January, 2017
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By In Mixed Martial Arts

The Myth of Mind Games

“It’s not uncommon to hear fighters harp on the mental demands of mixed martial arts. ‘The fight game is 90 percent mental, 10 percent physical,’ they’ll say. It makes sense that they emphasize the aspect of the sport that isn’t immediately apparent to the folks at home, most of whom have never experienced anything remotely similar to preparing for a fight.

The tedium of clocking in for work is no less present in a training camp than it is in a regular 9-to-5. Ask any fighter. There are days when you are motivated and days when you aren’t, days when everything is clicking and days when nothing seems to go as planned. There’s also the emotional rollercoaster of teetering between supreme confidence and nervousness as the fight draws nearer, as well as the general exhaustion that comes with rigorous exercise and dietary restrictions. On top of all of that, top-level fighters are often isolated from their friends and family, instead spending their time with complete strangers to do promotional work to hype the fight. Fight camps are strange bubbles of reality.

Without a doubt, MMA takes an incredible mental toll on fighters. With that being said, the fight game is at the end of the day a physical contest between two people wielding their bodies as weapons. As simple and obvious as the statement seems, fight fans frequently forget that, especially in the days leading up to the fight…”

 

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By In Mixed Martial Arts, podcast

Podcast: The Jed Meshew Show

Talked with Jed Meshew from MMAFighting about all things BJ Penn.

 

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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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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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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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