Pound for Pound Disappointment

Anderson Silva is supposed to be the best pound for pound fighter in the world.  Whenever there are commercials to try and promote his fights the UFC claims that he is the best fighter out there.  This can no longer be the case however as in his last two fights Silva has failed to put away both Patrick Cote and Thales Leites. 

Many people who watch the fights try and stick up for Silva and say that he is just bored or that these guys aren't on his level.  Well if they aren't on his level shouldn't he just smash them like he did to Chris Leben and James Irvin?  Why do scrub fighters take him the distance while good fighters he pounds out in the first round?  I don't know the answer but the fact that it is even a question is a real piss off.

When you see fighters like Georges St. Pierre and Fedor you see men who want to go out and dominate their opponents.  They don't sit back and dance and then apologize after they put on a crappy fight.  They go out and try their best to win fights and prove they are superior.  Their goal is to win.  They don't care if it is flashy or exciting they simply want to win.  Silva on the other hand appears to have no desire to win.  He seems content with dancing around the ring for 25 minutes and doing little to no damage.  

Tonight should have been a great night as with his win Silva set the record scoring his ninth straight win inside the Octagon and setting the title defense streak at 5.  Unfortunately the night was ruined by one of the most boring fights I have ever seen.

“The Spider” was taken the distance for the for the first time in his career since 2004, which clearly did not sit well with the fans sitting ringside or the people at the bar I watched the fights at.  The 185-pound showdown turned out to be quite a snorefest that if you had gotten up to take a piss you wouldn't have missed anything. Seriously Silva danced for 15 minutes and Leites laid on his back.

Silva didn’t do much in the first two rounds against the Brazilian jiu-jitsu specialist, opting to keep his distance and stay out of harms way. But when he did attempt to engage, Leites did what most laymen and keyboard warriors would do and flopped to the canvas like a dead fish, looking to bait Silva into a ground match.

Silva refused to engage him on the ground and forced him to stand up roughly 15 times.  There was one flash of action however as Silva had Leites on the ground and fed him a few shots causing a minor cut to open. He couldn’t seal the deal, however, when all was said and done and it went to the judges scorecards.

To let everyone in the arena and at home know how big an ass he is Silva threw up his arms after the final bell sounded and jumped up on the cage as if he had just participated in a fight rather than a 25 minute dance class. It was just as bad as someone yelling "Anything is Possible!"

To make matters worse Silva in his post-fight remarks didn’t seem to concerned about the perception, said fans sometimes just don’t get it. He’s right, but that fight was just downright painful to watch … maybe that’s what happens when a title challenger gets his big chance with a finish over Drew McFedries.

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Screw MMA. Just Wrestle

If you were trying to get in to MMA and eventually wanted to fight in the UFC where would you begin?  Would you take boxing classes at your local gym?  Maybe try and find a dojo and study Judo or Karate?  Or would you try and learn the art and science of jujitsu?  Well if you were smart you wouldn't do any of these things.  You would sign up for wrestling classes.

Over the past few years a large influx of wrestlers have entered the UFC with little or no Mixed Martial Arts background.  Brock Lesnar for example had 1 professional fight before he fought Frank Mir in the UFC and now he is the World Heavyweight Champion.  How did he accomplish this?  Well first he smashed in Heith Herring's face with his those lunchboxes he passes off for hands and then he knocked out Randy Couture.  He accomplished both these feats with no style and no legitimate background in any of the martial arts disciplines that other fighters employ.  He was successful simply because he is a very large man and because he can wrestle.

Look at the current champions and top tier fighters in the UFC and other organizations and you will see that wrestling is by far the most common form of discipline.  Brock Lesnar is the Heavyweight Champion and was a collegiate wrestler for 4 years at the University of Minnesota. Georges St. Pierre has won his last few fights through the utilization of his new found wrestling skills and Light Heavyweight chmpaion Rashad Evans also has an extensive background in wrestling.

The list goes on and on and contains current and past champions and top tier names like: Randy Couture, Matt Hughes, Josh Koscheck, Jon Fitch, Johnny Hendricks, Dan Henderson, Mark Coleman, Tito Ortiz, Sean Sherk, Urijah Faber, and Dan Severn.  One need not look further than the two winners of this past season of the Ultimate Fighter reality series to see the dominance of wrestling.  Both the two winners, Ryan Bader and Efrain Escudero, had a backgrounds in wrestling.

The reason wrestling is so successful is because if a fighter is a great wrestler then they can dictate where the fight will take place.  If they do not enjoy striking they can simply take their opponent down and inflict damage while on the ground.  Wrestling also is beneficial in that it wears the opponent out quickly.  If Brock Lesnar is laying on you for 10 minutes I don't care who you are you are going to get very tried very quickly.

Being a solid wrestler for some fighters is a crutch as they rely simply on take downs and slams to out point their opponent and earn a victory.  Too many times I have watched fights in the UFC where a fighter will take down his opponent and then do nothing but hammer first for 5 minutes.  All this does is tire out your opponent while inflicting minimal damage.  It is boring to watch but in the end it earns a win which when it comes to fighting that is really all that matters.

While some fighters like GSP and Rashad Evans have other facets to their game fighters like Lesnar and Bader rely solely on their wrestling to win fights.  Yes Lesnar defeated Couture with strikes but it's not as if he was standing there boxing with the man.  He used his common sense and minuscule training to learn how to correctly throw a punch and applied it to his fight in the octagon.

This is not to say that wrestling has taken over the UFC however as there are still countless fighters who practice the other disciplines of martial arts and are successful.  Lyoto Machida uses karate and he is a perfect 14-0 in his MMA career.  Anderson Silva considered to be the best pound for pound fighter in the world is a well rounded fighter who relies on his striking and Thai clinch to be successful in the octagon.  Finally there is jujitsu which is utilized by fighters such as BJ Penn and Demian Maia very effectively.

The sport is known as MMA and in the end if you are not a well rounded fighter you will be exposed and you will lose.  No one can make it to the top and stay there being a one dimensional fighter.  Fighters must constantly evolve and learn in order to get better and to continue to win. If a fighter chooses to rely solely on their wrestling it may get them to the mountain but it will never get them to the top.

The trend of wrestlers entering the UFC is likely to continue due to the fact wrestlers win fights and in the end you cannot ignore a fighter that can win.  My hope is that these fighters who are purely wrestlers will learn from fighters like Rashad and GSP and evolve and become well rounded.  This makes fights entertaining as it is makes it an actual fight rather than one man laying on another for 15 minutes.  No homo.

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To Fight or Not to Fight

Fighting in hockey has always been a topic of great debate.  On one side there are the traditionalists who feel that it is part of the game and that to remove it would ruin the game and make it "soft".  On the other side of the debate are the people who feel that fighting should not be tolerated in any sport and note the serious injuries that can occur from fighting.  

The debate has been raging lately after the tragic death of Don Sanderson, a 21 year old kid playing for the Whitby Dunlops suffered a concussion while fighting in a game nearly a month ago.  Sanderson was fighting and had his helmet come off and eventually fell to the ice awkwardly and was knocked unconscious.  He was rushed to a nearby hospital but eventually succumb to his injuries and passed away.

After the tragedy the OHL, and other minor hockey leagues, have started to implement new rules to try and stop fighting.  One of these new rules is that if a players helmet comes off during a fight then the fight is over.  Suspensions are also being handed down for fighting in the hope that it will deter players from fighting.

In the upcoming GM meetings the NHL has asked that fighting be discussed to see if there is any way to improve it.  The question then becomes do people actually want fighting out of hockey?  The Don Sanderson incident, while tragic, is hardly the norm and removing fighting from hockey might remove some of its fan base.  While this is a reality it is also very sad as the NHL is such a poorly run league that if it were to remove fighting some people might no longer watch.

Look at the NBA, MLB, NFL or any other major league in sports around the world.  If two people fight in those leagues then they are suspended or kicked from a game where as in the NHL the players receive 5 minute penalties and can even fight again in the same game.  Its no wonder that the NHL is such a joke around the world.  To go even further does fighting really matter?  People argue that if you remove fighting it will make the game "soft" and that the Europeans will take over.  To them I say go back to your trailer and grab another Miller Light.

Whose favorite player is a fighter anyways?  If there were to remove fighting guys like Andrew Peters, Chris Neil, and George Parros would be out of a job and would anyone really care? The reason I watch hockey is for the goals, saves and hits.  I don't like seeing people glorified for doing something that is detrimental to their team and if I want to watch two people fight I will watch the UFC where the fights are actually good.  

So call me what you will but having people getting killed or seriously injured is hardly worth the 30 seconds of punching that comes along with it.  Fighting has no place in professional sports and it speaks volumes that the NHL wants to keep it in to keep its fans.  Maybe instead they should hire someone with a marketing degree and learn how to market their sport properly.