simply fighting on par with expectations? Barnett has better wins and more knockouts, even if they come from fancy technique, but he's 50-50 in the UFC despite being able to spinning kick a 6'2" man in the face: Does that mean he's overachieving given his size and shape, or underachieving by being so bent on said fancy techniques that he'll lose fights because of them? Do wheel kicks disqualify you from being Tank Abbott? Or does losing to everyone with a winning record?  CAST YOUR VOTE
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May 27, 2023 19:47
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 This one is extremely tough to choose from, so I'm not stumping for either. Either could win the entire tournament.
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May 27, 2023 20:18
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While Lungu certainly has the pedigree to be the Abbott'est of Abbotts, I feel the above post sums up my feelings on this matchup more than words can.
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May 27, 2023 20:56
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I love Huggy Bear, but I think by losing to him, Lungu is the Tankier of Abbotts. Also, smother choke is a very Tank way to submit someone.
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May 27, 2023 21:02
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Not sure how I feel about how to weigh this, but Barnett being a (seemingly, don't tell me about his twitter if it's bad) really nice, funny guy gives me the feeling he shouldn't win. On the flipside, doing a takedown with G&P in a kickboxing match is incredible, deeply Tanky, and funny as poo poo.
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May 27, 2023 22:29
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I love Barnett too, but he's far too tactical and varied in his offense to be a Tank Abbot.
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May 27, 2023 22:36
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I think it's extremely unfair to even entertain the idea that Barnett might be a Tank Abbott.
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May 27, 2023 22:49
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Gave it to Lungu almost purely on the strength of the story about him punching the air so hard he did a 180 and just decided to stop fighting. Also because Barnett seems like a really cool dude and that story about his wife made me sad.
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May 28, 2023 00:09
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maybe I don't fully understand the tank abbott style but barnett doesn't really strike me as a tank abbott kind of guy taking someone down and beating them up in a kickboxing match, though...
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May 28, 2023 00:20
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I think different personal standpoints on who does or doesn't qualify as a Tank Abbott is kind of the fun. Tank Abbottdom lives in the philosophical gray area where there are both objective and subjective measurements for defining it, and that's how you get to questions like if a leglock specialist or a guy who does jumping tornado kicks can still be a Tank Abbott. Also for the first time the poll is a perfectly even 50/50.
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May 28, 2023 04:26
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Crossover thread with cspam to determine if someone is tankie enough
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May 28, 2023 09:53
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Barnett is insufficient Tank Abbot because he is proven capable of love.
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May 28, 2023 22:52
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I love Huggy Bear but he isn't an Abbott because he's actually good.
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May 29, 2023 00:54
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I don't want to give the Huggy Bear man the vote because missing weight due to grief eating over becoming a widower introduces an element of pathos and humanity you would never find in Tank Abbott.
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May 29, 2023 08:31
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Losing a kickboxing fight due to getting bored of kickboxing is very Abbott-esque. Lungu has my vote
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May 29, 2023 08:51
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  The Twirling Abbott has been eliminated. Match five begins this afternoon.
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May 29, 2023 10:59
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Oh hey, I missed an entire vote. Not that it matters, because I would have voted for Lungu anyway. I was instantly charmed by Barnett and if he was kicking people out of personal spite I could see him advancing. But he doesn't seem like someone who likes to hurt people, he just likes doing spin kicks. That just doesn't seem like a very Tank thought process.
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May 29, 2023 14:30
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 WESLEY "CABBAGE' CORREIRA VS AORIGELE IN THE RED CORNER:  WESLEY "CABBAGE" CORREIRA 6'3" / 253 lbs Retired at 21-16 Winning ratio: 57% Victory method ratio: 80% KO, 10% SUB, 5% DEC, 5% DQ Icon Sport heavyweight champion, Superbrawl 24 quarterfinalist Best win: Travis Wiuff Worst loss: Kazuhiro Hamanaka Record against other Abbotts: Beat Tank Abbott, Lost to Tank Abbott, Beat Butterbean in kickboxing Wesley Correira might actually be the most well-rounded Abbott in this competition. Before he ever stepped into a cage he had already trained in boxing, wrestling, judo and karate, and within the first couple fights of his career, as a part of the then-small Hawaiian mixed martial arts community, he was training with BJ Penn, Falaniko Vitale and the Inoue brothers. His gym nicknamed him "Cabbage" thanks to the way his bald head and soft features reminded them of Cabbage Patch dolls, and armed with a solid martial background and a silly moniker he was loosed on the Hawaiian fight circuit, where he utilized his many skills by ignoring them almost entirely in favor of wild brawling. Fighters, generally speaking, are known less for the fullness of their nature than the most singularly memorable parts of their careers. For some, this is a particular knockout or submission; for others, a run of competition or even a title reign. Cabbage is entrenched in memory for one of the worst possible reasons: An impossibly solid chin. He was famous for being so ludicrously tough and addicted to brawling that he would take dozens of knockout punches to the face without dropping, all in the name of getting a chance to swing back and catch opponents who thought they had him where they wanted him. Against the 1-0 and 11-14 fighters of the world, it worked fantastically! Against people who were actually good, most famously Tim Sylvia, it got him outstruck 155-26 and forced his corner to throw in the towel so he didn't die. IN THE BLUE CORNER:  AORIGELE 6'2" / 360 lbs Retired (?) at 8-3 (1) Winning ratio: 66.7% Victory method ratio: 100% KO, 0% SUB, 0% DEC Once kicked in the groin so hard he was hospitalized Best win: Kazuyuki Fujita Worst loss: Hong Man Choi Record against other Abbotts: None Like, just look at him. Aori-goddamn-gele. The "Heavyweight Supernova" was one of China's absolute best superheavyweights, which is, in fairness, a category he had more or less all to himself--the Chinese heavyweight scene is about a dozen people wide and one of them, inexplicably, is former UFC middleweight Jeremy May--but that did not stop Aorigele from still making an international accounting for himself. His Sanda background made him an instant favorite in China's Kung-Fu Championships, but his actual notoreity came from South Korea's Road FC, which had started making regular journeys to China in an attempt to broaden its fanbase. And China knew exactly who to send them. I would like to tell you that Aorigele got famous for his fighting. It wouldn't be inaccurate; he was a numerically successful fighter and had victories over famous fighters like Bob Sapp and Kazuyuki Fujita who, respectfully, extremely should not have been fighting anymore. I would like to tell you that Aorigele got famous for being a big, powerful brawler. That wouldn't be wrong, either, exactly; he was a huge power puncher who would turn all of his mass into a mess of hooks, and it earned him knockouts in every one of his victories. But truthfully: What made Aorigele internet-famous was that time one of his fights ended nine seconds in when Hyun Man Myung kicked him in the dick so hard he had to be rushed to the hospital. We may be in B-league Tank territory, here, but both men have solid arguments for inclusion. Most brawlers are noted more for their ability to dish out punishment than take it, and Cabbage is cursed by the degree to which he did, in fact, take it, but that overshadows his talents as a pugilist. He got the poo poo kicked out of him by Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia, but he also threw back so violently and frequently that he wobbled both champions even while they were dropping bombs on him. Looking back through his career, that's the real testament to Cabbage's love of wildly brawling violence: Not how frequently he got hit, but how frequently, rather than covering up or running away, he responded to getting hit by swinging back as hard as he loving could. Even his two submission victories are a misnomer--one of them was just an opponent tapping out because he was tired of Cabbage sitting on him. Aorigele might have gone on to become the canonical Tank Abbott of China if his career had lasted longer. He ticks all the boxes--prolific knockout artist, genuinely talented, grappling chops he ignored in favor of swinging haymakers, conspicuous cultivation of mass--to the point that the likeness is almost uncanny. But he retired in his mid-twenties after just four and a half years of competition and a dozen fights, and it leaves one wondering what his longterm legacy in the sport could have been. He left enough of an impression to be known across an MMA fandom that largely had no idea how to even watch the events on which he competed, and given how few Road FC fighters got successful international breaks, it's hard not to parse that as overachieving. But at the apex of his career, he stopped. So does this match go to the Tank who lived between blows, or the Tank that almost was? CAST YOUR VOTE
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May 29, 2023 20:28
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