The MMA Thread of 2009-Forever

[Bikpik]

For the record, Bones would completely destroy Silva. The only reason Silva has stayed on top so long is that there isn't a dominant takedown wrestler at 185. Silva would have the exact same chance Shogun had, which is an unexpected submission.

Imo GSP would destory Silva too, well not destory but dominate. Sonnen gave the blue print on how to beat Silva, if you can't out strike him, and GSP wouldn't get caught in a sub. At least with Jones, they would be standing and striking, hopefully. I think it would be a better fight watching Silva try and dodge Jones' strikes.

[Intrinsic]

If Bellator really wanted to make their product a must see, they should approach Shooto and Tachi and buyout the contracts of every good Flyweight and establish the premier Flyweight division without tournaments. It would give them a great lead-in for creating actual divisions, instead of having tournaments with random single fights sprinkled here and there.

[Rhyis.]

If Bellator really wanted to make their product a must see, they should approach Shooto and Tachi and buyout the contracts of every good Flyweight and establish the premier Flyweight division without tournaments. It would give them a great lead-in for creating actual divisions, instead of having tournaments with random single fights sprinkled here and there.

But that's the thing, you're thinking in the short term. These tournaments are fantastic for creating a division from scratch with newer talent, opposed to buying up already established fighters (read: expensive). Much like the UFC did originally and PRIDE did afterwards. Their divisions started off rather thin as well, but after many years of tournaments and fights, your divisions talent start to make names for themselves. Once you've got multiple tournament winners, and you start getting them to fight each other, you're looking at fights people really want to see.

Strikeforce and UFC already have the big ticket established fighter market down. There's no way Bellator can compete against either of them at their own game. So they've created their own niche market with the tourneys and newer talent. It's not for everybody, but that's the trade-off when you go down the niche market road.

[Matthias]

Alistair has unquestionably been without a real challenger for years, so there's no wonder he hasn't lost since Kharitov? I think? But that's not why he's so overhyped, it's because of the way he's been killing these Tin-Cans. Sure, Brett Rogers isn't the most technical guy, but he's a big-fuckin-boy, and Alistar tossed him around like a ragdoll. Sure, James Thompson has the Jay Leno chin, but did you see that HUGE FLYING KNEE, where he almost flies out of the ring while taking his head out?

So he's dominated a bunch of nobodies... who cares. That means he's ready to compete at the next level that doesn't mean he should be considered equals with anyone already there. Destroying fighters like the ones we named is a far cry from being a challenge to the likes of Cain Velasquez or Junior Dos Santos.

That being said, I do believe Overeem would give those two good fights. But that's more of a feeling I get from watching him fight, he's done nothing to actually demonstrate it.

Not to mention that he finally won the K1-GP.

This has absolutely no bearing on MMA. Kickboxing and MMA are two completely different animals and his success in one should in no way elevate his standing in the other.

I think that despite the level of talent faced, Ubereem is a monster, and it'll take one helluva fighter to take him out. I willing to bet that he kingcrushes Werdum in the first round, since i see Werdum on the Brett Rogers type level of competition. Sure, he's beaten Overeem before, but that was prehorsemeat, and this is the same fighter that got out bitchslapped by Arlovski, KOd by an unexperienced Dos Santos, and got dropped twice by leg kicks in the Gonzaga fight, until Gonzaga gassed hard.

Werdum has been hit and miss. It has been a while since he beat Overeem, and he has since lost the two fights you mentioned (I have not seen his fight with Gonzaga so I couldn't comment on that one), but he's also recently beaten Antonio Silva and Fedor Emelianenko, who are both miles upon miles above anyone Overeem has beaten so far. Again at this point there's just no reason to assume Overeem is at any kind of upper level and capable of beating anyone of consequence yet. This tournament will be very telling, and I will agree he's one of the favorites to win. I would put my money on him or Josh Barnett.

[Matthias]

Imo GSP would destory Silva too, well not destory but dominate. Sonnen gave the blue print on how to beat Silva, if you can't out strike him, and GSP wouldn't get caught in a sub. At least with Jones, they would be standing and striking, hopefully. I think it would be a better fight watching Silva try and dodge Jones' strikes.

FYI, Silva was injured during that fight. He went into the fight with injured ribs which full-on broke during the first round. It'd be a great fight and I'm a big fan of GSP, but imho he'd lose.

[Chips]

This has absolutely no bearing on MMA. Kickboxing and MMA are two completely different animals and his success in one should in no way elevate his standing in the other.

I disagree with this statement 100%. You're saying someone with elite level kickboxing doesn't translate over into MMA? That's a ridiculous statement. I'm sure you're going to bring up a) James Tony and b) Badr Hari, but the difference between these two and Alistair, is that they were boxers/kickboxers turned MMA fighters, whereas Overeem is an MMA fighter turned kickboxer. He has all the fundamentals with TD defense, the clinch, etc, so he's able to more easily apply his level of striking to his MMA game.

edit: if you don't believe me, look at his standup from K-1 and MMA. They're almost identical.

[Matthias]

I disagree with this statement 100%. You're saying someone with elite level kickboxing doesn't translate over into MMA? That's a ridiculous statement. I'm sure you're going to bring up a) James Tony and b) Badr Hari, but the difference between these two and Alistair, is that they were boxers/kickboxers turned MMA fighters, whereas Overeem is an MMA fighter turned kickboxer. He has all the fundamentals with TD defense, the clinch, etc, so he's able to more easily apply his level of striking to his MMA game.

Actually no I'm not saying that kickboxing skills don't translate into MMA, and no, I wasn't thinking of James Toney or Badr Hari. And the logic you applied with his kickboxing can be applied to basically any combat sport. Wrestlers can use their knowledge of groundwork and apply it to MMA. Boxers can use their knowledge of technical striking, head movements, and footwork and apply it to MMA. Hell your average barroom brawler can take their high threshold of pain and apply it to MMA. Kickboxing is no more or less applicable to MMA than any of those.

What I'm saying is that success in any one of those disciplines should not somehow mean they should be held in higher standings in the other. A fighter would not approach an MMA fight the same way they would a K-1 fight, they require completely different kinds of preparation and training. That's why a lot of kickboxers have trouble transitioning into MMA. Alistair has excelled in kickboxing and he's making his way up the ladder in MMA and that's great. I'm sure skills in one are helping him in the other. But because he's the K-1 champ doesn't mean he deserves a top 10 spot in MMA... he needs to earn that in MMA and MMA alone, separate from his record in K-1, that's my point. I could care less about Toney or Hari.

[Blarg]

I think he is taking the stance that rankings take where it's not based on how good you (overeem in this case) actually are but on who you have managed to beat. It's a more objective approach but not one that is most accurate I think.

[Matthias]

I think he is taking the stance that rankings take where it's not based on how good you (overeem in this case) actually are but on who you have managed to beat. It's a more objective approach but not one that is most accurate I think.

Yeah kinda. I mean really those rankings are so subjective and need to be taken with a grain of salt; the standards of what dictates moving up the rank vary from publication to publication. But just because someone is an Olympic gold medalist in Judo or Greco-Roman wrestling shouldn't necessarily be considered a great MMA fighter, even though their ground skills will translate. Kickboxing to me is the same thing. They're all different sports, their rankings should be independent of the others.

"Fighting skill" is a different issue; I have no idea if the K-1 HW champ or the UFC HW champ would win in a street fight with no rules. I just know I'd never pick a fight with either

[Chips]

Yeah kinda. I mean really those rankings are so subjective and need to be taken with a grain of salt; the standards of what dictates moving up the rank vary from publication to publication. But just because someone is an Olympic gold medalist in Judo or Greco-Roman wrestling shouldn't necessarily be considered a great MMA fighter, even though their ground skills will translate. Kickboxing to me is the same thing. They're all different sports, their rankings should be independent of the others.

"Fighting skill" is a different issue; I have no idea if the K-1 HW champ or the UFC HW champ would win in a street fight with no rules. I just know I'd never pick a fight with either

I dunno man, this is the way I see it: If you win K-1, then you have elite striking, which IMO necessarily makes you just that much better at MMA.

[Matthias]

I dunno man, this is the way I see it: If you win K-1, then you have elite striking, which IMO necessarily makes you just that much better at MMA.

As far as striking goes, yes. I have no doubt Overeem could go toe-to-toe standup with most if not all of the top heavyweights out there. But it's called "Mixed Martial Arts" for a reason; striking is just one dimension of it. Overeem's also got a decent ground game as well; a lot of his wins have come via submission. Pure speculation of course but my guess is that if he didn't have what ground skills he does he wouldn't have anywhere near the success that he does, and that his lack of great grappling skills is what's kept him from being one of the top HWs.

[Xno Kappa]

Rankings based on recent accomplishments is the best and most objective approach. "What if's" and "potential" scenarios have no business when determining them. Overeem pretty much said it himself that he doesn't have the wins to be considered top five.

[Chips]

I don't know why I'm being crucified here, I never brought up rankings once, I just explained why he's hyped up, and I said "it'll take one helluva fighter to take him out."

[Xno Kappa]

Nah I somewhat agree with you. It's silly to think the fact he's improved and been so dominant in K-1 won't have any reflection on his MMA career. I just don't think he's proven he can take a punch any better then he could a few years ago when he was tapping to strikes against a LHW. He's not as huge a threat as most paint him out to be until then.

[Intrinsic]

But that's the thing, you're thinking in the short term. These tournaments are fantastic for creating a division from scratch with newer talent, opposed to buying up already established fighters (read: expensive). Much like the UFC did originally and PRIDE did afterwards. Their divisions started off rather thin as well, but after many years of tournaments and fights, your divisions talent start to make names for themselves. Once you've got multiple tournament winners, and you start getting them to fight each other, you're looking at fights people really want to see.

Strikeforce and UFC already have the big ticket established fighter market down. There's no way Bellator can compete against either of them at their own game. So they've created their own niche market with the tourneys and newer talent. It's not for everybody, but that's the trade-off when you go down the niche market road.

I'm not saying they should get rid of their tournament format completely, just that establishing a flyweight division without tournaments would give them a strong lead-in for when they do decide to fold up the tournaments at specific weight divisions. It has to happen sooner or later, if tournaments were the the format that made the most money, everyone else would still be doing it. Cornering the flyweight market now is the way to go for any promotion looking for promotable expansion. Hardcore fans want to see it, even if the casual fans aren't aware of its existence. Shooto and Tachi contracts aren't all that ridiculously high and let's be honest here, right now there's only about 10-13 Flyweights good enough to form a stable division. Corner the market now and snatch up all the decent talent as it comes along.

[Blarg]

Rankings based on recent accomplishments is the best and most objective approach. "What if's" and "potential" scenarios have no business when determining them. Overeem pretty much said it himself that he doesn't have the wins to be considered top five.

I don't know. I think if you have intelligent and unbiased people the 'what if's' and 'potential' would be the most accurate method of ranking (this is taking rankings to be seen, as they most often are, as ranking who the best fighters are and not ranking the fighters by most accomplished). By accurate I mean if you could magically have all the fighters of a certain weight fight every other person 100 times each using magic based on who that fighter is at that very moment what would their rankings be based on win ratio.

When matt serra beat gsp and took his #1 ranking Highlander style I don't think any honest person would think that if the above magic fighting scenario were to happen he would be anywhere in the top 3. But with the 'objective' approach many sites put him as #1. It's basically trading reality for being as unbiased as possible.

[Rhyis.]

Rankings are made up crap anyway. It's a bad path you go down once you start thinking divisions are some sort of linear ladder of skill and success.


Alistair is definitely one of the top HW strikers in MMA, and that's really all that matters. How he's ranked doesn't make or detract from his skill level.

[EckoGecko]

Rankings matter in a sense that it helps gauge where a fighter is.

This is obviously why we have a want for Silva vs GSP. No one can match the skills or has had any success (minus Sonnen), now lets put them against each other and see whose skills reign supreme.

[Rhyis.]

Rankings matter in a sense that it helps gauge where a fighter is.

This is obviously why we have a want for Silva vs GSP. No one can match the skills or has had any success (minus Sonnen), now lets put them against each other and see whose skills reign supreme.

Sonnen almost beating Silva kind of makes my point about the meaninglessness of rankings. Sonnen has lost tons of fights to different fighters of varying skill level. Some of his losses are to quite low level opponents. And yet, he gave Anderson his toughest fight in years. You never really know how a fight is going to go until it happens.

[Hitoshura]

Fuck is it really going to take Cain one year just to fight again? I am a huge fan of the guy but I feel this Lesnar vs Dos Santos thing is a huge waste of time, I just want to see JDS vs Cain.