Is this a case of making compromises to kicking because of the ruleset, or a result of no one specializing enough to reach that level? Like, let's just assume you could graft a TKDer's kicks onto a competent boxer/wrestler/BJJer, how would his kicks fare in that environment?
I'd say both. With the understanding that the compromises are made in TKD, not MMA. They compromise effectiveness for flashiness. Not that all TKD kicks are innefective, not at all, but the competition rules encourage "fighting" in a way that would not work in many situations, in my humble opinion.
In my opinion, no-one in MMA spends long enough training kicks to get as good at it as an Olympic taekwondo player. And why would they? Olympic taekwondo players spend all day every day working on their kicks to get to the level they're at. There is nobody on the planet who can kick as good as them - and that's why Silva will get annihilated if he follows through with this crazy idea. I'd be just as critical of Olympic champion Steven Lopez saying he was going to fight for the UFC belt. It's just crackers to think he'd stand a chance. If you could graft Olympic level TKD kicks on to a competent MMA fighter, you'd probably have the best P4P striker in all of MMA.
Olympic TKD is already full contact, but the stances would need a lot of work. Too much, imo. I was talking purely hypothetically of course. I don't think Olympic TKD is compatible to MMA and vice versa.
I think it's self-evident that if you specialise in a rule set, you become really good at functioning within that rule set. Like if you took a Samurai or medieval knight and entered them in Olympic fencing - they'd probably decapitate everyone out of sheer frustration within five minutes
Doublethanks I'm not a huge fan of Olympic TKD as a ruleset, but if you step in the ring you run the risk of getting kicked unconscious and I think people forget that. It's also a highly developed and specific sport. Those who think, "I could do that after 3 years of kickboxing/MT/Savate are kidding themselves; Olympic level TKD may not be your cup of tea but unless you train for it you're going to get whupped. And we should remember that "getting whupped" means getting knocked unconscious by someone's heel in your face. Mitch
If only the Olympics had more of this: [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPVuC6ugmAw"]Best Taekwondo Knockouts KO - YouTube[/ame] Who doesn't love home-brew dubstep and people getting kicked unconscious? Silly... but fun
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'd also argue that because it's such a highly developed and specific sport that it's one of the hardest to be really successful in. Certainly out of all combat sports, anyway. I think you need to have perfect genetics and be born at exactly the right time. From my own standpoint, I started doing the sport when I was four years old, trained upwards of three hours a day through high school with Herb Perez when I lived in Florida, trained with the GB team when they were still based in Loughborough, won medals at nationals and even the World Games, and I still wasn't good enough to begin reaching even just Olympic qualification level. I think that's partly why stunts like this Anderson Silva thing really annoy me.
You know I wonder if that sort of outcome in Olympic TKD as this kind of outcome is in kung fu (Northern Chinese stylists really DO like to kick!)? [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8DQgr2KNmU[/ame] :' D LFD
Of course lol. But the other important part of that statement was about being born at the right time, the perfect time even, so the athlete peaks during an Olympic cycle at exactly the right moment. That excludes most people unfortunately, and I think it applies more to Olympic TKD than it does a lot of other combat sports.