UFC 203: Miočić vs. Overeem (9/10/2016) - Cleveland, OH (Quicken Loans Arena)

[FluffSnackwell]

Punk's next fight:in an alley against bartender Frank Stallone from Barfly, but only after he's fueled up by stealing some fat guy's half-eaten sandwich.

[Hamhock]

It was an educational experience for a lot of people; maybe not in the outcome but in what the process is worth to the outcome.

• A guy in his mid-30s, of a high-functioning level of physical fitness/activity
• He has a near-unlimited budget (i.e., he doesn't need to hold down another job while training on the side)
• He can afford to join a professional camp and take training and advice from championship-caliber athletes and coaches
• He does this exclusively for 18 months (give or take rehab/surgery off-time)

All of this bought him 90 seconds of survival against a younger, higher-skilled professional fighter. I'm not disparaging Punk; he was taken down faster than he could even react to the attempt., he attempted to defend himself from there using what he was taught in training (no immediate turtling, not rendered unconscious within a few blows). Without the above-mentioned advantages in training he had, the fight probably lasts 20 seconds.

A long time ago, I did a couple of years of boxing in a gym to work out (not training to be a boxer, just using boxing to get/stay in shape). I could hit a speed bag well, jump rope, hit a variety of heavy bags properly with combinations, sparred with my trainer for cardio and endurance, etc. One day at a similar gym, there was a journeyman/club fighter who kindly allowed us nimwits to spar for a round with him. I never saw either of his first two punches; I just felt them land on my headgear, politely but firmly. He then spent the rest of the round clowning, blocking and dodging whatever I threw, and occasionally engaged in just enough offense to send me reeling. Near the end of the round, I managed to hit him once with a jab, and we both laughed and ended the sparring on a high note.

[twiztor]

 

 

3 hours ago, Roman said:

10 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

11 hours ago, Wyld Samurai said:

does anyone these days practice catch wrestling?

At welterweight or middleweight? That's not going to go well.

Stupid question: why not?

 

2 hours ago, Wyld Samurai said:

Catch wrestling isn't about throwing suplexes. It's about pressure points, riding, and in a sense making your competition wear itself out. It's a beautiful art for to watch. To say the smaller guys cant succeed at it is a little unjust. We all have the same limbs to mangle regardless of our weight.

to put is simply, there's just WAY too much skill level at those mid-weight classes. At heavyweight if you have a strong proficiency in one field, you can use that to win matches or at least have a close fight.

At MW/WW, all of the guys at the top are just so skilled and well rounded that you would be out of place. Plenty of people still incorporate wrestling and riding and that, but it's just one aspect. you also need the jiu-jitsu. you also need the kick boxing.

[JCM]

I respect Punk, but he had no business in the UFC. He had no legitimate background, and wasn't even a good athlete by pro wrestling standards. At least with the James Toney side show you could say he has one great skill that could help him win a fight.

[Spritenaut 32]

People seem way too personally invested in how Punk did.

I'm kinda curious to see what he does next.  Even he can't be completely surprised by the result, unless he really is delusional.  I'm guessing he expected to do better, even if he realized he probably wasn't going to win the fight.  Lots of athletes amateur and professional overestimate their capabilities.  I'm currently training to try and run a marathon in 2 hrs. 34 min (that's a little less than 6 min/mile).  I'm trying to equal the time I ran my first marathon in, exactly 20 years ago.  I'm hoping it's a feasible goal, but I won't be surprised to learn I'm way overestimating my speed at age 47.  I may not fare any better than Punk, though at least no one is going to punch me in the face if I fall off pace.

[Elsalvajeloco]

6 hours ago, Roman said:

Stupid question: why not?

Because welterweight and middleweight is extremely deeper than heavyweight and trying that on say Demian Maia or Jacare is going to get you submitted with the quickness.

Keep in mind, look at how MMA gyms are set up. You will see multiple striking coaches, 2 or 3 BJJ coaches, and maybe one wrestling coach if there is pro MMA team there. Gyms are only going to do something out of necessity. Catch wrestling is not really a part of that. I think a lot of the non boxing and non Muay Thai striking arts have been able to stay alive inside the UFC is because you have trainers who have backgrounds in that along with boxing and/or Muay Thai. A trainer who won a ton of TKD titles is going to probably keep that alive by teaching the fighter TKD and trying to help incorporate that into his game. That's why you're seeing so many grapplers do random spinning kicks and sometimes even winning with those techniques. It's hard to keep that up for catch wrestling in that trainers at the highest level are not teaching that, and it's so easy to turn fights into straight BJJ matches.

[Roman]

14 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Because welterweight and middleweight is extremely deeper than heavyweight and trying that on say Demian Maia or Jacare is going to get you submitted with the quickness.

What do you mean with 'deeper'? More styles and approaches? Is catch 'slow' in comparison to other styles because you say 'submitted with the quickness'?

I know absolutely nothing about MMA. I was just interested in this show because of CM Punk. Hence my stupid questions.

[Elsalvajeloco]

32 minutes ago, Roman said:

What do you mean with 'deeper'? More styles and approaches? Is catch 'slow' in comparison to other styles because you say 'submitted with the quickness'?

I know absolutely nothing about MMA. I was just interested in this show because of CM Punk. Hence my stupid questions.

I added a lot to that reply so it probably answers some of that.

But by deeper, I mean the talent level from the other discliplines on the male side at least is so much richer than ten or fifteen years ago. Moreover, you're getting better athletes. To send a catch wrestler in there with a multitude of different, extremely athletic BJJ fighters is not going to yield a ton of success. If you don't know BJJ as well as a Demian Maia, Jacare, Gunnar Nelson, etc., it's not going to go well. Like I said, it's so easy to turn MMA fights into straight jiu jitsu wars based on how the sport has changed in the modern era. That's why on the striking side, you don't see too many straight up boxers. That lead leg is going to get chewed up.

In order for catch wrestling to succeed, you are going to need a bunch of fighters in this era to show how effective it is and coaches/trainers to start implementing it into their overall templates.

[supremebve]

2 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I added a lot to that reply so it probably answers some of that.

But by deeper, I mean the talent level from the other discliplines on the male side at least is so much richer than ten or fifteen years ago. Moreover, you're getting better athletes. To send a catch wrestler in there with a multitude of different, extremely athletic BJJ fighters is not going to yield a ton of success. If you don't know BJJ as well as a Demian Maia, Jacare, Gunnar Nelson, etc., it's not going to go well. Like I said, it's so easy to turn MMA fights into straight jiu jitsu wars based on how the sport has changed in the modern era. That's why on the striking side, you don't see too many straight up boxers. That lead leg is going to get chewed up.

In order for catch wrestling to succeed, you are going to need a bunch of fighters in this era to show how effective it is and coaches/trainers to start implementing it into their overall templates.

There are guys like Wonderboy Thompson who are extremely good at one discipline, but he's clearly an outlier.  While Thompson is a great karate practitioner, it is his defensive wrestling that makes his style work at this level.  He is a guy who came into MMA as an expert at karate and kickboxing, and then worked all of his MMA skills around that expertise.  He knows that grappling is not his strong suit, so he uses side kicks and different movement to maintain distance.  He's a guy who started out as an undefeated, championship kickboxer, but he wouldn't be a top ranked fighter if he didn't learn all the basic MMA stuff to go along with it. 

So, there is a chance a really good catch wrestler could compete at a high level in MMA, but by the time he got to the elite level he'd probably be more of an MMA fighter than a catch wrestler.

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, supremebve said:

There are guys like Wonderboy Thompson who are extremely good at one discipline, but he's clearly an outlier.  While Thompson is a great karate practitioner, it is his defensive wrestling that makes his style work at this level.  He is a guy who came into MMA as an expert at karate and kickboxing, and then worked all of his MMA skills around that expertise.  He knows that grappling is not his strong suit, so he uses side kicks and different movement to maintain distance.  He's a guy who started out as an undefeated, championship kickboxer, but he wouldn't be a top ranked fighter if he didn't learn all the basic MMA stuff to go along with it. 

So, there is a chance a really good catch wrestler could compete at a high level in MMA, but by the time he got to the elite level he'd probably be more of an MMA fighter than a catch wrestler.

Thompson is a good example, but we also have a bunch of multi-dimensional strikers. Machida may be a better example because he's perhaps the only Shotokan karate guy besides his brother Chinzo and John Makdessi, who does more taekwondo techniques than karate techniques. We have had plenty of Kyokushin fighters (GSP, Bas Rutten, Uriah Hall, Mamed Khalidov, Nikita Krylov, Andrews Nakahara, Marius Zaromskis, etc.) to choose from, but not as much with Shotokan karate. I remember when Lyoto was having a ton of success and for some reason, fighters were bringing in Kyokushin fighters to emulate Lyoto Machida. I am assuming that's because of the lack of availability in finding dudes out there like that. Even though Barnett is a catch wresting practitioner, you don't have bring one in just to train for him.

[supremebve]

27 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Thompson is a good example, but we also have a bunch of multi-dimensional strikers. Machida may be a better example because he's perhaps the only Shotokan karate guy besides his brother Chinzo and John Makdessi, who does more taekwondo techniques than karate techniques. We have had plenty of Kyokushin fighters (GSP, Bas Rutten, Uriah Hall, Mamed Khalidov, Nikita Krylov, Andrews Nakahara, Marius Zaromskis, etc.) to choose from, but not as much with Shotokan karate. I remember when Lyoto was having a ton of success and for some reason, fighters were bringing in Kyokushin fighters to emulate Lyoto Machida. I am assuming that's because of the lack of availability in finding dudes out there like that. Even though Barnett is a catch wresting practitioner, you don't have bring one in just to train for him.

Machida was also a black belt in jiu-jitsu and had really good defensive wrestling.  The problem people have with karate guys seems to be their ability to control distance.  As soon as people figured out how to close the distance on Machida, he wasn't nearly as effective.  He was able to compete, because he was a fairly well rounded mixed martial artist, but his karate footwork was what separated him from everyone else. 

I don't think catch wrestling would give well-rounded grapplers different enough looks to become a dominant fighter.  The problem is that most good grapplers compete in submission grappling events that prepare them to compete against guys from different disciplines.  If there was an 170 lb. catch wrestler good enough to make it to the UFC, he'd be a known commodity by the time he actually made it to that level.  The only guys who seem to get to the UFC and still be grappling wizards are the jiu-jitsu guys like Maia and Jacare. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

3 minutes ago, supremebve said:

Machida was also a black belt in jiu-jitsu and had really good defensive wrestling.  The problem people have with karate guys seems to be their ability to control distance.  As soon as people figured out how to close the distance on Machida, he wasn't nearly as effective.  He was able to compete, because he was a fairly well rounded mixed martial artist, but his karate footwork was what separated him from everyone else. 

I don't think catch wrestling would give well-rounded grapplers different enough looks to become a dominant fighter.  The problem is that most good grapplers compete in submission grappling events that prepare them to compete against guys from different disciplines.  If there was an 170 lb. catch wrestler good enough to make it to the UFC, he'd be a known commodity by the time he actually made it to that level.  The only guys who seem to get to the UFC and still be grappling wizards are the jiu-jitsu guys like Maia and Jacare. 

Machida is a passable grappler, but I don't think people knew he was a BJJ black belt until he submitted Sokoudjou who was a relative novice on the ground. Besides that one fight, in a ten year UFC career, he hasn't had too many straight grappling battles. That one arm triangle choke and almost getting submitted by Tito Ortiz are his two grappling highlights during his LHW run. That run all the way until the Evans fight, 90% of his cage time was conducted on the feet. There wasn't even really grappling because dudes couldn't even get close to him. For a discipline that wasn't muay thai/kickboxing, boxing, BJJ, or amateur wrestling, the next closest dominant display of one unique disclipline was Rousey going judotown on everyone.

[Casey]

I guess Miočić is a draw!

[Craig H]

Awesome news. 

[Niners Fan in CT]

Like I said. I maybe buy 3-4 PPVs a year.  This was one of them.  I had people talking to me at work who know nothing about MMA but they knew Punk was fighting and were curious at how he'd do. On a basic casual viewer level the stars of WWE are really popular. Imagine if it was John Cena stepping into the octagon lol.

[Matt D]

Part of me thinks even after this, Punk would draw one more time just for people to see him get punched a lot, now that it's a sure thing.

[Guest Edwin]

10 hours ago, Matt D said:

Part of me thinks even after this, Punk would draw one more time just for people to see him get punched a lot, now that it's a sure thing.

If they were to give Punk another fight, they would have to search outside of their roster again and pretty much outside of the Americas, because even unknown amateur fighters would strangle Punk again.

The only fighters I've actively seen and think Punk can really beat are some of the Indian and Pakistani fighters who have no experience and just train by watching UFC and Fedor videos on YouTube that fight in SFL.

I honestly want to see some grappling footage featuring Punk. He's been doing BJJ for a couple of years now and he is still a white belt? I guessing he's a slow learner or he hasn't been training BJJ everday which is what I'm guessing as he's been working on his wrestling and stand up which is honestly a horrendous idea. The idea of solely just training a specific martial art than trying to learn all at once is the best way to go.

[Elsalvajeloco]

49 minutes ago, Edwin said:

If they were to give Punk another fight, they would have to search outside of their roster again and pretty much outside of the Americas, because even unknown amateur fighters would strangle Punk again.

The only fighters I've actively seen and think Punk can really beat are some of the Indian and Pakistani fighters who have no experience and just train by watching UFC and Fedor videos on YouTube that fight in SFL.

I honestly want to see some grappling footage featuring Punk. He's been doing BJJ for a couple of years now and he is still a white belt? I guessing he's a slow learner or he hasn't been training BJJ everday which is what I'm guessing as he's been working on his wrestling and stand up which is honestly a horrendous idea. The idea of solely just training a specific martial art than trying to learn all at once is the best way to go.

The Evolution of Punk show (which was filmed from early last year up until maybe a few months ago) was like 75 percent grappling at least and like smoker/sparring footage. There was maybe like 10-12 seconds in every episode of him hitting pads, but it was bad enough (at least the first 3 episodes) for it cause hilarity. He was hurt for a good percentage of that time though.

Also, I am pretty confident there are some poor Sri Lankans that can get absolutely murked by anyone with some semblance of training.

But yeah, UFC might foot the bill for him (like they did for Cyborg in Invicta) to fight on a Titan FC, Victory FC, or Combate Americas card so people can tune into Fight Pass. It would be funny if they "counterprogrammed" some random Raw with a Combate Americas card with CM Punk and Alberto el Patron. 

 

[supremebve]

41 minutes ago, Edwin said:

If they were to give Punk another fight, they would have to search outside of their roster again and pretty much outside of the Americas, because even unknown amateur fighters would strangle Punk again.

The only fighters I've actively seen and think Punk can really beat are some of the Indian and Pakistani fighters who have no experience and just train by watching UFC and Fedor videos on YouTube that fight in SFL.

I honestly want to see some grappling footage featuring Punk. He's been doing BJJ for a couple of years now and he is still a white belt? I guessing he's a slow learner or he hasn't been training BJJ everday which is what I'm guessing as he's been working on his wrestling and stand up which is honestly a horrendous idea. The idea of solely just training a specific martial art than trying to learn all at once is the best way to go.

You cannot be a competent MMA fighter by training disciplines one at a time.  You have to be a competent striker, wrestler, and grappler, but more importantly you need to know how to use those skills in concert.  If he was a black belt in BJJ, Gall would have just stood up and battered him instead of taking him down and choking him out.  Punk isn't good enough of a striker to stand with him, a wrestler to stop the take down, or grappler to not get choked out.  Unless he is Damian Maia, being great at jiu-jitsu wasn't going to save him.  

[Matt D]

I still think he'd draw again just because people want to see him get punched a lot. I understand the legitimacy issues.

[Elsalvajeloco]

23 minutes ago, supremebve said:

You cannot be a competent MMA fighter by training disciplines one at a time.  You have to be a competent striker, wrestler, and grappler, but more importantly you need to know how to use those skills in concert.  If he was a black belt in BJJ, Gall would have just stood up and battered him instead of taking him down and choking him out.  Punk isn't good enough of a striker to stand with him, a wrestler to stop the take down, or grappler to not get choked out.  Unless he is Damian Maia, being great at jiu-jitsu wasn't going to save him.  

If Punk was good enough to be an actual BJJ black belt, the whole tenor of the matchmaking would have changed though. Gall wouldn't have called out a legitimate black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu when he himself was only a purple or brown belt at the time. Gall called him out because he knew Punk had no experience at anything MMA related besides training with Rener Gracie a little and maybe some questionable kempo karate experience. Gall would have just been some dude on Lookin for a Fight, who fought on Fight Pass. Basically, he would be doing what Randy Brown is doing right now and basically just be some prospect guy. 

Also, it wouldn't have took 21 months for him to fight because he would have been skilled enough at one attribute to compete. I dunno if you guys watch all the preliminary fights like me, but there are some dudes who don't belong in the UFC who could lose to someone who only knows BJJ especially a black belt. If he had a black belt, he would have smoked Mike Jackson who fought Gall for the right to fight Punk. He was just some journalist who did kickboxing and MMA in his spare time and notoriously terrible on the ground. He would have beat Anton Zafir, who is just a school teacher in Australia. There are a couple TUF Nations dudes from Australia still on roster, who I doubt would be in the UFC if the UFC wasn't doing regular shows in Oceania. He could probably beat them just with BJJ. He could work on BJJ arm drags and trips and beat those dudes if he had any athleticism to speak of to go along with his black belt.

That's four or five people off the top of my head without looking at the full roster at welterweight. There are a ton of great fighters at 170, but there is still a ton of bums at the bottom though.

[Spritenaut 32]

I'll shell out for a PPV if Punk fights again.  I don't particularly want to see him get punched or embarrassed.  Just curious to see how he'd do.  I kinda suspect there's just too big of a learning curve for him to catch up, especially considering he's mid-30's and wrestled for close to 20 years.  Given the wear and tear wrestler's take, he probably has the body of a 50 year-old.

The irony is that I can't think of a wrestling match WWE could book with Punk that would get me to pay the same amount for a PPV.  I was a big fan of indy Punk, but WWE Punk was a case of diminishing returns for me.

Just saw a headline saying Dana White was quoted as saying Punk "probably shouldn't" have his next fight in UFC.

[Guest Edwin]

1 hour ago, supremebve said:

You cannot be a competent MMA fighter by training disciplines one at a time.  You have to be a competent striker, wrestler, and grappler, but more importantly you need to know how to use those skills in concert.  If he was a black belt in BJJ, Gall would have just stood up and battered him instead of taking him down and choking him out.  Punk isn't good enough of a striker to stand with him, a wrestler to stop the take down, or grappler to not get choked out.  Unless he is Damian Maia, being great at jiu-jitsu wasn't going to save him.  

The entire "TRAIN MMA" thing is a fiasco. I know it's a marketing scheme for gyms now as promoting that will get them more interest than promoting just being a BJJ or Muay Thai gym only. But either way you have to be good at one discipline, before you try your hand at another.

You don't have to be competent striker if you're an elite level grappler. As long as you can cut the distance and avoid getting hit with a big shoot while shooting for the takedown and successfully getting it, then you're fine.

There's tons of grapplers who've only trained briefly their stand up and have gone on to win their handful of MMA bouts.

[Guest Edwin]

Never mind...

[supremebve]

2 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

If Punk was good enough to be an actual BJJ black belt, the whole tenor of the matchmaking would have changed though. Gall wouldn't have called out a legitimate black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu when he himself was only a purple or brown belt at the time. Gall called him out because he knew Punk had no experience at anything MMA related besides training with Rener Gracie a little and maybe some questionable kempo karate experience. Gall would have just been some dude on Lookin for a Fight, who fought on Fight Pass. Basically, he would be doing what Randy Brown is doing right now and basically just be some prospect guy. 

Also, it wouldn't have took 21 months for him to fight because he would have been skilled enough at one attribute to compete. I dunno if you guys watch all the preliminary fights like me, but there are some dudes who don't belong in the UFC who could lose to someone who only knows BJJ especially a black belt. If he had a black belt, he would have smoked Mike Jackson who fought Gall for the right to fight Punk. He was just some journalist who did kickboxing and MMA in his spare time and notoriously terrible on the ground. He would have beat Anton Zafir, who is just a school teacher in Australia. There are a couple TUF Nations dudes from Australia still on roster, who I doubt would be in the UFC if the UFC wasn't doing regular shows in Oceania. He could probably beat them just with BJJ. He could work on BJJ arm drags and trips and beat those dudes if he had any athleticism to speak of to go along with his black belt.

That's four or five people off the top of my head without looking at the full roster at welterweight. There are a ton of great fighters at 170, but there is still a ton of bums at the bottom though.

OK, maybe he could beat one or two guys on the roster if he was a BJJ black belt with no other skills, but he'd still be fighting an uphill battle.  My point was less, you can't compete by being good at one style, and more you need to be well rounded in modern MMA if you want to be more than a fight pass prelim fighter.  There are plenty of dudes at the bottom of every division who are fairly one-dimensional, but none of those dudes are going to be on PPV.  Those prelim fighters tend to be either dudes who train with a big name guy and they got put on the card as a favor, someone who is only a really good grappler, or someone who knocked the block off of a prospect they were there to scout.  Those guys are there, because they showed something the one time someone was paying attention.  Those guys are the exception not the rule, and they generally don't stick around very long.