Nevandal wrote:
Oh yeah, here's a good analogy I thought of, for the UFC. The UFC often tends to favor strength and mass.
People win fights in the UFC by getting stronger and bigger the same way that people win fights in old school RPGs (FF7) by grinding 10 levels ahead and then snoozing through the battles.
At least there are weight classes. But even within weight classes, because people train for strength and mass primarily, it kind of takes a lot of the skill aspect out of the game, not to mention the fact that so many effective techniques that make martial arts interesting to me are completely illegal or impractical because of the cage.
None of the titleholders in the UFC, Shooto, WEC, SenGoku, Strikeforce or DREAM FC are the strongest guys in the division. Overeem might be the only one. Lesnar, St. Pierre and Lawal are strong in their respective division but the guys who are most successful are the ones who the ability to implement their gameplan at will more than anything else. There are no champions who win consistently based on the amazing ability to play into their opponents strengths using their raw physical strength, alone.
Lesnar, St. Pierre and Lawal's wrestling skill far exceeds their raw strength, as does Overeem's kickboxing his.
In fact, for a long time, the best heavyweight in the world (and argued by many to be the best competitor in any division ever) was a guy who weighed a fat 230 pounds and could easily have made the 205 light heavyweight limit and consistently fought and won against guys who had to cut down to make the 265 heavyweight limit. Fedor Emelianenko held that crown for over 7 years, beating opponents who completely outclassed him in every physical aspect on natural fight smarts and skill alone.
The only notable who has a ledger even close to Emelianenko's was Miguel Torres, an incredibly lanky 5'9" batamweight (135# limit) who went 37-1 over the course of nine years. In fact, throughout the modern history of competitive minimal rules hybrid fighting (be that Vale Tudo, MMA, Shooto, Pancrase, Pride or whatever), the most dominant athletes have never been ones who had large amounts of strength. Mariusz Pudzianowski recently was KTFO by an aging, irrelevant and athletically cursed Tim Sylvia and Todd Duffee, one of the strongest HW's to ever compete in the UFC lost in a freak 3rd round KO after dominating his equally unimposing and unassuming opponent, Mike Russow.
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