I wish someone had of made a documentary on the early days of Chuck Liddell.

Yeah you have to respect those fighters that pioneered the sport back then. Alot is said about the lack of competition and talent in the sport back then, and some discredit the old school fighters as being limited and not theoretically competitive with today's crop. But also, the training techniques, knowledge, experience and certainty of the sports success wasn't available to these guys back then either.

Side note about Liddell. He spent some time in Tito's shadow which delayed his own stardom, although he was the better fighter.

 

Different era. Different mentality. Guys like Chuck, Wand and Frye would fight at the drop of a hat for no reason other than they simply liked to fight. I remember watching and interview with Coleman, Randleman and a young Rampage who's eyes literally lit up when they described how they could get paid for scrapping in 'no holds barred' fights. Those guys fought because they liked to. The UFC sought to monetize that so they game obviously changed.
Anyway prime Chuck was a stud. Dam shame they dont make them like that anymore.

 

People don't change. It's not like the money started coming in and all of a sudden somehow there's no "real" fighters anymore. :blood

You gotta remember that most of these guys who are fighting now, they were working their asses off and fighting for free all of their lives just for the joy of competition. They were kickboxing or doing judo or karate in their teens because they loved testing themselves against other fighters.

One example is Sonnen. He didn't wrestle his entire life because he wanted to be an MMA star and become a millionaire. He wrestled because he loved it. Loved the competition, loved the challenge, loved the fight. He'll fight anyone, any time. If he was 10, 15 years older he would have fit right into the old-school mentality. :good

Yeah those guys in the early days of the sport were the pioneers. But let's not pretend they're some kind of mythological heroes. Because the reality is, most of them fought because they didn't want to get a real job. :good

:hat

 

Even a guy like Matt Brown. He knows he'll never be a champion and fighting will never make him rich. He's just never going to be on that level. He fought in barns and shithouse local shows for years, barely making enough money to feed himself and travel to the next fight. He kept going because he loves to fight and he would rather be a broke professional fighter than go to work on a job site every day.

:hat

 

Agree totally. Only guys with the true vocation of fighters entered into the game, it was a select group in that aspect....

 

There is plenty of real fighters right now, of course....BUT many of these new guys wouldn´t be into MMA if it was like the old days (not that old ! Only 15 years ago).
In this aspect (sheer fighting spirit), it is different....That does not mean that everyone is there for the money, simply that some of them wouldn´t enter into this game if something like this was the rule today:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne9zMdF3AIo[/ame]

I´m sure that many of the current UFC guys would think twice And I don´t blame them.....:nono

 

Yeah of course not everyone would be into that. I mean, there are many, MANY more fighters now. It's an actual sport now, and a sport will attract athletes as well as fighters. Not just guys who want to fight all day.

But others in today's game would fight old-school, no problem. Some (Nick Diaz and guys like him) might even prefer it. Because they are natural born fighters who just love to fight.

And for people to act like somehow those guys have disappeared because the sport is legit now, is ridiculous. :good

Look at a guy like Maldonado from the other week. Look at the beating he soaked up. He's a light-heavyweight, but do you reckon that guy would be afraid to fight Tank Abbott in an early UFC? Or do you reckon he'd get in there and fight his ****ing ass off because he loves it?

Edit - Thanks for the link though - I've never seen a Wanderlei bare-knuckle fight before. :good

:hat

 

Yeah, a guy like Maldonado would do it, actually in his early days he fought in some vale-tudo rules, his record in sherdog is actually incomplete as he says.....

 

Exactly. But the way you hear some on these boards tell it, it's like those types of guys somehow don't exist in the sport anymore since the unified rules came into effect. :roll: :good

As long as there is mixed martial arts, there will be mixed martial artists who come from the streets and the slums, who grew up getting the living **** kicked out of them every day and aren't afraid of anyone.

And there will also be guys from more comfortable upbringings who just have something in their brains that tells them "Fight." :good

:hat

 

If you could find that footage I'd be interested in looking at it, cheers

 

i dont

 

Yeah no doubt most guys now wouldn't want to scrap in unsanctioned, unregulated, barely legal, "no-holds-barred" events basically for free. And why would they?

But other guys in the modern era - Nick Diaz, Maldonado, ****, even ****ing Roy Nelson, in all likelihood - they don't give a ****. They'll fight anybody, they love the fight. BJ Penn would have fought in those old tournaments. Some guys just grow up fighting on the streets, they're fighting their whole lives and that's what they want to do.

Even someone who is perceived as somewhat of a pampered, entitled guy - Jon Jones - he demonstrated how tough he is against Belfort when he absolutely refused to tap even as his elbow was hyperextended. He bit down and gritted it out - he preferred to literally have his arm snapped rather than lose the fight. That's a real fighter no matter how you slice it. Would he have wanted to commit himself to such a fringe - and frankly, stupid - career path if he was around back in the day? Probably not - he had other, better options. Does that mean he's any less tough or has less love of the fight? Nope. :good

Saying that the likes of Liddell and Rampage are any tougher or more of a "real" fighter than Diaz or Maldonado simply because Chuck and Rampage came up in an era where the sport was underground is just ridiculous IMO. It's applying a standard that none of the modern guys can ever live up to, because none of them were ever in that situation where the "sport" was an underground irrelevancy. :good

:hat