[Malankazooie]

Fight pretty much went how I thought it would go. When I saw Nunes dismantle Tate, I felt that she is probably the best female fighter there is at releasing her hands (between her and Joanna Jędrzejczyk). Rousey's stand up game has never been all that great, her strength is judo hip toss to arm bar submission. Sure, she clipped a few with a punch and ended fights that way, but her ground game is where she should have tried and go to with Nunes. She was a sparring bag for Nunes. Totally outclassed.

Holm is moving up in weight class, but I'm not sure she could best Nunes anyway. Holm has a boxing background, but from what I've seen, she can't release her hands the way Nunes does.

[amphibian]

Don't have to let the fists fly to beat Nunes. The way to beat her used to be to get past the first round or put her on the ground, where she's not good at getting back up. Shevchenko, who has fought at 60 kg in kickboxing, beat her up in the third round of their fight.

Rousey hits hard with all her limbs. It's weird because she had very little pure technique, but she KO'd McMann with a liver shot knee, sent Davis silly with an overhand, and put a tough fighter in Correira down with a flurry of badly sent punches.

It shows serious power if a fighter puts down multiple fighters with shots that aren't picture perfect. Ronda has that. She doesn't have much defense or good counter offense though.

[amphibian]

Briar King, on 07 January 2017 - 06:30 PM, said:

I've never understood the sexual attraction people have for her. She freaks me out. I see quite a few of my people on FB were over the moon at her defeat. I don't watch this stuff anymore. My reason for posting is I found out last night that Kimbo Slice died in 6/2016. Sucks. I enjoyed his season on TUF.

Ronda is really attractive in person. She has that weird thing of being able to light up any room anywhere she goes if she's on her social game.

Yeah, Kimbo dying was a big moment in MMA's 2016. He was a genuinely nice person who basically didn't do much in terms of becoming an elite athlete, but did figure out how to market himself and bring eyeballs wherever he went.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Briar King, on 07 January 2017 - 06:30 PM, said:

I've never understood the sexual attraction people have for her. She freaks me out. I see quite a few of my people on FB were over the moon at her defeat. I don't watch this stuff anymore. My reason for posting is I found out last night that Kimbo Slice died in 6/2016. Sucks. I enjoyed his season on TUF.

Her fighting style is attractive in certain ways, but her looks and "personality" (beyond the ability to be intense, keep going for variations on the armbar (but not, alas, the takedown), and occasional flashes of---if not genius, surprisingly effective, unconventional, and difficult solutions, like her finish of McMann---which was strategically and technically somewhat brilliant, but also not that uncommon of a move) are among the least attractive. Then again, it's partly that I don't like her face. Maybe some people like her large-ish breasts (I don't particularly like large breasts)? Or they liked her initially because she mostly won by submission instead of KO (then continued liking her when she started scoring KO's)?

Many---possibly most---people (as well as mammals of other species) are turned on by seeing women (or, for mammals, other mammals of same or similar species) wrestle or physically fight. In the U.S.oA, sexualized violence is and long has been ubiquitous and easily available for children and adolescents in media, whereas sex is widely censored even among adults (and it's even worse among many religious people). Personally, I have a fetish for watching women grapple or fight; it's what I watched when I was an adolescent because I didn't have easy access to porn (it was difficult to download videos over the internet in those days). Also, many Jewish and Irish-American girls associate wrestling / playfighting with flirtation and foreplay---and it gives adolescents an excuse to engage in close, rough physical contact even when sexual activity is forbidden by their parents. After a certain age, sexual fetishes set in adolescence are pragmatically impossible to eliminate, as numerous studies have found (at the cost of much unnecessary guilt, and prison time). (Thankfully it's not the only type of thing that turns me on.)

And many "straight" women are turned on by watching MMA---it's one of their main reasons for watching. There was a great book about this a few years ago. Anyway, it's not uncommon for women to have a thing for George St. Pierre and Jon Jones (in the case of Jones, they like the balletic quality of his spinning moves). Rousey combined the grappling-centric approach of St. Pierre with the balletic, dance-like quality of Jones, and exceeded them both in pure dominance. Perhaps, at least initially, the fact she won by armbar rather than KO made it seem less "brutish" and "violent" and "bad" and therefore more socially acceptable to "like".

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 08 January 2017 - 12:51 AM

[amphibian]

What the fuck did I just read from Azath Vitr?

[EmperorMagus]

amphibian, on 08 January 2017 - 02:28 AM, said:

What the fuck did I just read from Azath Vitr?

No idea.

I threw up a little in my mouth.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Here's the book I was thinking of:

http://www.sarabande...-howleys-thrown

A review:

https://www.nytimes....rry-howley.html

Though the orgasmic sensations are more about the ecstatic than the purely sexual, the male fighters are also very much sexualized. Should note that I don't know whether whether the author identifies as "straight" (but that's not especially relevant to the question).

[Malankazooie]

Great, this thread has now made the turn to fetish porn. I guess I'll flip the ignore switch on this one. Bummer, but all paths eventually lead to porn it seems.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Briar King, on 08 January 2017 - 09:32 PM, said:

Let's see if can remember. I used to really enjoy Rich Franklin. Chuck and Randy re cool. Tito was an asshole but fun to watch anyway. Kimbo dammit.

Any of them still fight? I doubt it

Tito's going to retire (again, but probably for the last time) after his next fight, against Chael Sonnen.

My first MMA heroes were Marcos Ruas, Igor Zinoviev, Keith Hackney, and Renzo Gracie, when I was in my early teens... competition has come a long way since then.

Ruas leg kicks: http://tinyurl.com/joga9af
Keith Hackney Tiger Style: http://tinyurl.com/hhug6kt
Hackney wins with groin strike ground and pound (recipient later convicted of gang rape and torture (committed before the fight)): http://tinyurl.com/zej9efe
Renzo Gracie brilliant BJJ KO of sambo/bjj expert and UFC champion Oleg Taktorov: http://tinyurl.com/zs4mjjp

Franklin, Chuck, Randy, and Tito were some of the more boring stages in MMA's evolution---Tito's ground and pound was good (so much better than lay and pray), but nowhere near as brilliant as Fedor or Jones (or Luke Rockhold, whose transition from Mr. Fancy Kicks to ground and pound destroyer is perhaps as surprising as GSP's shift from kyokushin guy with decent BJJ to considering trying out for the Olympics in wrestling). Tito's connection with Tank Abbott and his inability to learn decent stand-up skills made it hard for me to ever take him seriously.

Randy was effectively retired by one of the most beautiful and unexpected moves (outside of a movie) I've ever seen, by Shotokan karateka and sumo wrestler Lyoto Machida:

http://tinyurl.com/guqfcw4


Franklin was also effectively retired by someone steeped in East Asian martial arts (but gungfu/Chinese grappling rather than karate/sumo), Cung Le (who has an amazing highlight reel of spinning kicks and flying takedowns):

http://tinyurl.com/gl5g6bs

Liddell relied too much on his chin. Eventually he stopped being able to take punches, and kept getting knocked out. UFC president Dana White, as a personal friend, urged him to finally stop fighting. You can see how his chin deteriorated in the final fight of his career, when Rich Franklin KO'd him with a seemingly weak punch (that he probably didn't see coming):

http://tinyurl.com/hhs5k2e

I hated the whole Kimbo phenomenon (more a sign of the ignorance of the U.S.o An public, including even otherwise intelligent people), but he was interesting on TUF. "The enemy is the inner me." Maybe Putin will persuade Trump to fund better public education about MMA (maybe a combat sambo-MMA hybrid---combat sambo is nice because you can grab the other person's clothes and strike them, which is currently banned in U.S.o.AMMA).

Bloody Elbow and (to a lesser extent) Sherdog are good sources for MMA coverage. From Bloody Elbow:

'One of the growing narratives of the last couple years in mixed martial arts has been the increasing rate of retirement. [...]In part, the culture around the sport seems to have shifted. Fighters seem less inclined to cling on to a career in MMA past the point of reason. [...]

The latest of those longtime stars to walk away appears to be Tito Ortiz. At least, once he's fought Chael Sonnen at Bellator 170 on January 21st. In a recent conference call, Ortiz made it clear that whatever the outcome, his fight with Sonnen would be his last (transcript via MMAFighting).

"This retirement is well due," Ortiz said on a Bellator 170 conference call. "Twenty years of competition has pretty much, I'd still be fighting if it wasn't for my surgeries." [...] "My biggest enemy has been my surgeries," Ortiz said. [...] My biggest enemy has been my body." "I want to be remembered as a fighter with integrity," Ortiz told the assembled media. "A fighter who did it this way, who has respect because he wanted to push the envelope for the fighters."'

Ortiz does have a way with words, as well as elbows (on the ground---and the occasional knee to the body while standing). Here he is on his final fight:

"I hope Chael's in great shape because when I'm on top of him, he's going to shit himself. I'm going to throw my elbows through his face, and like I said, this is no joke. The proof is in the pudding. [Chael] sounds like he's drowning [...] he's going to be drowning in his own blood."

http://tinyurl.com/zsun9vs

(Tito's wit there reminds me of Ben Jonson. (If you remember what "pudding" means in U.S.o An English... it's just like that famous section from Every Man Out of His Humour.))

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 08 January 2017 - 11:12 PM

[Binder of Demons]

Wasn't that fight for Cat Zingano (against Nunes) her first fight after her husband had commited suicide? The way i seem to remember it, she took a hellish beating in the first round but just refused to give up, and then eventually grabbed a hold of Nunes and started throwing her around like a wrestling dummy in the later rounds. It really was one of those performances where you say to yourself, I think Zingano would have walked through fire to get the win for all that it signified for her. Pure will power. amazing stuff.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Cheesewiz, on 10 January 2017 - 01:33 AM, said:

I suppose so. I thought she was done in 1. In 2&3 she started flipping AN around. Rogan said something about her return to UFC

Nunes iirc has gassed in most of her fights that last beyond the first round. She seemed better at pacing herself in the Tate fight, but since that lasted less than a round, it's hard to say. Part of it has been her pace, but part of it may be related to her muscle : weight ratio. (Not sure whether her sex is a factor in how muscle : weight ratio relates to cardio. For male athletes, weight classes are a balance of how much muscle they can pack on and how much bone height / reach (maybe bone density to an extent too) they have. So there are some fighters who are short for their weight class but extremely muscular, and they usually tire faster. Though weight cutting in general tends to lead to cardio issues. Of course, the weight class system was designed without rare mutants like Jon Jones in mind---a 6 foot 4 guy with the arm length of a 7 foot tall guy. Who's also incredibly athletic and skillful. I hope he does move up to heavyweight like he's said he will---after all, Cormier dominated everyone he fought at heavyweight, including much larger men on the brink of superheavyweight.)

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 10 January 2017 - 02:01 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Cheesewiz, on 10 January 2017 - 05:50 AM, said:

I didn't watch much more of it. I'm blanking on what this guys name is but he had one of the most wicked leg games I saw when I watched this stuff. He's a tall bald black guy that reminds me of a snake he bends and wraps so well. Grr. He was in the opening montage showing bits of the more popular fights up to then.

I had forgotten that Chuck laid out Tito till it was shown in montage.

Tall bald black guy who fought at UFC 178? Can't be Mighty Mouse because he's 5'3", so Joel Romero? The fluidity and speed with which he moves (despite all that muscle mass---he's not really tall for his division, 6 ft is the UFC average for middleweight) is extraordinary. His double flying knee counter to a takedown attempt by Chris Weidman in November was an amazing end to a very good fight.
Fight highlights: https://www.youtube....h?v=1zivNuFqCpc
The knees: https://www.youtube....h?v=OaEse1f6oGY

Reminds me of one of the few Tito fights that impressed me---Tito ate a full-on flying knee to the face that knocked him down but popped right back up:

https://vimeo.com/19791240

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 10 January 2017 - 06:16 AM

[Binder of Demons]

Cheesewiz, on 10 January 2017 - 05:50 AM, said:

I didn't watch much more of it. I'm blanking on what this guys name is but he had one of the most wicked leg games I saw when I watched this stuff. He's a tall bald black guy that reminds me of a snake he bends and wraps so well. Grr. He was in the opening montage showing bits of the more popular fights up to then.

I had forgotten that Chuck laid out Tito till it was shown in montage.

I'm assuming if you were talking about having watched UFC previously nad not specifically this card, then the tall black guy with the wicked leg kicks was either ANDERSON SILVA, who was most definitely in the opening montage stuff, or for truly savage looking leg kicks, probably EDSON BARBOZA. I doubt a baseball bat would hurt as much. Plus he has one of the cleanest head kick knock outs in history.


But when it comes to pure athleticism, YOEL ROMERO from that UFC 178 card you were watching, is possibly the scariest individual i have ever seen. He moves like a panther.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Binder of Demons, on 10 January 2017 - 03:02 PM, said:

Cheesewiz, on 10 January 2017 - 05:50 AM, said:

I didn't watch much more of it. I'm blanking on what this guys name is but he had one of the most wicked leg games I saw when I watched this stuff. He's a tall bald black guy that reminds me of a snake he bends and wraps so well. Grr. He was in the opening montage showing bits of the more popular fights up to then.

I had forgotten that Chuck laid out Tito till it was shown in montage.

I'm assuming if you were talking about having watched UFC previously nad not specifically this card, then the tall black guy with the wicked leg kicks was either ANDERSON SILVA, who was most definitely in the opening montage stuff, or for truly savage looking leg kicks, probably EDSON BARBOZA. I doubt a baseball bat would hurt as much. Plus he has one of the cleanest head kick knock outs in history.

But when it comes to pure athleticism, YOEL ROMERO from that UFC 178 card you were watching, is possibly the scariest individual i have ever seen. He moves like a panther.

Yeah, 178 would have been advertising Anderson's long-awaited return after this happened (speaking of leg game...):

https://www.youtube....h?v=1dQzYM8Bpgs

Took him two years to come back from that.

"Moves like a snake" does seem more like Anderson (who actually is tall---he's in the same weight division as Romero, but notice how much more muscle Romero packs on (though Anderson may be cutting less weight)). But Anderson's nickname is "The Spider" for his 8 limbs game (Muay Thai). There is a French fighter named "Snake" (Cyrille Diabeté) who has an excellent kicking game and is also a tall bald black man---incidentally, Diabeté's last kickboxing match was a win over current UFC middlweight champ Michael Bisping. The award-winning documentary movie about "Spider" is called "Like Water":

"Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."


"The third stage---the stage of artlessness, or spontaneous stage---occurs when, after years of serious and hard practice, the student realizes that after all, gung fu is nothing special. And instead of trying to impose on his mind, he adjusts himself to his opponent like water pressing on an earthen wall. It flows through the slightest crack. There is nothing to try to do but try to be purposeless and formless, like water. All of his classical techniques and standard styles are minimized, if not wiped out, and nothingness prevails. He is no longer confined."

- Bruce Lee (obviously also related to (Malazan)

Spoiler

my name

)

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Binder of Demons, on 10 January 2017 - 03:02 PM, said:

Cheesewiz, on 10 January 2017 - 05:50 AM, said:

I didn't watch much more of it. I'm blanking on what this guys name is but he had one of the most wicked leg games I saw when I watched this stuff. He's a tall bald black guy that reminds me of a snake he bends and wraps so well. Grr. He was in the opening montage showing bits of the more popular fights up to then.

I had forgotten that Chuck laid out Tito till it was shown in montage.

I'm assuming if you were talking about having watched UFC previously nad not specifically this card, then the tall black guy with the wicked leg kicks was either ANDERSON SILVA, who was most definitely in the opening montage stuff, or for truly savage looking leg kicks, probably EDSON BARBOZA. I doubt a baseball bat would hurt as much. Plus he has one of the cleanest head kick knock outs in history.


But when it comes to pure athleticism, YOEL ROMERO from that UFC 178 card you were watching, is possibly the scariest individual i have ever seen. He moves like a panther.

In a similar vein---the head-kick Barboza lands is called in capoeira "Tail of the Sting-ray" (Rabo de Arraia). One of the first mixed martial arts matches in Brazil featured a sting-ray's tail kick by a man named Old Monkey:

'Japanese jiu-jitsu versus Brazilian capoeira, Rio de Janeiro's Belle Epoque, 1909
On May 1, 1909 at the Concerto Avenida (Concert Avenue Theatre) in downtown Rio de Janeiro, an Afro-Brazilian capoeira player named Francisco Cyríaco (nicknamed "Old Monkey") and Japanese martial artist Sada Miako were about to fight the match of their lives.
Cyríaco had been born 38 years earlier, among the sugar cane fields of northern Rio de Janeiro state, at a time when slavery still existed in Brazil.1 He worked carrying sacks of coffee in downtown Rio. In the violent streets of Rio de Janeiro's belle époque, he had earned a reputation as a tough street fighter. His opponent, Sada Miako, had been hired by the Brazilian Navy to teach jiu-jitsu to its elite officer corps.
[...]
Cyríaco cleverly avoided close combat that would favor the Japanese combatant. Instead he kept the latter off-balance by continuously performing capoeira's ginga. The Japanese fighter attempted to apply a jiu-jitsu technique called morote gari (double-leg takedown), but the capoeira practitioner struck first and applied a circular foot strike known
as the stingray tail (rabo-de-arraia), which hit the Japanese fighter on the head; Sada was knocked down. The audience burst into cheers, and carried Cyríaco on their shoulders through the streets of the city center, crying: "Asia kneels to Brazil!'"'

https://www.academia...ture_1905-1993_

That's the story as recorded in the Brasilian press. But there's another version of the story in which Old Monkey first blinds Miako: while Miako is bowing to the Brasilian audience, Old Monkey is cleverly "biting hard on his own tongue to build up a large volume of saliva" and starts the match by spitting in Miako's eyes, allowing him to land the tail of the sting-ray.

http://www.cagesides...o-brazil-gracie

Here's an even better example of the Tail of the Sting-ray in MMA (in this one he actually puts one hand on the ground to balance):

https://www.youtube....h?v=N-iQEAPkHRA

But rabo de arraia is different from "the Brasilian kick" made famous by the Kyokushin karate fighter and kickboxer Glaube Feitosa:

http://tinyurl.com/jjyqfbc

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 10 January 2017 - 08:24 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Cheesewiz, on 10 January 2017 - 09:34 PM, said:

It was Anderson! Can't believe I forgot about him till I saw that montage. I used to enjoy the hell out of that dude.

I'm sure he's retired now?

No, he's ranked #6 after losing a controversial decision to the current middleweight champ, Bisping (many would favor Silva in a rematch). He's so not-retired that he agreed to be a last-minute replacement against the current lightheavyweight champion, Cormier, in July---Cormier played it safe and won by taking Spider down to win a unanimous decision.


https://www.youtube....h?v=9XwVEN6iZpM

Spider has studied capoeira extensively, and he's tried a few stingray's tail kicks in the UFC but I don't think any of them landed. Before coming to the UFC, Spider was best known for this:

https://www.youtube....h?v=PYN6U_85YCI

There have been a few stingray's tail kicks in high-level UFC fights. Former heavyweight champion Cigano (Junior dos Santos) used one to KO K-1 kickboxing champion Mark Hunt (who is known for being almost impossible to knock out). Vitor Belfort landed a beautiful one that knocked out Luke Rockhold. And Weidman lost his middleweight title after trying to land one against Rockhold and getting taken down and pounded out.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 10 January 2017 - 10:18 PM

[amphibian]

The reason why Anderson's "capoeira" style kicks haven't had a tremendous amount of effect is due to striking range considerations. Anderson is rarely a "lead" fighter - he doesn't usually initiate exchanges or if he does, it's a feint designed to provoke a certain reaction, which he will then counter much harder.

Thus, he usually wants to 1) be constantly looking at his opponents, 2) inviting them in further into his range, and 3) not get taken down. The stingray/wheel kick can work. However, Anderson is not particularly fast in his rotations, doesn't like throwing many body and head kicks over time (prefers to box or do low kicks with the occasional head snapper floated out there), and his opponents are also fairly fast. So it takes time to throw a stingray kick and most often the effect will be either the opponent moving out of range (ducking away) or moving in, grabbing Anderson, and putting him down. Neither of those two things are what Anderson really wants. Sure, a great headkick KO is terrific, but it's lower percentage than masking range shifts and luring an opponent into a boxing counter.

Barboza doesn't give a fuck about opponents moving out of range because he's fast and he sets up a variety of spinning kicks much better than Anderson does. He makes the tradeoff that he can be taken down a bit easier, but he's also fighting lighter and less elite opponents than Anderson was/is.

Range and tradeoffs to impose a specific gameplan are where the fights are usually won and lost.

[polishgenius]

Oh, Anderson Silva. MMA's pale imitation of Roy Jones.





The best leg-kick game comes from Jose Aldo:






Khabib vs Ferguson appears to be confirmed. Should be good. Can't imagine Ferguson trying one of his forward-roll takedowns in this one.

[amphibian]

Best leg kick game? You're right, it's Jose Aldo. His set ups, quickness, targeting, and defense are sooooo good.

Melvin Manhoef has really, really strong leg kicks, but he hasn't built his defense enough to get away with throwing many, many leg kicks (case in point: Lawler knocking him out after nearly losing a leg to the kicks).

Khabib can be hit. But Ferguson doesn't have the power to make him pay for coming in to take Ferguson down - which will happen. I do hope Khabib learns how to slip punches a bit better when coming in because he's so fearsome when everything is working right.

[Binder of Demons]

@ CHEESWIZ - There is a UFC show on this weekend (on sunday night i think), which is headlined by BJ PENN returning to the octagon after 2 years out to fight YAIR RODRIGUEZ (and probably get slaughtered).

His last fight was a rather humiliating destruction at the hands of Frankie Edgar, where he was standing bolt upright while trying to dance around on his toes. He honestly looked like a cliche gentleman boxer from the 1800's. So I'm guessing that the TUF 19 finale that they are showing is the end of that season where EDGAR and PENN were the team captains.

Sadly TUF is still limping along, and there was another season which just concluded, with the winner getting to fight Demetrious Johnson for the flyweight title. It ended up being surprisingly competitive, but the whole TUF format is rather tired now. No idea what they could do to spice it up though, so they'll probably just keep it as is.