- Joined
- Oct 23, 2017
- Messages
- 20,858
- Reaction score
- 19,337
May 23rd 2019
Hey guys, and welcome to My Take.This will be a weekly series of articles/threads that i will be writing about a variety of UFC and MMA related issues,fighters and events. I will be dropping them every Monday between 12:00 noon & 1:00pm GMT Eastern Time.Today's edition is alittle late due to the Canadian holiday long weekend last week my apologies.
In case you missed last week's edition
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/my-take-series-1-edition-2.3958175/
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/my-take-series-1-edition-1.3954893/
For today's My Take Topic i will be talking about MMA gym cultures and the stances or effects they have the on the sport.
How healthy are the current MMA gym cultures? We've all heard stories of the legendary Chute Boxe camp and their brutal sparring sessions back in the day but more recently we have heard about TAM ( Team Alpha Male) members outing T.J as a hurtful sparring partner ending a fellow members MMA fighting dreams and have released footage of what could be described as extremely heavy sparring between cody and T.J in lead up to there fights. Is this intense style of training helpful or harmful to the MMA gym culture, as a practioner myself i know experience is an invaluable tool while you are learning Martial Arts and this isnt something you learn by simply watching and not feeling or doing,especially if your wanting to be at that pro level.That being said longevity should always be on an althete and coaches mind and i believe training and practices should mirror that i cant see how having a den full of hungry ego driven warriors is conducive to proper martial art or MMA learning, if your getting hammered on in the gym constantly how are you learning and how healthy are you come fight night?..Chins wear out in my opinion in the gym over the length of your career much more then they do in any given fight, you'll take way more shots through training recklessly daily then you will in 15 fights to 20 fights.Sparring is absolutely necessary but i believe it should be built on trust and seen as a technique driven activity between teammates im not always sure this is the case. What are your thoughts?
Another key factor for me when discussing MMA gym cultures is the idea of loyalty. I am big believe of loyalty in life in general but is it real in MMA, a sport where essentially there are atleast 3 businesses working together and separately at any given time( fighter, gym , promotion/league) . People often forget about the separation between gym and the fighter, a good example of this would be Chuck Liddell , he is the most famous fighter come out of the now legendary Pit MMA gym in california , but outside of him the pit hasnt had much success and i rack my brain to even think of a current MMA fighter on the UFC roster who is from that gym but Chucks success keeps that gym alive and may lead to another star one day chucks loyalty did that..but the gym itself isnt as popular as chuck theres a thin line between the gyms success and the fighter.Weve seen this go the other way to where fighters have stayed loyal almost to there own demise , yet the gym lives on. ( SBG and Conor/Artem, Ronda Rouseys old gym GFC) so Who is responsible for the loyalty side of things? Does it have a place in MMA?
Finally my last point in regards to gym culture is there interactions with each other. Now i understand combat sports is a individual sport for the most part and with comes a sense of Me or us ( The Gym) against the world but is this really productive for the sport of MMA? Look at other sports the clubs or gyms have been able to remain rivals but still work together as a whole to better the sport, yes im talking about a fighters association or union i think the missing link to it being a reality is that separation i mentioned earlier about the fighters and the gym whereas if they stood together for the betterment of the sport and in the end the businesses they run ( gym owners) a collective effort benefits all.I find it really strange that we dont see more of the traditonal martial arts manners or behaviour in todays MMA gyms as majority of them are coming from the old world martial arts , wrestling, jiujitsu, muay thai these are all ancienit sports and with them came a connection to each gym or region a sense of duty to the sport itself to help improve it, councils to hold gyms accountable for there actions something i think given the PEDs crisis would be great to help control the curve of cheating, change the culture from in the inside first then the outside preception.
So heres MY TAKE,
Overall i think MMA is alive and healthy is a in midst of transition, and evolutions of sorts. I think fighters are getting smarter and more aware of safer training methods and the benefits of smaller weight cuts and arent afraid to clash with gyms they once were apart of ( cerrone /winkel) because there ideas differ and arent benefical anymore.That said i would love to see more cohesion between camps and new level professionalism and organization between althetes and coaches as well as gyms and promotions this sport is big enough now, that its on ESPN, i think its time to elevate it to the levels of other sports through associational growth and creation, theres no way if Longo /Serra MMA, A.K.A, Tristar ,Winkeljohn MMA, and Rufus sport came together to the UFC with a association or playering fighters bargaining agreement offer stating that this had to be in place or there fighters walk the UFC would have to at minimum sit at the table and discuss the idea..Fighters alone cant get this done the UFC is too much of a power for that to work but you start taking away gyms full of the stars and potential stars and BINGO you'll have the UFC ears to address things like fighter pay,fair sponsorship,cheating rules and regulations,in cage rule changes,judging criteria changes, new levels of communication across the board that can not hurt but only grow the sport IMO.
Thank you for reading please leave some questions and comments
Also feel free to leave some MY TAKE topic ideas for future editions and i will consider them.
Also im offering a new feature for these posts if you wish to be Tagged in future posts so you can be given direct updates to new weekly editons please let me know in the comments below and you'll be notified moving forward.
Paolo Delutis
Hey guys, and welcome to My Take.This will be a weekly series of articles/threads that i will be writing about a variety of UFC and MMA related issues,fighters and events. I will be dropping them every Monday between 12:00 noon & 1:00pm GMT Eastern Time.Today's edition is alittle late due to the Canadian holiday long weekend last week my apologies.
In case you missed last week's edition
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/my-take-series-1-edition-2.3958175/
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/my-take-series-1-edition-1.3954893/
For today's My Take Topic i will be talking about MMA gym cultures and the stances or effects they have the on the sport.
How healthy are the current MMA gym cultures? We've all heard stories of the legendary Chute Boxe camp and their brutal sparring sessions back in the day but more recently we have heard about TAM ( Team Alpha Male) members outing T.J as a hurtful sparring partner ending a fellow members MMA fighting dreams and have released footage of what could be described as extremely heavy sparring between cody and T.J in lead up to there fights. Is this intense style of training helpful or harmful to the MMA gym culture, as a practioner myself i know experience is an invaluable tool while you are learning Martial Arts and this isnt something you learn by simply watching and not feeling or doing,especially if your wanting to be at that pro level.That being said longevity should always be on an althete and coaches mind and i believe training and practices should mirror that i cant see how having a den full of hungry ego driven warriors is conducive to proper martial art or MMA learning, if your getting hammered on in the gym constantly how are you learning and how healthy are you come fight night?..Chins wear out in my opinion in the gym over the length of your career much more then they do in any given fight, you'll take way more shots through training recklessly daily then you will in 15 fights to 20 fights.Sparring is absolutely necessary but i believe it should be built on trust and seen as a technique driven activity between teammates im not always sure this is the case. What are your thoughts?
Another key factor for me when discussing MMA gym cultures is the idea of loyalty. I am big believe of loyalty in life in general but is it real in MMA, a sport where essentially there are atleast 3 businesses working together and separately at any given time( fighter, gym , promotion/league) . People often forget about the separation between gym and the fighter, a good example of this would be Chuck Liddell , he is the most famous fighter come out of the now legendary Pit MMA gym in california , but outside of him the pit hasnt had much success and i rack my brain to even think of a current MMA fighter on the UFC roster who is from that gym but Chucks success keeps that gym alive and may lead to another star one day chucks loyalty did that..but the gym itself isnt as popular as chuck theres a thin line between the gyms success and the fighter.Weve seen this go the other way to where fighters have stayed loyal almost to there own demise , yet the gym lives on. ( SBG and Conor/Artem, Ronda Rouseys old gym GFC) so Who is responsible for the loyalty side of things? Does it have a place in MMA?
Finally my last point in regards to gym culture is there interactions with each other. Now i understand combat sports is a individual sport for the most part and with comes a sense of Me or us ( The Gym) against the world but is this really productive for the sport of MMA? Look at other sports the clubs or gyms have been able to remain rivals but still work together as a whole to better the sport, yes im talking about a fighters association or union i think the missing link to it being a reality is that separation i mentioned earlier about the fighters and the gym whereas if they stood together for the betterment of the sport and in the end the businesses they run ( gym owners) a collective effort benefits all.I find it really strange that we dont see more of the traditonal martial arts manners or behaviour in todays MMA gyms as majority of them are coming from the old world martial arts , wrestling, jiujitsu, muay thai these are all ancienit sports and with them came a connection to each gym or region a sense of duty to the sport itself to help improve it, councils to hold gyms accountable for there actions something i think given the PEDs crisis would be great to help control the curve of cheating, change the culture from in the inside first then the outside preception.
So heres MY TAKE,
Overall i think MMA is alive and healthy is a in midst of transition, and evolutions of sorts. I think fighters are getting smarter and more aware of safer training methods and the benefits of smaller weight cuts and arent afraid to clash with gyms they once were apart of ( cerrone /winkel) because there ideas differ and arent benefical anymore.That said i would love to see more cohesion between camps and new level professionalism and organization between althetes and coaches as well as gyms and promotions this sport is big enough now, that its on ESPN, i think its time to elevate it to the levels of other sports through associational growth and creation, theres no way if Longo /Serra MMA, A.K.A, Tristar ,Winkeljohn MMA, and Rufus sport came together to the UFC with a association or playering fighters bargaining agreement offer stating that this had to be in place or there fighters walk the UFC would have to at minimum sit at the table and discuss the idea..Fighters alone cant get this done the UFC is too much of a power for that to work but you start taking away gyms full of the stars and potential stars and BINGO you'll have the UFC ears to address things like fighter pay,fair sponsorship,cheating rules and regulations,in cage rule changes,judging criteria changes, new levels of communication across the board that can not hurt but only grow the sport IMO.
Thank you for reading please leave some questions and comments
Also feel free to leave some MY TAKE topic ideas for future editions and i will consider them.
Also im offering a new feature for these posts if you wish to be Tagged in future posts so you can be given direct updates to new weekly editons please let me know in the comments below and you'll be notified moving forward.
Paolo Delutis
