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On January 17, 2017 By In Mixed Martial Arts

The Final Pass of the Torch

“He knocked Din Thomas silly with a knee and blitzed Caol Uno in 11 seconds in 2001, both of which continued to make cameos in pre-fight promotional videos for the next decade. His list of rear-naked chokes alone is enough to get grappling nerds giddy. Takenori Gomi, Matt Hughes, Jens Pulver, Joe Stevenson and Kenny Florian all ended up seconds away from sleep, usually after one of their arms was pinned by one of Penn’s legs. Even some of his losses have provided sensational moments: How he pieced up George St. Pierre on the feet for a round in their first fight, when he inexplicably slithered to take Hughes’ back and moved into a triangle in their rematch or how he pushed back a 218-pound Lyoto Machida with clean shots to the face in K-1. Of course, his best knockouts happened toward the end of his prime via a flying knee to Sean Sherk, a head kick of all things to become the first to stop Diego Sanchez and a 21-second drubbing of Matt Hughes in their rubber match.

That final Hughes fight aside, the last seven bouts of Penn’s career have mostly served to decorate the highlight reels of other fighters. This was especially true against Yair Rodriguez…”

 

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On January 11, 2017 By In Mixed Martial Arts

An Aging Prodigy

“When the bout between B.J. Penn and Yair Rodriguez was announced, my immediate feeling was that it was stupid. Part of that opinion is rooted in the fact that Penn was one of the first fighters that brought me into the sport, and he has captured my imagination of what is possible as a mixed martial artist like no one has before or since. To say he’s a legend in the sport is trite; to my mind, the highs of his career represent the absolute ceiling of competitive martial arts.

One of the primary appeals of martial arts is the idea that technique trumps physical advantages. Bruce Lee, for instance, was the introduction of traditional martial arts for many of us. Perhaps his most famous fight scene is against the 7-foot-2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in “The Game of Death.” In that scene, the 5-foot-8 Lee uses a variety of techniques from different disciplines to eventually overcome an opponent who absolutely dwarfed him. Of course, that was just a movie, but a part of us knows that hyper-skilled technicians can, to an extent, be better fighters than someone who is bigger, stronger and more athletic than them.

That’s why Penn is as beloved and iconic as he is. What he was able to accomplish at weights well above his natural 155-pound weight class — winning an Ultimate Fighting Championship belt at welterweight against a dominant champion, winning fights at middleweight and being competitive against a 218-pound Lyoto Machida — was unprecedented and will likely never be replicated. Penn is by no means a poor athlete, but he’s also not a very good one in terms of traditional metrics. What made him great was his pure, raw talent. The fact that he undertrained made me more of a fan, if I’m being honest, since it further proved that the fight game was one of skill and technique more than anything else…”

 

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On January 8, 2017 By In Mixed Martial Arts

Sherdog’s 2016 Beatdown of the Year

“Watching a lopsided game is a fairly awful viewing experience in most sports. Even if it’s our team that’s winning, there is something inherently boring about dominance. A competitive match, in any sport, is more compelling because the outcome is uncertain. There is a reason why stadiums and arenas tend to clear out early when an insurmountable lead is established; people get what they came for and stop caring.

MMA is the exception to this. Whereas a blowout football or basketball game is hard to watch, a prolonged, ferocious beatdown is hard to stop watching. Perhaps it is hardwired into our mammalian brain, or perhaps it’s a psychological phenomenon. Whatever it may be, the appeal of watching another person get the stuffing beat out of them is impossible to deny.

When Khabib Nurmagomedov spent the majority of three rounds ragdolling Michael Johnson at UFC 205 on Nov. 12, nobody took a smoke break. It was a hellacious, one-sided beating that earned the undefeated Dagestani Sherdog’s 2016 “Beatdown of the Year…”

 

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On January 8, 2017 By In Mixed Martial Arts

Sherdog’s 2016 Fight of the Year

“Good things may come to those who wait, but we did not have to wait long for good things to come in 2016.

When Robbie Lawler defended his welterweight championship against Carlos Condit at UFC 195 on Jan. 2, it was immediately hailed as a “Fight of the Year” candidate. There were still 364 days left in the year, and an additional 481 fights would take place in the Ultimate Fighting Championship alone, but sometimes that gut feeling simply cannot be denied. Everyone who watched the fight knew it was special the moment the final bell sounded and both men, side by side, hung on to the fence to hold themselves up. It was an iconic moment befitting of a sensational fight.

The recipe was hard to mess up. Both Condit and Lawler had hard-earned reputations as exciting strikers with equally appropriate nicknames: “Ruthless” and “The Natural Born Killer.” Both came from elite training camps. Both had been champions. Both were coming off of savage, bloodbath performances. Lawler had six months of separation from his all-time classic against Rory MacDonald in the consensus 2015 “Fight of the Year.” Condit was seven months removed from delivering an epic beatdown against resurgent former title contender Thiago Alves in Brazil, where he painted the Octagon red with the DNA of his Brazilian foe before the referee called the stoppage. Lawler was known for his power and technical aggression in the pocket and his superhuman ability to absorb and rebound from punishment. Condit was known for his diverse, unrelenting Tasmanian Devil kickboxing game and diamond-grade chin. All the pieces were there, yet the sum of the parts still did not stack up to the greatness of the whole…”

 

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On January 2, 2017 By In Mixed Martial Arts

The Two Types of Defeat

“The new school year in Korea begins with the new calendar year. As such, I got to know my new batch of students this week. Introductory classes are always boring and a little dry, since they mostly exist to learn names, highlight important dates and go over expectations. However, the first day is when I explain the theme of my class, which is really what I try to make the theme of my life in general: to embrace failure. It’s a typical teacher truism, and I’m aware of how cheesy it can sound, but I genuinely believe it. We are, after all, human, and failure is inevitable. What matters is not avoiding failure but developing the ability to learn from it.

UFC 207 on Friday provided two case studies in how to fail and how not to fail. Especially for the “New Year-New Me” resolution crowd, the ways in which former champions Dominick Cruz and Ronda Rousey dealt with their defeats are instructive…”

 

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