Archive for December, 2017
Money or MMA
Conor McGregor is the biggest name in MMA, but I do not think he is not looking at fighting MMA anymore and I can’t say I blame him.
When I say the biggest name in MMA I am talking about the person who you could go up to a random person in the street and ask them to name an MMA fighter the most common name you would hear would be Conor McGregor. Conor McGregor is by no means the best fighter in the sport but he would’ve made more money than the top 10 earners in MMA combined. McGregor made over $100 million in his boxing match against Floyd Mayweather and has not fought since. Now there is word that he is in talks with Manny Pacquiao. If this fight against Pacquiao goes ahead I assume that McGregor would earn over $70 Million if the Mayweather is anything to go by.
As a fan of MMA and boxing I do not want to see McGregor v Pacquiao it is another irrelevant fight that does not matter to the history of boxing or MMA. This fight makes no real difference to either fighter except for their wallet as people will pay to watch this fight. This annoys me as there was Lomachenko v Rigondeaux on in the weekend. This was the first time in boxing history where 2 fighters who won 2 Olympic golds fought each other. If you went up to the random person in the street and asked about this fight chances are that they wouldn’t know either fighter and had no idea the fight was on. Those two fighters are two of the best amateur boxers in history (Lomachenko 296-1 , Rigondeaux 450-12) but no one knows them. Most people would not pay for this fight, but they will pay $50 to watch McGregor v Pacquio.
You can’t blame Conor McGregor for this, he is trying to earn as much as he can as he knows he has a short shelf life. McGregor knows that he can make a lot more money from fighting these big name boxers compared to MMA. For this reason alone I do not think that you will see McGregor fight in MMA again and that makes sense. Would you fight Pacquiao for $50 – $80 million of have a UFC fight and earn $1 – $5million. These numbers are an estimate as what they actually earn is questionable. After the Mayweather fight McGregor was already set for life, earning over $100 million, add another big payment and it would set his grandkids up.
I can’t understand that if you are set for life financially why you would risk your health and keep fighting, especially with all the concussion information. If you did not have worry about the day to day grind it would be hard to have that real desire to put your body on the line for a fight. Obviously it must be more than money that drives a lot of fighters which is great and they are fighting just to fight and that is great. That is until they run out of money and do a comeback fight and get destroyed.
I can’t see Conor McGregor fighting in the UFC again, and why would he. McGregor has become as much as a house hold name as any fighter on the planet right now and he is looking to make a buck. From a very solid source that talked to McGregor a few years ago McGregor said ‘I will not stay undefeated, so I have to make as much noise and money until I lose then get out’. Even though that has slightly changed you see that McGregor is chasing the money and has been very good at it. If he fights Pacquio I think that will be the last we will see him fight, he has a young kid and will be set for life – what would you do?
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
Do you Wear Lycra?
It is no secret that I think that wrestling is the most important element of MMA, but what are the differences in wrestling in against wrestlers and wrestling in MMA.
The wrestling I am talking about is Olympic Freestyle wrestling, which in a nutshell means you can do both upper body and lower body attacks ie you can grab the legs. That is compared to Greco Roman wrestling where you can only grab the upper body. When drilling wrestling you are very close to your opponent as most of the time you have your head six inches or closer to your opponent. Almost all the takedowns are set up form inside that six inch distance. You are either looking to clear your opponents arms out of the way or unbalance your opponent in the hope of getting to their legs or back to get a takedown.
You are now going to MMA and trying to execute take downs from striking range which is going to cause some serious problems. Therefore we are going to be looking at this from two separate angles with the first being from a striker who has adopted wrestling and then wrestlers who have moved in to MMA.
As I was a kickboxer with some BJJ who picked up wrestling later this is more or less me. The biggest change is firstly the distance it was very hard to let someone get in that close without lifting your hands to protect your head from a striking instinct. Instead of protecting you head you had to drop your hands to protect your legs from the takedowns. So all it took for a wrestler to take down a striker is to fake a neck grab, or go for a neck grab, so they would lift their hands from instinct where the wrestler would shoot under and get the legs or single leg to get the takedown. Then if you are lucky your BJJ brain would came in and you fall to my back, which the exact wrong thing to do as in Wrestling if you are on your back you lose via pin. So once you have clicked to that little trick it is all about keeping up with the level changes. Once you have some wrestling defence then you can strike with some confidence. Then with confidence you can keep distance more effectively and against a wrestler and that distance is a life line. From a technical standpoint the biggest struggle is changing what foot you had forward. In wrestling you constantly changing stance to set up both defence and offence and to counter your opponents movement. However most strikers w only feel comfortable with one foot forward depending if they are orthodox or southpaw depends on the foot. This means that if you have your right leg forward you do not have to worry about a double leg from an orthodox striker. In MMA this is not such an issue as a lot of take downs are set you using strikes. Using striking to set up takedowns is all about selling a punch or a move to make your opponent react in a certain way to create the opening that you want. To use striking to keep wrestlers away is all about maintaining distance and making the wrestler make the first move. That is you want to wrestler to try and step forwards so you can change your distance and keep them on the end of your punches until they get frustrated and do something silly and then make them pay. However keeping distance is difficult as there is only a limited distance to work in and you get tired which both limit your mobility. This means that sooner or later you are going to have to defend some wrestling sooner or later no matter what.
To make a wrestler an absolute beast all they need to learn is to deal with punches and submissions then they are a nightmare. If you can’t stop the takedown down and then being underneath a wrestler is insane as wrestlers are next to impossible to sweep and their scramble is top class. If you have a wrestler in your guard and they avoid your submissions then you are not going to have a good night. The fundamental skills and mind set in wrestling transition really well to MMA they have an absolute desire to win, which to me is greater than in other sports I have done. It is not easy to deal with strikes and submissions but if they can do it – Watch Out.
When I was competing in wrestling I would focus on my wrestling at all times, even while doing MMA training / sparring and I enjoyed the change and the challenge. Firstly the specific wrestling training was great and the intensity is like nothing else. The reactions you gain and how quickly you can drop your hips was surprising. Then changing the way you spared in MMA was fun. The stance drops drastically and movement is minimised as all you are looking at doing is closing the distance. This is done in two ways either going to them or making them come to you. Working off the jab is the easiest way for both, when going in you use your back hand to parry the jab and you slide and feet in to get close where you usually end up in the clinch. To make them close the distance you need to drag them in by doing something along these lines. They throw a jab you parry it and take an exaggerated step backwards, then you repeat, there is something you see in their body language and you now they are thinking ‘I am going to get you this time’ and they put more on the jab so your drop down for the double leg and they get very frustrated. Once you are comfortable with your wrestling and you can avoid being hit then something great happens. That is you start wearing your opponents down both mentally and physically, once you get hold of them you find yourself going from one takedown to another until you get them down and this is all done subconsciously. Then once you get them down you just smother them, you may even let them get up so you get work the process again. One thing is for sure this takes the heart from your opponent and the fight leaves them like nothing else I have seen in MMA. The other fun thing that happens with the wrestling training is the desire for the takedown, the effort just does not stop until you get the takedown or you are completely stuffed. There is no such thing as too hard in wrestling. Then with the defence you become very hard to takedown as you have wrestling hips. Wrestling hips are very heavy and stay horizontal. By staying horizontal you can’t get rolled over or taken down. Then your scramble becomes better so if you do get taken down you can flatten out your hips (horizontal) and get back to feet which then deflates your opponent. Having this confidence in your wrestling allows you to decide how you want the fight to go as you are comfortable with both your attack and defence.
Overall the range for pure wrestling is closer than in MMA as you have less to worry about, and also less to attack with. Unless you have wrestled a pure wrestler then you have not wrestled as they just have another level that only wrestling training gives you. A good athlete will be able to transition in to most sports it just seems that wrestling transitions in to MMA very very well.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
Those Little Gloves Hurt!
People that have not used MMA gloves for sparring or even pad work do not understand the difference between them and boxing gloves. This is just one of the differences between kickboxing striking and MMA striking.
Something that took a lot longer for me to notice than it should’ve was the massive change in footwork between kickboxing and MMA. If I use me as a guide when I was fighting in kickboxing my weight was on my toes and I stood very tall compared to how I stand in MMA. For kickboxing you want your weight on your toes so you can lift your legs and rotate to kick. The key to an effective kick is to be able to deliver it with minimal movement so you do not telegraph your kick but have maximal impact. You also need to put your body weight behind the kick and the best guys do that rotation at the end of their kick.
You also want to be light on your feet so you can leg check as this is very important if you plan on having a decent carer in kickboxing after taking a few solid leg kicks you are limping for a week. As the striking range is very precise your foot work is a massive part of your defence, using very subtle in and out’s to get your range. In MMA the stance is wider, longer and heavier. I was very surprised when I saw the comparison between my kickboxing stance, tall and light on my feet, then how much it had changed after years training MMA and how I was a lot heavier and slower with my foot work. This may be due to being older and heavier however, but I am hoping it is more to do with the difference in requirements between kickboxing and MMA. Your stance had to be ready to change levels to defend the takedown in MMA. The effect this has in striking is it makes leg kicks very hard to defend but it gives you the chance on defence to be able to catch the leg kick and take them down. Regardless if you are defending takedowns or trying to get a takedown your stance is going to be long and wider than it would be in kickboxing and this make kicks both harder to throw and defend.
If you break down to just pure punches with MMA there are differences. Hitting with the little gloves is different, I have been doing MMA for years and I need sparring to be hard before I can throw punches with MMA gloves and not be concerned. If you are doing light sparring with boxing gloves it is relaxed and you are working things, light sparring in MMA gloves you just do not want to get hit and that is it. MMA gloves just feel different when they land compared to a boxing glove. Obviously there is more padding on boxing gloves and you don’t feel your opponents skull when you land a punch, yes you actually feel it on your knuckles. Then there are the awkward punches (yes I still throw them) that don’t land as you would like. I have both landed and been hit by lefts hooks when moving my head when the mid finger knuckles, or the knuckles you use to knock on a door. When they land around the eye it always creates swelling around the eye as it is more or less hitting bone on bone. Then how you hold your hands, yes you have your hands in more or the less the same place as pure boxing but the thing is your hands are open. This is a massive difference as you are constantly opening and closing your hands when sparring. The reason for this is that you need to have your hands open when you are defending punches where you are basically putting your hand through your hair, or attaching your palm to your head. You have your hands open otherwise if they are closed and you defend a punch wearing MMA gloves you get the door knocking knuckles slammed in to the side of your head – which hurts. This means your hands are open when defending and closed when attacking this can get confusing and difficult, and this is why there are eye pokes in MMA. This defence makes things a lot different as in boxing you defend a lot punches using your gloves, this also changes the distance. In MMA it is a lot harder to sit in the pocket and rely on head movement as there are kicks and knees to worry about. Therefore it makes the striking tactics of more get in and throw 1 -3 punches and then get back out. This changes your mentality on how you work your striking and what combos you can throw (or what I can throw). Then getting hit by a boxing glove is never pleasant but it is a hell of a lot better than getting hit by a MMA glove. The boxing glove is like a big thud, don’t feel it anywhere but just know your head got hit. That compared to a MMA glove you know exactly where you got hit and it stings. When you get hit with a MMA glove and it stings, and I hope I am not the only one here, it changes how you throw as when you get hit and it feels warm which makes you think you are cut or bruised ad that messes with your head. When striking you can’t defend like in boxing as you do not feel as safe taking shots on the gloves.
People can be hard on the striking in MMA and the boxing match between McGregor and Mayweather didn’t help with this argument. MMA have very good strikers, some of the best in the world, but as they have so many other things to train they are not comparable to elite boxers / kickboxers. If you put a top boxer against a MMA fighter in MMA gloves that would be more interesting as it changes the game like you would not believe. My background is kickboxing and I feel at home with big gloves on, but I can still feel uncomfortable with those little gloves. Added all up with the different stance, due to takedowns, the different gloves it should make more sense why the MMA striking is less with combos than either kickboxing or boxing as it is just different – not better or worse just different.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor