Archive for the 'MMA' Category

Boy I about fell off the couch tonight watching this commercial for Autozone’s Duralast Battery. Take a gander to see what I’m talking about.

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Now I have a new line, “Trust me… this battery can beat up your battery!”

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When I was a kid we debated about who would win in a fight – the boxer or karate guy. I would point out that the karate guy could kick the boxer in the nuts. My friends would call kicking sissy fighting and for girls. I don’t know if we ever settled that debate but since then the definition of fighting as expanded to include wrestling, judo, jiu-jitsu, muay thai, kung-fu and so on.

We followed boxing because that was the most popular. Later in life karate (PKA, WKA) tried to mimic but it never really took off. In the 1990′s after the toughman contests – the ultimate fighting challenge  started changing how we watched fighting. My father’s generation did not think much of MMA but the baby-boomers and beyond loved it!

So here is the question – does boxing or MMA really demonstrate who would win in a fight? You know that age old question kids argue about. In this article I will argue for No – MMA is just another flavor of boxing in this regard. But it is fun to watch and argue about who is the best fighter.

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When I was a kid I remember wondering what was best, wrestling or boxing. At the time I thought boxing was the best but when karate became popular in the 60′s – the argument became boxing or karate! Well fast forward past the 90′s (was a very confused time) and now if you ask any kid… they will no longer say jiu-jitsu but mma! Why to a teenaged kid that would not even watch a boxing match – MMA is king!

So why am I not impressed with the flavor of the day? I am not out to challenge anyone or trying to get an accomplished martial artist in judo, muay thai, jiu-jitsu, wrestling, or boxing to come over the dark side. But what I do want to do in this post is to examine how effective various martial arts would be in a real fight for an average guy/gal that has a couple of years experience under his/her belt.

I also want to look at some other factors such as the point of each martial art… you know what is it good for anyway? Don’t get mad but if your martial art has lots of rules that don’t easily transition to a real fight – what good is it in a fight (unless you are a world class fighter – then it makes no difference what you learn… it will all work)?

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The news has been full of knife attacks and even the TSA has been considering letting people fly with small pocket knives. It is even scarier to some so removed from fighting or using hand tools that in my estimation I think most people think that a knife attack is not survivable!

I would like to make the point that as in any other kind of attack (read club, gun, baseball bat, hand to hand or whatever) – they are all serious. You can get hurt if you are not a trained fighter. Heck even if you are a trained fighter – you can get hurt.

In this post I’ll evaluate the obvious (to me) about knife attacks (or really any attack – they are all the same from a self defense point of view). But first review this video for a realistic overview.

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Here is my delayed reaction to Diaz vs Condit in UFC 143. Wow! I have been a fan of both men over the years. I like Diaz because of his aggressive, continuous straight punches that keep up the pressure. I like Condit because of his fighting savey. Both men could have won this bout on a good day but Diaz was the favorite with most folks.

Watch some of this interview and I’ll talk about this in a bit more detail.

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I remember one Sunday evening while I was a new bouncer at the bar. Eight guys powered past me before I could card them and ordered some beers. The obviously had already consumed a fair amount of beers. I was a bit nervous as there was the old bartender, a few dancers and everyone was depending on me to keep the peace.  

I calmly walked up to them and asked them to meet me outside. The six big guys followed me outside and I told them they were out for the night since they had not followed the rules. They were having none of that and they attacked me! More on this later but what could I do against six big guys?  I mean I was 155 pounds to their 200 and over?!!!

In this post I will address somewhat of a lost art – the much maligned sidekick! What? Yes once a staple of karate is not considered somewhat of a risk to use in a fight for some reason. Back in my day the sidekick was a great equalizer. I mean most people were inept at kicking and did not really understand how a little guy me could quickly gain the upper hand without a punch!

Here is a quick video showing some of the mechanics of the sidekick.

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MMA has a way or turning the martial arts world on its ear. I remember back when the UFC started and this skinny guy trained in jiu-jitsu took the contest! I thought, wow – what a fluke! Everyone knew that wrestling around on the ground would not win any fights! Now almost 18 years later, UFC 1 changed fighting!

The more traditional martial artists like myself have had a love-hate relationship with MMA. You see it has proven to be a way to test various techniques within the framework of the rules – to see if  they have any merit. You see martial artists take techniques taught to them at face value – meaning if our sensei says it will work – we believe it.

MMA has changed all of that to a point. It is not quite self defense because there are a lot of rules compared to self defense but it is the closest and most exciting fighting constest probably since the Roman arenas! Today’s martial arts students see and hear a lot about various fighting methods. Students know what is fairly realistic in a fight and what skills are just a piece of the puzzle.

In this post I will first speak of my frame of reference  so you can evaluate my thoughts about MMA, Steven Seagal. Then I will focus on the trend I have been seeing in MMA where more traditional arts are coming back into these modern gladiators fighting skill sets.

First for your persual here is a video of Steven Seagal being interview after Machida’s recent win.

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