How far has the sport really evolved? Who would win between Prime BJ Penn and Edson Barboza?

[yookfarb]

Maybe you should go to a gym and train there long enough to see guys who completely sucks at fighting develop into somewhat decent fighters, then you'll can reconsider that statement, because that's a wrong one.

ppl change when they stop sitting on the couch and start going to fight club

 

[The Bard]

Lol that guy has no perspective. MMA involves far more skills than most sports. It's every combat sport rolled into one!
I'd hate to see how that guy describes track and field and swimming.

Yes, how effective your skills will be does depend on your physicality, just like in every contact sport. Those skills are still important though!

They are important, yes. It's just that people who are natural fighters can learn them really fast. If it took decades of training to be an elite fighter (like it takes decades to be a great lawyer or scholar in most fields), McGregor wouldn't be the champ at his age. He has dominated primarily with his natural tools, refined in a few short years to be at an elite level.

 

[The Bard]

I don't know, man. I know genetics are unfair and shit, but I still think that you can make it to the top through hard work and dedication (and I'm not a basement dweller projecting or anything ahah).

GSP being a prime example of this. I always had the feel he was kinda fragile and not naturally "designed" to fight with his thin skin and everything. I mean I'm quite confident that if a kid version of him fought me at the same age, I would have been able to bully him, like plenty of others apparently did. Dude is now on every single list of top 3 goats in the world and a retired version of him would tear the current me a new asshole within seconds.

There are other examples of somewhat soft guys who made it through hard work, like Bisping or Maia. Technique and dedication are important, I feel like you're being a little too fatalistic here

Hard work is important, but your examples make my point for me. Bisping and Maia have been in the game forever, and neither one is championship-caliber. They have worked hard and have forgotten more about combat than I've ever learned, but it still hasn't been enough.

GSP, on the other hand, is a freak natural athlete. Put some hard work in the mix, and he was one of the best of all time.

Saying that an MMA fighter works hard is kind of misleading. They almost all work hard, so what separates them is usually natural ability. There are also those special cases of guys who didn't work as hard as others but still were / are successful, and they show what you can do with natural ability even without hard work.

 

[legkicktko]

Do people still think Penn beats the Barboza we saw?