That's because people have learned what works and what doesn't. I don't buy the lack of quality argument at all because far more people are doing MMA than ever before, with an increase in quantity it means more fights and more guys in a gym which over time increases the quality, also a lot of these gyms are being ran and taught by the earliest generation of MMA fighters in a lot of cases. I think a lot of the issue early on is those guys in Pride everyone glorifies, they fought cans far too often. And they got this great KO or submission over a guy that was completely outclassed. Put that fighter against someone near his skill level, he's not going to as easily get a KO or submission, and as the skill is closer they'll even out as it's more near a 50/50 contest (thus more decisions). Compare to the predominant MMA orgs in the world right now, and with the exception of what Dream does occasionally and M-1 which does boxing-style matchmaking from their card I saw Friday night, they all do more or less even fights everywhere on the card with the exception of title fights because if your champion is just better than everyone else there's nothing you can do about it. As far as "an adjustment by fighters towards a style that is universally successful", I agree with that. Everyone in every sport copycats. If the team that wins the NBA championship goes with a style where they go small, employ no center, and do a run-n-gun offense, guess what a lot of teams the next year are going to attempt to do? Go small, employ no center, and do a run-n-gun offense. Clearest case of this copycatting is the spread offense in college football. If you want to beat GSP at welterweight, you have to be a good wrestler. But if you are a good wrestler like Josh Koscheck, you better also be a good boxer as well, which he wasn't and so GSP tore him up there. MMA in its very essence is essentially four skills: boxing, muay thai (kickboxing as a generic term), wrestling, and jiu jitsu. Any fighter if he wants to progress up the sport has to be able to defeat a fighter that can employ any of those four skills. You can be phenomenal in one of those disciplines but if you have nothing else, you're likely going to lose pretty easily as we saw with James Toney.
And that mean's what exactly? The fact more people are doing MMA means nothing. Less and less fighters are coming to the sport from professional backgrounds. Without the natural breeding grounds in other MA's where fighters reach the top off their discipline quality is bound to drop off. This is pure nonsense. Find me ONE top tier PRIDE fighter who fought cans on a regular basis and you might have an argument. The reality is PRIDE cards were bar none some of the deepest MMA has EVER seen. With quality fights and action that was simply unparalleled. The rules encouraged it.
Negative over. This content is protected Il use pictures instead seeing as reading comprehension isn't your strong point.
Common sense question: what's going to produce the better football player? The club with 100 kids or the club with 20 kids? 5 times out of 6 it's the club with the 100. MMA - same way. More people doing MMA means more people in gyms which means more people to train with at all steps of the ladder (from beginner to the highest level), more cards, and more fights. And if the old guys were better than the current generation even though they're a bit past it as you state, they would be beating the current group of guys far more often. See Bernard Hopkins where despite his advanced age he's a world champion because Hopkins has forgotten more about boxing than Jean Pascal knows and was able to be more effective (MMA example of this is Couture beating Sylvia). No, they decided from the beginning they want to be an MMAist instead of a judoka for example. This is a ridiculous argument by the way, you're saying a person is LESS of a fighter because of instead of just learning muay thai and doing that sport they're learning both muay thai and jiu jitsu to do MMA for example? That's like saying a decathlete is less of an athlete than a 100-meter sprinter. Fedor: June 8, 2003: Fujita August 10, 2003: Goodridge December 31, 2003: Nagata August 15, 2004: Ogawa April 3, 2005: Kohsaka December 3, 2005: Zuluzinho October 21, 2006: does the 2006 Coleman count as pretty much shot? April 14, 2007: Lindland December 31, 2007: Choi That's 9 of his fights in a 18-fight span over 4 years and 1 day. The remaining ones are Schilt, Herring, Nogueira x 3 (1 NC), Cro Cop, Randleman, Coleman in 2004, and Mark Hunt. Good for Pride. Like Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, and George Foreman, it's gone.
This is supposition. Not FACT on your part. The facts don't support this argument and neither do the results. I never implied that. My point is/was a simple one. Fighters of the past came from distinct disciplines that they had mastered BEFORE they moved into MMA. This of course produces a high calibre of fighter as noted by Fedor's success in Sambo. Hendo in wrestling to an Olympic level. And CC in the K-1 for example. What we have now are fighters that are average at everything but not great at ONE discipline. On that premise alone it goes without saying that the quality would diminish. Look no further than the lack of quality striking in MMA now. How many fighters are there currently at a high level who came from striking backgrounds? I can't think of one young fighter other than possibly Pat Barry and Zelg Galesic. All the rest like Silva CC Wandy Shogun Manhoef etc are long in the tooth. As for you dissecting Fedor's resume i think it's safe to assume you're a "new" fan. You've started off with Fujita. Have you even seen that fight? Much less for surfing fighters records on Sherdog...You do know that Fujita beat PRIDE's biggest star back then Mark Kerr and also defeated Ken Shamrock albeit via injury? Likewise Goodridge was a stud back then and a known quantity. Again have you seen that bout or even understand it's significance considering Goodridge's reputation from the UFC? Ogawa was a world x5 Judo champion and an Olympic silver medallist and one of Japan's biggest stars. He was also a Pro Wrestler in the PRIDE tradition. This fight was absolutely of significance in Fedor's career as well as PRIDE. I can go on but im not sure there's much point...If i were you id go away and watch the fights instead of surfing records on Shitdog.
To date the only significant name on Jone's resume is a shot Shogun. Both Chuck and Wandy's resume are littered with a who's who of great fighters. I don't see how it's possible to heap so much praise on a fighter when the only name on his resume of any note is a shot PRIDE star.
Id love to have a pound for each time Ive read a sentence which ends in ''....could not beat Jon Jones'' Do you guys copy and paste this ****?. It's getting like the chincheckers repetitive BS
No fighters today just adjusted to mma style which is mainly wrestling-bjj and striking(boxing-muay thai-karate etc.) Everybody saw in ufc 1 you need to know submission BJJ in your game to succeed in mma. So fighters today are more hybrid than before.
