Nerdcore Boxing

It was sad to watch former UFC champion Rich Franklin in the octogon with current UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva. Franklin clearly never got over the vicious beating Silva gave him in their previous title match. Watching this unfold served as an unfortunate reminder of the after effects of a good beating.

Anderson Silva’s camp, Chute Boxe, is known for their Muay Thai skills, especially their clinch. In their first fight Silva destroyed him in the Muay Thai clinch, where Franklin looked completely helpless.

Rich had the misfortune to come out of their first fight with the dreaded banana nose and required surgery and a long layoff to recover.

You could tell from this weekend’s prefight introductions that Silva was in Franklins head, and from the time the bell rung until the time he got KO’ed, Franklin didn’t look like he wanted to be in there.

Hopefully Franklin gets over this setback and gets his career back on track. I don’t see him taking back his belt, Anderson Silva has his number and is probably the best pound for pound fighter in MMA right now. But Rich could definitely be a gatekeeper to the belt and battle it out with the top contenders.

I’m going to introduce tracking mma rankings in this blog.

As the sport of mma has grown it’s getting hard to keep track. There are so many weight classes and organizations these days to comb through. Personally I’m very biased towards the UFC and Pride, at this time I believe the quality of mma talent in these organizations stands above the rest.  But I’m having to keep my eye on organizations like the IFL more and more.

I’ll try and help track the different analysts and news organization mma rankings. Maybe I’ll even average out the mma rankings here to create a one stop shop.

I am proud to say I was a UFC fan back as far as 1995, I even started grappling that year. Now that MMA is mainstream, many fans are having to catch up on their MMA knowledge. One of the biggest misconceptions I encounter amongst new fans is anti-grappling.

MMA Strikers Are Grapplers
Take a look at some of the top strikers in MMA: Andrei Alovski, Gomi, Chuck Liddell, Fedor, George St Pierre, Cung Le. Is it a concidence that most of them had extensive wrestling backgrounds before going into MMA?

Some MMA History
Watching today’s great MMA strikers can be quite deceiving to the untrained eye. It fools one into thinking that it’s easy to keep the fight standing against an MMA fighter. This is not the case.

Before greco roman and freestyle wrestlers flooded MMA and brought the sprawl, it used to be commonly believed that it was impossible to keep the fight standing. This period was when MMA transitioned from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu’s domination to wrestlers who could box a little (Marco Coleman, early Randy Couture, etc.).

Sprawling: The Real Anti-Grappling
Avoiding the ground doesn’t have to do with becoming a better striker, though it helps. You might think, “When they grab me I’ll start hitting them hard” — wrong! There is nothing easier than taking down a flailing striker.The most important anti-grappling skill is the sprawl.

Checkout this excellent instruction from Iowa State coach and wrestling legend Cael Sanderson:
Video: How to Sprawl

Anderson Silva

Silva looked sharp in his title defense and won a first round TKO.

I’d love to see a rematch with former champ Rich Franklin. In their first fight Silva exposed a major Franklin weakness, dominating in the Muay Thai clinch. But Franklin is a great striker, putting aside Silva’s clinch superiority, I think Franklin has superior power in his hands and feet. A Silva/Franklin rematch would have me salivating.

Nogueria and Herring Controversy 

I’m still confused at this fight. Herring knocks Nog down and out with a high kick, then he lands 5-6 bombs on a semi-conscious, arguably unconscious Nog. I’ve seen many a fight stopped under less extreme circumstances. Even more bizarre the ref sort of stops the fight and lets Nog stand up as if the UFC suddenly has standing 8 counts, then he resumes the fight!

The UFC has been recently stung after signing high profile Pride fighters to big contracts then had them upset in their debuts. Cro Cop and Herring both were shocked by nobodys in their first fights. The fact that Nog was given a high profile rematch with Herring in his first UFC appearance indicates to me that the UFC didn’t want to risk another disappointment.

Herring got screwed tonight and frankly it came across almost as badly as some of the freak boxing decisions favoring big name fighters.

Rashad Evans vs. Tito Ortiz

Surprisingly, noted ground and pound specialist Tito Ortiz had a lot of difficulty getting the take downs and  maintaining top position. I was impressed by Rashad’s wrestling, and his striking looks better each fight. Rashad seemed to be winning the standing exchanges, but in a bizarre strategy continually went for failed take down attempts. The fight is scored a draw but if Tito wasn’t docked a point for grabbing the cage he brings home the victory.

Sean Sherk

Sherk wins his title defense but disappoints the fans with a boring performance. Sherk is a dominant wrestler and always gets the takedown and maintains top position. Yet as long as I remember him he never seems to finish opponents. If he wants fan approval he’s going to have get more pound to go with his ground, or bring along his submission game.

Kenny Florian

Florian dominated his opponent getting a TKO via strikes from the top position. His post fight comment about consistently finishing his opponents was obviously a taunt aimed at Sherk. Despite his submission prowess and blossoming ground and pound skills, I just don’t see Florian beating Sherk in a rematch, Sherk is just too good of a wrestler.

Chris Lytle 

I was disappointed they didn’t show the Lytle fight. Lytle won via triangle choke at about the 2 minute mark, but I had to read about it online.

Stephan Bonnar

Bonnar won via first round submission. Unfortunately this fight also didn’t get shown.

If you love MMA, this weekend’s UFC will be a treat. There might not be a main event that stirs up national press, but this is the deepest fight card I ever recall seeing.

I want to highlight a few of the interesting matchups:

Tito Ortiz vs. Rashad Evans - Racially charged trash talking from Ortiz puts the grudge factor behind this fight. Since loosing his belt, Tito has been a gatekeeper to other contenders, he’s one notch below the elite, but better than the rest. Personally I think there is no place for racist comments in sports and I’ll be rooting for Rashad.

Chris Lytle vs. Drew Fickett - Lytle is a welterweight contender, former pro boxer and all around badass. I’m always exciting to watch him fight. He just came off a loss to ground and pound specialist and MMA legend Matt Hughes.

Nogueira vs. Herring - Two top heavyweights that came over from Pride will be battling it out. Nog, one of the best submission fighters in MMA, could easily be the next UFC heavyweight champ.

Anderson Silva vs. Nate Marquardt - Anderson Silva is an uber-aggressive Muay Thai fighter in the Chute Boxe tradition. Silva is so tall his long legs make it more difficult to defend against takedowns. He’s no slouch on the ground, but I keep waiting for a ground and pound fighter to exploit this weakness.

Sean Sherk vs. Hermes Franca - Sherk is the lightweight champ, a short stocky ground and pounder. Franca is a well rounded brawler. You won’t see technical boxing from Franca but he has heavy hands and he’s not afraid to throw bombs.

Stephan Bonnar vs. Mike Nickels - Bonnar is always fun to watch, I’ve been a fan since the first season of the Ultimate Fighter reality show. Bonnar doesn’t sport big knockout power but he’s a very technical boxer. Besides being a former national Golden Gloves champ, he’s also a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Wow, it’s been the year of upsets in the UFC. Cro Cop gets KO’ed by an unknown, Randy Couture moves up in weight to steal the heavy belt, Serra shocks George St Pierre…

Admittedly I picked Chuck, but in the same breadth I expressed my thoughts on Chucks holes. I’m going to elaborate in these in this post.

I think Chuck is analogous to the Prince Naseem in boxing. Both are very unorthodox fighters that routinely did things that technically you aren’t supposed to do. Both got away with it because of their amazing attributes, both eventually fought fighters with similar attributes and were exploited (against Rampage and Barrera respectively).

In Chuck’s case he’s a natural puncher with a long reach and KO power in both hands. He’s a very accurate puncher that can box moving backwards while maintaining KO power, allowing him to do some wicked counter punching.

But he has holes: his hands are low, elbows are out, hos punches are wide and don’t even get me started on his wide and sloppy overhand right hand. Because Chuck is a counterpuncher and he likes to leave open big holes to draw his opponent in and land his bombs. Chuck has gotten away doing this but he hasn’t fought many good strikers (Rampage isn’t an elite striker, but obviously good enough).

Saturday night Rampage fought really smart, he refused to attack and stole Chuck’s strategy for himself. Then he taunted the famed champ to ensure Chuck went after him.

A Lil’ Boxing Theory
As a general rule of thumb, when combination punching, you should not end on a body punch, end on a high punch. If you do end low, put your hands back up, get out fast and realize you left an opening. Chuck threw an uncommitted right, then left hook to the body and attempted to move out with his hands low, elbows out and chin up. All it took is eating one hook on the way out and Chuck was in La La Land.

Chuck could make mistakes like this against inferior strikers. He could absorb a hook from Ortiz or Couture, but he can’t make a mistake like this against the heavy handed Rampage.

80% of MMA standup is boxing, 80% of MMA fighters are not polished boxers. I believe that really learning the Sweet Science will be the next evolution of MMA.

This Saturday it’s UFC 71 and I’m pumped.

One of the most dominant current MMA belt holders, Chuck Liddell, will be trying to avenge his loss against Quinton Rampage Jackson. Liddell has grown on me and not just because he’s a former accountant with a mohawk. I admit it I used to be a hater, I used to think he was a sloppy boxer who’s weaknesses would be exploited, but he’s tightened up his game over the past few years. He’s a natural puncher with a long reach and heavy hands, he can even knock guys out while backstepping (which he does a lot).

I’m picking Liddell over Rampage.

There are some other fighters that are interesting to watch, former Judo sensation Karo Parisyan, Din Thomas and Kieth Jardine. But overall it’s kind of a weak card by UFC standards.

I’m a big Cro Cop fan (throwing the kick above). He’s a very interesting guy: an amateur boxer with 40+ fights, elite kickboxer in K-1 and former Pride MMA champion. He is/was also a member of the Croatian special forces and a member of parliament. Apparently a scholar and a mighty warrior.

Last night Cro Cop got shocked in his UFC fight. His fight with Gonzolas was supposed to be a sure thing before getting a shot at the UFC heavyweight champ Randy Couture. Instead Gonzalos, who isn’t noted for his kicking skills, landing a high kick knocking Cro Cop out cold.

This isn’t the first time Cro Cop got KO’ed by a inferior striker. Wrestler and 2nd tier MMA fighter Randleman shocked the world scoring an early 1st round KO via punch. It just goes to show you how slim a margin of error there is in a sport like MMA, where the fighters are so well rounded and there are so many ways to win.

After Dana White and Floyd Mayweather Jr’s tiff, there’s been a lot of talk recently about the quality of boxing in MMA. Today I saw a well written, but flawed article in IndsideFighting.com.

The article starts off strong with records of former boxers losing in MMA but makes some unsubstantiated conclusions, why exactly wouldn’t shoulder rolls work and why would smaller gloves favor looping punches? But more importantly it misses out on analyzing large amounts of data:

* K-1 has knees, kicks and clinch and many of the top fighters (Hoost, Kaman, Leko, Hug, Cro Cop, etc.) are excellent boxers, much better than most MMA’ers.

* Today’s MMA fighters are more likely to work with boxing trainers than in the past. Probably as a result pf this the level of boxing in MMA has gotten a lot better in the last 3 years.

* Many contenders and some MMA champions are some of the better boxers within MMA. Some come from boxing backgrounds. Lytle, GSP, Fedor, Kang, Davis, Cro Cop, Pulver, etc.

Personally I think in 3 years you won’t hear much criticism of MMA fighter’s boxing skills. The sport is just evolving.