Also, I echo B:L's sentiments regarding "Hoger". If the guy wanted to be serious about MMA, he would at least be somewhere close to Jacare's level in terms of the non-grappling aspects of the sport. Instead, he still sucks balls at striking and seems to think that trying to put your hand on someone's neck constitutes a meaningful clinch/takedown game. Frankly, King Mo's win was underwhelming for me. He should've already destroyed Roger's legs by that time in the fight, and the knockout should have come from a much better exchange on his end.
I agree. That was a really ugly fight. Roger looked lost in there and Mo looked sluggish.
Also Cormier, good job. That was how I expected Fedor vs Silva to go.
Luke Rockhold is so moe.
StrayDog on
Let me go down in the mud, where the rivers all run dry.
So, BAMMA 7 also happened, Judo Jim Wallhead pulled off an upset over Trigg with a SD (many actually scored it a UD for Jim 29-28). Fat, unmotivated Daley won a UD, gassed in the 3rd but showed off some decent TDD in the first, still an unprofessional dickhead though.
Winner was a winner, actually not a bad night of fights.
Freestyle wrestling is not the same as catch wrestling. In freestyle wrestling the main goal is to get the pin, i.e. to stay on top of a guy. It also explicitly forbids the use of joint locks, etc. Catch wrestling expects you to finish - you can't just stay on top of a guy and expect anyone to care, you have to actually make him quit or choke him unconscious (or in the past, to death).
Barnett basically uses his catch wrestling to grab a guy and throw him on the ground. He then does everything he can to stay in the top position while grinding away at you and looking for submission openings. As a contrast, Sakuraba was also a catch wrestler, and his M.O. was to jump all over you, take you down, and scramble on top of you like a rabid monkey while going for submissions against any available limb until he caught you.
This is just my long-winded way of saying that there's really no straightforward comparison between the two. It's like comparing NASCAR to Formula One, vaguely similar to the untrained eye, but completely different in practice. A good illustration of the difference is that a freestyle wrestler doesn't know how to properly perform a rear naked choke, a term which is derived from the jujitsu word for the technique, "Hadaka Jime" ("Naked Strangle"). Catch wrestlers have called that same move the "sleeper hold" for nearly 100 years.
Cormier might be the better "wrestler", but he's not going to be able to just shoot for the double-leg and expect to take Barnett down at will. There's a lot of risk associated with trying to take someone of Barnett's caliber down. For example, he might just let you do it so that he can flip you over in the process and sit on top of you with full mount. On the off chance that you end up in his guard - good luck submitting or GNPing the guy who forced Noguiera into a 20-minute grappling war.
So this post makes it sound like I'm a huge Barnett fan. I'm a fan of his fighting skill and the fact that he represents a dying art fantastically well. The fact that he destroyed Affliction and has been caught doping repeatedly? Not so much of a fan.
The thing is, I don't expect Cormier will want to go to the ground with how much his striking game has improved.
Also, I am aware the differences between catch and freestyle, the point I was trying to make is that Cormier will have the tools to shut down Barnett's gound game and move the fight back to the feet, if not stopping the takedowns completely.
I don't expect the fight to turn into a wrestling match at all.
Freestyle wrestling is one thing and catch another, but just as relevant is wrestling wrestling is one thing and MMA wrestling another. Cormier would doubtless beat Barnett in a wrestling match but that doesn't necessarily mean his takedowns will be better in MMA.
That said, he might just decide to strike instead, like TehSpectre said.
Dude effortlessly KO'd Bigfoot and was laughing when Bigfoot bumrushed him into the cage with blows...I don't see why he wouldn't want to punch Barnett.
He went from virtually no striking game to mediocre in the Monson fight, to strong striking in the Silva fight.
I think he's been trolling us the entire time, or the man learns at an incredible pace.
Cormier is a lot of fun but he wont have it easy against Barnett. No one does
And lets remember that even Mike Kyle managed to drop Bigfoot. I'm not sure what this fight between Cormier and Bigfoot told us other than "bigfoot is slow on his feet and apparently has a suspect chin". If Barnett can take Cormier down I think mr Warhammer 40K takes it
So, BAMMA 7 also happened, Judo Jim Wallhead pulled off an upset over Trigg with a SD (many actually scored it a UD for Jim 29-28). Fat, unmotivated Daley won a UD, gassed in the 3rd but showed off some decent TDD in the first, still an unprofessional dickhead though.
Winner was a winner, actually not a bad night of fights.
I think Daley may have killed that guy several times in the first two rounds, how the fuck did he get through that.
I just want to say that I've been waiting on Bigfoot to get KO'ed since the Mike Kyle fight. Getting dropped by a middleweight, even one with heavy hands, was not a good sign. Bigfoot isn't a bad fighter, he just excels in one area, in my opinion, and it's taking mount and ground and pounding until the fight is stopped. I didn't expect Cormier to be the guy to do it, but it was coming sooner or later.
And, though I dislike Barnett for doping, I love his skillset and think he's a great entertainer.
Personally, I think trying to actively harm someone illegally is worse than indirectly giving yourself a possible advantage.
I don't think roiding is cool, but to me, you still have to have skill in order to win a fight, roided out or not, whereas anyone can gouge an eye or try to throw an illegal blow.
It was good, but not great, and a lot of the praise it is receiving seems.. excessive. For an MMA movie, it's the best of the bunch. They made the right move; rather than looking for fighters to (fail to) act, they found actors that they could train to look good in the cage.
There were barely any fight-world cameos, which was a positive and kept the focus on the movie rather than the spectacle. Those cameos that there were were contained to non-speaking or short one-scene speaking appearances.
The camerawork was a bit iffy in places, choosing closeup shots of faces and sometimes being framed poorly. The directing was overall good, though the obligatory "training montage" scene was a little obnoxious- perhaps intentionally so? The pacing was very good, particularly for a 2+ hour movie; it did not at any point drag.
The acting was A+, particularly Joel Edgerton. His character's story character arc is also the best part of the movie. Tom Hardy, on the other hand, plays his character beautifully, but the character doesn't have an "arc" so much as a razor-straight trajectory from beginning to end. Nick Nolte is good as well, but his character is woefully underwritten, and had my most guffaw-worthy moment of the film:
A relapsed alcoholic manages to sober himself up in a few hours while in a hotel room in Atlantic City? Really?
Overall the story could have used a lot of reworking, but the acting and all manages to make it work regardless of its shortfalls.
The fighting was pretty spot-on, with one fight in particular really capturing the essence of the sport well. Major nitpick: the overemphasis on "You're gonna get yourself killed." "This is going to kill you." "You're going to die in there!" No, you're not; it's a safe sport. I suppose you have to make it consequential to the average viewer somehow.
Conclusion: An okay movie, not a must-see for fight fans, but something to keep in mind if you're interested in the sport. If you're not a big MMA fan, it's probably something to catch later on when you don't have anything else to watch.
Thoughts on complaints w/r/t to the ending:
While it's implausible, it's certainly not impossible. Remember Tommy has no corner to throw in the flag for him, and the ref didn't hear the injury occur. I can think of a handful of fights that have gone on despite what most would consider fight-ending injuries, or fights where the fighter wanted to continue. Rich Franklin knocked out Liddell with a broken arm; Tim Sylvia protested to the ref that his arm wasn't really broken; GSP went 5 rounds with a blinded eye (without telling the ref, even though it was clear from watching the fight that he couldn't see out of one eye); Urijah Faber went 5 rounds after breaking both hands (even though it was clear from watching the fight that he had two broken hands). The list goes on and on. So, yes, it's a bit out there, but there's precedent.
Anywho! I tried to keep this short and not dwell much on the shortcomings of the story. I'd like to hear the thoughts of anyone else that saw the movie.
I like Aoki, but I gotta think he would get chewed up hard in the modern western world of weight-cutting. He looks so tiny compared to most guys in his category, and these pure-ground fighters just don't dominate the way they used to. The game's moving past them.
Kana on
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
I like Aoki, but I gotta think he would get chewed up hard in the modern western world of weight-cutting. He looks so tiny compared to most guys in his category, and these pure-ground fighters just don't dominate the way they used to. The game's moving past them.
Yeah, like many Japanese fighters he would be too small for most LW's (look at guys like Barboza and Miller) and he won't have the wrestling to impose his will.
Also top control is so good now that the better BJJ guy / grappler won't always dominate on the mat at all.
I like Aoki, but I gotta think he would get chewed up hard in the modern western world of weight-cutting. He looks so tiny compared to most guys in his category, and these pure-ground fighters just don't dominate the way they used to. The game's moving past them.
Yeah, like many Japanese fighters he would be too small for most LW's (look at guys like Barboza and Miller) and he won't have the wrestling to impose his will.
Also top control is so good now that the better BJJ guy / grappler won't always dominate on the mat at all.
Well, yeah. He'd get chewed up by, say, even Frankie Edgar (can't take him down, just gonna get jabbed on the way to a UD). If KenFlo was still at 155, he should also be able to handle him. So long as Maynard isn't dumb about things (ie use wrestling to avoid a TD, don't try to take him down), he could probably win also.
But BJ just might decide to go to the ground (well, Aoki sure as hell ain't taking him down, that's for certain).
Alternatively, yeah seeing Aoki at 145 could be very interesting.
A lot of underestimating Shinya Aoki here IMO. His takedowns are pretty good, and he's also willing to pull guard. I'm not saying he would beat _____ fighter, because who knows, but he's not so helpless as all that. He's fought against wrestlers before and beat them. And "japanese fighters" would be too small? They know how to cut weight in Japan, they've been doing it there this whole time.
Well I'm not giving up on Roger Gracie. He just needs to train with the right people, he can come back from this
He seemed to not pick up any striking tips at all from GSP. The way he was just hunched sideways with his hands down just screamed PUNCH ME IN THE FACE, and King Mo did just that. Horrible.
There was a clash of heads that preceded Mo's big right. Mo was leading with his head, and his forehead butted the left side of Gracie's head. Can't say for certain, but it may have stunned Roger enough to account for his hands dropping. That's fighting, though. Sometimes accidental headbutts happen.
Mo followed up with a right to almost the same spot on Gracie's head, and that was it.
I don't read too much into Hoger's loss, to be honest. Going from Trevor Prangley to King Mo is a huge step up in competition for a fairly raw prospect like Hoger. It's just that SF's LHW division is so thin, there's no one to fight.
Same thing happened on the undercard, where Yoel Romero Palacio stepped up from Laszlo Eck (who?) to Feijao, and got stomped similar to Gracie. Gracie-Palacio and Mo-Feijao matchups would have made more sense, competitively.
He seems like a bright guy. He hinted at plans to move to LHW if he'd ever be matched up against Cain Velasquez
Doesn't sound that bright to me if he's not willing to fight someone for the title and would go so far as to leave his strongest weight division just to avoid that.
I like Aoki, but I gotta think he would get chewed up hard in the modern western world of weight-cutting. He looks so tiny compared to most guys in his category, and these pure-ground fighters just don't dominate the way they used to. The game's moving past them.
Yeah, like many Japanese fighters he would be too small for most LW's (look at guys like Barboza and Miller) and he won't have the wrestling to impose his will.
Also top control is so good now that the better BJJ guy / grappler won't always dominate on the mat at all.
Any UFC LW would be stupid to grapple with Aoki, whether they think they have good top control or not, including a 155-lbs BJ. Just hit & run like Melendez did, and any decent striker with the ability to control distance earns an easy decision.
It's probably safer to grapple with Maia in MMA than Aoki. Eddie Alvarez is a good wrestler who went to the ground with Aoki, and got tapped out for his trouble. Aoki was about to take a Sotiropoulos leg home, before George Kongo'd his way to a DQ loss in order to preserve his ability to walk again.
My favourite Aoki moment was when he and a kickboxer talked trash to eachother and agreed to fight eachother ultimately deciding to do 1 round kickboxing and 1 round MMA and then he lost the kickboxing round and got KO'd in the MMA round
Well I'm not giving up on Roger Gracie. He just needs to train with the right people, he can come back from this
He seemed to not pick up any striking tips at all from GSP. The way he was just hunched sideways with his hands down just screamed PUNCH ME IN THE FACE, and King Mo did just that. Horrible.
There was a clash of heads that preceded Mo's big right. Mo was leading with his head, and his forehead butted the left side of Gracie's head. Can't say for certain, but it may have stunned Roger enough to account for his hands dropping. That's fighting, though. Sometimes accidental headbutts happen.
Mo followed up with a right to almost the same spot on Gracie's head, and that was it.
I don't read too much into Hoger's loss, to be honest. Going from Trevor Prangley to King Mo is a huge step up in competition for a fairly raw prospect like Hoger. It's just that SF's LHW division is so thin, there's no one to fight.
Same thing happened on the undercard, where Yoel Romero Palacio stepped up from Laszlo Eck (who?) to Feijao, and got stomped similar to Gracie. Gracie-Palacio and Mo-Feijao matchups would have made more sense, competitively.
Remember how Royce used to fight? (best picture I could find)
It looks archaic now, but to me it was smart. Royce had no interest whatsoever in trying to punch you. All he wanted to do was protect himself long enough to get close enough to get a clinch or takedown. I want to know why Roger is throwing punches at Mo at all. I feel like, if your punch isn't specifically designed to set up a clinch or takedown attempt you shouldn't be throwing it. Your strength is jiu-jitsu, you should be trying to leverage that first and everything else second.
Even though he won, Jacare does the same shit. It's even more mystifying with him because it the grappling world Jacere's known a top position guy and has great takedowns. Jiu-jitsu gameplanning has been backsliding for a while now if you ask me. These guys all want to be kickboxers. Some (Jacare) are talented enough to kind of pull it off, but that's rare.
Pride (and now Dream) occasionally recruited (recruit) olympic judoka to fight in MMA. Those guys have the right idea when you see them fight. They protect their chin, but primarily they're trying to clinch, trip you, and then go to work on the ground. Yoshida for example had almost no MMA experience and was thrown in with top fighters immediately - but he was pretty successful anyway, because he came with a gameplan that made sense.
Even though he won, Jacare does the same shit. It's even more mystifying with him because it the grappling world Jacere's known a top position guy and has great takedowns. Jiu-jitsu gameplanning has been backsliding for a while now if you ask me. These guys all want to be kickboxers. Some (Jacare) are talented enough to kind of pull it off, but that's rare.
My favourite Aoki moment was when he and a kickboxer talked trash to eachother and agreed to fight eachother ultimately deciding to do 1 round kickboxing and 1 round MMA and then he lost the kickboxing round and got KO'd in the MMA round
this was my favourite aoki moment
He didn't even do the kickboxing round, he spent it flopping and lying down. I'm an Aoki fan, but that was a top-2 case of Most Deserving of Getting KTFO, along with Hendo-Bisping.
Posts
I agree. That was a really ugly fight. Roger looked lost in there and Mo looked sluggish.
Also Cormier, good job. That was how I expected Fedor vs Silva to go.
Luke Rockhold is so moe.
So Barnett likes anime, Warhammer, death metal and is a complete bad ass in and out of the cage. Consider myself fan'ed
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
Winner was a winner, actually not a bad night of fights.
Also, I am aware the differences between catch and freestyle, the point I was trying to make is that Cormier will have the tools to shut down Barnett's gound game and move the fight back to the feet, if not stopping the takedowns completely.
I don't expect the fight to turn into a wrestling match at all.
That said, he might just decide to strike instead, like TehSpectre said.
He went from virtually no striking game to mediocre in the Monson fight, to strong striking in the Silva fight.
I think he's been trolling us the entire time, or the man learns at an incredible pace.
And lets remember that even Mike Kyle managed to drop Bigfoot. I'm not sure what this fight between Cormier and Bigfoot told us other than "bigfoot is slow on his feet and apparently has a suspect chin". If Barnett can take Cormier down I think mr Warhammer 40K takes it
I think Daley may have killed that guy several times in the first two rounds, how the fuck did he get through that.
And, though I dislike Barnett for doping, I love his skillset and think he's a great entertainer.
I don't think roiding is cool, but to me, you still have to have skill in order to win a fight, roided out or not, whereas anyone can gouge an eye or try to throw an illegal blow.
Quick thoughts on Warrior, which I saw Friday
It was good, but not great, and a lot of the praise it is receiving seems.. excessive. For an MMA movie, it's the best of the bunch. They made the right move; rather than looking for fighters to (fail to) act, they found actors that they could train to look good in the cage.
There were barely any fight-world cameos, which was a positive and kept the focus on the movie rather than the spectacle. Those cameos that there were were contained to non-speaking or short one-scene speaking appearances.
The camerawork was a bit iffy in places, choosing closeup shots of faces and sometimes being framed poorly. The directing was overall good, though the obligatory "training montage" scene was a little obnoxious- perhaps intentionally so? The pacing was very good, particularly for a 2+ hour movie; it did not at any point drag.
The acting was A+, particularly Joel Edgerton. His character's story character arc is also the best part of the movie. Tom Hardy, on the other hand, plays his character beautifully, but the character doesn't have an "arc" so much as a razor-straight trajectory from beginning to end. Nick Nolte is good as well, but his character is woefully underwritten, and had my most guffaw-worthy moment of the film:
Overall the story could have used a lot of reworking, but the acting and all manages to make it work regardless of its shortfalls.
The fighting was pretty spot-on, with one fight in particular really capturing the essence of the sport well. Major nitpick: the overemphasis on "You're gonna get yourself killed." "This is going to kill you." "You're going to die in there!" No, you're not; it's a safe sport. I suppose you have to make it consequential to the average viewer somehow.
Conclusion: An okay movie, not a must-see for fight fans, but something to keep in mind if you're interested in the sport. If you're not a big MMA fan, it's probably something to catch later on when you don't have anything else to watch.
Thoughts on complaints w/r/t to the ending:
Anywho! I tried to keep this short and not dwell much on the shortcomings of the story. I'd like to hear the thoughts of anyone else that saw the movie.
Yup, Bolt Thrower decided he is the Warmaster.
“You’re now looking at ‘The War Master,’ as dubbed by the band Bolt Thrower. I am he.”
Give those viruses the white cell omoplata.
spoilers of course
I'd somehow love to see BJ get lured back to 155 to fight him.
Yeah, like many Japanese fighters he would be too small for most LW's (look at guys like Barboza and Miller) and he won't have the wrestling to impose his will.
Also top control is so good now that the better BJJ guy / grappler won't always dominate on the mat at all.
Been workin' on my Jits, bro.
:ar! :^:
http://www.mmafighting.com/2011/09/11/daniel-cormier-may-have-broken-hand-after-landing-first-punch/
He seems like a bright guy. He hinted at plans to move to LHW if he'd ever be matched up against Cain Velasquez
But BJ just might decide to go to the ground (well, Aoki sure as hell ain't taking him down, that's for certain).
Alternatively, yeah seeing Aoki at 145 could be very interesting.
There was a clash of heads that preceded Mo's big right. Mo was leading with his head, and his forehead butted the left side of Gracie's head. Can't say for certain, but it may have stunned Roger enough to account for his hands dropping. That's fighting, though. Sometimes accidental headbutts happen.
gifs of the headbutt:
http://mirrorimg.net/im1/h80.gif
http://mirrorimg.net/im1/8f9.gif
Mo followed up with a right to almost the same spot on Gracie's head, and that was it.
I don't read too much into Hoger's loss, to be honest. Going from Trevor Prangley to King Mo is a huge step up in competition for a fairly raw prospect like Hoger. It's just that SF's LHW division is so thin, there's no one to fight.
Same thing happened on the undercard, where Yoel Romero Palacio stepped up from Laszlo Eck (who?) to Feijao, and got stomped similar to Gracie. Gracie-Palacio and Mo-Feijao matchups would have made more sense, competitively.
Any UFC LW would be stupid to grapple with Aoki, whether they think they have good top control or not, including a 155-lbs BJ. Just hit & run like Melendez did, and any decent striker with the ability to control distance earns an easy decision.
It's probably safer to grapple with Maia in MMA than Aoki. Eddie Alvarez is a good wrestler who went to the ground with Aoki, and got tapped out for his trouble. Aoki was about to take a Sotiropoulos leg home, before George Kongo'd his way to a DQ loss in order to preserve his ability to walk again.
this was my favourite aoki moment
Remember how Royce used to fight? (best picture I could find)
It looks archaic now, but to me it was smart. Royce had no interest whatsoever in trying to punch you. All he wanted to do was protect himself long enough to get close enough to get a clinch or takedown. I want to know why Roger is throwing punches at Mo at all. I feel like, if your punch isn't specifically designed to set up a clinch or takedown attempt you shouldn't be throwing it. Your strength is jiu-jitsu, you should be trying to leverage that first and everything else second.
Even though he won, Jacare does the same shit. It's even more mystifying with him because it the grappling world Jacere's known a top position guy and has great takedowns. Jiu-jitsu gameplanning has been backsliding for a while now if you ask me. These guys all want to be kickboxers. Some (Jacare) are talented enough to kind of pull it off, but that's rare.
Pride (and now Dream) occasionally recruited (recruit) olympic judoka to fight in MMA. Those guys have the right idea when you see them fight. They protect their chin, but primarily they're trying to clinch, trip you, and then go to work on the ground. Yoshida for example had almost no MMA experience and was thrown in with top fighters immediately - but he was pretty successful anyway, because he came with a gameplan that made sense.
But that only reinforces my point further! Too much striking for Jacare!
He didn't even do the kickboxing round, he spent it flopping and lying down. I'm an Aoki fan, but that was a top-2 case of Most Deserving of Getting KTFO, along with Hendo-Bisping.