New Fight Question

[Blarg]

How much does K1 pay, just to see if we're on the same page here.

[BCPVP]

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With that level of vagueness, no. I'd concede that if the fight STARTED on the ground, that the skilled MMA fighter would almost certainly be a heavy favorite.

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I'm by no means world class in anything. That said, I have no doubt that I could take down almost any boxer, of any size, very quickly. Admittedly, one ungloved, perfectly-distanced punch from a pro boxer would lay me out immediately, but it's hard to deliver a solid punch at a guy who is going for your ankles or stepping to your shoulder.

I think you vastly underestimate the ability of grapplers (and most martial artists, for that matter) to close distance, minimize damage from a single blow, and take someone down. It's just not even close.

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I agree that a skilled wrestler can be very good at leg-shooting for takedowns and could often get inside like thatr on a boxer. But a boxer could quickly learn the minimum to counter (splay legs back and drop weight on the shooter if the shooter gets inside) and combine that with rabbit punching. The shooter might avoid getting hit by regular punches but that doesn't mean he would avoid getting rabbit punched, perhaps with the weight of the boxer adding to the force. That could potentially be very bad for the shooter.

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Indeed. But wouldn't you agree that the training a boxer goes through to keep them from doing that in a boxing match might freeze him just a little.

And unless the boxer receives sprawl training before the fight, I don't think he'll learn quickly enough. That first takedown is probably going to be the beginning of the end unless the mma fighter allows the boxer up for some stupid reason.

[Viscant]

K-1 and K-1 HEROES (their MMA arm) are reported to pay more per event than UFC and PRIDE do. One million dollars per fight for their top performers has been thrown around. Important to note though, is that since their events take place in Japan, no payscale is ever made public. We have to rely upon fighter talking/bragging about payscale to figure out what they're making.

It's VERY safe to assume that their top fighters make no less than mid 6 figures per fight however. Looking for specifics beyond that is going to be almost impossible to confirm.

[BCPVP]

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How much does K1 pay, just to see if we're on the same page here.

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I googled this and though I haven't found it yet, the second hit was for Performify's webpage.

[Zim]

Hey, great discussion.

I found some more details regarding the Inoki-Ali spectacle:

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Inoki's strategy became apparent when he rushed out at the opening bell to throw his legs at Ali and his butt at the canvas.

And there he stayed for 15 rounds, inching his way across the floor on his behind, flailing away with his boots at Ali's left leg. ("It's hemorrhaging!" screamed the announcer. "Ali's corner looks worried!")

Ali threw his first punch in the seventh round, his second in the 10th.

In the 13th, he picked up the pace and threw two. In all, he threw six punches, unless you count the two times he reached out and grabbed Inoki's foot.

Inoki actually tripped him to the canvas twice. Once he kneed him, whereupon Ali climbed through the ropes and threatened to go home.

That was after Angelo Dundee demanded that Inoki have the tips of his shoelaces taped because one of the eyelets was loose and it was cutting Ali's legs. I tell you, it got pretty tense.

But there was no quit in Ali. He'd earn his $6 million, boy. He leaped into the ring and ran around in circles doing monkey impersonations and screaming "Inoki coward! Inoki no fight!"

Inoki didn't have to fight. For lying on his butt for 45 minutes, kicking his feet like a baby with diaper rash, he made $4 million ...


http://slam.canoe.ca/SlamWrestlingBi...feb01-sun.html

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Uhh ... oops. Sorry guys, scratch this "fight" from the debate.

Best,
Z.

[GiantBuddha]

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I'm going to take an opposite tack from both sides. There IS no hard evidence out there

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Yeah, this one time, my aces lost. Point being, while you could argue who would win this theoretical fight, the results of a real fight do not prove anything about who would win a hypothetical one. Was St. Louis the best team in baseball this year? Not even close. But they won the World Series, because they played best in the postseason. Being a favorite doesn't mean you win. This should be obvious to gamblers.

Fighting = Gambling

Every time you throw a punch or a kick, or shoot for someone's legs, you're taking a calculated risk. Sometimes it's a good idea, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't.

[Blarg]

Yup, that's one of the things I was noting. In the end it always comes down to the man. No man is a style; at best he represents it more or less well, and probably even then, he only represents a part of it well and is much worse in other parts.

Sometimes it really does come down to the man, and sometimes it doesn't even come down to that -- it just comes down to luck.

That said, a man is better off being well-rounded than not. But being well-rounded is no guarantee you're going to beat a better man.

[GiantBuddha]

And my last word on the MMA vs. Traditional Martial Arts debate:

Is the best UFC champion the best Mixed Martial Artist on the planet? And does being a Traditional Martial Artist preclude cross training? The OP stated the martial artist was asian for some reason. If he meant that they only train in striking, then they'd be at a disadvantage, but there are as many kinds of asian martial arts as there are other kinds. Don't forget that two thirds of the term Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is Japanese. Many traditional Jiu Jitsu experts would argue that BJJ is a bastardization of Judo which is designed and practiced largely for sport more than for self defense.

I am not trying to disparage BJJ, as I have not practiced it extensively. But it seems to me that proponents of the style are someone overconfident in it's superiority to other styles.

All that said, I see no reason to seperate Asian martial arts from Brazilian ones, French ones, or Israeli ones. If the question was instead: who would win in a fight between a wrestler and a striker, then you've got a different conversation. But the "asian martial artist" is a fairly arbitrary and misconstrued figure. But even saying that, I don't think most people have a really good idea of what this guy can do.

[Viscant]

It's impossible to argue that there in an element of chance/luck in a fight. I can think of 3-4 examples of fights off the top of my head where one guy had the fight won and the other guy landed a miracle knee or lucky punch and sucked out a win.
But people always tend to overestimate the puncher's chance. A puncher's chance isn't holding 72o against AA. A puncher's chance against an elite MMA fighter is holding a 2 and a community chest card. The element is luck on the ground is virtually zero. When a non-crosstrained standup fighter is said to have a "puncher's chance" against a vastly superior grappler, really he has A PUNCH's chance. Once range is closed, the ability to debilitate an attacker is reduced to almost nothing and once already on the ground in an advanced position (side mount, back mount, north/south, hell even half guard will do against a man untrained in ground fighting), the ability to debilitate is reduced even further.

So while I agree with you that there is an element of chance in any form of combat, it is greatly exaggerated and at best will account for maybe 1 match in 50 at the most.

[Blarg]

Whenever I think striking art, I admit I think of more than boxing. And I tend to think of boxing arguments in terms of a fuller range of striking possibilities. To me it's hard not to imagine an elbow, etc., in there. And it's hard not to remember the power of some people in southern gung fu styles, who can launch a man through the air with a one-inch or even non-inch punch(I've both seen and felt it numerous times). So when I think of a "puncher's chance," I think of two things -- for some people, a punch can have astonishing power, and second, one punch can set up any number of other things even if it doesn't result in a knock-out. I admit, though, that I don't think every boxer or gung fu man can do this. But since we are talking about really good guys, my thoughts naturally gravitate toward that.

I don't think fighting is as free of chance as you say. Quite the contrary. I have gotten through and landed on much better fighters, and gotten them in locks, too. Lucky me! Was I better than them? Oh hell no. But every dog has his day. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Likewise, in sparring sessions, I've had guys get through on me. Sometimes someone just moves a little weird and it throws you, or you're just mentally unfocussed that day, or he's the lucky dog that has his day.

Superior skill wins in the long term, but short term results don't reflect long term trends, just like in poker. In the short term, all kinds of things can happen. And they really do, all the time. I've seen countless guys get in on better guys sometimes. That's just life. Nobody out there is a superhero or some kind of flawless machine.