The Shrine

Yesterday on UFC 70 live from the UK.

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/se ... sripxvidaa

Holy shit! Didn't see that coming.

Here's a youtube clip with slowdown. If you don't want to puke in your mouth, don't watch Cro Cop's ankle bend over backwards at the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCe_HD4WKJw

Holy jizz, his foot is backwards! Will he even be able to fight after this?

Boy, that was one hell of a kick. Anyone know what the injury report on Cro Cop is?

Well, he has been fighting pro for nearly 12 years now (Guys like Randy may be 10 years older, but recall that Randy also started pro MUH later than Cro Cop did and didn' begin taking a toll on his body until then), and before that had a 40-5 amateur boxing career.

The story on Cro Cop is that he has already had surgeries, wear and tear is catching up with him. He was planning retirement last year. He said today in a croatian news paper that he has not been the same since losing to Fedor (Watch a good 2 minute highlyght of the fight here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4yIo1iE7_s ) and that he plans retirement after his fight contract is up. Yes, he does have injuries from this fight, so he'll be out for some time, his leg is hurt again according to some reports, but there is no specification yet as to what those injuries are (could be a break). He has had a hell of a career, fighting mainly in K1, and then moving over to Pride fora few years and then finishing off in UFC. It is quite a shame though, I was hoping he'd go further, his latest loss realy reminds me of losses of a couple of my favourite fighters from when I was younger, Igor Vovchanchyn and also Sakuraba.

Cro Cop has had some amazing fights in his career, and his career has been much longer than most guys have had in combat sports. His ultimate goal was to face the guy at the top, Fedor, again. Hopefully we'll see that fight as his retirement fight, that would be a huge rematch.

Just as long as he's not dead or crippled!

I told you that guy was nowhere near the caliber of fighter you claimed. Now when Liddel tears apart Rampage, I can bump your "Pride more skilled than UFC fighters" thread and, as usual, bask in the always-right-aura that seems to follow my opinions.

the videos you both posted have been yanked. I'm not usually a purveyor of these sort of vice-like entertainment pleasures, but I finally actually decided to click one of your guys' UFC video links and there was nothing there.... yarg!

kali o. wrote:I told you that guy was nowhere near the caliber of fighter you claimed. Now when Liddel tears apart Rampage, I can bump your "Pride more skilled than UFC fighters" thread and, as usual, bask in the always-right-aura that seems to follow my opinions.

You don't understand MMA, this was long ago estalished. If you SERIOUSLY thought that UFC, before the Yakuza incident last year in Pride, was better than Pride then you really don't know much about the sport.

By the way, Chuck already fought Rampage in Pride: http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/se ... ge-jackson

bovine wrote:I'm not usually a purveyor of these sort of vice-like entertainment pleasures

You're obviously unfamiliar with the sport.

I think bovine may be unaware that most of the really serious MMA guys would be fighting irrespective of the crowd, he may be thinking it's some sort of "circus" thing where the fighters fight it out for the pleasures of the crowd...see under Roman circuses or whatever.

I doubt you could drag some of these guys away from the ring with a bulldozer, though, bovine. Don't feel too bad about watching people kill each other for pleasure, cause my guess is that most of the guys fighting in UFC love what they do...

I don't really know much about UFC or any sort of MMA leagues. Sorry for my ignorance, but I'm really against any sort of state-sanctioned (not state as in like.... states in the united states) violence, with the exception of hockey.... because the score system isn't based on hurting people. The only non-interactive visual media that I partake in pretty much entirely comes in the form of cartoons, battlestar, news, and some anime. So getting back on track, I don't mean to offend by my viewing choices, but I think you misunderstood me. By "vice-like" I meant sort of a satirical jab at you fellows to make you all feel bad for being entertained by the barbarism of UFC. I guess it didn't come off with much "lawling", but more with confusion. Anyways, I wanted to watch it because I haven't really seen any MMA stuff and I thought it was time to enjoy a little clip of it, but after no clips actually being avaiable I was sad enough to actually post in textual emotive fashion but it turned out to be a big mess of misunderstanding.... Is any of this making sense? Urgh.... I'm going to post this because I've spent all this time writing it..... but I guess you can just ignore it if it is actually accumulating the confusion. Yarg, aren't I a real contributor.... *sigh*

The Seeker wrote: You don't understand MMA, this was long ago estalished. If you SERIOUSLY thought that UFC, before the Yakuza incident last year in Pride, was better than Pride then you really don't know much about the sport.

By the way, Chuck already fought Rampage in Pride: http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/se ... ge-jackson

"Not knowing much about the sport" equates to no participating in the WWF-vs-ECW like arguments you're so fond of in various message boards accross the net, so you'll forgive me if I don't find offense.

Pride has never had "better" competition, it's had deeper rosters though sure, and the UFC had shortcomings in some of their divisions at various times. Too bad the Pride format sucks. As for Chuck, as i *already* said, he was a different fighter back then and has improved far beyond Rampage (who has declined). I'd place easy money on Liddel...wouldn't you?

Silva is a beast though.

kali o. wrote:Too bad the Pride format sucks.

Really, I would like to see you try to explain this one. Then I will respond.

kali o. wrote:Pride has never had "better" competition

kali o. wrote: As for Chuck, as i *already* said, he was a different fighter back then and has improved far beyond Rampage (who has declined). I'd place easy money on Liddel...wouldn't you?

So if a declined Rampage dominates this fight against an "improved" Chuck, then this would look REALLY bad for your argument.

bovine wrote:By "vice-like" I meant sort of a satirical jab at you fellows to make you all feel bad for being entertained by the barbarism of UFC.

I'm not entrained by the barbarism. I'm entertained by the athleticism, skill and personal dedication. I train in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjj">BJJ</a>, and to some extent, general MMA. I've trained in two different towns, and I've helped fighters prepare for amateur MMA matches in both towns. It's not just something I watch, it's something I do.

You're assuming that what you see is what we see, which I know in my case to be wrong.

I will freely admit to being entertained by the barbarism. But as Kup says, the barbarism is only one component in a much larger sport. And I find quite an artistic side in the barbarism - for a lot of these fighters, I would argue that their personal style is an expression of dedication, discipline, and even individuality. Besides which, if I wanted pure barbarism, I could go watch bums fight on Venice beach. 2% of the skill and 0% of the ref! But somehow MMA watching manages to be more compelling.

People are going to fight anyway. As a matter of fact, they do! All the time, in the street, without any of the discipline or training you see in MMA. And people get hurt - probably as seriously as they do in MMA, or more, since there are no ringside doctors in a streetfight. It's hard for me to see MMA as glorifying any kind of violence, at least comparatively, given the prevalence of the tendency to fight in human nature. With the MMA guys, at least there's an expectation of a fair fight, as well as an understanding of risk.

Though as an aside, bov - no one is pissed at you or anything. Dunno if you're feeling that way or whatnot. Please feel free to keep on contributing to the discussion.

The way I look at it is that Martial Arts are viewed as barbaric by the same sort of eyes that view soccer or tennis as "gay." It is rather that there is a lack of understanding, or interest to find understanding with the sport. Though I will admit, some people do watch the sport for the purpose of barbarism, just as I am sure there are people who watch sports to serve their sexual desires, whether they be straight or homosexual.

Not everyone is going to be interested in MMA, I think one reason why you (Bovine) are interested in Hockey is because you understand how it works. There are several on this board who do not, and therefore have no interest in it either. It is just how it works. A person can know the rules, but it is a TOTALLY different thing to understand a sport.

Just my opinion.



I'll add that there is quite a long history of MMA, Dana White has presented it essentially "A bunch of people got together in the UFC to find out which style of martial arts was the greatest." Well, it goes bak considerably further than that, and it is not quite as clean of a history either...

Note there are much longer and more in depth (thus more accurate) histories written, I'm going to try and sum it up.

The modern form of mixed martial arts began in Japan, but eventually fell from grace during the industrialization period. Thouh in the 1920's Brazilians began practicing the art, essetially martial arts with as few rules as possible. A style of martial arts called Brazillian jiu jitsu was developed based on Japanese techniques, and thus came about the Vale Tudo era. Essentially Vale Tudo was a format by which the Gracie family could promote their form of martial arts to the public. That was also the purpose of the original UFC, it was to popularize Gracie brand jiu jitsu.

The Gracie family wanted a school in every city in the United States. They founded UFC for this reason; to promote BJJ. They brought Royce up to the UFC and he dominated just as he was expected to. As a result Gracie Jiu Jitsu became very popular. The original UFC eventually went under, but Pride FC (the Japanese version of UFC) had been founded in Japan shortly after and saw a gigantic rise in popularity; in Japan the legendary Rickson Gracie entered to prove his superiority (Rickson is considered legendary due to his record of over 400 wins and no losses, though only 10 wins in sanctioned MMA matches, at the time he was considered the best fighter in existence, and undefeatable). Eventually a wrestling based striker with knowledge of BJJ by the name of Sakuraba came through and defeated several of the Gracie's including Royce, but Rickson never fought him; and thus ended the Gracie myth, and we arrived at the sport of MMA as we know it today (it is more complex than that, by far, but this covers many of the essential developments). Today fighters use multiple styles of martial arts, it is essential.