Manhoef vs Lawler

[george stando]

Damn! Nice leg kicks and distance control. A stand up fight and melvin drops his hand after dominating the guy and BOOM! lights out. I really like melvin but he got caught clean with his hand down.

YouTube - Melvin Manhoef vs. Robbie Lawler - Fight Video STRIKEFORCE

[tenzen]

I was watching this live as it went down and had to hit rewind on the tvo to see what happened it was so quick. Melvin could have easily won that but he got comfortable dominating with his leg kicks and robbie rocked him. Great stuff! You know that leg was hurting the next day. He could hardly put weight on it.

[george stando]

I agree tenzen. I had to watch it twice. You cant get sloppy in there especially in an mma fight with those little gloves. Little gloves and a big puncher is always dangerous throughout the match. Melvin was doing good distance control and not being overanxious. He should have done a fake off the leg kick or something to break it up then go back to it. He got too confident and boom. Gotta hand it to Lawler. He took the pain and timed out that blow and the follow up. He was definitely hurting the next day, there was also a good body kick that sort of half spun him around but he kept going.

[fire cobra]

Looked like Manhoff was loading up a right uppercut when he got tagged,he should of stayed in leg range and brought a neck kick up when Lawler was using that stupid leg ride on the low kick,who teaches these guys!

[tenzen]

Lawler was even shocked with that knockout but I think matt hughes was the most surprised I know he thought his guy was done.
Fire cobra
Most of the professional fighters we see technically speaking are amateurs. There are a few who have blackbelts but for the most part they are brown belts and purple belts in bjj. And their stand up games consist of a few years boxing and/or muay thai. This works for them because of the conditioning. Mma is not really about who has the best techniques anymore like it was at the beginning. Because it is now like its own style it boils down to who is in the best condition. This statement was opinion not a fact.

[the tick]

Damn I was so bummed by this. Two, maybe three, more lowkicks and Lawler would have been done for. But Melvin got overexcited and careless cause he smelled blood. He should have kept his head cool and just thrash at that leg.

[StickyHands]

Most of the professional fighters we see technically speaking are amateurs. There are a few who have blackbelts but for the most part they are brown belts and purple belts in bjj. And their stand up games consist of a few years boxing and/or muay thai. This works for them because of the conditioning. Mma is not really about who has the best techniques anymore like it was at the beginning. Because it is now like its own style it boils down to who is in the best condition. This statement was opinion not a fact.

tenzen, I think what you're saying about MMA is generally true, especially the part about the conditioning. I think for the most part, guys with better conditioning will win fights; there are some guys who are so much more technically sound than other fighters. However, just because someone has only boxed for a few years, that doesn't necessarily make that person an amateur. Someone, for example, could train in boxing or thai boxing for 3-4 years and then compete professionally and be successful. Furthermore, the type of training that professional MMA guys tend to do I believe is quite intensive and frequent, training 5-6 days a week, several hours a day. That being said, if someone boxed for 3-4 years training with that type of schedule, I'd say they would probably have pretty competent boxing skills.

In addition, and probably most importantly, what makes someone a professional at something is that they get paid to do it. So technically everyone in MMA is an amateur at the sub-arts which they train in, but they are all professionals in MMA. It is just my opinion that many professional MMA guys with only a few years boxing/thai boxing experience could potentially compete on the professional level (maybe not as champions, but at least compete).

I'd like to add that I agree with you're statement for the most part and I know it was just your opinion, but I haven't posted anything relevant on this forum in a while and thought I'd post my opinion in response to yours. Feel free to rebut, I'm always open to a friendly, healthy debate.

[tenzen]

You are right they are professionals at what they do. I was speaking about more of a generalization of their technical abilities. As in a lot of them would not make some of the mistakes they make if they had more training. Overall the majority fight great but are not great fighters. does that make sense? Also a good bit of them are really one dimensional fighters

[StickyHands]

I agree 100% tenzen, but wouldn't we all benefit from more training?

Unfortunately, you're right about a lot of them being one dimensional as well. I think the ones that are not one dimensional, with a more well rounded game, tend to be the guys who win and are champions. (ex. anderson, gsp, bjpenn) However, it will definitely be interesting to see where the next generation of MMA fighters takes the sport with the rise in popularity and availability of gyms catering specifically to MMA.

[george stando]

I dont really agree. In the newer, younger fights they are more rounded and more balanced in their training. We see alot of successful fighters coming from either stand up or just ground like wrestling, no gi or gi people sometimes having troubles in the adjustments because of their dominant previous fighting experiences which usually leaves them vulnerable. Its still a new sport at least in america, and its evolving and moving forward. Its a tough sport also to train for the cardio and endurance are extreme.

[tenzen]

Yes we all could benefit from more training. I think the future of mma has a lot less grappling than what we are used to seeing. A lot more of the fighters aren't afraid to stand up and bang. It makes for a more exciting fight and in many cases a quicker one.
George you are right about the newer fighters comming up but those are the fighters I was refering to who are going pro too fast. In my opinion they should spend more time than they are with amateur fights before crossing over. That's all I just feel too many of them could be greater and be in the sport longer if they don't rush into it. But at the same time like you said its new so we can't expect people to spend 10 years donig it before they are pro. At any rate I love to see a great fight and a lot of these young guys put on a hell of a show.
Just to add to the little mma thing we got going right now. I was at an mma event tonight it will be featured in nw fightscene a friend of mine was on the card. He lost to a rear naked choke in the first. Only his second fight, he will do better next time

[StickyHands]

I think there are a lot of guys who are well rounded george, maybe there are more well rounded than not; but I also tend to agree with tenzen's point that if guys trained longer as amateurs and didn't rush into pro fighting then we'd see an even more well rounded mma scene. Regardless, I think the sport is great to watch.

The Manhoef vs Lawler fight is a perfect example of why mma fights are so fun to watch. The anything's possible factor is always present in mma fights which makes for a lot of excitement.

[george stando]

I dont think there is enough amateur type of events to support that growth at the moment. There is a wealth of amateur gi and no gi, stand up but mma type of amateur events are not held enough it seems to develop the pool. So the sport needs to grow. But again I dont agree with you guys on it. I am here in Brazil and I am getting a totally different picture. The training is real rough and these guys got skills. I am going to stop here because this is an MMA discussion and not a muay thai or thai boxing debate and better suited for the MMA forum.