New Fight Question

[kdotsky]

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the best Navy Seal in the world vs. someone like Fedor?

Are you guys kidding??

Fedor would school him in a fight, sure. But the Navy Seal is not there to fight. He is there to kill. And this is a fight to the death.

The Navy Seal would not have much trouble with the best MMA fighter in the world. He would KILL Fedor. And quickly.

You guys who think MMA is the end all/be all are delusional.

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Fedor knows many more ways to kill with his bare hands than a SEAL does, and he is much better at them. The SEAL don't jump around snapping necks like you see in the movies. There's nothing mysterious or magical about their hand to hand combat -- in fact they are trained in many of the things that UFC fighters are. They are trained to kill, but mostly with guns, knives, explosives, etc.

I'd bet huge amounts of money that most SEALs agree with this, too. At least ones that have a fair knowledge of MMA>

[JasonK]

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This is a question that can't be answered. It also makes you look like a bunch of college student UFC wannabes.

BTW, a Navy SEAL just won the Army Combatives competition. How friggin embarrassing, LOL!

Combatives is BJJ. It is some fun stuff, except for the pain.

I have been trained in Combatives. I have some experience with MArtial Arts in general. I don't think I could wager on any of them to win a fight to the death.

My two cents.

Fierce Lion7

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Gracie Combatives™. Created by the forefathers of modern day MMA, the Gracie family. BJJ was top of the fighting food chain a decade ago. The sport has evolved, though, so BJJ skills alone won't get you very far. All of the top fighters now have very good defenses against it.

[blackize]

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Fedor would school him in a fight, sure. But the Navy Seal is not there to fight. He is there to kill. And this is a fight to the death.

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Seriously, this is retarded. You can't just walk up to someone who is the best fighter in the world and kill him. He's going to defend himself. He won't let you get a clear shot at his eyes or his throat. So while your SEAL is wasting energy with his attempts at a deathblow the MMA fighter is working on taking out his knees, breaking his jaw, and getting superior position on him.

[gusmahler]

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In a fight to the death with no gloves inside an enclosure, rate the chances of these five:


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This is a pretty easy question. You're limiting the fight to the same conditions as a UFC fight. It'd be like asking who would in a backgammon match: Bill Robertie or Garry Kasparov?

Eliminate the MMA competitor from the question (or allow blunt force weapons), it becomes much more interesting.

[El Diablo]

Dom,

Who do you think teaches Navy SEALs their hand-to-hand fighting and killing techniques?

[limon]

the best athletes in this group are the boxers and its not close. whenever an elite athlete attempts to box they make it about a round and a half then come off the canvas wheezing and asking for thier mommy. the best fighters in the group are the ufc guys and again it isnt close, they are the most likely, to kill the others on the list if the fight was TODAY. 2 years training and warmup fights the boxers would destroy the ufc guys...i mean it would be ridiculous watching one of those ufc buffoons trying to fight a well trained floyd mayweather or coto. ufc athletes are to boxers what hockey players are to nfl players 2nd class citizens.

[fmxda]

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For instance, I have found that even when simulating "real-world" situations in MMA training that often, even against a superior opponent, they leave vital areas open due to considerations that they don't usually have to deal with (i.e. them being on top mount and allowing me to pull their neck close enough to my mouth where I could bite out their Jugular or bite other areas that could instantly neutralize their agression). There are a plethora of other examples but that gives you the general idea of why I feel there is such a disconnect between the Octagon and H2H combat.

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This is exactly right, and mirrors what I experienced in many hours of cometitions involving choke and submission holds. 80%+ of that stuff is useless if the other guy is trying to gouge your eyes out or demolish your nuts; a lot of holds couldn't be maintained at all under such conditions and it would be foolish to even try to get someone into them. UFC fighters DO leave these areas unprotected.

Example: on many occasions I spent 10 minutes or longer either striving to choke someone out in a contest or resisting their attempts to choke me out. Bear in mind the choke submission hold was already applied but that cinching it up tight enough to win is another matter as long as the other guy is adept at resisting and is trying to escape. If eye gouges were permitted and used, that 10 minutes plus would not have been ten minutes at all, more like ten seconds. Many control holds would be useless if the opponent could bite or attack your eyes, groin or throat.

Another thing: a jujitsu UFCer on his back in guard awaiting a standing opponent does not have to worry about getting kicked in the nuts, stomped in the nuts, or kneed in the nuts while he is in such an vulnerable position-because groin blows are against the rules. That position is fine if grappling is already being invoked but at a distance in a no rules contest it would be insane.

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I have also found this to be true in my experiences in grappling, and I think it is pretty important to answering this question.

I think to find the answer to this question you have to look at the relative advantages of the best at each kind of fighting:
Martial artist: TKD type arts-long effective range & strong single strikes, judo type arts- effectively counters attacks
Boxer: ability to take hits, highest damage output when unmitigated
SEAL: armed combat, fights to kill
Streetfighter: armed combat, experience in a no-rules environment
UFC: grappling


The "competitive advantage" that each of these types of fighters have is affected GREATLY by the rules set. Obviously, depending on the situation, any one of these premium fighters can win matches. I think three things matter:
1) it is unarmed
2) it is a fight to the death
3) there are no rules

Now, I think 1 and 2, combined, result in a net disadvantage for the streetfighter. I think this is in line with our intuitive reasoning. To analyze 3, I think we have to look at how rules in each discipline affect how we might project their effectiveness in our hypothetical fight.

Ultimate fighting generally bans gouging, fish-hooking, bites, attacks to the groin, pinching/clawing, stomping, and certain strikes to grounded opponents, among other rules.
Competitive grappling martial arts will usually ban all striking of grounded opponents, in addition to the UFC rules.
In addition to the above rules, striking martial arts will usually ban takedowns, grappling, and also often holding of limbs.
Boxing bans the above and adds kicking, low blows, knees, elbowing, etc.

Given that I agree with the above quote, I think I would have to give the edge from 3 to the striking martial artist. It may sound unintuitive since competitive martial arts has an extensive ruleset. But it's just a fact that a relative disadvantage in time spent training and practicing grappling is the easiest to make up when there are no rules. I think this is what Sklansky alludes at with his later comment about a UFC fighter undergoing SEAL training.

Think of it this way: if the rules were everybody gets a katana, wouldn't you have to give an advantage (slight as it might be) to those whose specialty ISN'T long-range standing combat, which are the UFC fighters/grapplers? In this case, the skills of the striking martial artists is largely negated, just as I think the lack of rules significantly reduces the advantage a grappler has in this fight.

Side note: I think some people are conflating the characteristics of the fighter with the average weight of each fighter. In a fight you might see on Pride or UFC, "average" martial artist is faster than an ultimate fighter because they are smaller, while the "average" UFC fighter is better on the ground and can take hits better because of their size.

[kdotsky]

[ QUOTE ]
the best athletes in this group are the boxers and its not close. whenever an elite athlete attempts to box they make it about a round and a half then come off the canvas wheezing and asking for thier mommy. the best fighters in the group are the ufc guys and again it isnt close, they are the most likely, to kill the others on the list if the fight was TODAY. 2 years training and warmup fights the boxers would destroy the ufc guys...i mean it would be ridiculous watching one of those ufc buffoons trying to fight a well trained floyd mayweather or coto. ufc athletes are to boxers what hockey players are to nfl players 2nd class citizens.

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Your point relates to Sklansky's volleyball question, in that there could be much better UFC fighters if more were attracted to the sport.

I don't think the best UFC fighters would necessarily come from boxing. Though I agree they are the best athletes of the group, their body type isn't necessarily optimal for ultimate fighting.

Most people that transition into ultimate fighting come from a wrestling background or a specific grappling martial art, because these skills are most fundamental to ultimate fighting. Pure strikers have a harder time transitioning into the sport.

[athought]

I have to admit I did NOT read through the whole thread but as many have pointed out already

SEALs - train to kill ASAP
MMA - train to win a fight by several means knock-out/submission/etc (none of which involve killing - although somewhat related)

If I could take a MMA fighter trained in SEAL killing methods, I would anyday. But until then, I take the SEAL because a SEAL won't engage in a fight - he'll simply kill and move on.

MMA fighters are trained to get out of submission, not trained in how to avoid kill moves. Matt Hughes doesn't get a chance to get out of a rear naked choke against a SEAL because the SEAL snapped his neck already.


MMA followers should remember the lesson of Royce Gracie. You could look at the guy and you wouldn't think he stood a chance vs some of his opponents. It was technique. Here the SEAL is trained in the technique to win the competition - killing the other person first.

This is to the death and the rules of the ring don't apply - I don't know a thing about SEALS but Im sure they know a lot more about how to exploit moves that are strictly forbidden in UFC (crotch shots, blows to eyes, etc, etc) that UFC fighters never spend anytime at all learning to protect against. In a fight to the death - these are seemingly more important.

I personally don't think conditioning applies.

I also think the fight is over in less than a minute. (This includes a fight between the two best SEALs.) Either the first kill move works, or it fails and is countered by another kill move. Match over.

[John Kilduff]

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This is a question that can't be answered.

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I think it's a much more difficult question than many seem to think, and whatever the answer is, I doubt it is 100% clear cut.

I also think most people here are underrating the boxer.

Boxing > kicking, which may be surprising to many because it seems natural to assume that kicking is better because it has greater range and power. But the hands are faster than the feet and your center of balance when doing hand techniques is not disrupted to the same extent as when kicking. Also when kicking you are more open to attack or counterattack. Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do, which in many ways was a sort of precursor to today's Mixed Martial Arts, greatly emphasized hand techniques over kicking.

Boxers can generally take being hit better than can most martial artists. Their handwork and use of range as in fencing is generally better, and boxing probably attracts more raw talent as the money is much greater, so the best boxer in the world might well happen to be a better natural athlete than the best other fighter in the world. All of which may help offset to some extent the other reasons why UCF ought to be favored over boxing.

Who is going to beat a natural talent like Cassius Clay or Bruce Lee? Mike Tyson was really slow compared to Clay's speed. I wouldn't be surprised if Clay could have caught one of these guys with a combination as they were coming in for the takedown. Don't forget his footwork was awesome too, and a grappler shooting in at his legs might be surprised to find that by the time he got there, his intended target had moved just out of range and he was now receiving a low hook on the ear instead.

George Foreman in his prime hit harder than Mike Tyson. How about a UCF guy diving in at George Foreman's legs for a takedown? One rabbit punch on the back of the grappler's head before he could completely dump Foreman and it might be all over for the grappler. Maybe permanently.

Just a few things to ponder, and some examples of why the answer to this question posed by Mr. Sklansky is anything but simple.