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Do Frankie Edgar and Dominick Cruz Represent a Trend of MMA Going All Floyd Mayweather?
Do Frankie Edgar and Dominick Cruz Represent a Trend of MMA Going All Floyd Mayweather? |
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We're in Lodi, bitch!
Career record: 950-500
Season: 22-2 (#55)
Location: Fort Waste, IN
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I grew up on boxing. Some of my earliest memories involve watching the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier "Thrilla in Manilla" live on ABC TV in the afternoon with my big brothers. I was the only devoted Larry Holmes fan in my sixth grade class. I mean devoted as in I wore my Larry Holmes t-shirt to school weekly. During the golden era of great middleweights, I even took up lawn mowing to pay for the HBO subscription my mom wouldn't get just to keep up with "Sugar" Ray Leonard, "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler, Thomas "Hitman" Hearns and Roberto "Hands of Stone" Duran.
But somewhere something changed, and the last few times I tuned in for a non-Manny Pacquiao boxing bout, I was bored stiff. Instead of fighting to win in a convincing finish, too many boxers today are content to use movement and speed to outscore their opponent with frequent-but-meaningless blows, then dance away from danger. The preeminent example of this is Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
Zzzzz. Just the mention of his name makes me drowsy. Pitter, patter, dance, pitter, patter, dance, repeat for 12 rounds.
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Post #1 9/1/10 9:48:24AM
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Heavyweight Champ
Career record: 898-590
Season: 18-6 (#327)
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
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Damn your accolades Fleek!
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Post #2 9/1/10 12:33:02PM
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icantthinkofanything
Belt Contender
Career record: 595-415
Season: 17-2 (#753)
Location: between hell and hells kitchen
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Frank -E does have some of the best footwork in the sport, and I think he won convincingly. Although he usually moves around a lot, I recall moments where he was walking bj down in 4th and 5th i think. He moves away, but also puts alot of pressure on also. He mixes it up very well. I agree with Maynard, that MMA will have closer fights and maybe less finishes, now that there is wide range of competition coming in. As long as MMA fighters stay aggressive and exciting, who cares if their is a finish every time. I think Edgar was aggressive, and dominated the ground game and takedowns as well (which was a big suprise to me). To compare Edgar fighting Bj Penn, to boxers like Floyd is an insult in my opinion. Edgar finished Veach a bigger wrestler, and gave up alot of size and experience to Bj , who is one of the best ever. Not even GSP could ko or finish BJ, the corner threw in the towel to end the fight.
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Post #3 9/1/10 1:24:13PM
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Jackelope
Go ahead, MOD my day
Career record: 586-330
Season: 0-0 (#-)
Location: Getting choked out or arm barred
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I think people like the author completely miss the point of combat SPORTS. The idea of a sport is to play within the rules, allow the opponent to score as little points as possible on you, and to score as many points as possible on them.
A FIGHT is a completely different thing. The idea of a FIGHT is to take out your anger and aggression on your opponent and to inflict as much damage as possible.
Somehow, sport and fighting have become confused over the years. There are fighters (and I use that term to describe combat sport participants) who approach their game scientifically, and there are fighters who intend to go in there and smash someone's face. It's just a different approach to the same sport. But when a fighter fights "boring" as the author would deem it, it just means they're fighting scientifically. It means they've figured out how to best exploit the system and its rule set. How can you not appreciate that?
Now, I will say that I personally find the smash your face type fighters more entertaining. I'm not going to sit there and trash on the scientific fighter, though. I appreciate intellect and strategy. If I was a general commanding an army I wouldn't want to see my army take a bunch of damage in route to victory. I'd rather them strike fast, strike effectively, and take the will from the enemy. To me, that is true mastery of combat.
But.. to each their own I guess. I know this argument won't be popular amongst people.
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Post #4 9/1/10 1:54:03PM
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AchillesHeel
Heavyweight Champ
Career record: 594-345
Season: 0-0 (#-)
Location: In the cheap seats.
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Posted by Jackelope
Now, I will say that I personally find the smash your face type fighters more entertaining. I'm not going to sit there and trash on the scientific fighter, though. I appreciate intellect and strategy. If I was a general commanding an army I wouldn't want to see my army take a bunch of damage in route to victory. I'd rather them strike fast, strike effectively, and take the will from the enemy. To me, that is true mastery of combat.
I agree.
Moreover, I think it's an axiom of every sport that "offense wins games, but defense wins championships." In baseball, teams that have good lineups and poor pitching typically suck, but teams that have poor lineups and good pitching can be successful. In soccer, the championship games at the highest levels of play tend to be tense, low-scoring affairs that people often describe as "boring."
Guys like Edgar, Cruz and GSP combine great tools and skills with a smart game-plan that primarily involves not getting their heads knocked off their shoulders. Brock Lesnar and Anderson Silva won their recent title defenses, but I bet they're both working on the same thing for their next fights: Not getting their asses handed to them like that again.
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Post #5 9/1/10 2:58:53PM
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bjj1605
MMA Sensei
Career record: 889-537
Season: 20-4 (#531)
Location: Chicago
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Posted by Jackelope
I think people like the author completely miss the point of combat SPORTS. The idea of a sport is to play within the rules, allow the opponent to score as little points as possible on you, and to score as many points as possible on them.
A FIGHT is a completely different thing. The idea of a FIGHT is to take out your anger and aggression on your opponent and to inflict as much damage as possible.
Somehow, sport and fighting have become confused over the years. There are fighters (and I use that term to describe combat sport participants) who approach their game scientifically, and there are fighters who intend to go in there and smash someone's face. It's just a different approach to the same sport. But when a fighter fights "boring" as the author would deem it, it just means they're fighting scientifically. It means they've figured out how to best exploit the system and its rule set. How can you not appreciate that?
Now, I will say that I personally find the smash your face type fighters more entertaining. I'm not going to sit there and trash on the scientific fighter, though. I appreciate intellect and strategy. If I was a general commanding an army I wouldn't want to see my army take a bunch of damage in route to victory. I'd rather them strike fast, strike effectively, and take the will from the enemy. To me, that is true mastery of combat.
But.. to each their own I guess. I know this argument won't be popular amongst people.
I tend to agree with you but I will add this caveat:
MMA very recently (As recently as the 1990's) more closely resembled a fight than a combat sport. The limited rules, lack of rounds, open weight conditions, and tournament structure all differed considerably from standard combat sports.
Because of this MMA fans may expect MMA to be closer to a "fight" than they would expect from other combat sports.
It's all evolution though. It's going to move further and further away from those early days and look more and more like boxing as time goes on.
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Post #6 9/2/10 12:10:37AM
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Jackelope
Go ahead, MOD my day
Career record: 586-330
Season: 0-0 (#-)
Location: Getting choked out or arm barred
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Posted by bjj1605
Posted by Jackelope
I think people like the author completely miss the point of combat SPORTS. The idea of a sport is to play within the rules, allow the opponent to score as little points as possible on you, and to score as many points as possible on them.
A FIGHT is a completely different thing. The idea of a FIGHT is to take out your anger and aggression on your opponent and to inflict as much damage as possible.
Somehow, sport and fighting have become confused over the years. There are fighters (and I use that term to describe combat sport participants) who approach their game scientifically, and there are fighters who intend to go in there and smash someone's face. It's just a different approach to the same sport. But when a fighter fights "boring" as the author would deem it, it just means they're fighting scientifically. It means they've figured out how to best exploit the system and its rule set. How can you not appreciate that?
Now, I will say that I personally find the smash your face type fighters more entertaining. I'm not going to sit there and trash on the scientific fighter, though. I appreciate intellect and strategy. If I was a general commanding an army I wouldn't want to see my army take a bunch of damage in route to victory. I'd rather them strike fast, strike effectively, and take the will from the enemy. To me, that is true mastery of combat.
But.. to each their own I guess. I know this argument won't be popular amongst people.
I tend to agree with you but I will add this caveat:
MMA very recently (As recently as the 1990's) more closely resembled a fight than a combat sport. The limited rules, lack of rounds, open weight conditions, and tournament structure all differed considerably from standard combat sports.
Because of this MMA fans may expect MMA to be closer to a "fight" than they would expect from other combat sports.
It's all evolution though. It's going to move further and further away from those early days and look more and more like boxing as time goes on.
I would agree with all of that. And I would say that as fans we should embrace that as it is the evolution of the athlete and the evolution of the sport. Unless it leads to situations like Anderson Silva vs. Demian Maia. Which is completely ridiculous IMO. Since he was avoiding contact all together and not implementing a gameplan like Edgar was or like Maynard does
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Post #7 9/2/10 2:11:28AM
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Rush
Laying down the beats
Career record: 467-329
Season: 0-0 (#-)
Location: Canadian living in the SF Bay Area
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Posted by AchillesHeel
Moreover, I think it's an axiom of every sport that "offense wins games, but defense wins championships." In baseball, teams that have good lineups and poor pitching typically suck, but teams that have poor lineups and good pitching can be successful. In soccer, the championship games at the highest levels of play tend to be tense, low-scoring affairs that people often describe as "boring."
I don't agree with this.
I think it is totally incorrect to say that defense wins championships in MMA. The way the sport is scored, be it the NSAC or Pride judging does not award points for being defensive and being a defensive fighter will cause one to lose more often than not particularly in fights that go to decisions.
The way I look at it is that styles make matches and champions in MMA. Recent fighters have a winning combination of tactics and usually stick with it. Then someone exploits it and they start to have problems (I am speaking on the highest levels of MMA). IMO, the fighters of the future that will have longevity in the sport will have to evolve and stay one step ahead of their competition.
I think the two styles, aggressive vs. tactical are yin and yang. Both will always be around because both are quite capable of besting the other and are thus in a state of harmony where one dominates for a while and then the other.
As for it looking more and more like boxing, I don't agree either. There are enough tools in MMA that will keep it from becoming a "stalemate" sport. It only takes one fighter to show that something can work and other fighters follow. That changes the tides and helps MMA evolve. Just like a paper, scissors, rock match, there isn't just one tactic that wins all the time. It goes back and fourth.
Last edited 9/3/10 9:16PM by rush
Edit note/reason: n/a
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Post #8 9/3/10 9:13:39PM
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CwB
MMA Sensei
Career record: 221-151
Season: 0-0 (#-)
Location: Sin Sh*tty
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Hmmm, I disagree with this article, as I was completely entertained during the entire duration of Edgar vs Penn II...
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Post #9 9/3/10 11:12:11PM
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