MMA VS Traditional Martial Arts - article from Fox Baguazhang

[Chrisoro]

Here's the thing; If your style of choice doesn't work in a controlled environment, how is it supposed to work in an uncontrolled environment? What mitigating factor neuters your art in a cage, yet allows it to flourish on the street? The argument simply makes no sense whatsoever.

Actually, I think it's your oversimplification here that doesn't make sense. The fact that MMA is a very controlled, and highly artificial environment, also reduces the numbers of variables that it is correctly and sufficently assessing. Yes, early MMA proved clearly that most traditional martial artists won't do very well against expert grapplers with a certain gameplan, in a one-on-one, unarmed duel type of situation. However, generalizing from that to how they would perform in a more typical self defense situation or street encounter, against the kind of opponents that one are most likely to meet there, and with all the added variables and posibilities of that kind of situation, is shoddy methodology at best.

There have been lots of documented cases (on video) of pure boxers doing extremely well in street encounters against multiple opponents, but that same boxer would probably have been slaughtered in early MMA against for example Royce Gracie, simply because competing against a grappler without any knowledge of grappling himself, and with a complete lack of understanding or knowledge of the main strategy employed by the Gracies in vale tudo and early mma, would have made the boxer extremely vulnerable to it. One could then be tempted to say, as Rorion Gracie has done several times, that since the boxer is unable to defeat a single opponent in this situation, how could he even hope to defeat several opponents in a street fight?

Yet, we have seen time and again that boxing can be highly effective on the street, also against several opponents. What do one make of this? Simply that the Gracie callenge matches, and early MMA in general, isn't covering all the neccesary variables related to self defense and street fighting that one would need to assess in order to make good, generalized conclusions about what works and what doesn't in all other situations.

One of the variables that statements like yours (and Rorions) doesn't take into consideration, is that the kind of of opponent that one would generally meet at almost any level of MMA today, is someone who has extensive training for that exact kind of scenario and most likely a physical fitness level that far exeeds that of the general public at. In other words, a highly untypical individual.

This was even truer in the ninethies, when the Gracies dominated most other arts in early MMA. Almost every single opponent they met, were people who had no training in solving the kind of problem the Gracies presented in the cage, and the result was of course self given. The chance of meeting anyone on the street in 1993 with any kind of gameplan and skillset even coming close to resemble what the Gracies had, was at at the time close to zero. Yet, still BJJ affectionados point to these very fights as "evidence" that traditional martial arts is worthless on the street - that is, in a completely different situation with opponents that would most likely fight in a completely different way.

While the exlosion in the popularity of MMA over the last 20 years, (as a form of hobbyist training, as amateur and professional competition, and as a spectator sport), has definately raised the public awareness of grappling in general, and the kind of tactics and techniques employed in the cage specifically, the chance of meeting any kind of highly competent MMA practitioner or grappler on the street in a situation where you are forced to defend yourself unarmed against him, while admittedly higher now than in 1993, is still very slim.

Also, self defense is not the same situation as street fighting, and definately not the same situation as sport fighting, which is something many MMA-affictionados tend to forget. While there are certainly aspects of each that is overlapping, it does not follow that one can freely generalize from one to another, as they do not deal with the same variables.

So while I'm not neccesarily claiming that traditional martial arts is the best way of training to defend oneself (as opposed to dueling) in most real world self defense situations, and against the most likely kind of aggresors, I do not agree with the notion that the performance of pure traditional martial artists in MMA competition is a good way of assessing all the neccasary variables one would need in order to make well founded general statements regarding these arts applicability in real world self defense situations.

 

[Drose427]

etc.



Sure, but ground fighting as a whole was neglected by Judo for decades in favor of throwing techniques. So much so that Judo black belts train in Bjj to round out their style.



Yet amazingly I've yet to see pictures of TSD, TKD, or Karate stylists grappling on the ground prior to the 1990s. And of course, Bjj predates TSD, TKD, and Japanese karate anyway,



After Bjj exponents dominated the first UFCs, certainly.



So are you saying that Kickboxing is the same as karate? Kickboxing doesn't look like any kata I can remember.



Yeah, that looks pretty much like unrefined MMA.

Actually in another thread we showed you pictures of wados founder doing just that and the majority of people here for those styles said we've Been do in ground applications since before that. Especially since the grappling tends to be a common factor in Okinawan Karate...

And unlessbits a move specific to BJJ and you've been training since you have no idea if that school started training that way after uFC or not.

Plus, that's a school issue and not a style standard.

And no I'm not, you really should go back to school. My point was pretty clear

 

[lklawson]

If you think fighting involves silky pants and weapons from the 16th century, then yeah I would say you're trapped in a world of fantasy combat.

Um... What? Knives, sticks, weighted clubs, flails, and even short swords (ala machetes) are all pretty common in modern civilian "combat" even among civilized 1st world nations. And many of these still show up upon rare occasion in military encounters.

What "fantasy" world are YOU in that you haven't noticed this?

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk (mobile)

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Sure, but ground fighting as a whole was neglected by Judo for decades in favor of throwing techniques. So much so that Judo black belts train in Bjj to round out their style.

Let me fix that for you:

Ground fighting as a whole was neglected by some Judo practitioners for decades in favor of throwing techniques. So much so that some Judo black belts train in Bjj to round out their style.

There have always been judo practitioners who are very, very good on the ground, even before BJJ became popular. Neil Adams comes to mind, but there are plenty of others.

The evolution of judo rules allowed many judoka to neglect newaza and just stall on the ground long enough to get a standup. Those same rules forced the judoka who wanted to use newaza to get really, really good at it so as to be able to impose a submission or pin against a stalling opponent.

 

[Hanzou]

Actually, I think it's your oversimplification here that doesn't make sense. The fact that MMA is a very controlled, and highly artificial environment, also reduces the numbers of variables that it is correctly and sufficently assessing. Yes, early MMA proved clearly that most traditional martial artists won't do very well against expert grapplers with a certain gameplan, in a one-on-one, unarmed duel type of situation. However, generalizing from that to how they would perform in a more typical self defense situation or street encounter, against the kind of opponents that one are most likely to meet there, is shoddy methodology at best.

Actually there is no generalization, because it comes down to fighting ability. If you can fight, you're more capable of defending yourself. I simply don't buy the notion that a martial artist who can't execute their techniques in a controlled environment is somehow a self defense dynamo in an uncontrolled environment.

There have been lots of documented cases (on video) of pure boxers doing extremely well in street encounters against multiple opponents, but that same boxer would probably have been slaughtered in early MMA against for example Royce Gracie, simply because competing against a grappler without any knowledge of grappling himself, and with a complete lack of understanding or knowledge of the main strategy employed by the Gracies in vale tudo and early mma, would have made the boxer extremely vulnerable to it. One could then be tempted to say, as Rorion Gracie has done several times, that since the boxer is unable to defeat a single opponent in this situation, how could he even hope to defeat several opponents in a street fight?

Which actually makes my point; Boxers are skilled fighters, and that allows them to defend themselves in street encounters against multiple opponents. Now clearly, if a boxer goes up against a skilled grappler, they're going to be in trouble. If a boxer is also a skilled grappler, than they have the advantage. In either case, we have "sport" stylists who are very capable of defending themselves because of their ability to fight in a controlled environment.

Yet, we have seen time and again that boxing can be highly effective on the street, also against several opponents. What do one make of this? Simply that the Gracie callenge matches, and early MMA in general, isn't covering all the neccesary variables related to self defense and street fighting that one would need to assess in order to make good, generalized conclusions about what works and what doesn't in all other situations.

One of the variables that statements like yours (and Rorions) doesn't take into consideration, is that the kind of of opponent that one would generally meet at almost any level of MMA today, is someone who has extensive training for that exact kind of scenario and most likely a physical fitness level that far exeeds that of the general public at large, or in other words, a highly untypical individual.

This was even truer in the ninethies, when the Gracies dominated most other arts in early MMA. Almost every single opponent they met, were people who had no training in solving the kind of problem the Gracies presented in the cage, and the result was of course self given. The chance of meeting anyone on the street in 1993 with any kind of gameplan and skillset even coming close to resemble what the Gracies had, was at at the time close to zero. Yet, still BJJ affectionados point to these very fights as "evidence" that traditional martial arts is worthless on the street - that is, in a completely different situation with opponents that would most likely fight in a completely different way.

I find it interesting that you somehow think I'm proclaiming that Bjj is the ultimate MA or something. That isn't what I'm saying.

While the exlosion in the popularity of MMA, both as training, competition or as a spectator sport, over the last 20 years, has definately raised the public awareness of grappling in general, and the kind of tactics and techniques employed in the cage specifically, the chance of meeting any kind of highly competent grappler on the street in a situation where you are forced to defend yourself unarmed against him, while admittedly higher now than in 1993, is still very slim.

With the popularity of wrestling and football in America, I wouldn't say very slim. Further, if we expand the spectrum to non-grappling pursuits like boxing, which is readily available in many urban areas around the country for free, your chances of running into a skilled fighter increases exponentially. And then we run into the situation I described earlier, which you've interpreted as some sort of love letter to the Gracie clan. No, what I'm saying is that if you have a kid doing karate, and he spars against a wrestler, and has no tools to stop that wrestler, then he has a deficiency in his toolkit that needs to be filled.

That by the way is what the Gracies argued throughout their challenges. They never proclaimed that Bjj was the greatest art ever. What they said plainly was that you need to compliment your stand-up training with Bjj or grappling.

 

[Hanzou]

Let me fix that for you:

Ground fighting as a whole was neglected by some Judo practitioners for decades in favor of throwing techniques. So much so that some Judo black belts train in Bjj to round out their style.

Considering the amount of cross-training taking place, I would put the number quite a bit higher than "some".

 

[Steve]

Considering the amount of cross-training taking place, I would put the number quite a bit higher than "some".

To be fair, a lot of BJJ guys cross train in Judo, as well.

 

[Hanzou]

To be fair, a lot of BJJ guys cross train in Judo, as well.

Absolutely! I'm one of them. I was merely pointing out that newaza always had a secondary status in Judo, and that attitude goes back to the founder himself. The rise of Bjj brought newaza to the forefront.

 

[Drose427]

Absolutely! I'm one of them. I was merely pointing out that newaza always had a secondary status in Judo, and that attitude goes back to the founder himself. The rise of Bjj brought newaza to the forefront.

While I will agree that Kodokan Judo wasnt as focused on Groundfighting as BJJ, I wouldnt say it ws neglected.

Mifune gave a big focus on Newaza, putting in a lot of emphasis on the 29 Official Groundfighting techs, long before the popularity of BJJ and cross training that would come years later

List of Kodokan judo techniques - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[Hanzou]

While I will agree that Kodokan Judo wasnt as focused on Groundfighting as BJJ, I wouldnt say it ws neglected.

Mifune gave a big focus on Newaza, putting in a lot of emphasis on the 29 Official Groundfighting techs, long before the popularity of BJJ and cross training that would come years later

List of Kodokan judo techniques - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Certainly there are Judo players who bucked the trend and became strong groundfighters. However, none of that overrides Kano's personal distaste of newaza and his push towards more upright fighting.

That push allowed Bjj to distinguish itself by focusing on what Judo was ignoring.

 

[VT_Vectis]

Animal day is hardly that far removed from mma concept.

Other than the one concept being for dealing with an attack, both verbal and physical/psychological, making your art work for you while learning to cope with the effects of adrenaline when under pressure. The other being training for a contest with a referee, and an opponent you've studied.

 

[VT_Vectis]

Certainly there are Judo players who bucked the trend and became strong groundfighters. However, none of that overrides Kano's personal distaste of newaza and his push towards more upright fighting.

That push allowed Bjj to distinguish itself by focusing on what Judo was ignoring.

With regards to Kano's "distaste" for newaza; I may be wrong as I'm writing from memory, but I believe Kano himself in "Mind over Muscle", explained that a Judo-Ka who trained more newaza than standup would find himself on the ground more often and having to use it, therefore training stand up grappling more allows you keep your feet and negates the need of being quite so proficient on the ground. This was in response to some students overly focusing on newazza, though he did stress the need to train it. I think he also mentions the danger of being voluntarily on the floor in a fighting situation, though I may have misremembered that. Apologies if so.

 

[Chrisoro]

Actually there is no generalization, because it comes down to fighting ability.

And my point is that fighting ability, while certainly important, is not all there is to self defense, nor is it a singular, one dimensional scale.

As I showed with the example of the boxer, fighting ability can take many forms in different situations and against different kinds of opponents. The reason I specifically chose the example of the boxer, is that boxing are known to produce great fighting ability(hell, it's still my own go-to standup form of fighting, even though it's more than six years since I last entered a boxing gym), but good, pure boxers still fail miserably against even mediocre grapplers in an MMA-setting. What do that tell you about the generalizability of that arena for assessing every other kind of fighting ability, or even more further distanced, self defense. Or are we operating with different rules for boxers and other traditional martial artists?

If you can fight, you're more capable of defending yourself.

Yes, well, at least if the self defense situation escalate into fighting. Yet, as I stated above, most skilled pure boxers, which you clearly don't question the fighting ability of, have great trouble executing their techniques in the controlled environment of MMA, despite having great fighting ability. But somehow MMA is still the ultimate measure of any kind of fighting ability, and also of self defense?

I simply don't buy the notion that a martial artist who can't execute their techniques in a controlled environment is somehow a self defense dynamo in an uncontrolled environment.

And that notion is put forth by whom, exactly? My point the whole time, is that the degree on which one can generalize from the results of testing a few variables in a controlled environment to the real world, depends on which variables are included in the controlled environment, and the degree of ecological validity. My point is not that MMA-fighters doesn't have great fighting ability, which they certainly do, or that most traditional martial artists are great fighters, which they are most likely not, but that MMA-fighting is a very non-typical environment, populated by non-typical individuals, which make it not very representative for the kind of environment most self defense situations occur in, nor the people most likely to be involved in it.

Most good systems that claim to teach self defence, includes instruction on awareness in order to avoid dangerous situations in the first place, including verbal tactics and the use of diversions. This is completely absent in MMA. Many systems also use various tactics of diversion in order to land the first strike(or what is usually called a sucker punch), something that is quite hard to accomplish in a setting where both opponents start in a fighting stance with their hands up. Also, many systems encourage the use of improvised weapons as a first choice, also something that is impossible to assess the validity of from pure MMA. Groin strikes is another tactic that is completely removed from MMA, but which I have seen used to great effect in real life, especially when combined with diversion tactics. And I have not even mentioned weapons or the environment used against you, or even multiple opponents, which boxers can handle quite well despite having trouble in an MMA-setting.

There is also other stages of lower intensity happening in many self defence situations that have not escalated into a full on fight, but which are past just words being exchanged. This stage usually involves various kinds of grabbing of arms and clothes, something many styles have quick and effective standing locks as a response to, again usually executed after various forms of diversion. This is also something that one cannot assess in an environment where this stage is completely removed, and where both people have grappling experience, and are in a highly alert fighting state of mind. Executing wrist locks is in my experience incredible difficult when just rolling against somewhat experienced grapplers, and if strikes are included, it is probably even harder to pull off. Yet, I have used various standing locks, including wrist locks, several times when I worked with high security psychiatric patients, in situations with high levels of aggression and tension. The reason they worked were simply that said patients were not expecting that kind of response from me when grabbing me, and that they were in a completely different mindset than what someone with grappling experience would be in a sparring or fighting situation. I don't believe I would have much chance of executing any kind of standing arm or wrist locks in a MMA-setting, but as I have used them in real life several times, I know they are not useless in all situations. But if one should judge all techniques strictly from their applicability in MMA, wrist locks would be some of the first to be thrown into the garbage.

There is also the important notion that the overall goal in a self defense situation is getting out of the situation with the least amount of injury to yourself, something many traditional martial arts have various strategies for. In an MMA-fight, this strategy is also removed completely from the equation, and if you are not trying to escape in a street encounter, what you are doing isn't self defense, but street fighting, something that increases your risk of injury significantly.

But still, MMA-fighting is assessing all that is important for self defense, or what?

Which actually makes my point; Boxers are skilled fighters, and that allows them to defend themselves in street encounters against multiple opponents. Now clearly, if a boxer goes up against a skilled grappler, they're going to be in trouble. If a boxer is also a skilled grappler, than they have the advantage. In either case, we have "sport" stylists who are very capable of defending themselves because of their ability to fight in a controlled environment.

And as I pointed out above, even pure boxers, who we both agree are skilled fighters, generally have trouble in an MMA-setting. If MMA is the best way to assess general fighting and self defense ability in all situations, why do boxers have trouble? My answer is still that it is because MMA only tests a certain kind of fighting ability, in a certain artificial setting, and that you cannot generalize from this to every other kind of fighting and self defense situations.

I find it interesting that you somehow think I'm proclaiming that Bjj is the ultimate MA or something. That isn't what I'm saying.

And I find it interesting that you think that I think that, as that is not what I have been saying either.

With the popularity of wrestling and football in America, I wouldn't say very slim.
Further, if we expand the spectrum to non-grappling pursuits like boxing, which is readily available in many urban areas around the country for free, your chances of running into a skilled fighter increases exponentially.

My impression after training martial arts for over 20 years, including boxing, kickboxing, judo and other kinds of grappling, is that skilled fighters are the kind of people that are least likely to start the kind of trouble out on the street that you in turn would need to defend yourself against. Or are we confusing self defense with fighting on the street again?

And then we run into the situation I described earlier, which you've interpreted as some sort of love letter to the Gracie clan.

No, I did not. What is happening is that you keep throwing out strawmen.

No, what I'm saying is that if you have a kid doing karate, and he spars against a wrestler, and has no tools to stop that wrestler, then he has a deficiency in his toolkit that needs to be filled.

Yes, and I have no problems with that statement. but my point is that the same would be true if the kid was training boxing only, which proves my point about the difficulty of generalizing from one aspect of fighting to another. And as I'm of the opinion that fighting and self defense is not the same thing, as they have very different objectives, I am also of the opinion that one cannot use a single type of fighting as the primary measure of effectiveness in self defense.

That by the way is what the Gracies argued throughout their challenges. They never proclaimed that Bjj was the greatest art ever.

Actually, several of them have done exactly that, including Helio, Rorion and Royce.

On the back cover of Helio Gracie's book Gracie Jiu Jitsu: The master text, one can read about how the UFC "established the undeniable superiority of one style - Gracie Jiu Jitsu."

From the Gracie Academy Website:
"1980- The Gracie ChallengeRorion invites anyone of any size or discipline to fight him to prove his superiority of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu over all other martial arts."

And a bit further down, in reference to the UFC:

"Royce’s victory, as had Helio’s victories before him, proved that Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was not only the most reliable system of self-defense, but also the only system that gives the average person a realistic chance against a larger, more athletic opponent."

What they said plainly was that you need to compliment your stand-up training with Bjj or grappling.

Yes, they said that too, and I have no beef with that statement. I have trained and competed in grappling since 2006 myself exactly for that reason and even trained with two of the Gracies in seminars, and I think BJJ is great. Period. My point is only that, while undeniably very important for the artificial setting of one-on-one, unarmed duels, grappling prowess may not be the single, most important factor for real life self defense. And since it was a lack of grappling ability and ignorance of the strategy employed by the Gracies and other grapplers that was the primary(but of course not the only) reason why many of the traditional martial artists in the Gracie challenge matches and early MMA did so horribly bad, using the results of these events as "proof" that TMA is useless for self defense, is in my opinion to stretch things quite a bit.

 

[drop bear]

That will be MMA training, the UFC is a business, a company which holds MMA fight nights for profit. You have to train MMA elsewhere and hopefully have a good fight record to be under contract with them for fights and/or the television show TUF.

Ufc does do gyms now.

I find the concept a bit tragic though.

 

[Drose427]

Ufc does do gyms now.

I find the concept a bit tragic though.

What's worse is (as far as I know) anyone can open a franchise,

Dana's desire to make a buck, commercialize, and monopolize may actually hurt MMA here.

Its a dangerous path of Mcdojos and Mcinstrcutors opening "UFC" gyms,

I could have no training outside a couple bar fights and youtube, but hey I'm rich so I could theoretically open a UFC gym, a name everyone knows, and give people low quality training.

But to be fair, I don't know the ins and outs of how Dana plans on franchising, he could be pretty controlling on everything or making actual fighters stop by gyms and check everything.

Its definitely a risky move

 

[drop bear]

What's worse is (as far as I know) anyone can open a franchise,

Dana's desire to make a buck, commercialize, and monopolize may actually hurt MMA here.

Its a dangerous path of Mcdojos and Mcinstrcutors opening "UFC" gyms,

I could have no training outside a couple bar fights and youtube, but hey I'm rich so I could theoretically open a UFC gym, a name everyone knows, and give people low quality training.

But to be fair, I don't know the ins and outs of how Dana plans on franchising, he could be pretty controlling on everything or making actual fighters stop by gyms and check everything.

Its definitely a risky move

There is one in Sydney. In the very unlikely event I am down that way I will pop in and have a look.

 

[drop bear]

Actually, I think it's your oversimplification here that doesn't make sense. The fact that MMA is a very controlled, and highly artificial environment, also reduces the numbers of variables that it is correctly and sufficently assessing. Yes, early MMA proved clearly that most traditional martial artists won't do very well against expert grapplers with a certain gameplan, in a one-on-one, unarmed duel type of situation. However, generalizing from that to how they would perform in a more typical self defense situation or street encounter, against the kind of opponents that one are most likely to meet there, and with all the added variables and posibilities of that kind of situation, is shoddy methodology at best.

There have been lots of documented cases (on video) of pure boxers doing extremely well in street encounters against multiple opponents, but that same boxer would probably have been slaughtered in early MMA against for example Royce Gracie, simply because competing against a grappler without any knowledge of grappling himself, and with a complete lack of understanding or knowledge of the main strategy employed by the Gracies in vale tudo and early mma, would have made the boxer extremely vulnerable to it. One could then be tempted to say, as Rorion Gracie has done several times, that since the boxer is unable to defeat a single opponent in this situation, how could he even hope to defeat several opponents in a street fight?

Yet, we have seen time and again that boxing can be highly effective on the street, also against several opponents. What do one make of this? Simply that the Gracie callenge matches, and early MMA in general, isn't covering all the neccesary variables related to self defense and street fighting that one would need to assess in order to make good, generalized conclusions about what works and what doesn't in all other situations.

One of the variables that statements like yours (and Rorions) doesn't take into consideration, is that the kind of of opponent that one would generally meet at almost any level of MMA today, is someone who has extensive training for that exact kind of scenario and most likely a physical fitness level that far exeeds that of the general public at. In other words, a highly untypical individual.

This was even truer in the ninethies, when the Gracies dominated most other arts in early MMA. Almost every single opponent they met, were people who had no training in solving the kind of problem the Gracies presented in the cage, and the result was of course self given. The chance of meeting anyone on the street in 1993 with any kind of gameplan and skillset even coming close to resemble what the Gracies had, was at at the time close to zero. Yet, still BJJ affectionados point to these very fights as "evidence" that traditional martial arts is worthless on the street - that is, in a completely different situation with opponents that would most likely fight in a completely different way.

While the exlosion in the popularity of MMA over the last 20 years, (as a form of hobbyist training, as amateur and professional competition, and as a spectator sport), has definately raised the public awareness of grappling in general, and the kind of tactics and techniques employed in the cage specifically, the chance of meeting any kind of highly competent MMA practitioner or grappler on the street in a situation where you are forced to defend yourself unarmed against him, while admittedly higher now than in 1993, is still very slim.

Also, self defense is not the same situation as street fighting, and definately not the same situation as sport fighting, which is something many MMA-affictionados tend to forget. While there are certainly aspects of each that is overlapping, it does not follow that one can freely generalize from one to another, as they do not deal with the same variables.

So while I'm not neccesarily claiming that traditional martial arts is the best way of training to defend oneself (as opposed to dueling) in most real world self defense situations, and against the most likely kind of aggresors, I do not agree with the notion that the performance of pure traditional martial artists in MMA competition is a good way of assessing all the neccasary variables one would need in order to make well founded general statements regarding these arts applicability in real world self defense situations.

Boxing does fine in the highly controlled arena of mma. Just mma has shown if you have no grapple and the other guy does he will you down and beat you up.

This is also demonstrated numerous times in self defence. So I am not sure what the disconnect is here.

 

[Chrisoro]

Boxing does fine in the highly controlled arena of mma. Just mma has shown if you have no grapple and the other guy does he will you down and beat you up.

This is also demonstrated numerous times in self defence. So I am not sure what the disconnect is here.

My point was never that boxing didn't work in an mma setting, as I believe I never said any such thing. What I said was that that trying to get anywhere in MMA with boxing alone (that is, no crosstraining, just pure boxing) won't work very well in an environment like MMA, where everyone crosstrains. Do you disagree with me on that point?

 

[drop bear]

Absolutely! I'm one of them. I was merely pointing out that newaza always had a secondary status in Judo, and that attitude goes back to the founder himself. The rise of Bjj brought newaza to the forefront.

Yeah but now we are getting sub wrestling. Which becomes a different culture again.

 

[drop bear]

My point was never that boxing didn't work in an mma setting, as I believe I never said any such thing. What I said was that that trying to get anywhere in MMA with boxing alone (that is, no crosstraining, just pure boxing) won't work very well in an environment like MMA, where everyone crosstrains. Do you disagree with me on that point?

Yes cross training is the key to a good martial artist.