Revisiting Duane Ludwig’s supposedly revolutionary striking system

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So did Duane engineer the perfect striker with his system or was TJ just hopped up on tons of EPO and other PEDs that allowed him to literally run circles against his opponents for 25 consistent minutes without getting tired?

we’ve seen spazzy Frankie Edgar type of dancing keep fighters safe for a couple of rounds for a long time in striking sports but they eventually tire out and get picked apart... I think that’s what should have happened with TJ except he never got tired (now we know why)
 
EPO helped him put on a tremendous pace and high volume. Don't think his striking is that smart, he was competitive with Cruz. TJ copied Cruz with some added elements. Nothing revolutionary.
 
I dont think he pretended to invent a new kind of striking system, just is a good muay thai coach

Tj juiced but everyone juices, so it was probably a pretty level playing field

Duane's advice allegedly was the silver bullet to defeat cody since he recognized cody was seeing TJ see everything up and told tj between rounds to throw a high kick without setting it up and that's what won him the fight. So he deserves whatever credit people give him as a coach
 
I don’t think it’s either or. Both of those things are kinda true. Bang’s system is not perfect or revolutionary, he’s just a really good MT coach and he jived with epo snake. Good combo imo.
 
Cody garbrandts style worked well on Tj.

The EPO obviously had a huge part in TJ’s striking success.

Bang muay thai is pretty solid style on paper though. Theres just not a lot of big name fighters using it.
 
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Is he one of the dozens of fighters Joe Rogan claimed were "world class K-1 level strikers" only to get KO'ed by some wrestler who had been striking for less than 6 months?
 
Cody garbrandts style worked well on Tj. The EPO obviously had a huge part in it.

Bang muay thai is pretty solid style on paper though. Theres just not a lot of big name fighters using it.
That first part is hard to read.
 
Once a fighter is a known PED cheat it's extremely hard to separate what is really them and what is enhanced.

That is why fighters like TJ and Jon Jones are invalid as subjects for assessment. Do they have skills? Yes. Are those skills elite naturally or because they have the extra 10-15%. Impossible to tell.

PEDs utterly change the game. EPO in particular is a motherfucker. It makes supermen out of athletes.
 
Who said it was revolutionary? It was effective, not unbeatable. It was good.
 
Tj juiced but everyone juices, so it was probably a pretty level playing field

Bullshit.

Everyone is getting tested by USADA. The fact that TJ finally got caught means TJ is a cheater, it isn't a reason to cast aspersions on clean fighters. Of course there are people cheating who have not yet been caught, but saying everyone is cheating is absurd.
 
Mendes also did well with his striking under Ludwig. Of course he was also doing steroids.
 
Cejudo exposed them. Outstruck by a wrestler who was 5 years into MMA, while youre on roids and EPO.. embarrassing.
 
Bullshit.

Everyone is getting tested by USADA. The fact that TJ finally got caught means TJ is a cheater, it isn't a reason to cast aspersions on clean fighters. Of course there are people cheating who have not yet been caught, but saying everyone is cheating is absurd.

This makes sense how exactly? TJ's best performances were under USADA where he tested clean. His worst performance under USADA is where he got caught.

I find it pretty coincidental that the first time TJ fought at 125 after a pretty horrendous weight cut is when he got caught cheating.

I am not saying he wasn't cheating before but we have no proof that he was . He had 7 fights under USADA and only looked like shit in the one fight where he cut a ton of weight and popped for EPO.

Maybe he was using EPO because the weight cut was wiping out his cardio and he knew he would need it against Cedjudo. Again I am not excusing his behavior but TJ tested clean for years in the USADA testing pool.
 
TJ caught Cody fighting stupidly twice, and beat Lineker and Assuncao. The Assuncao win is the one that stands out to me as his most impressive, but apart from that I never thought he was unbeatable or "revolutionary". Cody almost put him away in their first fight.
 
This makes sense how exactly? TJ's best performances were under USADA where he tested clean. His worst performance under USADA is where he got caught.

I find it pretty coincidental that the first time TJ fought at 125 after a pretty horrendous weight cut is when he got caught cheating.

I am not saying he wasn't cheating before but we have no proof that he was . He had 7 fights under USADA and only looked like shit in the one fight where he cut a ton of weight and popped for EPO.

Maybe he was using EPO because the weight cut was wiping out his cardio and he knew he would need it against Cedjudo. Again I am not excusing his behavior but TJ tested clean for years in the USADA testing pool.

EPO needed a specific and expensive test, which they hadn’t used on TJ before he popped. They used the EPO test because they were tipped off that he was probably in EPO, so the test was worth doing.

Literally the first and only time they tested him for EPO, he failed. It’s extremely likely he was using for his other recent fights, they just didn’t test for it.
 
Ludwig is definitely a good striking coach and TJ's career turnaround was amazing. Ludwig definitely gets credit for part of that. It's obvious TJ juicing for quite a while as well. Have you seen those dudes TAM?

I'll never forget his performance against Barao. I've been watching long enough to remember how good Barao was at that time.

The combination of the two made TJ the best bantamweight on the planet for a while.

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He is an amazing MT coach.

MMA fans seem obsessed with discrediting people in MMA, its kind of weird really.
 
I dont think he pretended to invent a new kind of striking system, just is a good muay thai coach

Tj juiced but everyone juices, so it was probably a pretty level playing field

Duane's advice allegedly was the silver bullet to defeat cody since he recognized cody was seeing TJ see everything up and told tj between rounds to throw a high kick without setting it up and that's what won him the fight. So he deserves whatever credit people give him as a coach
Not everyone takes epo though. That's why guys test positive for steroids all the time and no one cares but TJ testing positive for epo was a huge deal. Taking epo is like being hopped up on steroids in 1955.
 
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