The MMA thread

[BRMMA]

I think the UFC have done the right thing on the Jones situation, no doubt he'll serve his time either in jail or just away from the sport and will come back into a big money fight hopefully with his act cleaned up.

Not hard to see why he has made so many stupid moves though, he's young, very rich, known as one of the btoughest men on the planet. I think many people in his situation would struggle to keep it together. I can tell you that an awful lot of fighters have stuff going on in their personal life that if known to the public would shed a completely different light on them, Jones has been unfortunate enough for some of his mistakes to have come out into the open. it would be very easy to rag on him at this point but i quite like the fact it shows he's human

[Stu R]

I'll be very surprised if he sees jail time. It's a felony, but I believe it's his first. The fact he's out on next-to-nothing bail and that he's got some cash means it'll probably just be a chunky settlement and fine, suspended pending rehab etc.

[g4ry13]

FredClogs said:

Makes for a more interesting fight in my opinion. I can see Jones coming back after doing a bit of jail time.

As someone who has spent a lot of my life practicing traditional martial arts with traditional martial artists and Japanese/Buddhist traditions and met a lot of respectful, honest and good people full of integrity and fine moral upstanding because of their practice I'm quite glad that Jon Jones will no longer represent the pinnacle of what it means to be a martial artist.

You really think UFC is the pinnacle of Martial Arts?!?

Dana definitely made the right decision with JJ, you just can't have that representing the brand. Not with that much heat around him.

[Halb]

It's probably second after boxing. And probably is the representation of the pinnacle for mixed martial arts for the populace as a whole.

[g4ry13]

Halb said:

It's probably second after boxing. And probably is the representation of the pinnacle for mixed martial arts for the populace as a whole.

I didn't realise Boxing was considered a Martial art

UFC is the pinnacle of MMA. My question was: (to paraphrase) whether Jon Jones ever represented the pinnacle of what it means to be a martial artist. Seeing as MMA is really looked down upon among the Martial Arts community and I the populace are unlikely to equate MMA to something like Kung Fu / Tae Kwon Do.

I'm not having a dig at the sport as I enjoy it myself. However, I wouldn't call it the pinnacle of martial arts.

[FredClogs]

g4ry13 said:

I didn't realise Boxing was considered a Martial art

UFC is the pinnacle of MMA. My question was: (to paraphrase) whether Jon Jones ever represented the pinnacleof what it means to be a martial artist. Seeing as MMA is really looked down upon among the Martial Arts community and I the populace are unlikely to equate MMA to something like Kung Fu / Tae Kwon Do.

I'm not having a dig at the sport as I enjoy it myself. However, I wouldn't call it the pinnacle of martial arts.

I love all things Budo and martial arts but if John Jones isn't the pinnacle of martial arts skill and hand to hand combat then who/what is?

[BRMMA]

g4ry13 said:

I didn't realise Boxing was considered a Martial art

UFC is the pinnacle of MMA. My question was: (to paraphrase) whether Jon Jones ever represented the pinnacle of what it means to be a martial artist. Seeing as MMA is really looked down upon among the Martial Arts community and I the populace are unlikely to equate MMA to something like Kung Fu / Tae Kwon Do.

I'm not having a dig at the sport as I enjoy it myself. However, I wouldn't call it the pinnacle of martial arts.

I agree the UFC is the pinnacle of MMA, i also agree a lot of the fat middle aged men with ponytails that do traditional martial arts look down on MMA (probably because it shows the majority of them up as the charlatans they are) but i can't see how being the best at MMA doesn't put you at the pinnacle of martial arts? it's very difficult to make an argument for any other martial arts over MMA as if it was effective it would be used in MMA

[FredClogs]

BRMMA said:

fat middle aged men with ponytails that do traditional martial arts

One day young man, one day

Edited by FredClogs on Thursday 30th April 08:44

[Chris77]

BRMMA said:

I agree the UFC is the pinnacle of MMA, i also agree a lot of the fat middle aged men with ponytails that do traditional martial arts look down on MMA (probably because it shows the majority of them up as the charlatans they are) but i can't see how being the best at MMA doesn't put you at the pinnacle of martial arts? it's very difficult to make an argument for any other martial arts over MMA as if it was effective it would be used in MMA

The same people who revere Bruce Lee, look down on MMA in my experience?!? go figure

[Halb]

g4ry13 said:

I didn't realise Boxing was considered a Martial art
UFC is the pinnacle of MMA. My question was: (to paraphrase) whether Jon Jones ever represented the pinnacle of what it means to be a martial artist. Seeing as MMA is really looked down upon among the Martial Arts community and I the populace are unlikely to equate MMA to something like Kung Fu / Tae Kwon Do.
I'm not having a dig at the sport as I enjoy it myself. However, I wouldn't call it the pinnacle of martial arts.

"Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practices, which are practiced for a variety of reasons: self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, entertainment, as well as mental, physical, and spiritual development.

Although the term martial art has become associated with the fighting arts of eastern Asia, it originally referred to the combat systems of Europe as early as the 1550s."
My favourites are wrestling and sword-fighting (HEMA) but these are tiny sports.

The UFC chaps are like premier league footballers, to be in the premier league would be to be the pinnacle (I guess, I don't like football), UFC is the big leagues, to be the best in that would be to be the pinnacle, in my opinion.

[BRMMA]

FredClogs said:

One day young man, one day

Edited by FredClogs on Thursday 30th April 08:44

I will NEVER have a ponytail

I've always prefered a strong mullet

[BRMMA]

Chris77 said:

The same people who revere Bruce Lee, look down on MMA in my experience?!? go figure

haha the number of times I've used Bruce Lee being one of the pioneers of MMA to win this argument even exceeds the number of times i've used the example of Couture smashing James Toney to show that the theory of "yeah but a boxer is just too fast n will just KO an MMA fighter" isn't entirely accurate

BTW i'm not ragging on TMA's, they definitely have their place, can instill great discipline and in certain cases be very effective in combat, the problem is too many of them have been developed into rubbish taught in village halls by idiots to people who think they're being taught how to be a ninja but in reality would get beat up by your average guy in the pub. for example my sister is a black belt in some sort of Karate, my Dad thinks this will protect her, the reality is she couldn't fight her way out of a paper bag

[militantmandy]

BRMMA said:

haha the number of times I've used Bruce Lee being one of the pioneers of MMA to win this argument even exceeds the number of times i've used the example of Couture smashing James Toney to show that the theory of "yeah but a boxer is just too fast n will just KO an MMA fighter" isn't entirely accurate

BTW i'm not ragging on TMA's, they definitely have their place, can instill great discipline and in certain cases be very effective in combat, the problem is too many of them have been developed into rubbish taught in village halls by idiots to people who think they're being taught how to be a ninja but in reality would get beat up by your average guy in the pub. for example my sister is a black belt in some sort of Karate, my Dad thinks this will protect her, the reality is she couldn't fight her way out of a paper bag

Do traditional martial arts do full contact sparring? Having done some Muay Thai, I would say the act of full contact (but with respect) sparring did a lot to prepare me for a real fight in the sense that it helped me to not panic when someone is winging punches at me.

[FredClogs]

militantmandy said:

Do traditional martial arts do full contact sparring?

Karate and TKD do, obviously they're Olympic sports, they might be based on speed rather than trying to knock a guy out but it still smarts. Everything that goes on in Gyms and Dojos (well nearly everything) and in competition is controlled, predictable and has an element of respect and no harm wishing to be done. After 25 years of doing martial arts of all kinds I still worry how I would react to some of the random totally chaotic stuff that could happen on the streets, I can take a punch and keep moving forward, in my head I'm Joe Frasier and I've won some fights but who knows what would happen if the guy was not doing what I expect him too. I love Aikido and have done it for 15 years, we do a lot of knife and weapon disarm sort of stuff using techniques based on traditional ju jitsu from the battle fields of 17th century Japan, they taught it and learned it because it was the best thing to do faced with a samurai wanting your blood, the techniques definitely work and are in my muscle memory but whether I'd get close to doing it in a real event in a back alley - who knows? Rather not find out.

[BRMMA]

FredClogs said:

Karate and TKD do, obviously they're Olympic sports, they might be based on speed rather than trying to knock a guy out but it still smarts. Everything that goes on in Gyms and Dojos (well nearly everything) and in competition is controlled, predictable and has an element of respect and no harm wishing to be done. After 25 years of doing martial arts of all kinds I still worry how I would react to some of the random totally chaotic stuff that could happen on the streets, I can take a punch and keep moving forward, in my head I'm Joe Frasier and I've won some fights but who knows what would happen if the guy was not doing what I expect him too. I love Aikido and have done it for 15 years, we do a lot of knife and weapon disarm sort of stuff using techniques based on traditional ju jitsu from the battle fields of 17th century Japan, they taught it and learned it because it was the best thing to do faced with a samurai wanting your blood, the techniques definitely work and are in my muscle memory but whether I'd get close to doing it in a real event in a back alley - who knows? Rather not find out.

Even with doing MMA where we full contact spar very regular and spar hard once a week it really doesn't compare to a street fight, i still hate the thought of having a proper fight, i'm too worried of the consequences to me both if i got hurt and legally if i won. the great thing with MMA is you can get in a cage, have a good scrap and if you lose the referee protects you and you then get cleaned up and have a beer, very far removed from a real fight

most people that i know who are experienced in TMA's struggle with the randomness of a real conflict or even an MMA spar as it's not structured where as a lot of TMA moves assume person x will do y which means you do Z, the problem is that person X will often do bvsivbhjsbvjk;snvcuwghyu whilst foaming at the mouth

i occasionaly see videos of full contact karate fights though where they don't even wear gloves, that looks pretty brutal

[FredClogs]

BRMMA said:

i occasionaly see videos of full contact karate fights though where they don't even wear gloves, that looks pretty brutal

I listen to Joe Rogan's podcast, for quite a while he's been questioning glove use in MMA and in the UFC (as I'm sure you know when the UFC started they never wore gloves), this week he had Sam Harris on who is a Neuro Scientist and MMA fan who reckoned that not using the gloves would actually (possibly) lead to less brain trauma because people find out pretty quick that punching the skull without gloves breaks hands, when you watch the gypsy stuff they don't punch the head like they do in MMA, loosing the gloves obviously aids the grapplers too - how do you feel about this? Would you compete without gloves?

[Don1]

So just wraps, or bare knuckle?

[FredClogs]

Don1 said:

So just wraps, or bare knuckle?

Half the argument is the wraps protect the wrists to the point where you feel like you can punch much harder, well you can, without fear of hurting the hands and also the wrists but also for someone like me who does a lot of aikido and ju jitsu wrist locks are a pretty useful technique that is pretty much taken away by wrapping up the wrists.

I know in Thailand they have this yearly Thai vs Bhurma match thing where they do some mad stuff with wraps dipped in some kind of resin or something so it's like a knuckle to receive but protects the hands...

I'm not going to do either btw! 16oz gloves if you're going to hit me thankyou but I was just wondering the opinion of someone who actually competes at a decent level.

[Don1]

Light gloves and wraps didn't stop my rugby-damaged hands finally giving way, this stopping me training at a fairly decent level.
Thus I can only post as a fan - I tune in for violence. If it becomes a 'press against the cage' snooze-fest, I fast forward. Therefore if gloves (or open-palmed mits to stop eye pokes), enhance the punching, I'm all good for that.

[BRMMA]

FredClogs said:

I listen to Joe Rogan's podcast, for quite a while he's been questioning glove use in MMA and in the UFC (as I'm sure you know when the UFC started they never wore gloves), this week he had Sam Harris on who is a Neuro Scientist and MMA fan who reckoned that not using the gloves would actually (possibly) lead to less brain trauma because people find out pretty quick that punching the skull without gloves breaks hands, when you watch the gypsy stuff they don't punch the head like they do in MMA, loosing the gloves obviously aids the grapplers too - how do you feel about this? Would you compete without gloves?

I actually agree that no gloves would be safer than the 4oz gloves and the main reason mma is safer than boxing is the reduced blunt force trauma received by using 4oz rather 10

I personally wouldn't compete without gloves as although smaller or no gloves means you get hit less or finished quicker if you do get hit, it also means you get more superficial damage and I can't have that with my job,though if mma was my career I'd actually prefer no gloves, as a grappler I want to get hit as little as possible and no gloves would help my grappling game