Ken Shamrock = good Coach.

[Sinister]

Alright, I had to post this here because of the infinite stupidity going on in the TUF sub-forum. God I hate aggressively ignorant people.

So Ken Shamrock brings on a Nutritionist and Strength and Conditioning Coach. And because they tied the word "Bodybuilding" to his name, everyone is in an uproar. That's all they're crying about. "A BODYBUILDER WILL NOT HELP THEIR BJJ GAME!!!!"

Let's review some things for a moment here:

I seem to recall guys struggling to make weight in TUF 1 and 2. I recall a fighter even quitting over it. I recall wasted days spent in saunas. I recall people gassing out in the first rounds of their matches. I recall a Coach saying "he outruns everyone on the TREADMILL" in reference to a man who gassed out against Rashad Evans.

Add that to that the TUF guys have looked like shit collectively largely due to conditioning issues. Leben looked tired and sloppy last night, Stevenson looked like he had never met a value meal he didn't like, Bonnar has been gassing out lately in his fights compared to the first fight with Griffin.

And people have been having the nerve to post:

"As fighters these guys already know everything they need to know about nutrition."

"As fighters these guys already know how to take care of their bodies."

Umm, this the same group of guys who were getting sloppy drunk on the first night and shaving eyebrows to the point of bleeding?

Sounds like they're World's smarter than Shamrock to me.

Plus people are also bitching about Shamrock's old school sand-bag training trial he did. One of the fighters even said he didn't see how picking up a sand-bag was going to help him in the cage.

Shamrock picked guys who looked strong and resilient. So let's review after even just one show how people's judgment is spot-on.

1) Shamrock's team is already ahead 1 win because of his picking and match-making abilities. He said he picked guys who were already particularly strong on the ground so he wouldn't have to focus much on it. And those bitching about how he has no BJJ Coach, yeah, because we all know Ken knows nothing about grappling.

2) According to the previews Tito may have already cost himself a fighter in the same way Randy lost Nate.

So, apparently nutrition, conditioning, these are the things people fear the most. And they'll cry like bitches in the face of them.

End Rant.

 

[MAILMAN]

Finally a good comment, thats why your the king, I thought the same thing, bjj coach and such would be good to have, but having a Nutritionist is very good also, having the abillity to not gas out and better recovery is one of the most important things in fighting, It does no good if you know how to box, if you are to tired to keep your hands up and throw punches!

 

[mcflyguy]

All Hail King Kabuki

 

[Clint07]

And people have been having the nerve to post:

"As fighters these guys already know everything they need to know about nutrition."

"As fighters these guys already know how to take care of their bodies."

In reality it is just the opposite of these statements. These guy already know enough BJJ to handle themselves (and Ken can fix any glaring problems in their ground game) but they most likely know fuck all about nutrition/conditioning. In the smaller shows that these guys came from, they could get away with having the skill and not the conditioning but in the UFC you can't get away with that. Hopefully these guys will drop the know-it-all attitudes and take the guys advice.

Hell look at how many people were dumbfounded by Luke's diet last season.

 

[Sinister]

Hell look at how many people were dumbfounded by Luke's diet last season.

Luke and Diego both were hated on for their wierd eating disciplined ways.

Luke gave Joe a huge run for his money, and Diego wiped the floor with a lot of guys. Diego having already been strong before the show started with BJJ.

 

[fat_wilhelm]

Too many people assume that if you've reached a fairly high level in your sport, then obviously you know everything about each element that could contribute towards making you a better athlete. This is so far from the truth. I contend that the majority of people who make these claims are the out-of-shape couch potatoes that never trained for anything in their life.

 

[Sinister]

I concur that your contention is correct.

 

[tucker713]

If you get to fighters with equaling abilities or two fighters who's ability canceal each other out...Then the fighter with better condition will when the fight....Even Tito stated on the show that the number one thing that causes a fighter to loss in conditioning or lack there of...

 

[SwiftMcvay]

I thought it was kinda goofy that he had a bodybuilder as the nutrition guy, and I think that he could do a little bit more hands on training than what he does, but when it comes down to it, i'm sure he knows what he's doing. He's one of the veterans of the sport, and he's been a coach for a while at the Lion's Den which says a lot.

But if Ken is a good coach, which i do agree with, I think Tito is a great coach. I like how he puts plenty of emphasis on conditioning, and i would trust anything that he ever does since he has some of the best cardio out of anybody in MMA. I like the way he gets in there and does hands on work, and i also like his decision to have Dean Lister be his BJJ coach, and he seems like he really cares about the students. I know that if i had a chance to train with either one of them, just after watching one episode, I would pick Tito in a heartbeat, and i'm not even a Tito fan (even though my opinion has changed a little bit after watching him work with the guys).

And about the injury and Shamrocks guy winning the fight. He put arguably his best fighter in there against a guy that everybody knew was one of the weakest. I don't think it was necessarily his great judgement that helped him decide that fight, i think it was more of an obvious no-brainer decision. And injuries are going to happen. I don't think it speaks anything about how Tito is training them, an accident happened, and unfortunately it might cost the fighter his shot at getting a contract.

 

[Sinister]

And about the injury and Shamrocks guy winning the fight. He put arguably his best fighter in there against a guy that everybody knew was one of the weakest. I don't think it was necessarily his great judgement that helped him decide that fight, i think it was more of an obvious no-brainer decision. And injuries are going to happen. I don't think it speaks anything about how Tito is training them, an accident happened, and unfortunately it might cost the fighter his shot at getting a contract.

Well that's where we differ. I think Ken's judgment was spot-on. His picking of fighters to suit his program wasn't no-brainer, nor was the initial match, his overall strategy sounds pretty competent to me.

The injury you'll always hear on one side of the coin that it happens, but the other side is it could have and should have been avoided given circumstances. Making it to a fight healthy is always #1 priority, and a trainer has to be cognizant of that. This is actually one of the reasons head trainers who are VERY good at something don't like to roll with students who compete, they might increase the chance for injury. But I'm just going on the statement "due to Tito's hard training...so and so, injured." I want to see the circumstances before giving a final decision. Could be freak accident, could be bad advice, who knows? Just so far Ken has found himself ahead and I think that's more than dumb luck.

 

[SwiftMcvay]

Well that's where we differ. I think Ken's judgment was spot-on. His picking of fighters to suit his program wasn't no-brainer, nor was the initial match, his overall strategy sounds pretty competent to me.

The injury you'll always hear on one side of the coin that it happens, but the other side is it could have and should have been avoided given circumstances. Making it to a fight healthy is always #1 priority, and a trainer has to be cognizant of that. This is actually one of the reasons head trainers who are VERY good at something don't like to roll with students who compete, they might increase the chance for injury. But I'm just going on the statement "due to Tito's hard training...so and so, injured." I want to see the circumstances before giving a final decision. Could be freak accident, could be bad advice, who knows? Just so far Ken has found himself ahead and I think that's more than dumb luck.

You don't think Tito's best fighter would manhandle Shamrocks weakest? i agree the initial picking of fighters was good strategy, since he stated he was picking guys who match up well against Titos. But he knew that the guy was weak on the ground and was inexperienced, so he put in his guy with a good ground game and more experience to take him out. Its like when Diego wanted to fight Karalexis on TUF 1, it was HUGE mismatch and Diego had a lot more experience, and everybody knew it, and thats what this reminded me (and Dana) of.

As for the injury, i guess we do need to see what actually happened. If Tito slammed him on his fucking head or something, or if there were like 10 people in the octagon like when Quarry got injured, then yeah, its probably his fault. But if the students were rolling/sparring and somebody fucked up an ankle or something, thats just a bad run of luck and it happens.

 

[T0ne24]

1) Shamrock's team is already ahead 1 win because of his picking and match-making abilities. He said he picked guys who were already particularly strong on the ground so he wouldn't have to focus much on it. And those bitching about how he has no BJJ Coach, yeah, because we all know Ken knows nothing about grappling.

No, Shamrock is ahead one win because he won a coin toss. He said it himself, he would pick their weakest fighter every time, and move his way up. It was pretty much assumed that jacked guy(forgot his name) would lose the fight, why do you think he was so nervous when he got picked? He knows he is one of the guys with the least amount of experience.

The general idea of your post makes sense, but if I had to choose between one of the best jiu jitsu guys out there, and a body builder who tells me I need more protein, then I would pick the jiu jitsu coach.

 

[supersudo]

yeh.. i dunno if it was the editing or what.. but the show made ken look a little senile... like he doesn't know what he's doing... and that his team is questioning their coach... also made the nutritionist look dumb about telling them to eat a lot of steak and chicken..

but that's just me :icon_chee

 

[Sinister]

The general idea of your post makes sense, but if I had to choose between one of the best jiu jitsu guys out there, and a body builder who tells me I need more protein, then I would pick the jiu jitsu coach.

And if you came to the fight looking like Joe Stevenson, then you'd deserve the ass-whoopin' that ensues.

You don't think Tito's best fighter would manhandle Shamrocks weakest? i agree the initial picking of fighters was good strategy, since he stated he was picking guys who match up well against Titos. But he knew that the guy was weak on the ground and was inexperienced, so he put in his guy with a good ground game and more experience to take him out. Its like when Diego wanted to fight Karalexis on TUF 1, it was HUGE mismatch and Diego had a lot more experience, and everybody knew it, and thats what this reminded me (and Dana) of.

Possibly, but leave us remember the times when weaker fighters wanted to take on stronger fighters and their Coach's said boo about it. That decision = dumber than putting your strong fighter against their weak fighter.

 

[frettish]

I don't post in any of the other forums, so I will just say this here (though it doesn't add anything to the point of this topic.)

The only thing I knew going into that episode was that I didn't like Tito. After the show, I may be changing my mind. He may be an alright guy after all.

At this point I would rather be on Tito's team. He just seems to have a better personality.

 

[Sinister]

I don't be on a guy's team because he gives free hand-jobs. Let's see who is more effective. I've had nice Coaches who did fuck-all, and mean bastard coaches that I hated that were effective, also the reverse. What I just dislike is all this "Ken is a moron" crap floating around.

 

[Grady]

King, you make great valid points I will be sure to keep in mind as I watch this season. Now, I'm looking forward to what the "bodybuilder" does for Team Shamrock over the course of the season. The editors (at this time) want us all to believe this coach on Ken's team to be an out-of-touch, old school joke. An early set-up, whaddya think?

TUF3 has gotten off to a much more interesting start than TUF2 so far, I'm actually looking forward to the next show. And, of course, the Tito/Ortiz rematch.

One thing about Tito though is that he does seem to be more of the "teacher" sort, a little sort of like how Rich Franklin was last season. I think that is what is naturally drawing the fighters to want to be on his team. Some people just respond well to that style. I didn't really expect that style just based on what we see of his public persona. Still, it is only just one episode. Based on the single show so far, if I were one of the guys there, I'd pick Tito to train with. So far.

 

[Sinister]

I do smell a little "Hero/Villain" play here. Make no mistake about it. Dana and Zuffa are smart, if Ken and Tito are fighting, they're gonna build the hype.

 

[SwiftMcvay]

I don't be on a guy's team because he gives free hand-jobs. Let's see who is more effective. I've had nice Coaches who did fuck-all, and mean bastard coaches that I hated that were effective, also the reverse. What I just dislike is all this "Ken is a moron" crap floating around.

Now there is something i can agree with you 100% on, is the "Ken is a moron" bullshit people say. He's a Lions Den coach, and i think he was the founder of it, or at least he's always been one of the head guys. And he's got more experience than just about anybody currently competing in MMA today, i mean he competed in true NHB, bareknuckle competitions.

As i've stated previously i think the bodybuilder could have been replaced by somebody else. But when it comes down to it, i don't know shit about the guy, haven't seen hardly anything he has told his fighter, and who knows, his nutrition advice might be a huge part in some of the victories. And I guess Ken was just sticking with what works for him, and he's had the success to back it up. I personally don't think it will have any effect on the fighters, but i've seen stranger things happen.

 

[SwiftMcvay]

I do smell a little "Hero/Villain" play here. Make no mistake about it. Dana and Zuffa are smart, if Ken and Tito are fighting, they're gonna build the hype.

I don't think Ken should have accepted the fight though. Tito is going to beat him into a bloody pulp just like he did last time, except this one might be worse.