Archive for April, 2012
The Golden Age
To me, the Golden Age of MMA has passed. This is the age of the classic striker versus the grappler, the grappler versus the wrestler and the striker versus the wrestler. It was always interesting to see how a top striker would go against a BJJ specialist and vice versa.
Take Nog v CroCop – in this fight you knew that Nog was not going to win on his feet and CroCop was not going to win on the ground. This meant that CroCop was doing the classic sprawl and brawl, keeping his distance with strikes and defending the takedown attempts. Nog on the other hand had to close the distance get him to the ground to get the win. What made this interesting was the fact that the fighters, the crowd and everyone watching more or less knew the game plans for both the fighters and was very interesting to see how it would play out. Another great Striker versus a ground fighter was Randy Couture v Chuck Liddell, again you knew what each of them had to do to win and it was great to see how they solved the puzzle.
Recently the fights have not been as entertaining in that respect, a shocker was a great wrestler against a great grappler (Hughes v Renzo Gracie), they both knew about the others skills on the ground. Renzo is a grappling legend and Hughes tapped out Royce Gracie. So instead of a potentially great grappling and positioning match we got to see two guys, who are not good strikers, stand and strike. Hughes didn?t go for the take down for fear of Gracie?s ground game and Renzo could not take Hughes down, because of his wrestling. Two of the sports big names ended up having one of the most boring fights as neither of them is known for their striking.
Take Rashad Evans v Jon Jones (at the time of writing the fight had not happened) they are both two very good athletes with strong wrestling backgrounds. There is a very strong chance that the fight will be decided with the stand up as neither of them want to risk a missed shoot and getting caught underneath the other person. However as it is a five round fight, they will revert to their strengths as they fatigue, which means in the last two rounds (assuming it goes that long) there will be a number of takedowns in round four and five. For the record I am picking Jon Jones to frustrate Evans with his range and eek out a decision as gridge matches are usually not event full? Jones win via DEC.
These days everyone is so good at everything that there is no longer the classic battles of days gone by. Everyone is so well rounded that they can adapt their game depending on who they are against. This is because MMA has caused a fight evolution, no longer can the World Kickboxing Champ move to MMA and get instant success, this is the same for a World Champion Wrestler or a BJJ World Champ. MMA has shown us that no matter how good you are at one thing, you need more strings to your bow to make it in MMA, which is great for bragging rights, but I still like the good old days of kickboxing v BJJ, boxing v wrestling, BJJ v wrestling just to see how they dealt with another style of fighting.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
One Trick Pony
Ronda Rousey has won all her 8 fights with arm bars, and she has even broken a few arms in the process. Surely then all you have to do against her is work your arm bar defence and you will be fine.
There are a lot of fighters that are very strong in one area and use that to get their wins, but this does not mean that they are only a one trick pony. Take Ronda for example, after she won her first 3 amateur fights with arm bars and then stepped up to pro I am sure her first Pro opponent Ediene Gomes must of known that all she did was take people down and arm bar them, and she did this in under a minute in all her fights except one. This makes her even more impressive in my opinion as everyone knows what her game plan is yet she achieves it each and every time, she takes them down and gets the arm bar.
All you need to do to beat Mike Tyson, in his prime, is keep him at range with your jab. Again all sounds very easy, as you know against Tyson he is going to try and get inside and throw his shots. Tyson fought Larry Holmes, who was past his prime, and was known for one of the best jabs in heavy weight history and he couldn?t keep a young Mike Tyson away.
Take any of the top fighters on the planet and in theory they are all easy to beat. GSP defend his take downs and out strike him, Anderson Silva slip his punches and land your counters, Bones Jones take him down and keep top control. This is all very easy in theory but in reality everyone knows what they have to do against these guys and no one has been able to stop them yet.
How does this work for you? Get very good at a couple of things and be good at everything else. Then work on how to keep the fight in your strong areas. For BJJ, find a submission that you get success with and the learn how to get it from a number of different positions. Wrestling is slightly different as you want different takedowns from your favourite positions – for example, have three ?go to? moves from the clinch. In striking have a counter for the percentage punches, which are punches that they are likely to lead with (usually a jab), and have your movement and counter ready to go. Once you have landed the counter then your offensive favourites come in to play.
Just because someone wins the same way each time doesn?t mean that they are only a one trick pony, rather it means that they are very skilled at that move. Watch and learn to see what they are doing different to you and make your move better.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
What else could you be doing
Every time you are at training you are giving up valuable time, and in many cases money, to be there to train. Instead of spending time with your family, partner or friends you have decided to go to training so that should make you think that you are going to get the most out of it as possible.
There are nights when you feel a little flat and have a good excuse to take it easy at training. The other option is to go technical and work specific skills and make sure everything is as correct as you can make them. You can drill these techniques in a live situation rather than sparring. This way y0u get a great workout without going over the edge with your energy levels.
In fight sports it is a case of when you get injured, not if. This means if every time you are injured that you stay at home then you will miss a high number of sessions. Instead, change how you look at injuries, as they are actually a blessing. How can an injury be a blessing? It is all very simple, take a striker that has a great jab and a left hook (orthodox) who gets an injury to their left hand. One option is take time off until the hand heals, the other option is to look at the bright side – now that person has to work their right hand as they can?t throw their left hand. This now gives the striker a few weeks to work new skills – and the best way to land your left hand is to make the person worry about your right. Everyone, no matter what part of MMA you are talking about, has an area that they stick to as it is their strength. Then an injury comes along and you are forced out of you comfort zone, and makes you develop new skills which I think is fantastic.
Everyone has things that they could be doing instead of training, at any fight gym around the world you will have business owners, parents, husbands, wives, people going through sad times, divorces, deaths and so on. If you are going to be away from your family then it is only fair, to you and them, to put in 100% to your training and get the most out of that session as possible. That doesn?t mean just training hard but ask questions from the top guys and pick their brains, practice new moves on the less experienced guys and work your skills against the people at your level.
The old saying is ?Be here now? which is perfect in this situation. When you are training make sure your brain isn?t at work or at home as that means that training suffers. Whereas if you are at home or work and your head is at training then your work or home life suffers. Whatever you are doing make sure your head is there, especially with fight training as you really need to have your head in the game otherwise things are not going to go very well.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor