Will it ? I'm not talking about the hardcore mma fan who will sit through anything I'm talking about a casual fan. Will they be turned off if more and more mma fighters adapt a wrestling style ? Takedown and lay and pray killing the clock ? Ala the two co main events this past Saturday ? If we had a bunch of Cole Konrads out there would mma still be popular ?
Yes, a bunch of Cole Konrads WOULD kill the sport. However, it would never get to that point. As we all know, the sport is constantly changing. These boring wrestlers wont last because there will be wrestlers that are just as good that will also have good submissions and striking. The longer this sport goes on, the more well rounded everyone will be. This will prevent wrestlefests.
well wrestlers are sorta anti-jiu-jitsu and prefer dominant positions. despite their power when it comes to punching, they still feel more comfortable on top of their opponents and grind their way to victory. unless you're a jon jones, johnny hendrix, rampage, or henderson type punchers, chances are, they're going to consistently fight that way.
btw, how do you guys find ben askren's style? i've heard folks say that he's unwatchable, but in college, he was the most exciting guy to watch on the mat.
I loved watching Askren run through collegiate wrestling, but I do agree he can be pretty boring to watch so far in MMA. I really hope Askren goes outside of his comfort zone and trains. He really needs some kickboxing, boxing, etc. to compliment his ground game. He has an unbelievable base to build off, I just hope he has the desire to develop.
wrestlers tend to have this monster strength when it comes to punching (ala maynard, rampage, hendrix, henderson), but they seem unwilling to work on their kicking game. but then again, most wrestlers have short legs and rely mostly on their upper body strength, so i guess they could do w/o as long as they know how to check kicks. same w/ jiu-jitsu. judokas tend to adopt well to bjj since bjj pretty much stemmed from japanese jiujitsu (which was later evolved to judo and became defunct in japan), but a lot of wrestlers only use bjj from a defensive aspect of their grappling repetoire. that's why i think jon jones is something special. he's really tall and lanky for a former wrestler and started learning how to strike and submit at an early age. i'm also impressed by frankie edgar's versatility considering he's able to use lateral movements like an experienced boxer and also utilizes his kicks to success.
Askren has very little talent in terms of striking. I can't possibly see him do well at the elite level.
I doubt it. What's going to hurt the popularity of MMA is the first death/serious injury that happens in the UFC.
Apples and oranges, my friend. The fact is, there are still a ton of people that would love to see MMA banished because it's too violent. Real fight fans know that boxing is more dangerous. But that's not the general opinion. When someone gets paralyzed after being dropped on his neck, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
If Boxing were to only have the same short history that MMA has, it would have already had at least one death. It's juts plain more dangerous to take a prolonged beating like they do in boxing. Has a guy ever been KO'd in the first round and then died? Most I have heard of were after a sustained beating of many rounds.
Yep. Great point. On the surface MMA is still the no holds barred tough man fighting to the non fan. And if a serious injury or death occurs in the UFC, it will look FAR more ugly than a death in boxing. In boxing a McClellan type injury doesn't look that bad visually as the severity isn't known for days, weeks, or months. A broken neck from a slam or death resulting from a choke held to long would be ugly and obvious as it happened.
On the topic of wrestling ruining MMA, I don't think it ever will. First, take down defense will automatically improve through evolution if wrestling does take over with lay and pray fighting. Second, one of the most important ingredients in successful wrestling is a strength advantage due to wrestlers having so much experience cutting weight. Guys like Maynard, Bader, Jones, Davis, etc are all masters at cutting weight. Again, through normal evolution of the sport, non wrestlers will also have to cut the same way to combat wrestlers that have taken over the sport. All that being said, I personally love a fight like Nog-Davis in which a great wrestler goes from trying multiple double legs without success to trying single legs with success. And the cat and mouse game of trying to catch him on the way in is fun to watch.
out of judo, wrestling and bjj, i think bjj is the weakest in terms of taking opponents down. bjj's focus is more on the ground and it's counter-intuitive while judo focuses more on throws and wrestling focuses on takedowns and gaining dominant position. a lot of kids in high school these days are also taking up BJJ while they wrestle at the varsity level. same w/ college kids. it's going to be interesting to see some of the college grads come out and enter mma w/ strong bjj background as well. i wish sambo was available when i was in high school.
Most devastating injury is still Igor Ziniev, his neck was broken by Shamrock's slam and it ended his career.
It would be interesting to compile serious injury statistics from BJJ, amateur wrestling, and judo competitions. It might give some insight into the likelihood of these occurrences in MMA.
I am a keen follower of Greco-Roman wrestling and at top level I can't remember many cases when an injury had even stopped a bout. There have been some from time to time, like one guy recently had a broken arm, but nothing that would actually look bad on TV or anything that would seriously be life-threatening
Well with a lot of the shitty fights in the UFC recently just seeing a guy break a nail will be extremely violent to me.
