Are we too obsessed about fighters not being "A" level athletes?

HHJ said:
Because some people WANT to fight. They love it.What else could a guy like Wanderlei Silva do,besides be a hockey goon of the most highest order?
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This is still the small percentage of people. Most people if they can play the other sports especially be good at them will not go into UFC where it is less stable and have to get beat up.
 
screaminleeman said:
Funny you should mention this. I have (figuratively) creamed at the thought of him fighting in the UFC. Watching some of his kickboxing matches with his incredible spinning techniques for a 6'7" 83" reach is unmatched. Similar sized kickboxers that were K-1 champions, or serious contenders look like clumsy slow and plodding.

HMC & Shilt are so much slower and limited in the movement there was no comparison. This is essentially just an "extension" of the how an A class athlete would do in MMA. IMO if Vitali had transitioned from KB to MMA instead of Boxing, and cross trained he IMO would have been our GOAT!

Same with Karelin. I always wished for a time capsule . . . . .

All what if's, but damn they are fun (IMO).
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I wouldnt compare Schilt with HMC though. Schilt is a real fighter,and HMC is a bit of a freak,if we're being honest.
 
NBAFAN said:
This is still the small percentage of people. Most people if they can play the other sports especially be good at them will not go into UFC where it is less stable and have to get beat up.
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Most people are afraid to fight period,especially to get beat up in front of millions of people. The football jock in HS would rather keep that aura of invicibility.
 
The denial part is weird because we've seen NFL players transition to MMA, the best fighter being probably Mitrione, who was such an elite football player that he made an NFL roster for years. But then the argument becomes that he wasn't a starter, however we have oddly seen that the higher level NFL players have for whatever reason made for worse fighters. Big Baby was a damn good starting player for years, and Johnny Morton was bordering on star player.

Schaub gets lumped into the "NFL player" group but the truth is he wasn't even a star player in college and never really had a chance in hell of making the NFL, he just attended a workout. He's a better fighter than any of the NFL guys have been so far.

I certainly do think there would be great fighters mixed into the NFL roster, but it wouldn't be EVERYONE like sherdoggers seem to think.
 
Oblivian said:
Would you say Jason Knight or Alex Nicholson are particularly that skilled or that great of athletes? Andrew Holbrook started around 2012 and debuted in the UFC in mid 2015. Vick started in 2011 and was in the UFC in 2013. Holbrook and Vick aren't exactly athletic specimens.

I'll admit, it's getting better over the years while the talent pool grows. But people forget that MMA is still in it's infancy. A lot of these people started based off of watching The Ultimate Fighter.
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never heard of any of them, but a couple were apparently golden gloves state champs. vick was golden glove champ and turned pro in 2011, not that he started in 2011 and played juco basketball.
 
kflo said:
you'll acknowledge that jds and stipe make ALOT more than most of those top 100 boxers you say are better than them, no? why don't any of them come over and make some easy money?

vitor doesn't box that well because he's not a boxer. lol. i mean, there are hundreds of quarterbacks who throw a better football than pedro martinez!

let athletes from other sports play their sports, and if they want to try mma they are free to come over and dominate.
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Acknowledged. I also must point out that comparing the UFC HW champion or a top 3 contenders financial compensation to a #51 - #100 ranked boxer may not be quite fair. They are not making what top 10 ranked Boxers do, and that is what #51 - #100 are shooting for.

As for let them try? I think PLENTY would if the UFC would lift it's slavery clause in fighters contracts. No decent Boxer is EVER going to fight in the UFC under the "exclusive" contract setup that Dana has in place. Why can't Boxers or Kickboxers do both?
 
NFL players are shit athletes, they have no cardio which is one of the most important aspects of athleticism. They're average athletes by any definition, it's only delusional Americans who think they're something special.

I don't give a damn about NBA and football (soccer) either, they're all pussies. F1 drivers are the only A-level athletes I respect because they're fearless.
 
There are fighters who are A-level athletes.

Wladimir Klitschko is an elite A-level athlete.
 
kenCs said:
If you expect Ronaldo to become Maia by only taking a few BJJ classes, you're trolling. Its takes years of refining and adding wrestling to achieve what Maia has achieved.

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come on you dont really believe that do you lmao
ronaldos athleticism is unparalleled
 
In a one on one fight, athleticism is more easily disguised than on a basketball court. It's the nature of the sport. Not all glitz and glamor.
While I do agree that the percentage of so called "A level athletes" would be lower in MMA than other mainstream sports, I put that down to pure statistics. The other sports are more widely practised, plus the added factor of having multiple people on a team.
 
Becoming a top MMA fighter requires some skills. Guys trains 2 to 3 times a day, striking, wrestling, BJJ, conditioning.

Then you add sparring, rolling, going through weight cut, you get punched/kicked/kneed/elbowed in the face, in the body, you need to keep your head cold and fight against submission, to adapt to so many different fighting styles, you must learn to control distances,... Not anyone can become a fighter, let's not even talk about a world champion.

Champions in (almost) all sport deserved to be respected, but not any physically gifted athletes can be a fighter, it's one of the toughest and more painful sport you can find out there.
 
discrawg said:
In a one on one fight, athleticism is more easily disguised than on a basketball court. It's the nature of the sport. Not all glitz and glamor.
While I do agree that the percentage of so called "A level athletes" would be lower in MMA than other mainstream sports, I put that down to pure statistics. The other sports are more widely practised, plus the added factor of having multiple people on a team.
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No disagreement in this post I am quoting. I just noticed your signature, and WOW does that apply to what I have been saying. There were DOZENS of fighters in other sports that GLADLY gave top level MMA a try (in PRIDE FC/ Inoki Boom-ba-ye etc.).

The difference is the UFC's requirement for an exclusive contract! Bottom line is NO top level athlete for ANY mainstream sport, or a different combat sport will EVER compete in the UFC in their prime as long as Dana feels the need to maintain the "exclusive" slavery clause as a requirement to enter the Octagon.

We HAVE to talk about this as "Fantasy" ONLY because of these "exclusive contracts".

I can't see the point with forcing a sports star to QUIT their sport to compete in the UFC. Their are PLENTY of Boxers that talk about it, and this is the reason that they do not follow through.
 
kflo said:
never heard of any of them, but a couple were apparently golden gloves state champs. vick was golden glove champ and turned pro in 2011, not that he started in 2011 and played juco basketball.
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By now you should know that Golden Gloves means nothing. This is James Vick's actual boxing history:

http://boxrec.com/boxer/530801

0-1 in pro boxing. If you've watched his UFC fights, he gets his head knocked around all of the time. He started MMA after he failed in boxing.

The fact that you haven't heard of these guys supports my point. There are a ton of guys like this in the UFC, especially guys that have a fight or two before being cut. Vick has had six fights now!
 
Different sports require different athletic attributes a level athlete is a phrase I laugh at. Look at Roy Nelson, bj Penn, Mark hunt, Damien maia
 
Fedor is the ultimate proof of of the whole ‘A-level’ thing not carrying over. He was a middle-of-the-pack judoka and wasn't dominant in the much smaller talent pool of Sport Sambo when he transitioned to that, either. He only achieved success in the microscopic talent pool of Combat Sambo.

But in MMA? Still GOAT, and crushed judo legends and gold medalists like Ogawa and Ishii who, on paper, should have raised the athleticism bar well above him when they transitioned.

You won't see many fighters who even look ‘A-level’ now we're in the USADA era, however, while the roided-to-the-gills NFL players most Americans have in mind when they think ‘A-level’ will continue enjoying the benefits of an effectively non-existent testing regime.
 
NFL handegg players are B-level athletes at best. It's not a global sport and it has a shallow talent pool. They have no cardio, they wouldn't last 30 minutes in football.
 
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