Good evening. Have any questions regarding MMA?

Well, there is.

Lyoto Machida is the current UFC Light Heavyweight Champion. He's exceptionally skilled in his families form of Karate, Wrestling, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Boxing. Statistically, he's the most successful MMA fighter ever.

Another worth mentioning is Fedor Emelianenko. (His one "loss" was a DQ, I believe). Another very highly skilled fighter in all areas with great success.

The reason why you see great records from the top boxers and mixed records from Mixed Martial Artists is you have different skill sets that can often offset eachother in MMA as opposed to boxing where you're simply matching a singular skill set. All you have to do is be the better boxer and you're going to win the majority of the time, minus any "luck" (which I don't believe in fighting there is "luck").

However, in MMA, you can be the best boxer/thai fighter, but if you get taken to the ground by a fighter who is somewhat competent in ground fighting techniques you can easily be submitted or TKO/KO'd on the ground. It's mixing different skill sets in a fight. So, to be undefeated or to have great success you have to be highly skilled in all areas of fighting.

 

This depends on how you define the "true" meaning of MMA.

Personally, I don't believe he's ruined anything. He's taking this sport which was worse then dead and in fact had a horrible stigma attached and saw the value behind what MMA was about by taking a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class and saw beyond what a casual fan tends to see and saw potential in the sport.

Currently, what he's doing is growing the sport worldwide which is costly. He has said, and I agree with him completely, that in 8-10 years, MMA will be the most popular sport in the world.

His reasoning and I believe him to be correct is that MMA transcends all cultural barriers. While a sport like cricket may be hugely popular in certain parts of Europe, it may not be liked at all in the U.S. and likewise about a sport like baseball. But you put two fighters in a cage/ring, everybody, everywhere understands that. It makes sense to everyone. It's competition at it's most basic form going all the way back to early stages of homosapien evolution.

 

I can certainly understand this sentment. I myself was awakened to the uselessness of Tae Kwon Do and now my black belt might as well be a paperweight. While TKD can have practical application in a fight, it's mostly garbage as it's taught in the U.S.

I myself enjoy technicians and technical fights. I can appreciate a good boxer and his technique, absolutely. My explaination would be that you were probably working with relatively poorly skilled fighters and BJJ practicioners. If you watch certain fights (not all, mind you as MMA is still a pretty young sport) you'll see amazing technique being executed. As BJJ instructor John Danaher says about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, "Everyone will look, but very few will see." It's just a different type of technique being utilized.

 

Actually, I hope I'm not coming across condescending, as that is not my goal. In answering a question, I assume (and it's probably not the case, but for practical purposes) that the questioner knows nothing or next to nothing, so that I can give a very complete answer to hopefully fill in the blanks. So maybe they'll read something they did already know, but maybe fill in the gaps inbetween knowledge that they've come into.

 

This is true to a large extent.

Forrest Griffin (A former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion) has said that if you want to be competitive in MMA now you've got to start while you're young(er). The days of coming in with only a year or two training in MMA is fast dwindling as the average skill level increases immensely. (While most MMA fighters will have a base that is built over the course of years, beit boxing, Muay Thai, Wrestling, Karate, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu...they don't train MMA or cross-train. This implies that they must start to cross-train at an average younger age, which is true)

I'd assume that 20-50 years down the road, the only fighters you'll see competing at the highest levels are LeBron James type athletes who have been training in different forms of martial arts for years. Fortunately for many, MMA is a very young sport and the average skill level for MMA is at a (while considerably higher then it was in 1999-2001) low level. It'll only get more difficult. As we can see with fighters and athletes like Georges St. Pierre.

 

On a personal level, I'll largely agree with you. Fighters such as Lyoto Machida, Georges St. Pierre, Anderson Silva and Rich Franklin embody the true spirit of Martial Arts. I've seen quite a few fighters who are the complete antithesis of what I beleive a martial artist should be, and frankly, I don't like it in the least. But, you'll have your mix and thankfully, at the top we have the true martial artists.

 

That's the idea. Thank you for your time and question.