[Knowing]

I was curious if anyone else watches The Ultimate Fighter shot by the UFC. If not I'll describe what it is: The show is based on 16 competitors of MMA (mixed martial arts) who fight in an octogon. This means they need to be the best at everything when it comes to hand to hand combat. Wrestling, karate, boxing, kickboxing, grappling, ju jitsu, heck anything where you are launching your own bones at another person's bones to put them into a position where you could kill them. I've only recently gotten into watching it but in this show the 16 competitors are living together in a house and competing against one another to become the straw weight (115lb) female champions of the world. I was curious if anyone else--while watching the fight/build up--was thinking of how Randa seemed to be made of pure cold iron, and Felice was full of hot iron. I thought this was the perfect "real world" interpretation of that style of fighting.

This post has been edited by Knowing: 28 December 2014 - 09:25 PM

[Knowing]

Should go to sports, sorry didn't even realize that was a thread in the Phoenix Inn until you posted. I am not sure where you live but I've been watching it through "fight pass" a subscription based online channel similar to Netflix, only its all UFC and Pride recaps/ live UFC stuff (non Paperview fights though)

[amphibian]

Knowing, on 28 December 2014 - 09:24 PM, said:

I was curious if anyone else watches The Ultimate Fighter shot by the UFC. If not I'll describe what it is: The show is based on 16 competitors of MMA (mixed martial arts) who fight in an octogon. This means they need to be the best at everything when it comes to hand to hand combat. Wrestling, karate, boxing, kickboxing, grappling, ju jitsu, heck anything where you are launching your own bones at another person's bones to put them into a position where you could kill them. I've only recently gotten into watching it but in this show the 16 competitors are living together in a house and competing against one another to become the straw weight (115lb) female champions of the world. I was curious if anyone else--while watching the fight/build up--was thinking of how Randa seemed to be made of pure cold iron, and Felice was full of hot iron. I thought this was the perfect "real world" interpretation of that style of fighting.

The divination of "hot iron" in a fighter to me is more like a frontrunner so to speak. When they have successes early, they roll onwards and often break the opponent. Vitor Belfort is maybe the best example of this in MMA history and took it through a Hall of Fame career. However, when Vitor fought opponents who truly strategized and survived his initial onslaughts, he often folded (not always, but often enough to show that it's a thing for him). BJ Penn was the same way - despite being perhaps my favorite fighter - and the different methods/ways he used to address that phenomenon failed.

The famous quote (which can be found here: http://forum.malazan...post__p__788628) puts "cold iron" as a temperament that invites, then seizes and destroys. Jon Jones is cold iron (both hot and cold). He regularly goes directly into his opponent's wheelhouse/comfort zones and destroys them there. Fedor was pure cold iron - even if he lost a few times at the end of his career. Cold iron doesn't mean invincible. It means "much more likely to win due to a strategic element.

Those are some of the best fighters in MMA history, so they're not great examples of what I take to be the "hot/cold dynamic". What I'm looking more towards is fighters who go on "instinct" all the time vs fighters who almost always prepare and then innovate off that. Leonard "Hypnotoad" Garcia is hot iron and so is Felice Herrig. Randa Markos is hot iron (so far) and her great strength for her weight class let her rip Felice to shreds. Robbie Lawler is another hot and cold iron fighter in my view - cold as evidenced by his Manhoef win and his performances vs Johny Hendricks and hot in his early to middle career - yet paid for substandard strategizing for many years.

Random thoughts: Matt Brown is hot iron. Chris Weidman is hot and cold. DJ Johnson is cold. Ronda Rousey is cold (not hot, she's just so dramatically dominant that she breaks her opponents fast).

[Knowing]

Love the thoughts on the subject amphibian. As I said, I'm only a newcomer to the sport so I don't know much of its history but am learning the names/big fights now over the past two months. Interesting how you mentioned Jon Jones as hot/cold, which he seems to have started out differently at the beginning of his career and has developed into the hot/cold.

[amphibian]

Jones was all hot at the beginning of his career. Very little technique, not a great sense of when to do what, loved to overreach himself and more.

But he was so physically dominant that it never caught up with him. Then, he shifted to a purpose driven machine like view by the time of the Shogun fight. The adjustment to catch Machida with the huge punch, the destruction of Glover and the fierce battle with Gustafsson are all cold iron things.

The early career arc is similar to what is happening with Ronda, but she's purposely using her judo drills over and over again until someone stops it - which hasn't happened yet. She hasn't had to use instinct much or overreach. She's already done these things a bajillion times.

By judo drills, I mean the Iasketvitch roll and her favored clinch entries, which have worked on all opponents thus far.

[amphibian]

I've been watching MMA since about 2004/2005 and training since 2008, so I'm fairly conversant with the recent past and the mechanics. Been skipping more than a few events now due to time and other pursuits.

[bubba]

Moving the thread....

[Coco with marshmallows]

i've missed a lot of ultimate fighter seasons due to 'overload'

there are 2 seasons a year - that's simply too many for me to maintain significant interest unless there's someone i have a personal interest in seeing, or there's a particularly interesting 'catch' - For my money one of the best seasons of the show was 'the comeback' - season 4 or 5 I think?

they were all guys who'd fought in the UFC before, competing for a title shot - It was a MUCH more interesting hook for me to watch that. Also much more technique stuff owing to the fact these were all established fighters already.

Plus the fact that Serra managed to WIN his title fight was tremendous.

Lutter failing to make weight however was bloody atrocious.