It's Twitter mailbag time again. I asked for questions and you wonderful people sent in nothing but complex, thought-provoking queries that we will all benefit from considering.
Nah, that's just a little April Fool's joke. Most of your questions were as absurd/predictable/childishly insulting as ever, but there were still some gems worth discussing. Let's get to it.
@sephiroth872 which do you wanna see more, GSP vs Silva, or Jones vs Silva?
How about door number three: guys fighting other guys their own size? Look, I understand the current fascination with superfights. Just like we wonder whether a mountain lion could beat a grizzly, so too do we wonder whether a great welterweight could beat a great middleweight.
And yet, we recognize that it's a bad idea to throw a mountain lion in a bear pit solely for our own amusement. I mean hey, if it happens of its own accord out in nature and somebody manages to get video of it, yeah, I'm going to watch that video. Probably over and over. Most likely right before I go to sleep, just to give myself awesome nightmares. Where was I going with this? Right, superfights.
If these fights happen organically – say, if GSP makes a permanent move up to middleweight – then okay, I get it. But if we're essentially forcing a champion to fight out of his weight class to settle our own 'What would happen if...' curiosities, that seems unfair. In boxing maybe the weight differences aren't so significant, but in MMA? Brother, there's a reason why these guys show up on the scales looking like well-tanned cadavers from time to time, and it ain't because size doesn't matter.
@Batching_It who should fight Penn in Fitch's absence? Still title implications, or should Penn still have to rematch Fitch eventually?
Carlos Condit. Yes on the title implications. No on the eventual Penn-Fitch rematch. Man, I wish all the questions were this easy.
@Goldie86 Great article about fighting friends Out of curiosity, where do you personally stand on the issue? Could you do it?
The more I talk to fighters, trainers, managers and fans about the issue -- and the more I think and write about it -- the more I'm conflicted about it. If you think it's a yes-or-no proposition, you're oversimplifying it.
If training partners can't feel safe giving everything they've got to the other guy, it will necessarily have a negative effect on the dynamic in the gym. There will be less team unity and more mercenaries looking out only for themselves. That's how it is in boxing, so maybe it's an inevitable – though distasteful – natural evolution. But when you see how much strength and support MMA fighters get from their teams, it seems like giving that up just to get a few extra fights we want to see is a bad bargain in the end.
On the other hand, every fighter is in this to be the best, or at least that's what they all say. The more top fighters who gather into a handful of top gyms, the more this conflict is going to arise. If you're not willing to fight absolutely anybody in order to achieve your dream, maybe you don't want it badly enough. It's not like you're going to be young and strong and making money as a pro athlete forever, after all.
As for me personally? I'm not a pro fighter (thank God), so I don't have to make that choice. But I've beaten up and been beaten up by my friends before, and it didn't do anything to tarnish our friendships. Then again, there wasn't any money at stake.
@sthakali12 what do u think of the recent comments paul Daley is making against @UFC??? Is it gonna come back n bite his ass??
Let's just say it's never a good idea to further antagonize a powerful new boss who already hates you for very valid reasons. As The Wire's "Proposition" Joe might say, Daley is thinking short when he ought to be thinking long.
@rogercrandy If hitting the back of the head is illegal, why is it legal to slam a guy to the mat banging the back of his head on the mat?
Good question, and a difficult one to explain, since the easiest answer is: it's not illegal because it's not against the rules. But that's unsatisfying, so let's see if we can't figure it out on our own.
For starters, the rule against strikes to the back of the head is not like the Hippocratic Oath. Fighters don't vow to 'do no harm' to the back of the head; they merely agree not to purposely strike it with their appendages.
But I see what you're saying. A slam that bounces the back of a fighter's skull off the mat is still a very dangerous move, and one of the surest paths to Concussiontown (Mayor Troy Aikman welcomes you!). So why is that type of cranial damage legal, but rabbit-punching the back of the head in the clinch, ala Brendan Schaub, will lose you a point?
I guess it's because the goal of the slam is not necessarily to impact the back of the head. That's just a by-product. The idea behind the slam is to put an opponent on his back in a manner that takes some of the starch out of him. Concern for what happens when the back of the slammee's head meets the mat is not something that the slammer is obligated to consider. Your brain, your problem.
@JasonRule with [Brandon] Vera's reprieve what changes do you think he needs to make. Camps, drop to middleweight?
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Vera has had plenty of chances to reinvent himself already. Before every fight he swears that this time he's gone back to the drawing board and figured it all out. This time he's getting back to his roots. This time he's not believing his own hype. Then he gets in the cage and it's another underwhelming effort. I don't know what might finally fix whatever's ailing him, but I know he hasn't figured it out yet.
@steampunk22 What does Brock need to do differently against JDS (besides not get hit)? Basically everyone is writing him off in this fight.
Who's writing Lesnar off in this fight? Point them out to me so that I may publicly mock them. Yes, Lesnar has some deficiencies in the stand-up game. And yes, he doesn't react well to being punched in the face. But he's still a freakishly athletic behemoth of a man, and he can still take you down and pound you out if you're not careful.
I think what Lesnar needs is a lot of quality sparring time with heavyweights who are really trying to hit him as hard as they can. He needs to get used to that feeling, and it doesn't seem as though he's managed to do that in his own private compound in Minnesota, where some paid sparring partner isn't about to risk life and limb by throwing serious leather at the big man's head.
Against Velasquez and against Carwin, Lesnar turned into a different person when he got hit. Seems like it would be better to work that issue out in training rather than take your chances that dos Santos will never get off a solid punch.
@CormacMoylan If Dinosaurs were to return from space to live on Earth, do you think it's a possibility that they could compete in MMA?
What a stupid question. As if a dinosaur could make the 265-pound heavyweight limit. C'mon, son.
@JeffTheJeff Which Strikeforce champion would have the best chance to win against his UFC counterpart?
Now here's a fun game for a long car ride. Thanks for bringing it up and helping us all kill an hour or two, JefftheJeff.
If I were to list the Strikeforce champs in order of the best to worst chances in a match-up against their UFC counterparts, the list would go: Gilbert Melendez, Alistair Overeem, Nick Diaz, "Jacare" Souza, and Dan Henderson.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to passive-aggressively turn the volume up on the car radio before you kids can start your bickering again. Only 200 more miles to Disneyland...
No comments:
Post a Comment