Re: Sak/Royler weight difference

[Oberleutnant]

The weight difference wasn't as big as some people were/are claiming. Sak weighs around 183- Royler cuts weight to make competition weight classes. He's done this for the mundials, and he's had trouble making weight for ADCC(along with Roque). Apparently, he walks around in the low 150's... so the weight difference was closer to 30lbs, not 50lbs (as so many were screaming)- Sak was roughly %20 larger. Also, wasn't the difference between Sak & Silveira around 50lbs? Silveira was around %27 larger than Sak, an even bigger difference by proportion, and Sak still cut out his legs from under him and showed him what prison love was all about. Sak is just plain awesome, and people are scraping the bottom of the barrel for excuses to deny it. Royler is a bad little man no doubt, but so is Sak, maybe even more so- and some are just unwilling to accept that.

_____________________________

"Drive it like ya stole it." -Greg Vogel

[Edited by Oberleutnant on 10-17-2000 at 03:55 PM]

[Karlinhos]

Ober... Silviera was a bad one to "pull out of your hat". He NEVER impressed me. He doesn't move well at all on the ground. Can't punch effectively. Etc., etc.

Other than that I agree. Sak may not be the toughest guy out there, but he's a DAMN SMART FIGHTER - A rarity in the world of NHB.

I think Royler's tougher though... overall. Tougher spirit.

[Edited by Karlinhos on 10-17-2000 at 04:41 PM]

[GROUND CONTROL]

Royler was just under 150. Sak weighed a little over 190 for that fight.

[Mad Dog]

Even if Sak was only 20% larger, that is a considerable difference. As was previously mentioned, Conan , IMO, has never impressed. Having said all that, let me say this...
Sak has done more than enough to make him number one in the middleweights and one of the top fighters pound for pound. Until some of these supposedly better fighters, i.e. Chickson or Shamrock, step up and beat him, he is undoubtedly "the man".

[Oberleutnant]

Ground Control: what is your source? shootangle.com doesn't count

Karly/Maddog: You missed the point; after the fight, many people were saying the only reason Sak won was because of his size. If Royler truly possessed far superior skill to Sak (as many Gracie fans were proclaiming), then he should've been able to put away Sak. I never said Conan was good; rather it was an example of how a significant skill difference (such as that claimed by the Gracies/fans) would have changed the parameters & outcome of the fight.

[Edited by Oberleutnant on 10-17-2000 at 09:57 PM]

[Mad Dog]

Ober, you are right, a whole bunch of people made that excuse. You are also correct about the fact that if Sak wasn't skilled himself his weight difference would not have been enough to secure him the victory. So we are really on the same page on this one. I also appreciate the fact that when people respond to your posts your comeback is polite and factual. Sometimes I'm hesitant to respond to posts fearing a tongue-lashing. Take it easy.

[Cooter]

Cripes Ober, you shouldn't be questioning GC's source when you are already aware that the weight difference was precisely 42 pounds (and don't have a source yourself). I'm a little surprised that you made the same factually wrong post that you did on the UG, even though I reported the true weights over there. What's YOUR source? Sak's current weight is irrelevant, and doesn't count

Pride 8 weights, according to official DSE figures:
Royler Gracie: 69kg (152 lbs)
Kazushi Sakuraba: 88kg (194 lbs)


[Edited by Cooter on 10-17-2000 at 08:56 PM]

[GROUND CONTROL]

My source was Renzo who fought on the card that night. Thanks for the back up Cooter. Sorry that I was 3-4 lbs off on Royler, but Renzo said he was 148/149.

40-45lbs is a huge difference especially when the lighter guy is 150lbs. 240 to 280 is not that big of a deal but when a guy outweighs you by almost 1/3 of your body weight how can you not call this a significant difference?

[Oberleutnant]

cooter: I thought it was common knowledge Royler has had to cut weight for competition the last severa years; it's been mentioned numerous times in publications (ie MA Legends, FCF etc.) in addition to word of mouth of the guys "in the know." If you'd see my rebuttal post on the other forum, the weight difference if you have DSE's numbers right was %26, STILL less of a difference than between conan/sak.

XOXOXO

love ober

[Edited by Oberleutnant on 10-17-2000 at 09:59 PM]

[Cooter]

Ober,

Yeah, our posts actually aren't inconsistent with each other. Royler fights at 143 (65kg) at Abu Dhabi, and 9 pounds is quite a bit to cut for such a small fella. I wouldn't be surprised that he has some trouble, especially since he's not a wrestler and hasn't been cutting consistently for his entire career.

No doubt that Sak is a bad, bad man, and I think you proved your point pretty well about Conan. Of course, the % bodyweight difference statistic starts losing meaning as guys get heavier. One could also think about looking at it in the other direction: a 120 lb. man would be giving up 27% of his bodyweight to Royler. Do you think there's a 120 lb man in the world--who doesn't have to cut to get there--who could even last 5 minutes with Royler? I don't.

LOL @ "XOXOX" Right back at ya sweetie

[Oberleutnant]

Re: "Of course, the % bodyweight difference statistic starts losing meaning as guys get heavier. "

-Y'got that ssa sdrawkcab (ass backwards). %'s of weight are PROPORTIONS; they remain consistent regardless of size. Eg. a 30lb difference for HW's is much less significant than a 30lb difference for welterweights. For a 240lb man, 30lbs is only %13 of his mass, where as for a welterweight(150), it'd be %20.




[Edited by Oberleutnant on 10-18-2000 at 12:19 AM]

[Cooter]

"Y'got that ssa sdrawkcab (ass backwards)"

No, I didn't. I realize that for a heavier man, 25% of bodyweight means more poundage than 25% of a lighter man--I did take arithmetic in grade school. I'm merely saying that for MMA even the PERCENTAGE difference doesn't mean much (and the absolute difference is meaningless) at the high end. A 350 pound man weighs 25% more than a 280 lb. man, but I would be surprised to see the larger man win a fight between the two, even if they had nearly equal skill. Unnastand?

I noticed you didn't respond to the hypothetical Royler-120 pounder matchup. Do you think there is anyone who could even make it competitive, much less last 30 minutes? If not, then by your own logic Royler is better pound-for-pound than Sakuraba, which is all anyone was ever claiming anyway.

[Oberleutnant]

Nah nah nah you still got it all wrong baby!

Re: "A 350 pound man weighs 25% more than a 280 lb. man, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the smaller man win a fight between the two, even if they had nearly equal skill. Unnastand? "

Provided there were no anabolics involved, I wouldn't. A guy that was naturally 350lbs would be a lard ass (mother nature never intended for men to get that big while remaining lean...there are IBBF pros that approach that weight, but can't fight worth a damn and are relatively weak) Where as although lean 280lbers are a rarity, but still exist (eg. Karelin), so I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the 280lber victorious. Also, former strongman champion Bill Kazmaeier (weighed around 360 LEAN if memory serves? could be wrong) lost quickly to a much smaller guy in Rings or some other japanese organization a LONG time ago.

"I noticed you didn't respond to the hypothetical Royler-120 pounder matchup. Do you think there is anyone who could even make it competitive, much less last 30 minutes? If not, then by your own logic Royler is better pound-for-pound than Sakuraba, which is all anyone was ever claiming anyway."

Nah I still don't agree. When I weighed 120 I coulda beaten him But I don't weigh that much anymore so that counts me out...

Also, I have no idea where you derived that from "my" logic- there is no logical correlation. All I was saying was that, there was no significant skill difference between Royler & Sak, as many were claiming. The Conan/Sak example was an illustration of how a significant skill difference between to fighters of different weights affects the match.

Personally, on a lb for lb scale, Royler and Sak are pretty close, but Sak is still ahead (Royler's standup, & most importantly his takedowns still leave much to be desired). You could also attribute this to the lack of fighters to pick from, except for shooto, I don't think there are any organizations that have fighters that small.
OR, teach a 120lber boxer like Hamed to sprawl & counter, or a high caliber wrestler some basic striking, and Royler would have his hands full

XOXOXO

Yours always,

ober

[Edited by Oberleutnant on 10-18-2000 at 12:23 AM]

[Oberleutnant]

(PS, I do hate not being able to give precise data, records and references(if you've seen my posts on the mma.com S&C forum, you know this)... but this isn't my forté, sorry. I'm no ZhooZhitso or CHE when it comes to this)

[Cooter]

Provided there were no anabolics involved, I wouldn't. A guy that was naturally 350lbs would be a lard ass (mother nature never intended for men to get that big while remaining lean...there are IBBF pros that approach that weight, but can't fight worth a damn and are relatively weak) Where as although lean 280lbers are a rarity, but still exist (eg. Karelin), so I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the 280lber victorious. Also, former strongman champion Bill Kazmaeier (weighed around 360 if memory serves? could be wrong) lost quickly to a much smaller guy in Rings or some other japanese organization a LONG time ago.

So we agree Neither of us would be surprised to see the smaller man win in this case...so that as you go bigger and bigger, even percentage weight differentials don't mean as much. Thus, Sak wasn't as disadvantagesd against Conan as Royler was against Sak (and Conan against someone who weighed about 25% more than he would be at even less of a disadvantage). Glad to see you've come around

One final point--I think WAY too much has been made of Royler's takedown abilities from the Sak fight. Sure, he looked clueless there, but that's very deceiving. He was so badly overpowered in the striking department that he couldn't get in range for a good shot. His takedowns really are a lot better than he showed in that fight. Check out Royler-Asahi (a legit top 10 150 pounder in Shooto). Royler dominates, taking top position and choking Asahi to unconsciousness within 5 minutes. He also took the much-bigger Eugenio Tadeau down a few times in their private challenge match. His wrestling skills are pretty good, better than most other BJJers with the exception of Sperry and possibly Goes.