MMA footwork and striking revolution

[Snowfist]

Thompson will absolute slaughter Lawler...who realistically clearly lost his last fight to Condit anyways.
It's a shame they gifted Lawler that decision as Condit vs Thompson would be a great fight.

Anyways...that fight put the stamp on a trend I think we all have been noticing.

If you look at the evolution of MMA you notice that at first...Ju-Jitsu was king. A lot of guys weren't competent with submissions and consequently a lot of fights ended in submissions, and divisions had a lot of high ranking grapplers.

After a while, people caught on to the need to learn BJJ...even if they couldn't develop an offensive BJJ game, the vast majority of fighters learned to defend themselves from submissions.

Then came the wrestling era. You saw a trend of wrestlers competent in some BJJ just manhandle strikers and BJJ guys. Submissions still happened...but in the top 10 they typical were the result of a fighter being exhausted, or being rocked.

Then came the GSP/Fedor era...A select number of fighters found real success in their ability to transition from striking to the ground in one fluent movement. This style is still highly effective in mma...but it's no longer the only way.

Now you have guys like Conor, Rockhold and Thomson who can defeat wrestlers not with traditional wrestling...but with a ridiculous range of strikes that these guys can't anticipate. Hell...even Jones defeated Cormier who has an INSANE wrestling pedigree, great KO power, solid cardio. He did it through a variety of strikes.

I never thought this would be the next wave in MMA. But now that a lot of grapplers aren't supercharged with steroids and EPO...I think it is. These wrestlers used to time their takedowns by ducking under a jab, cross or a hook....but they can't get any rhythm going with these more dynamic strikers.

 

[Snowfist]

bump

 

[Elitebrawler]

Thompson will absolute slaughter Lawler...who realistically clearly lost his last fight to Condit anyways.
It's a shame they gifted Lawler that decision as Condit vs Thompson would be a great fight.

Anyways...that fight put the stamp on a trend I think we all have been noticing.

If you look at the evolution of MMA you notice that at first...Ju-Jitsu was king. A lot of guys weren't competent with submissions and consequently a lot of fights ended in submissions, and divisions had a lot of high ranking grapplers.

After a while, people caught on to the need to learn BJJ...even if they couldn't develop an offensive BJJ game, the vast majority of fighters learned to defend themselves from submissions.

Then came the wrestling era. You saw a trend of wrestlers competent in some BJJ just manhandle strikers and BJJ guys. Submissions still happened...but in the top 10 they typical were the result of a fighter being exhausted, or being rocked.

Then came the GSP/Fedor era...A select number of fighters found real success in their ability to transition from striking to the ground in one fluent movement. This style is still highly effective in mma...but it's no longer the only way.

Now you have guys like Conor, Rockhold and Thomson who can defeat wrestlers not with traditional wrestling...but with a ridiculous range of strikes that these guys can't anticipate. Hell...even Jones defeated Cormier who has an INSANE wrestling pedigree, great KO power, solid cardio. He did it through a variety of strikes.

I never thought this would be the next wave in MMA. But now that a lot of grapplers aren't supercharged with steroids and EPO...I think it is. These wrestlers used to time their takedowns by ducking under a jab, cross or a hook....but they can't get any rhythm going with these more dynamic strikers.

Good analysis but I'll tell you what really happened with the evolution of mma.

Tae Kwon Doe, Karate, and other traditional martial arts techniques are finally being in display in striking. This is not your slow plodding muay thai/ kickboxing stances that 90% of mma fighters train in.

Striking is not just kickboxing... traditional martial arts involve speed, footwork, and movement that are now finally incorporated into the striking we see in fighters like Conor Mcgregor and Stephen Thompson.

 

[Kahran]

It's simply time to stop dismissing things and approach Martial Arts with a truly open mind. There is a time and place for everything in a fight and you can learn something from each and every Martial Arts out there rather than laughing at them or mocking them. There are top fighters right now who decide to be different and choose a different path and their success will open the eyes of other top fighters and so it will continue to trickle down from there, even the best are still learning.

 

[GordoBarraBJJ]

Stephen's striking is miles above the guys you've listed.
He's also put in the time to work on his wrestling so that he has the tools he needs to defend the takedown when the takedown artists get a hold of him ( we saw it tonight as johny was able to close the distance and get a hold of Stephen but was not able to complete the takedown as Stephen was able to defend and stuff it).

Stephen showed what working on your weakness while keeping your best weapon sharp can do.

 

[Which Doctor]

"THE MACHIDA ERA HAS ARRIVED!!!" - Kenny Florian

 

[Maori II]

Boxing 101

 

[FlyingKimurabar]

Rockhold wins his fights with his grappling. Machida was out striking him and so was Weidman in 1st and 3rd round.

I am a footwork fanboy though and love this new generation. Good footwork can make you much, much harder to take down if people can't get ahold of you.

 

[Maori II]

Kicking gives fighters the distance but boxing is the real killer atm

 

[Ez Eric]

Great post. I agree with everything you said.

Thompson is also on such a high level of striking in MMA because of his experience competing in standup only fights. What did they say tonight? Like 57-0 in kickboxing with 40 knockouts or something like that. Thats ridiculous.

 

[SqualorTopia]

Stephen's striking is miles above the guys you've listed.
He's also put in the time to work on his wrestling so that he has the tools he needs to defend the takedown when the takedown artists get a hold of him ( we saw it tonight as johny was able to close the distance and get a hold of Stephen but was not able to complete the takedown as Stephen was able to defend and stuff it).

Stephen showed what working on your weakness while keeping your best weapon sharp can do.

He is an extremely, like, one-side-is-my-side of the cliff, ESTP, like what, is the difference, between, a 'thrill-seeker,' and a 'dare-devil,' -'ish, meh!#%^.
From, 1:29-1:30+-'!!1sh!:.

He is an extremely, like, one-side-is-my-side of the cliff, ESTP,
He is an extremely, like, one-side-is-my-side of the cliff, ESTP, like what, is the difference, between, a 'thrill-seeker,' and a 'dare-devil,' -'ish, meh!#%^.
From, 1:29-1:30+-'!!1sh!:*{
He is an extremely, like, one-side-is-my-side of the cliff, ESTP,
​

 

[sherbrosrule]

I think its more due to Thompsons exceptional ability than traditional fighting arts. People are losing their shit over TMA a little too much, since a few fighters have had some success. When I see a TMA fighter win and hold a belt for a while, I will concede its the new revolution the rest claim.

 

[lifelessheap]

Welcome to the USADA and shrinking fighter era!

I love it.

 

[Magnum1978]

I generally agree with your analysis, but you really just need to be good at everything and play your strongest suit as best you can.

It hasn't changed that much overall from the top guys of the past, but now we have more of these guys elite in a variety of areas. I.e. elite strikers having strong wresting/grappling to threaten the takedown/submission which sets up the strikes, and similarly elite wrestlers/grapplers have strong striking which sets up takedowns. And its constant dynamic contest of both. Great strikers being outstuck or wrestlers being taken down - now its a full 'game'

But really, this is nothing guys like Fedor, GSP and Cruz weren't doing 5-10 years ago, but we just have many more fighters at that level, with variety and more diverse set of fighters able to play many different blends of their strong suit, whether that suit be their karate, their sambo, wrestling, boxing, bjj or whatever. Its having the remaining set of tools to enable that suit to shine.

 

[Odoylerules4lyf]

Good analysis but I'll tell you what really happened with the evolution of mma.

Tae Kwon Doe, Karate, and other traditional martial arts techniques are finally being in display in striking. This is not your slow plodding muay thai/ kickboxing stances that 90% of mma fighters train in.

Striking is not just kickboxing... traditional martial arts involve speed, footwork, and movement that are now finally incorporated into the striking we see in fighters like Conor Mcgregor and Stephen Thompson.

Mixed martial arts. I think people were too quick to completely discredit karate and tae kwon do, there are techniques and aspects that are good for mma, and others that are not. It's like with BJJ, it's effect and important for MMA and nobody would disagree, but not all of it is, you're not going to berimbolo in MMA (although I hope to see one one day).