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Originally Posted by Mike Brewer
We weren't talking about Liddell. We were talking about a particular fight, against Vanderlei, and in that fight everything I said about him was spot on. If you want to change the context, that's something different. I was talking about the Vanderlei fight, and that clip specifically, so what I said is a perfectly apt commentary.
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No, it's not. You said he had no counter offensive boxing. He clearly does, the fact that he didn't display it in this fight doesn't mean that he doesn't have it. Since you're saying the problem is that he didn't do it, you'd have to look at why he didn't do it, which is clearly something other than his inability to do it.
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And again, what Rampage did in the beginning of the fight is not a reflection at all of why he lost. I'm not trying to say Rampage is no good or anything, so you don't need to be all defensive and stick up for his abilities.
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I'm not being defensive, in fact I pointed out he sucks at clinch defense. The central point (as I saw it) of your argument was the counter offensive boxing. I addressed that specifically.
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He's a great fighter. He just got his ass kicked on two different nights by the same guy because of the same failure.
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Exactly. Inability to defend against knees in the clinch. He lost to a different guy for the same reason. What I'm having a problem seeing is how THAT ties in with the validity of CM for defense against punches.
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Did Rampage learn what to do later? Yeah, as all good fighters will.
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What? No. He got blasted in the clinch by Shogun.
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Was he able to avoid the same traps against others earlier in his career? Yes, he was. But if you want to get all nitpicky about keeping it in context - then keep it in context.
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Context is always more than one fight. The context is always going to be a number of fights for both fighters. It's never just one fight.
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My comments were about that clip and that fight. In that respect, everything I said about it is absolutely true and correct.
- He covered up and waited when Vanderlei threw flurries of punches at him
- He had no counter-offense in boxing range
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Wrong. He did have it. That he didn't display it is a DIFFERENT issue.
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- The fact that he had no counter-offense in boxing range allowed vanderlei to close and clinch with no fear of reprisal
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Again, context is broader. Wanderlei has no fear of reprisal anyway, his fights with Vitor, Mirko, Mike van Arsdale, Mark Hunt and a number of other fighters show that. He knew Vitor and Mirko had dangerous striking, he kept moving forwards against them anyway. Wanderlei wouldn't have stayed back if Rampage was throwing punches, if that was his style he wouldn't have continued fighting Mirko with a closed eye and wouldn't have just kept walking forwards towards Vitor.
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- Because Vanderlei could do that, he was able to win the fight
- Thus, sitting back and covering up is a bad idea against a good fighter because he may not stop before he's knocked you through the ropes.
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I think Muhammad Ali might have something to say about that.
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It's cool that you're an advocate of Crazy Monkey and all, and I'm not trying to tell you that your school or your teachers are bad or anything.
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None of my teachers taught me CM. I got it from the video. I practiced it for a bit at home before using it. Before watching the video, I was trying to throw punches in training to keep them from punching me (what you advocated) it didn't work - I got knocked out. I tried closing the distance by throwing some punches first and then shooting in, it din't work - I got knocked out, or sprawled on, and that sucked because then they'd be punching from 4 point position. After doing CM, with essentially no instruction, I was able to avoid getting KOed, and close the distance properly so I'd actually get a takedown and end up on top. CM, with minimal practice allowed me to impose my game, and be offensive (although not with boxing, since I wasn't good at it at all). I'm just starting to get an indication that I'll have some good power behind my punches, and maybe 3-6 months from now I'll be able to box in a way that makes people worry a bit. Compared to the amount of time I had to put into CM, that's a lot. Not saying it's not worth it, but there's definitely something to be said for an approach that has a high degree of success for the amount of effort put into it.
Also, your arguments just aren't convincing. You're using a fight that was won by knees in the clinch to argue against the efficacy of a defense intended for punches. A good sample of boxing matches (which I'm sure you have more familiarity with than I do) would be much better to use to look at how well CM fares than an MMA fight.
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What I'm saying is that if that method of covering is what you build your fight around, you may do okay against lackluster opposition but you'll get beat down against someone who isn't willing to back off and take turns. Anything can work in a fight. But some ideas are better than others. In my book, counter-offense beats pure defense every single time.
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I'm sure Ali had a very good reason for employing pure defense against Foreman.