UFC on Spike Tonight

[Julius Seeker]

Summary:
The Octagon ™ unleashes a fury when the Ultimate Fighting Championship ® (UFC ®) organization holds the first-ever “Ultimate Fight Night,” a nationally-televised event on Spike TV featuring fighters from the hit reality series “The Ultimate Fighter ™.” Stephan Bonnar, Sam Hoger, Alex Karalexis and Kenny Florian will be pitted against each other, and Chris Leben, Nate Quarry and Josh Koscheck will face-off with Patrick Cote, Pete Sell and Pete Spratt in a soon-to-be classic UFC event live on Spike TV from Las Vegas’ Cox Pavilion Saturday, August 6, 2005. The live action starts at 7:15 p.m. ET/4:15 p.m. PT and Spike TV’s cable telecast starts at 9 p.m. ET/PT(tape delay), Satellite is Live at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT

ufc.tv

[Julius Seeker]

Quick Swick finished his second fight in 22 seconds, solidifying his nick name after winning his first UFC bout in 20 seconds.

Overall the show was great, some of the pre-fights shown were excellent. I was dissapointed that Salaverry didn't win his fight though; it was a very close one, and he lost on the decision; of course I am a fan. In truth I was very impressed by the other guy, the fight was a great display of technical skills, unfortunately the stupid assed LA crowed didn't understand that; but they have always been like that. Even closer was Leben vs. Cote, both guys rocked each other multiple times but both are tough as hell; Leben still needs to bring his mat game up; he is a great striker, and I do feel he has a great future, he has a lot of room to improve; and he is young, only 25.

There weren't any fights of the caliber of Forrest Griffin and Stephen Bonnar, but there were some great ones.

[SineSwiper]

I should have put it on DVR. Any reshowings of it?

[Julius Seeker]

Very likely, just check your TV guide. Tthere is also a Pay Per View coming up in a week and a half.

[Julius Seeker]

I was dissapointed that Salaverry didn't win his fight though; it was a very close one, and he lost on the decision; of course I am a fan. In truth I was very impressed by the other guy, the fight was a great display of technical skills,

Well, Nathan Marquardt, who was Salaverry's opponent, has tested positive for steroids. Though he denis using them and UFC supports him on this, we'll see what happens. He has 20 days to respond.

[SineSwiper]

I watched some UFC matches for the first time. I had both a "UFC Ultimate Knockdowns 3" and another show with 3 matches from the judges of the new Spike show on DVR. The latter took about 10 minutes to watch from an hour show, because it was basically a bunch of them yapping and trash talking (a lot of fast-forwarding). The former actually had some decent battles throughout.

The fighting is better than boxing and better than fake wrestling. It's interesting how quickly the matches go. (Honestly, it kinda takes the fun out of it, considering that only one fall to the ground will pretty much end the whole match.)

Overall though, I'm kinda disappointed in how little of different styles there are. Everybody is trained in kick boxing and grapples. That's about it. Various people are more dominant in one field or another, but there's literally thousands of martial arts out there, even empty-handed arts. Seems like you would see all kinds of different arts, but it's not there. Hell, the one Japanese guy I saw got his ass kicked.

If this game is supposed to honor just about any non-lethal fighting art, where is it?

[Kupek]

Overall though, I'm kinda disappointed in how little of different styles there are. Everybody is trained in kick boxing and grapples. That's about it. Various people are more dominant in one field or another, but there's literally thousands of martial arts out there, even empty-handed arts. Seems like you would see all kinds of different arts, but it's not there. Hell, the one Japanese guy I saw got his ass kicked.

If this game is supposed to honor just about any non-lethal fighting art, where is it?

There's a simple explanation for that: kickboxing and muay thai is all you need. The very early days of UFC had people doing distinct styles, which could be dominated by someone who had some cross training. Now people train in some striking and some grappling. Personally, I think a lot of the other martial arts (such as Tae Kwon Do and Kung Fu) aren't as practical as the combination of Muay Thai and grappling, often in the form of Brazillian Jiu Jitsu.

The people you see are the people who are winning. If someone in another style was winning a lot of matches, then you'd see them.

[Julius Seeker]

Even today I still see a very wide variety of different styles used in the UFC. Liddel uses a few different types of kickboxing styles, Courture uses Greco Roman Wrestling, jiu jitsu, and Muay Thai. Saleverry who I mentioned above uses Pancrase.

The best fighters in the world right now (Fedor and Sergei Kharitonov) use a combination of Sombo and Judo as their main styles. All of Sergei's fights (save one) have ended in knock out or submission; the only fight that didn't was against Nog who defeated him by decision (which was bullshit, everyone who saw the fight said it was bullshit except the judges. I mean, I respect Nog, and I know he is a legend in Japan, but he very clearly lost that fight)

[Kupek]

I was drunk when I posted that, so I meant to say "kickboxing/muay thai and grappling is all you need." Basically, you need to know how to strike on your feet and grapple on the ground (or in the clinch).

[SineSwiper]

It's a damn shame, as it seems like they are saying "Well, these fighting styles just aren't as good". I would have liked to see somebody trained in karate and judo, or other striking+grapple combinations like that. Otherwise, it seems like the UFC is just a glorified kick-boxing game.

[Flip]

Well, it will never change as long as the ring is so small. The grapplers can get you too easily. I think they should fight in something the size of a baseball infield or bullfighters ring. Give the people some room to move and maneuver. Gladiator style!

[Kupek]

It's a damn shame, as it seems like they are saying "Well, these fighting styles just aren't as good". I would have liked to see somebody trained in karate and judo, or other striking+grapple combinations like that. Otherwise, it seems like the UFC is just a glorified kick-boxing game.

There's no "they" here. You see what you see because <i>that's what works</i>. In the Japanese competitions like K1 and Pride, there is some more variety, but I'm unaware of anything like a kung-fu only praticioner doing well. I have seen matches with people trained in Judo, but they can't rely solely on Judo; they need to learn how to be a good striker as well.

Training in only one discipline would be like fielding a soccer team with no fullbacks: it doesn't matter how good your goalie, forwards and midfielders are, your game has a serious hole that will be your downfall. It's called "Mixed Martial Arts" for a reason. And I think that when it comes to MMA competition, some arts <i>are</i> better than others. In the beginning, there were karate, TKD and Kung-Fu people. And they lost.

Flip, in Pride, they're in a boxing ring, so there's no trapping the opponent against the fence. Although I don't understand Sine's complaint, most of the UFC matches I have seen spent more time on the ground than standing.

[Julius Seeker]

Flip, in Pride, they're in a boxing ring, so there's no trapping the opponent against the fence. Although I don't understand Sine's complaint, most of the UFC matches I have seen spent more time on the ground than standing.

UFC Fightnight was almost all about the striking, I think only one match ended by submission.


Sine:
Karate, judo, and Taekwondo in their pure forms have all evolved into a style used for sporting rather than actual combat; so people who have trained in styles geared purely towards combat are going to massacre them. That's not to say that there forms cannot be integrated effectively into mixed martial arts, in fact they often are.

Karate is a style which is based around power, it was developed by peasants hundreds of years ago in Japan to fight against armoured soldiers; the style was developed to break through that armour. It was derived from Chinese martial arts.

Taekwondo is a Korean sport developed from Chinese martial arts and Karate, but it was developed as a sporting style and is very limited. It is not a very pure form of martial arts and is relatively recent; the founder of Taekwondo just died last year. It focuses mainly around speed and the number of hits rather than power.

Judo is a Japanese sport developed from Jiu Jitsu; it is a style which focuses much on take downs, and is very limited, it is also more of a sport.

Though none of the above styles are good on their own, Judo is very widely used form in combination with other forms of martial arts since it fills in a lot of holes. All of the above three have many different variations to them. For example, an ancient sporting form, Greco Roman Wrestling, is used very effectively in Randy Couture's arsenal; Couture is arguably the best competing fighter in North America.

As far as UFC goes, it is the top promotion in North America, but PRIDE fighting in Japan is a hell of a lot bigger. Lets just say in relation PRIDE is to UFC as Sony is to Midway.

[Torgo]

Thought I posted something yesterday. Argh. Here's the short version.

Watch the early UFC's if you want some variety. The first doezen or so events were when they still called themselves no-holds barred fighting as opposed to MMA. The victors are mostly grapplers in the beginning, but as you continue you'll see that the fighters begin to shift grappling + striking. There's a reason sumo wrestlers don't compete in UFC anymore.

[SineSwiper]

I like Ivan. This guy is definately a four-limbed fighter. He kicked a guy in the face when Ivan himself was on the ground, and the opponent just fell into a leg choke.

Also good to be watching a sport that Shellie is somewhat interested in.