So let me get this right, your saying: "A medium to high quality professional athlete who gets paid to train and has no other obligations will normally and consistently beat a non-professional athlete who has to work at the least 40 hours a week to make money, has many other obligations and interests outside of training and trains maybe 1/4 as much as the professional athlete if that". Is that about right? You my friend have an amazing point, you’re absolutely right, I couldn't agree more with you. In fact I would say most medium to high level professional MMA fighters could most likely perform in other athletic events at a level at least equivalent to other non professional athletes in the same events. What’s your point?
I think we are on the same page here. Thats good.
As to the proof, you’re incorrect. The proof required is living through someone else desperately trying to take your life.
Surviving against the local street punks and winning against a professional fighter are two different things. In light of what you said just in the last paragraph, I would think that would be clearly apparent to you. I have seen people win streetfights, even against multiple larger opponents, with nothing but wild haymakers. Try that against any professional boxer, kickboxer, grappler, MMAists etc, and it won't fly very far at all. I find it hard to believe that people can conflate fighting off untrained nobodies with being able to beat serious professionals. It bogles the mind.
How many professional MMA fighters had the job of getting captured in Vietnam to gather intel, escape and bring back the information? How many professional MMA fighters were tortured during this process?
This doesn't have alot to do with proving hand to hand fighting ability. It has alot to do with other things, but I don't see what it has to do with proving the efficacy of an unarmed fighting system.
How many professional MMA fighters were warlords of gangs in D.C for years, lived on the streets, have been shot 7 times? Your starting to loose your point here when you start saying things like the proof is the same when referring to professional (get paid to perform) and self defense (get to live to perform) fighters. Sorry. Oh, and why are you still practicing a TMA if MMA is so much better?
Wait. You’re saying basically that training has nothing to do with why MMA fighters are so much better than TMA fighters? So the manner in which they train, the time in which they spend training, the training of exactly the same techniques, all of that has nothing to do with why MMA fighters are better? So people who train in MMA are simply receiving some type of magical powers that TMAs don’t have? I'm sorry, you've lost your point and your believability factor.
No. Absolutely not. You have completely missed my point.
You throw the same punches as Ali? Sorry, thats a surface understanding of a skill that you obviously don’t train (you said so yourself). So what makes Ali better than you at boxing? I ask you. So your saying boxers train the same exact workout as Ali did and yet aren't as good because Ali had what exactly? Oh, you’re saying Ali was better because he won matches and had video proof. See, you have things out of order there. As my grandfather used to say, you've poured the oil in without taking off the cap. (or something like that)
Ali's training schedule is available; I have seen boxers with a copy of it trying to emulate his schedule. The point is that they may have the same punches, the same equiptment and be training the same style, but they don't have the same training partners, the same coaches, the same genetics, the same intangible factors, the same motivations, the same opponents and so forth as he did. For ZDom to say, especially of something like grappling, which is much more of an exercise in technical precision, that he trains the "same" techniques the same amount of time, so he MUST be just as good - well I wonder where the proof for that is.
The bigger issue is the we don't know how good someone is until the get a record. The best example, and one that I am suprised I didn't think of early, is the Nogueira twins, better known as "Big Nog" and "little Nog." Despite being identical twins, who train in the same style at the exact same gym at the same time with the same training partners for the same team and fight for the same promotion, their abilities are very different. One might be forgiven for assuming that with everything the same like that, that they would be completely and utterly equivallent as fighters, but they are not. We wouldn't know that, of course, if they didn't step into the ring and show us.
I'm with MJS on this one, you don’t seem to really care about providing validity to your statements and I must excuse myself from the thread. You seem to be lacking true understanding of what you’re arguing for and are making some statements that are just wrong. I mean what your saying is incorrect be it MMA or TMA your referring to. Training methods, time, work ethic, all these things matter. You’re contradicting your own posts and expecting us to listen to you. You’re making ridiculously unrealistic statements about something you have absolutely no personal experience with. That’s why the UFC is such a money maker, you have proven that for sure.
I think you need to look at my comments earlier in the thread about training methods. You seem to have confused my explanation to ZDom with some sort of condemnation of training in general, and I can't figure out where you would get that idea from.
Ability is a personal thing. Individual fighters have different abilities. You’re absolutely wrong if you think training doesn’t affect the ability of a fighter. There are two sides to assuming equivalency. If you don’t assume your opponent is at least at if not above your level be it sport or self defense you’re going to get your *** handed to you or killed.
See above.
To assume someone is lesser skilled because of a lack of evidence is called an argumentum ad ignorantiam. Basically is saying that because there is no evidence that something is right means it’s wrong. That’s a logical fallacy and is simply incorrect.
I think I covered this already with Exile, but I'll rehash.
"X hasn't been found, therefore it doesn't exist" - technically a fallacy.
"X has been searched for, has not been found" - NOT a fallacy. Aristotle describes what is called the "fruitless search" exception, in which a search has been carried out and comes up empty. In this case, he says, it is appropriate to declare the thing in question to not exist. I contend, and I find it difficult to see how it could be disputed, that MMAists and grapplers have gone a great deal out of their way to give people an ample opportunity to demonstrate their skills. The search for a TMAist that can beat even the no longer even ranked Gracies has gone on long enough that it could be aptly described as "fruitless."
You’re seriously saying that two fighters with no video history are going to fight. One who trains 8 hours a day, heavy cardio, lots of bags and lots of fighting. The other doesn’t train cardio, little bags, and little fighting. You are seriously going to say you honestly give the same chance to both fighters? First, I don’t believe you if you say yes. Second, your naïve and simply incorrect if you say yes.
No. That is NOT AT ALL what I am saying. I think you need to look at what I have already said about training methods, because somehow you seem to have forgotten everything I said prior to the post you responded to.
Training does have a lot to do with ability. It’s not the only thing, but you’re arguing against the one thing MMA has going for it, pure hard work. You began the discussion speaking of MMA’s resistance training and full power and speed as its benefits and now say those things don’t matter, only a winning record or video of winning a fight?
Thats not what I said. I said that a training schedule is not a substitute for a fight record. It is necessary to train in order to be at a level to produce a fight record, but it doesn't prove a whole lot in and of itself.
Your pulling the old lineage is proof card only substituting wining record for good lineage.
No. Lineage is discussing someone else's fighting ability. Record implies your own. Lineage would be "A fights well. A trains B. B trains C. C trains D. D trains F. Therefore, F fights well." Record is "F fights well, here are the fights to prove it." No mention in record of the fighting ability of teachers and system founders.
Ask any of your top professional MMA fighters they will all tell you that anyone can beat anyone on any given day. For you to think otherwise is simply inexperience.
Upsets happen. That is not the same as saying that everyone is on the same level or that all their training is irrelavent.
You said video was no valid in saying that it gives us ….
Read again. It refers to the eyewitness accounts ZDom is touting. I haven't seen clear video proof of Elvis or the LochNess monster or Alien. I have heard an aweful lot of people say that they saw them.
Again, you’re actively training in a TMA while holding a heated debate that TMA’s are inferior to MMAs and that MMA is the best way to train. I don’t understand your intentions or motives for this discussion.
I didn't think it would be that difficult to understand. I train karate for my entertainment, I have friends there, its not expensive, it works ok for sparring. If all I cared about was fighting, I certainly would not be there. I absolutely would not. I don't find that any more mind-bending then saying that the car that I drive is not the fastest in the world (I drive a pontiac, not a drag racer). I would look at anyone who said that a car like mine is really the fastest on earth like that were crazy, and if pushed, probably have a good long argument explaining why my car is slow compared to some other cars. Its fast enough for my needs, but I would be crazy to call it faster than, say, any NASCAR vehicle.
And while you may not have relied on personal experience this is not a discussion that can be made devoid of personal experiences. That’s what everyone here keeps telling you. Get out there, fight some skilled fighters both CMA and MMA, take video, and lets see the tell the tape makes after that. That’s the way to find out the truth, not sit back and make assumptions about things you see on TV without having personal experience in them.
- Yes, I realize there are fighting tourneys that allow groin “blows”. I have participated in them for years.
- No one is assuming anything here Kevin, I was using your own preferred method of proof…video. Also, I was using my own personal experiences, something you have left out of this discussion so far and something you are admittedly lacking.
- No one is talking about a fight ending groin shot, Kevin. As you have seen yourself, it happens like that sometimes, but sometimes not. What a solid shot to the groin does is initiate a reaction which can allow for the fight to be ended.
Ok.
- Yes, once again I know this is allowed in many people training, I allow it in mine.
- We addressed the fact that I have personal experience with it being allowed in competitions.
- You’re Point?
Kevin, without offering either a logical argument that solidifies MMA’s superiority over CMA’s, or providing personal experience of non-sport superiority of MMA over CMA, or providing proof (yes even video) of non-sport MMA’s superiority over CMA’s, you lack credibility and really believability in this discussion. The UFC proves many things, among them is not that MMA is “better” than CMA or TMA in non-sport fighting. Remember, sport vs. non-sport. Do you have video proof of non-sport MMA and non-sport CMA?
There is no such system as "non-sport" MMA. MMA is by definition a sports system and if it were trained in a non-sports manner, it wouldn't be MMA anymore.
Again, I think I’m out of this thread, so sad too….I’m the one who started it! Sorry everyone. I thought we could have serious intelligent and logical discussions about specific abilities of MMA vs. CMA…..I see that’s not going to happen.
7sm
I'm sorry to see you go.
