Uh, no. What the UFC (and similar) showed is what works in the artificial, competitive environment when going up against similarly skilled and trained opponents within a defined rule-set. And I'm not getting into the false "answers" that the original UFC gave us either...
yes because the UFC 1-6 were so biast. how could they ever call themselves as real as it gets when you only have two men in an enclosed area, and not in a see of aids needles while each holding onto broken bear bottles as random individuals jump in to the cage whenever they please to attack the person they felt was weaker. only then could that be anywhere close to the real thing of the dangerous $tr33t$ (now that my sarcasm is done) the UFC from 1-11 and organizations like it did more for real martial arts then any man, school, art or organization did in history. it showed the faults of martial arts at that time, tested the claims of oh so many too dangerous sensais, and showed finally what a true fight looked like. Even today with rules to make it into a sport its still prepares you for just about everything a punk at a bar,a guy at the mall, or any empty hand single opponent fight is going to ever do to you. are you going to tell me an MMA fighter is not capable of handling this? [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ4cZLkkM0I&feature=related"]YouTube[/ame] it may not have weapons, or have people being attacked in groups but you have to blind or just plain argumentative to say that the UFC was some sort of false propaganda. Nothing prepares you for every possible outcome but i'd say MMA and and then the dog bros events would sum about 85%.
The first UFC was set up specifically for Royce to win. It was a grappler friendly environment, it was not cross-training that won it, it was a specialist, and it showed no "faults" with martial arts, all it did was show that when the context changes, so should the art (which is how MMA itself developed later). And there's no mention of an MMA athlete not being able to handle the local thugs, just that MMA competition, like all competitions, are not an analogue of reality, in fact, they are quite the opposite on a large number of levels.
The "Grappler friendly environment" didnt seem to help the judoka or shootfighters much though did it? What they showed was that a complete skillset us the best option when fighting 1 vs 1, this is even more important vs groups.
If it doesnt work 1 vs 1 then its not going to work vs groups now is it. Pride had a more open ruleset, as does art of war.
Except Royce didn't have a "complete skill set" either... and I'd question who was picking the opponents, when it comes down to it... In fact, when asked about his opinion of MMA at a seminar I took with Royce, he basically said that, to him, it meant that the person couldn't really do anything, so they tried to cover their bases by doing little bits of everything. I personally don't agree with him, but that shows that his attitude is not that a complete skill set is what won (it wasn't), it was the idea of who (individually) could control the fight enough to keep it where they want it to be... which is the tactic of a specialist, not someone who wants a complete skill set. Honestly, that's a false reasoning. What works against a group isn't necessarily suited to going one-on-one either, particularly not in a sporting environment. The thing is that you always need to look at the context of the application for the methods... and no, what works for one on one isn't necessarily going to work against a group, but neither does it work the other way around.
CHris you seem to be letting the fact that people compete in it for recreational activity somehow make it less effective or legitimate. Do you think people who compete in olympic shooting competitions couldn't shoot someone charging after them as well? and what do you mean grappler friendly evironment? what the fact that it was a cage and not ropes? because vale tudo matches as well as pride matches were held in ropes for years and all it did was add for more longer ground beatings when the ref has to stop the match and pull the guys back to the center.
Based on the Gracie family hosting the event (to the point of having a presentation to Helio in the middle of the first one), the competitors being chosen by them, the surface being far softer than the strikers were used to (which robbed them of their usual power and speed, noted by a number at the time, as well as being more inviting for ground-based attacks), the name being chosen to allow the winner (which was presumed to be Royce) to call themselves the "Ultimate Fighter", and their art the "Ultimate Fighting System", all to help the publicity for the Gracie schools that had recently started opening in California, the Gracies (being involved in the set up of the event) having better ability to prepare, knowing the surface that would be used (none of the others knew exactly what it was until they were there), knowing the opponents (again, a largely unknown factor to the others)... should I continue? They were largely specialists who were unskilled outside of established contexts, and were previous champions, past their optimal competitive time, rather than current athletes in their prime (as they are now). And Royce rarely got his "**** handed to him" - he employed a specific game plan (which is geared towards a prolonged encounter with a single opponent, rather than a realistic fight... but then again, that's exactly what it was needed to work for). What made Royce dangerous wasn't that he had "secret" knowledge, it was that he had a superior game plan based on better knowledge and a superior (specialist) skill set. More realistic? Sure. But it's not a competitive environment. It's RBSD training. MMA competition teaches you to be good at MMA competition. Insisting that means it's better for other things is to not understand the idea of context driven skill sets (which is what martial arts are).
No, I'm not. I was arguing against the idea that the UFC showed that what was needed in a realistic self defence training was a cross-training multi-skill set. Yes, the skills from MMA can be applied, absolutely agreed. But that doesn't mean that it's what it's designed for, nor that a competitive, false (realistically speaking) environment was any form of evidence for what worked in a completely different environment. No, not the ropes. The floor. As well as the rules being more inviting for such methods.
so.....speculations not facts?? the rules being in favor of the UFC. here were the rules no biting no eye gouging. win by ko, or submission. darn that seems oh so biased......:bang: here are a list of all the competitors who fought in ufc 1-6 who were champions going in and their age. 1.) gerard Gordeau- savate champ in 91- was still champ wehn he fought royce, and had just had a fight a month prior. 2.)pat smith- fought royce at 30 was 2x world sabaki challenge champ 3.) ken shamrock- do i even need to list credentials. 4.)jason delucia- fought at age 25 and had the knowledge of how royce fought, having had already fought him before. 5.)Remco Pardoel: was still judo champion at the time. 6.)Minoki Ichihara: was still a karate champion 7.)emmanual yarbrough: was age 29 and second place world sumo wrestler 8.)Harold Howard: was 34 had gained 3 jiujitsu and karate belts and had just won second in Canadian full contact karate championships the year prior. 9.)Dan severn: the beast, age 34 had won every title in every form of wrestling you can think of, and still fights today. 10.)Oleg Taktarov: fought at 27 was already the champion of russian sambo a year earlier. 11.) tank abbot- all american most of those men fought in there mid 20s to early 30s so you're wrong about them being "passed their prime" and about the rules restricting them, seeing as there were only 2. even when those rules were broken, the fight wasn't stopped you were just given a fine, as andy anderson eye gouged about 3 times. as for the competitors being chosen by the gracies. it was largly rorian and the rest of the committee that was on place. Also if you look at the stylistic backgrounds they had a very open tournament. people from all over the world from both striking and grappling. So i fail to see any of the proof in they were hand picking people they could beat. your argument other then conspiracy theory. So you're not really saying anything factual. royce got his **** handed to him during the kimo fight, as well as the severn fight-though he won. and on my own personal note. i'm sorry but I have no reason to believe RBSD prepares you for a real fight over MMA based training. maybe more psychological tactics are tought in house, but i'd chalk that up to a wise teacher not in training methods themselves. the only good ones i see are the few and far between ones like the *few* vids I've seen of JWT's amazing stuff. which wasn't much of a difference in technique just environment, as well more in depth research as to violence in general.
p.s. the people who train in it seem to have a decent track record of being able to confidently use those said skills off the mat as well. The skills it that make you a good MMA fighter are the same as what makes you a good fighter at all. ( least in empty hand h2h combat.)
How is "No biting, no eye gouging, no fishhooking" in the grappler's favor? Are you really one of those guys that feels those techniques neutralize grappling as a skillset? Also, are you implying that having soft mats favors the guy who is good at putting people on the ground, remaining on top, and denying the opponent to do those things (i.e. the grappler)? Because from here it sounds like you're implying that, and that doesn't make any sense.
Not quite... observation and reports including from people who were, you know, there. Not baised necessarily, but skewed towards favouring grapplers, as each of those rules were based in a grappling situation (other than winning via KO). And, again, that was only part of it. Well, let's look a little closer at that list. There are only two listed there who were in the first one (Gerard Gordeau and Patrick Smith), with Patrick saying that his first bout defeat was due, in large part, to the fact that he wasn't used to the surface, and couldn't get the striking power and speed he was used to... and lost to a grappler on the ground. Gerard made it to the final with his reach (in his first bout against Teila Tuli), and by going to the ground for an early ground n' pound against Kevin Rossier. He was taken out by Royce, again because of Royce's superior skills and game plan. After the first one, people had a better idea, so more "legit" threats came out of the woodworks to try, which is where the bulk of your list comes from. Of course, it was only meant to be a one-off event, with no follow up (again, it was really a publicity event for the Gracies... very well done, and playing to their strengths, but that's really all the first one was). But of course, you missed Art Jimmerson in your list of champions... a former boxing champ, who decided to give himself an even chance, to wear only one boxing glove, leaving his other hand free... but all that did was remove his ability to grab with one hand, or hit the way he was used to with the other. So not really a good example of someone who knew what he was getting into, I guess. Really, the biggest threat to Royce in the first event was Ken Shamrock, and Royce was more experienced, and, frankly, better. Of course, Ken learnt from the event immediately, but that didn't change the outcome of the first one. I never said anything about rules restricting them.... in fact, the point I'm talking about is quite the opposite. The environment (one on one, with a referee to stop, no weapons, soft surface etc) combined with the ruleset that allowed for grappling tactics, grappling attacks, grappling wins (submissions) that weighted the event towards the grapplers. If anything restricted them, if was the environment. Of course they wanted strikers. They were out to show the dominance of Gracie BJJ over striking arts... And can I ask how it wasn't the Gracies choosing the competitors if it was "largely Rorion" and the committee put together for the Gracie-sponsored event? I'd agree that the Kimo match took a hell of a lot out of Royce (he couldn't continue in the tournament), but with the Severn match, sure, Dan was on top for the majority of the match, but he didn't do much, as he didn't have much of a submission game at the time. Personally, I'd hardly call that "kicking Royce's ****". Then I'd suggest you don't know what RBSD is. I mean, you've just said that a training method geared towards single unarmed competition is more about preparation for street self defence than something that is only and entirely concerned with street self defence... does that sound right to you? And yeah, technique isn't the difference. It's an understanding of the environment and context. Firstly, I never even implied that MMA training wouldn't help, nor that you wouldn't be able to use the skills in a real encounter. All I said was that making the assumption that the UFC showed what was needed in a real situation was a flawed assumption. Really, it's like saying that you're ready to run your own business because you're a really good Monopoly player, and you've learnt that the best idea is to build up the number of hotels you own while not going to jail very often. Sure, you can apply a lot of things, but it's really a completely different context, so you can't necessarily make the connection the way it was presented. Who said that was the part that was mainly in the grapplers favour? Assuming my arguments before I've made them doesn't really work... No, I'm saying that the soft ground means the strikers (who are used to a firmer surface in order to push against, giving them power and speed) aren't getting the effectiveness they would in their personal contexts, whereas the grapplers were used to it, and the softer ground meant that they were willing to come in harder for takedowns, without worrying about things like their knees impacting on a hard ground. Essentially, what we had in the first UFC was an event with a surface that had the strikers at a disadvantage, and rulesets that allowed and encouraged grappling attacks and forms of gaining success, and, surprise surprise, that's exactly what happened. The strikers were at a disadvantage, and the grapplers dominated. Now, none of this is a bad thing, nor does it take away from the skillsets derived either from modern MMA training, or the skills of someone like Royce in the early ones (and others... but really, guys, remember that I've trained under Royce, what do you think I think of his skills?), all I've said is that equating what works in the UFC, particularly the early ones, with what is required for self defence, is a false understanding of each. I mean, boxing is also fantastic, and I heartily recommend it, particularly to people looking for self defence (for a range of reasons), but you wouldn't make the assumption that it's not as good as BJJ just because they work in different contexts, and are designed for such.
I'm largely with Chris on this but still feel the early UFC results would have been much the same even if his points had been addressed. The Gracie's won mainly because they had a much better idea of what would happen in a fight when most of the rules were removed. Renzo beat Ben Spijkers outside the UFC for example. Not because of the surface they fought on, not because he was hand picked by Rorian, not because he was over the hill. He lost because Renzo did something he wasn't prepared for because he was a Judoka (he hit him!).
Yeah, agreed. I think the early UFC was definitely stacked, but it was stacked based on the fact that Royce's game plan and skill set was superior. I don't think it was anything to do with ground fighting being better, I think it was more to do with Royce being better.
Ah well there I disagree a bit. If the priority was to have a competition where the winner was better than everyone else then they'd have put Rickson in. As it is Royce was good enough and less physically imposing than Rickson (and less skilled) and so a better advert for GJJ when he won. Ground fighting is "better" in that once it's happened it's a lot harder to stop doing it than striking. It's a "range" that suits one on one fighting if that's the range you favour.
lol at which point exactly was this a problem for him ? when he was flying through the air being taken down or when he was on his back being heel hooked ? cos from where I am sitting the surface of the mat didn't look as big of a problem as the catch wrestler that grabbed him 10 seconds in and didnt let go until the bell rang.
Yeah, I don't think we really disagree so much, honestly. I agree that Royce was chosen as he was a more dramatic advert, and I agree about the efficacy of ground fighting, my point was more that ground fighting happened to be what Royce (and the Gracies) specialized in, to a degree unseen by most, and they took complete advantage of that. But what made the usage of ground fighting so dominant was Royce's ability to apply it as a game plan, his knowledge of the strikers tactics, his way of keeping them at bay (with his lead kick), picking his timing to shoot and takedown, and so on. If you didn't have the ability of Royce's to apply the gameplan he was using, it didn't matter how good your ground work is, if you were getting knocked out on your way in to shoot. So again, it really was Royce being better, to my mind. He was a specialist, and employed his specialization better than anyone else in the competition. You'd need to ask him... it could be noted that his attempt to move back against the takedown/shoot was slowed, which again plays into the favour of the grapplers... also that he didn't get a chance to throw much (an attempted kick as Ken came in), which didn't really have anything behind it....
