MMA isn't nearly as big as it should have been. Back in 2007/2008, the sport was littered with "stars" like Chuck Liddell, Rampage, Wanderlei, Forrest Griffin, Anderson Silva, GSP, BJ Penn and more.
Then you had a real crazy peak around 2010 when Brock Lesnar was the Heavyweight Champion.
Yet here we are in 2017 and what do they really have other than Conor ? Ronda is done, Bones stays high on crack and steroids and Silva is finished as a headliner. Why do you think they're desperate to bring GSP back ?
10 years ago there was talk of MMA one day being able to challenge the NFL and World Soccer, but in 2017, they're struggling to even get past the MLS in popularity let alone take on heavy hitter sports leagues.
There is an underlying reason as to why this has happened. In general, society has become more pussified. All the LGBT **** and general liberal ethos mean that people have less inclinations towards aggression and violence. In order to attract casuals to sports like Football, look at how many rules they now have about contact and personal fouls, etc.
Why do you think physical defense isn't even allowed in the NBA anymore ? In the 80's crowds used to cheer the violence and the Bad Boy Pistons. Now if you so much as graze LeBron's jersey you get tech'd the **** up.
In that same vein, a lot of potential fans just can't take all the blood and overt/in your face violence of MMA. In Boxing, you have big shots landing and cuts do happen, but it does seem as though the number of visceral injuries in MMA is significantly higher.
That, and also the fact that a lot of people just aren't into grown men spending significant amounts of time pushing against each other on a cage or dry humping each other on the ground.
MMA's growth in 2017 is nowhere near where we thought it would be back in 2008.
First of all, Joe Rogan is a 5'7" midget (being generous with that height by the way), who at nearly 50 years of age still smokes up and tries to act like one of the cool kids, while taking loads of steroids.
He would get balled up and stuffed into a trashcan by even several members of this site.
On pen and paper, it may be "limited" as compared to MMA, however Boxing takes singular aspects of unarmed combat and amplifies what is required.
The MMA argument is that you can use your entire body to inflict damage on your opponent and have to be prepared to also defend yourself accordingly.
What I say, is that UFC/organized MMA actually doesn't achieve this.
The reason is that overall fight times are shorter (25 total minutes as opposed to 36 minutes in Boxing), the general technique level of these fighters is horrid for the most part and finally, that disengaging is routinely done as a part of MMA.
No matter how much rest you get between rounds, 12 rounds of 3 minutes each will kill you without extreme conditioning. For people who have actually Boxed competitively, each round progressively gets worse and worse. When you're in the Championship Rounds, you're literally a dead man walking unless you're in excellent condition.
In Boxing, you can't run. You can't disengage. The ring being a square means that you'll get cornered sooner or later and will have to fight your way out. If you clinch, you're generally broken up after a few seconds. Excessive holding gets points taken away, so once again you're forced to fight. This is a key point.
In MMA matches, how many times have you seen "wall and stall" and "lay and pray" tactics ? These guys in general have bad conditioning and the rules are such that you can easily "disengage". You can also repeatedly literally turn your back and run as the size of the Octagon means cornering your opponent is very difficult.
In a perfect world, Thunderdome style deathmatch, yes, you can make the argument that MMA is the best fighting style to have.
I will remind you that most people who comment have never been in a street fight. People bite. They claw, they eye gouge and most certainly go for a guy's balls. Try putting someone in a triangle choke and they're using their free hand to try and tear your balls off. Not easy.
This is not even counting the fact that the guy who wins a street fight is the guy who shows up with a gun or a big ass machete.
Boxing, "limited" as it may be, has a much greater degree of difficulty than MMA just given the rules and what is required for a fighter to fight 12 rounds.
I think 4-3 Kovalev is a fair scorecard. I had it 5-2 Kovalev myself, but there were 2 swing rounds in there that could have gone either way.
I'm disappointed because I felt as though Kovalev was thoroughly unprepared for how to handle being fouled (allegedly or otherwise). A big part of the problem is that the mother****er really doesn't speak English.
I strongly believe that he doesn't really understand what John David is saying to him in the corner. He needs to get with a good Russian/Ukrainian trainer who speaks his language and can actually coach him in these kind of crisis moments in-between rounds.
Ward was warned for low blows as early as Round 2. Right then and there the Coach should have been making how to handle these kind of fouls the focus of the discussion in the corner. Specifically liked RJJ's stance that if you're getting hit low and the ref ain't doing ****, then you hit the mother****er back.
Anyways, the ending to this fight just didn't feel right. **** Ward for the low blows, but **** Kovalev and JDJ for not knowing how the **** to handle that ****.
I had Kovalev up 5-2 and about to be up 5-3 had the 8th round been completed.
A completed ****ing disgrace of a refereeing "job" by that idiotic subhuman filth Tony Weeks, who I used to think was a pretty decent referee.
Never, ever again though. That dumb **** is blind as a bat.
The only thing that concerns me over Inoue in the future is that he apparently has brittle hands.
That sort of problem can be partially solved by hand-wrapping method improvement and also changing glove types, however it is something that can follow a fighter through their career.
Regardless, his future looks extremely bright and I can't wait to see "Monster" fight again !
The fight was a travesty.
There is no logical basis for giving a decision to N'Dam. Yes he was throwing a lot, but he was landing at a laughably low clip, with Murata's high guard negating all of that shoe shining.
Murata had a KD and had N'Dam on queer street in every other round when he landed that straight right hand.
This kind of **** is ****ing killing this sport.
Well, let's get one thing straight.
Brook wasn't able to "stand" with Golovkin, because he got stopped and picked up a potentially career-ending broken orbital bone injury for his troubles.
Now had he gone the distance, I would have understood where he was coming from with that comment.
The paradox in all of this is that Brook making this statement shows that GGG's punches must have really done a number on his sanity.
That punch drunkenness is a mother****er.
This kid is special.
He has the punch output, chin and power to be a factor against elite opposition.
Among the Japanese fighters currently out there, he appears to be the very best from a pound-for-pound overall standpoint.
... Murata had several KDs, but Pabon did not see them... :)
Yeah absolutely...just goes to show how disgusting that decision was, all things considered.
Pretty big fan of Akira Yaegashi so it was tough watching him go down like that, especially with all those shots of his kids looking so sad.
Come on Naoya, let's get one back for the team !