really? you do know the average bjj black belt takes 10 years to get. sorry for the rolleyes but these arguments are silly when you bring out outliers like bj penn. they call him the prodigy for a reason.
roy jones jr. shows how the boxing community clearly lacks skill by the way he embarrassed the guys he fought.
you do understand that bjj isn't the only aspect of mma, right? and you do know that tyson isn't anywhere near as highly rated by boxing historians as he is by fans. look at tyson's body of work...he could never beat the top guys. i'm sure rjj could have been great at mma because he is so damn fast and extremely intelligent but he is a boxer and he has done great at it. he couldn't be great at mma after just a couple years of bjj training. also...i like the sylvia reference lol. true mercer is old as crap but silvia didn't even try to train for the fight. he came in at like 320 and mercer had been busting his ass for the fight. i will agree that boxing skills in mma are very underdeveloped but to say there aren't genetic freaks in there already is just silly.
Thats my kind of my point though, If Roy for Mike trained nothing but BJJ or wrestling, their Boxing skills would suffer. They would still outstanding punchers but their defense wouldn't be as good because they would have to worry about head kicks, leg kicks, and take down shots.
BTW, I never said become a master even though BJ Penn won the world only after a few years of training. I said learn it well enough to defend against it. There are many examples of this in MMA. Cung Le Maurice Smith, remember how didn't know how fight on the ground and got his butt whooped, and two year later it beat Mark Coleman for the UFC championship.
Yes I do. I took BJJ from a Machado Black Belt. Blue belts take about 2 years normally to get. However most people don't practice every day, and most people aren't world class athletes to start out with. I'm also know that my instructor when he was a brown belt rolled with one of the Gracies for 20 minutes without getting submitted. I'm talking about being good enough to defend which is much different than mastering.
I think the reason these looks so crappy is because they didn't get any formal boxing training until they were adults and lack natural boxing skills like quick hands. Obviously Silva and some others have some natural talent but most don't. My point is that MMA is still maturing, and in the future you will see guys that actually look skilled boxing/kickboxing while still being able to roll on the mat. That's just the evolution of the sport. If really want a good laugh, watch some of the original UFC's with Royce and Shamrock and the other schmucks that were in it in the old days.
You hit the nail on the head right there. (+ Rep) With formal training as young fighters, MMA guys would be really good. I know some fighters have been working with Freddie Roach, and their boxing still looked pretty bad. Yeah, I've seen some of the vids of the big fat, 400lbs guys getting into the octagon and getting destroyed by small guys. I've seen an interview with Gracie, who said their plan was to put gators, snakes, and fire around the ring and have the fighters fight in the middle. I would've liked to have seen that once.
The fact of the matter is plain and simple. There are only a couple of truly ELITE fighters in the UFC. By elite I mean technique, conditioning, discipline, desire and most importantly SKILL . GSP, Lyoto machida and BJ Penn come to mind and thats about it. I think these guys would truly be great at any time of fighting whether it's Judo, Karate, Taekwondo, BJJ, Wrestling, BOXING etc... The majority of the guys in UFC are great athletes and are well conditioned. However, the problem is many of them simply don't know how to fight very well. As one poster already mentioned ... Silva really isnt THAT good. It's just that Griffin is really THAT bad. Griffin was a fan favorite because he has heart, and effort and was the little engine that could. In terms of skill he is mediocre at best. I knew he would get exposed due to Silva's speed and striking advantage.
It's not that Griffin is that bad, its that Griffin is that slow. He is a big 205er and probably the slowest. Anderson is known for his striking and counter striking, so once he knew Forrest couldn't touch him, he simply toyed with Forrest, and made him look so bad. Forrest is a good fighter, a former LHW champion, Silva was just the worst possible match up for him. You could not be more wrong by saying Penn is one of the most conditioned and disciplined fighter. He is known for the complete opposite, for having terrible conditioning, bad cardio, tiring out too soon, and for being undisciplined. He looked so good his past fight against Florian because he began working with Marv Marinovich.
Former LHW champion doesn't mean anything. He beat a medicore Rampage in a lousy fight with a boring decision that could've gone either way. Forrest is viewed as a good fighter mainly because he went balls out with Stephen Bonner and he beat a Shogun Rua coming off an injury. Griffin over the last 4 years... Against superior strikers he doesn't stand a chance.... Jardine, Evans and Silva were all TKO/KO losses. The majority of Griffin's losses are all TKO/KO's... his victories are pretty much all decisions with a couple of submissions mixed in. He hasn't had a KO/TKO victory in what will be 4 years in October. I never thought Griffin was a good fighter and I never will. As for BJ Penn I'll admit he has a lot of natural talent so he can get away with a lot of things but to say he's not disciplined is completely unfair. He's one of the best well rounded fighters bar none and he doesn't get to that level based on talent alone. He has had some issues with conditioning and cardio but I think that has more to do with cutting/gaining weight so often. If he stays focused and in his weight class he's really going to cement his legacy.
There is no doubt BJ is a legend and an elite fighter, without a doubt the best 155er on the planet and he should stay focused on dominating the 155 class instead of jumping up to 170, to challenge GSP and others. If BJ comes to fight in the shape he was at 101, there is no one who can beat him at 155. As for Forrest,he beat Shogun when Shogun was thought of as one of the best LHW fighters in the world. He dominated him for three rounds before choking him out. He beat the same Rampage that was coming off of a 6 fight winning streak, coming off back to back wins of Liddell and Henderson. Forrest came into that fight with a great game plan, he chopped down Rampage's legs. He kicked him to death. He lost then lost his title to Evans in a great fight. Forrest was hanging in there with Evans and giving Evans his toughest fight to date. He got caught and got Rashad jumped on him and it was over.
Griffins chin is SO WEAK! I'm surprised Rampage didn't knock out Griffin, he had some good punches. Weakest chin/jaw to Griffin imo.
"I mean ultimate fighting has it all. From the occasional moment of action, to the 40 minutes of awkward spooning." - Stephen Colbert
Mir got $45,000 for his fight with Lesnar -- the best guys go to boxing. $$$ I love MMA -but until they start paying some real money to the fighters they are going to get second rate talent.
I think that was his response to "Ray Mercer beat Tim Sylvia". You're going to have to come up with a new one to one-up him.