# Gloves and Taping in MMA



## Monkey Turned Wolf (May 4, 2016)

There have been a couple discussions recently on here about gloves in boxing, and earlier today someone sent me this clip of Joe Rogan talking about the issue, but for MMA. He talks not just about safety, but also how it would result in more precision, and how banning gloves could ultimately change the game entirely. Do the arguments that you've been saying about boxing apply to MMA as well, and do people here tend to agree or disagree with the points that he makes? Curious to hear everyones opinions!





Personally, I would love to see gloves banned for a couple reasons. The first two are almost exactly what he said about safety and making the sport more technical, plus it could help answer the continuous questions about "would X really work in the street?" Since gloves are one of the main things people bring up to deny the translation of skills from ring to street.


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## Monkey Turned Wolf (May 4, 2016)

Also, later in the video they start comparing modern fighters to Ancient fighters, and fighters from the 20's to the early UFC to today. A lot of what they said about that sounded a lot like pseudo-history to me (especially with the spartans/2000 years ago stuff), anyone else get the same vibe?


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## hoshin1600 (May 4, 2016)

kempodisciple said:


> Also, later in the video they start comparing modern fighters to Ancient fighters, and fighters from the 20's to the early UFC to today. A lot of what they said about that sounded a lot like pseudo-history to me (especially with the spartans/2000 years ago stuff), anyone else get the same vibe?


i watched the entire podcast the other day.  i think Joe and maybe yourself misunderstand what steve maxwell was trying to get at. to me its not pseudo-history.  i think what Steve was getting at was that the Romans and the Greeks were actually fighting in a life and death situations and if you survived a few times you were probably pretty good at it.  in MMA as good as they are its still not actual life and death combat.  there are cross over skills but the two are a world apart.  Bas Rutten said it best..  " its the difference between walking on a wood 2x4 thats on the ground and walking on the same 2x4 10 stories up in the air".  
so in the octagon yeah i think Jon Jones would easily beat a Greek soldier but in Greece 340AD its possible Jon Jones would wet his pants and cry before his life was ended.


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## Monkey Turned Wolf (May 5, 2016)

hoshin1600 said:


> i watched the entire podcast the other day.  i think Joe and maybe yourself misunderstand what steve maxwell was trying to get at. to me its not pseudo-history.  i think what Steve was getting at was that the Romans and the Greeks were actually fighting in a life and death situations and if you survived a few times you were probably pretty good at it.  in MMA as good as they are its still not actual life and death combat.  there are cross over skills but the two are a world apart.  Bas Rutten said it best..  " its the difference between walking on a wood 2x4 thats on the ground and walking on the same 2x4 10 stories up in the air".
> so in the octagon yeah i think Jon Jones would easily beat a Greek soldier but in Greece 340AD its possible Jon Jones would wet his pants and cry before his life was ended.


Currently in the process of listening to the entire podcast, so my opinion may change by the time that I finish listening. I would definitely agree that there is a huge difference in mentality regarding a warrior from that time period and Jon Jones, and if Jon Jones were to be in a life and death situation he may fare worse because he does not have that mindset. However, my concern is that in the clip I shared, at least, they do not address the aspect of training. Joe gets at part of it, were he mentions that in modernity people have access to all these different types of martial arts, and have the ability to pit them against each other to understand what is best for different situations. 
What wasn't mentioned was whether or not they train for individual combat back then, and if the gladiators (who were trained but were also slaves) had the opportunity to get their *** handed to them and learn from it, which can greatly help learn. I have no idea whether or not they had that opportunity, but my guess would be not often enough, which may mean that their technical skill is much worse than that of a modern fighter, and if someone like Jon Jones could get himself in that mentality, the other gladiators (or soldiers in individual combat without weapons, however likely that is) would have a very low chance of succeeding.


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## drop bear (May 5, 2016)

If you want to do mma with no gloves you can. 

You go fight rio heros. 

Personally i will pass on bare knuckle. I haven't encountered much difference between glove sises that is worth the inability to train if you were going bare knuckle all the time. 

It is more of an interesting twist than an entirety new dynamic.


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## hoshin1600 (May 5, 2016)

kempodisciple said:


> the gladiators (who were trained but were also slaves)


not so fast there ... the assumption Gladiators were slaves is only partly true.  the slaves where the ones who were fed to the lions and slaughtered.  but the true gladitorial fighters were not slaves but rather made the choice on their own in hopes of fame and fortune.  Gladiators were like rock stars in their day.



kempodisciple said:


> in modernity people have access to all these different types of martial arts,


there is really only one style  "the human style"   Alexander the great in 340 AD used to have his soldiers sport fight in what was called Pankration,,, does the name ring a bell?   it was the original MMA.


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## JowGaWolf (May 5, 2016)

I don't think it will be safer.  The risk will just change from one type of risk to another.  I'll give an example from how I train.  I don't use gloves; I don't tape my wrists; and everyday I condition, condition, condition.  Not having taped wrists means that I make my wrists stronger.  Not having gloves means I condition the bone in my knuckles and my hand.  I also condition my forearms which feel like steel to a person who doesn't condition. Me not having gloves doesn't prevent me from trying to hit your head as hard as I can. It only makes me more selective of where I'm going hit you in the head.  I can hit anyone on the soft areas of their face as hard as I can with no problem.   Me watching out for elbows, I do that anyway so it's nothing new.   Do we really think that fighters with knuckles like that really care about how hard someone's head is when they are constantly hitting something harder than that person's head? 









In my opinion precision punches are deadlier for the fact that precision punches target the weaker areas.  I'm no longer just aiming for the head, I'm aiming for that spot where the jaw connects and I'm going to hit it as hard as I can. 

I'm not sure why Joe thinks people from ancient times people were weaker than we are today.  Those people were strong even if they weren't soldiers.  Many of the soldiers were crazy strong, seriously why would anyone send a weak person to fight such a physical a war?  How did the soldiers get from one territory to the next they marched. We may be stronger in putting big bulk of muscles but those guys back then had functional strength out of the world.  I've never seen a farmer physically work the land not become stronger for it.

Keep in mind these guys aren't ancient soldiers.  Ancient soldiers would have to be better than this.  Just saying.  If I'm going to go to war with some village that lives 20 miles from me, then I'm going to take biggest baddest guys from my village to make my army.  If they weren't naturally strong then I would make them strong.  If they were already strong then I'll make them even stronger.  If everyone is doing manual labor then I'm sure there were a lot of people who had function strength that w









From a historical perspective we have gotten weaker because technology does all of the heavy lifting.


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## Monkey Turned Wolf (May 5, 2016)

hoshin1600 said:


> not so fast there ... the assumption Gladiators were slaves is only partly true.  the slaves where the ones who were fed to the lions and slaughtered.  but the true gladitorial fighters were not slaves but rather made the choice on their own in hopes of fame and fortune.  Gladiators were like rock stars in their day.


Fair enough. Like I said, I am not fully familiar with what happened back then, it just felt off. If what you're saying is right (and I see no reason to doubt it), then I can completely see what Steve is saying.




> there is really only one style  "the human style"   Alexander the great in 340 AD used to have his soldiers sport fight in what was called Pankration,,, does the name ring a bell?   it was the original MMA.


This is something that I will disagree with. There is the notion that you have 8 limbs and what you can do with it effectively is limited. However, from the arts that I've seen this doesn't tend to be the case. There are countries that appear to have focused almost purely on striking, stick/weapon fighting, or grappling, and different arts can have hugely different philosophies, even if the basics are the same. So while there might be a limit on what you can do in a fight with the human body, the extent of what fighters know within that limit can vary greatly. For instance, is there any evidence to suggest that people who practiced Pankration would know what to do with a spider guard?


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## Monkey Turned Wolf (May 5, 2016)

drop bear said:


> Personally i will pass on bare knuckle. I haven't encountered much difference between glove sises that is worth the inability to train if you were going bare knuckle all the time.


How would you be unable to train? Plenty of people do currently train with no gloves, with full contact.



> t is more of an interesting twist than an entirety new dynamic.


So you don't think it would result in a huge decrease in striking, or change the way that people train their striking? Not arguing here, just asking.


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## JowGaWolf (May 5, 2016)

If 10 MMA fighters stumbled upon 10 ancient Maori warriors doing this?  What do you think would happen? I'm pretty sure that "ground game" isn't going to be a strategy.


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## Monkey Turned Wolf (May 5, 2016)

JowGaWolf said:


> If 10 MMA fighters stumbled upon 10 ancient Maori warriors doing this?  What do you think would happen? I'm pretty sure that "ground game" isn't going to be a strategy.


Did not mean to imply that they would go to groundgame or any other MMA 'tactics', but if they somehow got into the same mindset as those warriors, I believe that they would win in individual fights. In a group fight of 10 on 10, I'd go with the Maori, since they likely know how to work together much better than any MMA fighters.


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## drop bear (May 5, 2016)

kempodisciple said:


> How would you be unable to train? Plenty of people do currently train with no gloves, with full contact.
> 
> 
> So you don't think it would result in a huge decrease in striking, or change the way that people train their striking? Not arguing here, just asking.



I dont know many people who fight bare knuckle train bare knuckle. At least with face punching.

I haven't seen a change in striking in bare knuckle boxing or rio heros. They just have worse hands and heads at the end of it.


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## JowGaWolf (May 5, 2016)

kempodisciple said:


> Did not mean to imply that they would go to groundgame or any other MMA 'tactics', but if they somehow got into the same mindset as those warriors, I believe that they would win in individual fights. In a group fight of 10 on 10, I'd go with the Maori, since they likely know how to work together much better than any MMA fighters.


Sorry about that. My comment was referring to what Joe Rogan saying about a fighter from today beating one from ancient time. Training to fight in MMA is no where near the level of training hand to hand combat in ancient times, even 1 vs 1.   Think about it.  If someone told me that in 3 years to train to fight and on year 3 I would be required to fight hand-to-hand on the battle field.  I can guarantee that I'll train harder for that than someone telling me I have 3 years to train for an MMA fight.  Even if an MMA fighter had a warrior mindset he would still be lacking.  As far as I know all MMA fighters live in a nice house, train in a nice gym, and never has to sleep or train in the elements.  Sometimes Joe just runs off the mouth with assumptions.

Just to give you an idea, here's how Greek's became soldiers.
"At the age of 7, Spartan boys were removed from their parents’ homes and began the “agoge,” a state-sponsored training regimen designed to mold them into skilled warriors and moral citizens. Separated from their families and housed in communal barracks, the young soldiers-in-waiting were instructed in scholastics, warfare, stealth, hunting and athletics. At age 12, initiates were deprived of all clothing save for a red cloak and forced to sleep outside and make their own beds from reeds. To ready them for a life in the field, the boy soldiers were also encouraged to scavenge and even steal their food, though if detected they were punished with floggings."

"To toughen the young warriors and encourage their development as soldiers, instructors and older men would often instigate fights and arguments between trainees. The agoge was partially designed to help make the youths resistant to hardships like cold, hunger and pain, and boys who showed signs of cowardice or timidity were subject to teasing and violence by peers and superiors alike."  Source: 8 Reasons It Wasn’t Easy Being Spartan - History Lists

Ancient soldiers were trained to use weapons even if it was just a stone on the ground to throw.  The majority of MMA fighters don't train weapons.  Even those who do train weapons may not actually know how to use the techniques in a real fight.  Someone who is trained to kill as a soldier also won't be playing fair. If that stick on the ground looks like a good fit for my eye socket then that's where they are going to try to put it.

Now can a modern day man be just as strong as an ancient warrior.  Sure provided that he goes through the extensive training that they went through.  Considering that soldiers from ancient times ate healthier than most of us eat today. My guess is that keeping a good diet without all of the man-made nutrients and chemicals would be really difficult.  One would almost have to grow a majority of their own food just to avoid all of the mess that is put in processed foods.


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## Buka (May 5, 2016)

Ancient Rome had Forums, too. To bad they didn't have laptops.
Wannabe gladiators would be online telling of their make believe lion kills.


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## Tez3 (May 5, 2016)

The MMA fighters we train are also trained soldiers. We lost two in afghan and one lost both legs. We tend not to draw comparisons between martial arts and soldiering because one is chalk and the other cheese.


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## marques (May 5, 2016)

kempodisciple said:


> Personally, I would love to see gloves banned for a couple reasons. The first two are almost exactly what he said about safety and making the sport more technical, plus it could help answer the continuous questions about "would X really work in the street?" Since gloves are one of the main things people bring up to deny the translation of skills from ring to street.


I didn't see the video and the question is interesting. But:

1) This is a sport and the street will be always a complete different ground. The most similar situation I can imagine is the bar front door fight. Which is ridiculous because you don't win any million in money;  And it is not self-defence. It is a voluntary fight.

2) This is a sport and no glove will reduce drastically the quantity of punches. Punches are fun. I guess without gloves it would not become more self-defence like, but more wrestling and grappling like.

...


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## Tez3 (May 6, 2016)

I'm doing this in public I'm afraid.

@ Hoshin. I'm sorry I don't see how you can find the fact that we had two of our martial arts students killed in Afghanistan and had one who had his legs blown off *funny*. One of the reasons we don't talk about MMA being like 'real fighting' is because our other students who have also been in combat find it an inappropriate argument, they know both and to remember one is painful, the other, MMA helps with those memories and can act as a relief. Most of our soldiers have done several tours out there so all have varying degrees of PTSD.


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## MMAexamined (May 10, 2016)

kempodisciple said:


> Also, later in the video they start comparing modern fighters to Ancient fighters, and fighters from the 20's to the early UFC to today. A lot of what they said about that sounded a lot like pseudo-history to me (especially with the spartans/2000 years ago stuff), anyone else get the same vibe?



Having in mind that they learned history from youtube clips... it can not be any other than pseudo-history. Rogan once said that Genghis Kan was raiding around 1st century ad... before Julius Caesar.


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## paitingman (May 10, 2016)

As far as history goes, I think healthcare and health science are the real x factors.

Athletes of today pretty much universally greatly exceed those of the past. You could say that thats almost solely based on nutrition and health care. An ancient farmer or laborer would undoubtedly be a strong, sturdy person to rival just about anyone you or I know, but there life expectancy was what? They did all this demanding athletic activity and built all this strength without being able to properly nourish and recover properly and it probably took quite a toll. 

Back then if you were able to find proper food, survive sickness, and grow up without becoming crippled by some accident or injury and THEN be stronger than anyone on top of it all - you were the freaking demi-god Hercules. Today it's not so big a deal, because we have health care and health science. 

Athletes of the past may not have been lesser than those of today, but they are definitely fewer. Knowledge has made it much easier to develop optimum health and fitness. 

ALL THAT BEING SAID.

bareknuckle boxing in it's 100 round legendary days I believe was also directly affected by the same x factors. 
It was much more inherently defensive. No looping or hooking punches. Only straight, guarded jabs with right or left. More shots aimed at the gut. 

Why? because I cannot afford the swing for the rafters and put all of myself into this one punch to your skull! 

A broken hand in that world is a potentially life ruining event. Today we can break anything and get it fixed and life goes on as normal for the most part. You couldn't afford to cripple yourself and be unable to work or do regular tasks. You also couldn't afford to get repeatedly bareknuckle punched in the face.

You thought Mayweather was boring?? You didn't see these old dudes in which the entire manner of fighting is built around 2 things:
avoiding getting punched in the head at all costs, and
avoiding breaking my hand. 

No wonder the things could go 100 rounds.


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