MMA - Page 2

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 03 Oct 2006, 12:41

I am a fan of both boxing and MMA.

MMA is much more pleasing on the eye, referees are much quicker these days to stand the fighters back up if there is not much action on the ground. 'Lay n prey' tactics are no longer tolerated.

MMA is certainly gaining ground on boxing, all their matchups are competitive and they are matched far harder than boxing prospects.

Pride pay better than UFC.

Tony Lumb · Post by **Tony Lumb** » 03 Oct 2006, 14:37

I've been following MMA for years now, and I prefer it to boxing. Too much politics and lack of quality matchmaking is killing the sport in my eyes.

The more you watch MMA, the more you appreciate it. Instead of seeing guys rolling around on the mat, you see guys fighting for position and attempting submissions.

Saying it won't surpass boxing is naive to me. The last few UFC buyrates hve all been 500k plus, and they're predicting 1 MILLION buys for Liddell Ortiz 2 in December-the only bigger draw in boxing is De La Hoya, and he's going soon. It's being underpinned by the Hispnic market, if they had a big latino draw in MMA the shift would be even more obvious.

The non PPV shows in MMA beat their boxing counterparts as well.
The average age of MMA fans is about 20 years younger than boxing.
It's all changing, trust me. I have 1 other friend who watches boxing, that's it, and i'm in my twenties.

And in terms of serious injury MMA is safer. Apart from joint injuries, there's less concussions as well, and also the ability to win by submission. Plus if there's a skill gap in boxing, one guy gets punched repeatedly till he can't continue. In MMA, chances are the guy would get taken down and submitted within a minute.

the big appeal to me is the fact that MMA is as close as you can get to pure fighting, without the brutality. Plus MMA does a better job of building personalities than boxing. They're desperate to grow so they make good matches.

One other thing with regards to UFC pay-the PPV main eventers get a percentage of the PPV revenue, so the last 3 or 4 main events would have taken home just over a million dollars in pay. What do the openers get on an average boxing PPV? MAYBE a few grand, so it's becoming more comparable.

Lastly, MMA has Fedor F'N Emilianenko, THE baddest man on the planet.

Lefthookhappy19 · Post by **Lefthookhappy19** » 03 Oct 2006, 14:56

I can't wait for UFC 65: Matt Hughes vs Georges St Pierre. Also a stacked undercard on that show.

Here's my P4P list of the best fighters in the sport.

1. Fedor Emelianenko
**daylight**
2. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua
3. Matt Hughes
4. Kid Yamamoto
5. Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic
6. Chuck Liddell
7. Takanori Gomi
8. Wanderlei Silva
9. Rich Franklin
10. Georges St Pierre

Tony Lumb · Post by **Tony Lumb** » 03 Oct 2006, 15:06

Lefthookhappy19 wrote:I can't wait for UFC 65: Matt Hughes vs Georges St Pierre. Also a stacked undercard on that show.

Here's my P4P list of the best fighters in the sport.

1. Fedor Emelianenko
**daylight**
2. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua
3. Matt Hughes
4. Kid Yamamoto
5. Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic
6. Chuck Liddell
7. Takanori Gomi
8. Wanderlei Silva
9. Rich Franklin
10. Georges St Pierre

Not too much different from me, although in terms of all round skill I'd have Minotauro Nogueira. Nogueira's only losses in a few years are the pick 'em loss to barnett which plenty of people thought he won, and Fedor, who's not human.
Also, Kid Yamamoto's retired for at least a couple of years-he's training for the Olympics in wrestling. The best thing about him is he's about 155 pounds, and almost always fights guys bigger than him.

I look forward to every UFC event now. It's a shame Hero's or Pride don't have decent coverage in the UK, but there's no market for it yet.

TerribleTerry · Post by **TerribleTerry** » 03 Oct 2006, 18:35

jamesmcdonnell wrote:
Where did you find those figures?

http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/tem ... 3&zoneid=1

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 04 Oct 2006, 05:49

From what I gather Kimbo Slice is just some crazy crackhead/internet legend.

I doubt the MMA fraternity would consider him one of their own.

TerribleTerry · Post by **TerribleTerry** » 04 Oct 2006, 06:03

jamesmcdonnell wrote:From what I gather Kimbo Slice is just some crazy crackhead/internet legend.

I doubt the MMA fraternity would consider him one of their own.

Exactly right.

Kimbo slice is an internet generated ‘legend in his own lunch time’ and his brand of bare knuckle back yard boxing is a million miles from modern MMA.

Interestingly he is Emmauel Augusta/Burton’s cousin and whilst he is big and intimidating, he has little skill or stamina, as demonstrated in his fabled ‘sparring match’ with very average MMA fighter Sean ‘The Cannon’ Gannon (a Boston policeman who challeneged Kimbo Slice through the mma.tv underground forum). Their match and other Kimbo ‘matches’ can be viewed at youtube I believe but don’t confuse such nonsense with the real sport.

There are rumours that he is training in mma in Miami but I will believe he is becoming a professional fighter when I see him in the ring/cage to be honest.

He is as much a mixed martial artist as gypsies who fight bare knuckle are pro boxers.

csmith · Post by **csmith** » 04 Oct 2006, 06:15

jamesmcdonnell wrote:Ah you were at cage rage then? I was there also.

What was notable was that the favourites lost in half of the bouts, as far as I could tell who the favourites were.

However, what we need to bear in mind is that as yet, there are few big stars in MMA, and I am pretty confident that there is nobody of a standing anywhere in the sport to command the kind of purses that the likes of Mayweather, DeLaHoya, Hatton, Gatti etc are earning.

Most of the guys even at a big show are unlikely to be asking for 250,000 for turning up, and from what I was told most of them also have other jobs, and are not full time fighters.

I guess the biggest stars so far are those in the pride (which I know nothing about) shows, and UFC, but even those surely aren't on the mega paydays the top boxers are.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the sport gets big enough that PPV money is commonplace, and fighters become aware of their drawing power and start asking for more money.

Also worth noting is that each of the organisations is operating as both a sanctioning body and promoter at the same time. Pride has it's own world champions, as does UFC as does Cage Rage. As far as I am aware, (someone can correct me on this) there are few if any examples of a fighter fighting for more than one organisation at a time. You either fight for one or the other if you want to win their belt, rather like the world of wrestling with it's rival organisations.

Having a look through sherdog, which is the best site I've come across thus far, it looks like there are LOADS of organisations out there with their own titles, often these are individual promoters who also have a gym and train fighters.

It looks like already though we have three major organisations in UFC, Pride and Cage Rage, three brands or sanctioning bodies if you like. As yet there is no unification between these three and therefore no unified champions.

agree with most of you say there,the main difference between boxing and mma is that the u.f.c is the pinnacle of mma in terms of popularity and exposure thefore all mma fighters aspire to fighting on that show.its like they have the monopoly,so the smaller shows (including cage rage) end up acting as feeder shows for the ufc.therefore they can cherrypick the cream of mma fighters and match them tough from the start.

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 04 Oct 2006, 06:27

Incorrect. Cage Rage feeds directly into Pride, which rivals UFC in popularity in Asia. Pride apparently get shows with attendances of 70,000 in Japan!

Cage Warriors in the UK feeds into UFC I believe.

Also calling cage rage a 'small show' is a bit of a misnomer. A show which has a full Wembley Arena (set up for 7000 I believe) is not a small show in my book. The show is being shown on Sky Sports 1 on the 9th I believe.

TerribleTerry · Post by **TerribleTerry** » 04 Oct 2006, 07:04

jamesmcdonnell wrote:Incorrect. Cage Rage feeds directly into Pride, which rivals UFC in popularity in Asia. Pride apparently get shows with attendances of 70,000 in Japan!

Cage Warriors in the UK feeds into UFC I believe.

Also calling cage rage a 'small show' is a bit of a misnomer. A show which has a full Wembley Arena (set up for 7000 I believe) is not a small show in my book. The show is being shown on Sky Sports 1 on the 9th I believe.

I think what csmith is probably driving at James is that both the UFC and Pride are 'the big show' in MMA terms - all other organisations (at this stage) are merely feeder organisations/minor leagues by comparison.

All fighters aspire to compete in UFC annd/or Pride and so both companies can cherry pick fighters and do not need to spoon feed easy matches to new fighters: all learning fights/record padding take place on smaller shows - when you get to UFC level its time to put up or shut up.

(In terms of the Ultimate Fighter TV show alumni, they are often pited against each other in free to air cable shows called 'The Ultimate Fight Night').

Tony Lumb · Post by **Tony Lumb** » 04 Oct 2006, 08:18

Pride generally get around 30,000 for their big shows, although it looks very likely that Pride will be out of business in the next 6 months. It was revealed that their backers are effectively the Yakuza, and they've been disowned by their TV network which financed the organisation.

They are holding a PPV in Las Vegas in November but after that their future is up in the air.

Kimbo Slice is a backyard fighter and nothing more. His fight with Sean Gannon was interesting. They agreed beforehand to not allow chokes on the floor, so Gannon got him in a standing guillotine and choked him out.

Gannon had 1 fight in UFC on the back of the internet legend, but was utterly destroyed by Brandon Lee Hinkle. If was a big mistake by UFC; they want mainstream acceptance, then they have a backyard fighter on their card.

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 04 Oct 2006, 08:37

Jesus, really? I know that one pride show got 90,000 attendees. Even if they are in trouble, an entity that big which can pull in so much money will be picked up by someone and bought out or will resurface under another name.

It's of course not surprising if organised crime is involved, because there's one hell of a lot of coin flying around here.

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 04 Oct 2006, 08:46

Tony Lumb wrote:Pride generally get around 30,000 for their big shows, although it looks very likely that Pride will be out of business in the next 6 months. It was revealed that their backers are effectively the Yakuza, and they've been disowned by their TV network which financed the organisation.

They are holding a PPV in Las Vegas in November but after that their future is up in the air.

Kimbo Slice is a backyard fighter and nothing more. His fight with Sean Gannon was interesting. They agreed beforehand to not allow chokes on the floor, so Gannon got him in a standing guillotine and choked him out.

Gannon had 1 fight in UFC on the back of the internet legend, but was utterly destroyed by Brandon Lee Hinkle. If was a big mistake by UFC; they want mainstream acceptance, then they have a backyard fighter on their card.

Well, cannot find any latest news on this, the latest I've found so far is from June, so maybe this whole thing has blown over.

Have Fuji actually cut their ties with them yet?

I'm sure there's someone out there who is prepared to back Pride, there's too much money at stake for nobody to pick up their contract and give them some exposure.

Was anything actually proven in court about this, or is this all just wild accusations being thrown about by a few websites, or a former disgruntled employee of Pride?

csmith · Post by **csmith** » 04 Oct 2006, 08:49

jamesmcdonnell wrote:Incorrect. Cage Rage feeds directly into Pride, which rivals UFC in popularity in Asia. Pride apparently get shows with attendances of 70,000 in Japan!

Cage Warriors in the UK feeds into UFC I believe.

Also calling cage rage a 'small show' is a bit of a misnomer. A show which has a full Wembley Arena (set up for 7000 I believe) is not a small show in my book. The show is being shown on Sky Sports 1 on the 9th I believ

e.

you are incorrect.
cage rage fighters that have fought in the ufc include-lee murray,james zikic,dave lee in the most recent ufc,ian freeman has fought for both organisations as has leigh remedious and there are probably more that i can"t remember.
there are NO cage rage fighters that have fought in/for pride as yet.
so if cage rage are a feeder show for pride then they"re not doing very well.also as has already been mentioned pride are in financial trouble and the future is uncertain for them.
where do you get your information from?

J · Post by J » 04 Oct 2006, 08:51

did you catch up Steve and Jay, Jimmy?

to be fair cage rage hasbnt been going as long as the others, my mate Jay helps promote on it went to one in Peterboro not so long ago bout 3 thousand or so, belive they are being afficiliate to UFC in the states which will help their development

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 04 Oct 2006, 09:10

csmith wrote:
jamesmcdonnell wrote:Incorrect. Cage Rage feeds directly into Pride, which rivals UFC in popularity in Asia. Pride apparently get shows with attendances of 70,000 in Japan!

Cage Warriors in the UK feeds into UFC I believe.

Also calling cage rage a 'small show' is a bit of a misnomer. A show which has a full Wembley Arena (set up for 7000 I believe) is not a small show in my book. The show is being shown on Sky Sports 1 on the 9th I believ

e.
you are incorrect.
cage rage fighters that have fought in the ufc include-lee murray,james zikic,dave lee in the most recent ufc,ian freeman has fought for both organisations as has leigh remedious and there are probably more that i can"t remember.
there are NO cage rage fighters that have fought in/for pride as yet.
so if cage rage are a feeder show for pride then they"re not doing very well.also as has already been mentioned pride are in financial trouble and the future is uncertain for them.
where do you get your information from?

From people who fight for Cage Rage, it was Robbie Oliviera who told me that, as well as Jay Gilby who helps out with Cage Rage and has his own fighters who compete on their shows.

Actually, perhaps what they meant was that pride fighters compete on their shows? I don't really have enough background in the sport to tell you.

csmith · Post by **csmith** » 04 Oct 2006, 09:24

maybe you need to check your info before posting it then.
rob o has had a few bad decisions against him in the last couple of years,good to see him get the (deserved) decision this time.
is he still a firefighter?

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 04 Oct 2006, 09:26

Don't know mate, I'm meant to be speaking to him in the next couple of days, will ask him what the affiliation is between Cage Rage and Pride. I assumed when he said they were affiliated with pride, that that meant that their fighters competed on Pride shows in Japan. That may not be the case, but I think it's fairly elementary to assume that if someone tells me that they aren't going to be telling me porkies.

J · Post by J » 04 Oct 2006, 09:34

if you want ill get Jay to come on here and explain.

just let me know

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 04 Oct 2006, 09:39

csmith wrote:maybe you need to check your info before posting it then.
rob o has had a few bad decisions against him in the last couple of years,good to see him get the (deserved) decision this time.
is he still a firefighter?

He won by rear naked choke not decision in a rematch with Brad Pickett. I was there for their first fight which was a belter and a deserved decision for Pickett in my eyes although a very close fight.

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 04 Oct 2006, 09:43

jamesmcdonnell wrote:Don't know mate, I'm meant to be speaking to him in the next couple of days, will ask him what the affiliation is between Cage Rage and Pride. I assumed when he said they were affiliated with pride, that that meant that their fighters competed on Pride shows in Japan. That may not be the case, but I think it's fairly elementary to assume that if someone tells me that they aren't going to be telling me porkies.

Several fighters from Pride have appeared on Cage Rage shows. And the rules are pretty much the same.

Pride and UFC have different rules, although pretty much the same sport there are subtle differences. Pride allows kicks and stomps to the head of a grounded fighter for a start whereas UFC does not.

Pride have a show in the US at the end of this month and have had to revise their rules accordingly.

This is well worth a read for anyone interested in finding out more about MMA with loads of links to more and more info on the organisations etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_martial_arts

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 04 Oct 2006, 09:44

What does the 'naked' bit mean in that context? Does it mean applied without an arm bar?

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 04 Oct 2006, 09:45

Arm directly on the neck with nothing inbetween. (not to be confused with the fighter whipping his shorts off and choking him out naked!)

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 04 Oct 2006, 09:49

nickd wrote:
jamesmcdonnell wrote:Don't know mate, I'm meant to be speaking to him in the next couple of days, will ask him what the affiliation is between Cage Rage and Pride. I assumed when he said they were affiliated with pride, that that meant that their fighters competed on Pride shows in Japan. That may not be the case, but I think it's fairly elementary to assume that if someone tells me that they aren't going to be telling me porkies.
Several fighters from Pride have appeared on Cage Rage shows. And the rules are pretty much the same.

Pride and UFC have different rules, although pretty much the same sport there are subtle differences. Pride allows kicks and stomps to the head of a grounded fighter for a start whereas UFC does not.

Pride have a show in the US at the end of this month and have had to revise their rules accordingly.

This is well worth a read for anyone interested in finding out more about MMA with loads of links to more and more info on the organisations etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_martial_arts

Yeah found that article already, good starting point. Wikipedia really is becoming an unbelievable resource.

I understand that Cage Rage have recently revised their rules to disallow stomping I think. UFC started out with very few rules, but over time has had more and more introduced, I think originally everything but groin shots, gouging and fishooking were allowed. The list of rules for Cage Rage is quite extensive and I guess it has to be to make the sport appealing to more than just violence junkies who want to see people pounded into a bloody pulp.

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 04 Oct 2006, 09:50

The rear naked choke (often abbreviated RNC) is a chokehold in martial arts applied from an opponent's back. Depending on the context, the term may refer to one of two variations of the technique. Either arm can be used to apply the choke in both cases.

The term rear naked choke likely originated from the technique in Jiujitsu and Judo known as the "Hadaka Jime," or "Naked Strangle." The word "naked" in this context suggests that, unlike other strangulation techniques found in Jiujitsu/Judo, this hold does not require the use of a keikogi ("gi") or training uniform.

The choke has two variations[1]: in one version, the attacker's arm encircles the opponent's neck and then grabs his own biceps on the other arm (see below for details); in the second version, the attacker clasps his hands together instead after encircling the opponent's