Power hand forward (Right hand lead) - The Orthodox MMA stance

AndyMaBobs said:
To clear up this point, because Spacetime's gonna Spacetime

Striking backgrounds highlighted in red, MMA backgrounds highlighted in purple, grappling in blue
  • Heavyweight Champion: Stipe Miocic (19-3)
  • Light-heavyweight Champion: Jan Blachowicz (27-8-0) (wasn't enough information as to whether he started judo as a kid and continued doing it throughout his life or not)
  • Middleweight Champion: Israel Adesanya (20-0)
  • Welterweight Champion: Kamaru Usman (16-1)
  • Featherweight Champion: Alexander Volkanovski (21-1) (he is primarily a striker though)
  • Bantamweight Champion: Petr Yan (15-1-0)
  • Flyweight Champion: Deiveson Figueiredo (20-1-0)
  • Women’s Featherweight/Bantamweight Champion: Amanda Nunes (19-4)
  • Women’s Flyweight Champion Valentina Shevchenko (20-3)
  • Women’s Strawweight Champion: Zhang Weili (21-1)
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That's how I was seeing it too, although I was trying to be as generous as I could in favor of the grapplers, so on my list I had Zhang and Deiveson as purple too as frkm what I've seen, they are very well rounded. But I don't know too much about them if I'm honest.

It's like I say one thing, and people read something completely different. Either I need to make things a little more obvious or I'm being trolled lol

*edit and I counted nunes as a striker for 2 divisions. Either way, you seemed to understand what I was saying
 
TheMaster said:
It's a well established truth that Wrestling or Judo earns you the right to stand in mma.
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Wrestling yes, there's not many with Judo backgrounds. Its not a bad style, just the number of judokas in MMA is low compared to nearly every other discipline. The lack of gi really takes alot way, sure the creative and talented fighters will make use of whatever tool at their disposal, I just don't see it on par with wrestling, esp. how the rules favor it: cage, no fence grabbing, scoring on points.

Stevenseagull53 said:
That's just current champions. If you count all of the fighters, the vast majority have wrestling backgrounds
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Because UFC is a first and foremost, an American company that pulls and pushes mainly for the American market; Nearly every athlete has done wrestling there where the culture of it is so prominent.
 
Stevenseagull53 said:
That's just current champions. If you count all of the fighters, the vast majority have wrestling backgrounds
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Yes Spacetime, they are the current champions - because current champions was what was being discussed:

II Muchetto II said:
I haven't mentioned strikers that have "transitioned"

You said, MMA is mostly wrestles that have learnt a little stand up. I said MMA has moved on from those days, and everyone at the top level is proficient everywhere. I then make the point that most of the UFC current Champs are predominantly strikers (not striking background who have transitioned). Just known for their high level striking. They can all grapple to a very high level, but from most of the current line up, they are known for their striking.

From memory I'd say 5 divisions are topped by fighters known for being stronger in striking, who never shoot. 4 are topped by people known for using 50/50 grappling and striking, And 3 are topped by people who you are known for grappling and look to take the fight to the floor every outing.

But if you want to agree with spacetime, that's up to you. I understand. Your opinion is a lonely place on this forum. He has a simular level of credentials to you, so I can see why you to would get along so well, and form simular opinions
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II Muchetto II said:
That's how I was seeing it too, although I was trying to be as generous as I could in favor of the grapplers, so on my list I had Zhang and Deiveson as purple too as frkm what I've seen, they are very well rounded. But I don't know too much about them if I'm honest.

It's like I say one thing, and people read something completely different. Either I need to make things a little more obvious or I'm being trolled lol

*edit and I counted nunes as a striker for 2 divisions. Either way, you seemed to understand what I was saying
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Yes, MMA is currently a strikers sport and to argue that it's not is to be willfully ignorant. This will probably change again in a few years because the meta of MMA is always evolving and changing.

As for the original topic, orthodox and southpaw are striking terms, MMA orthodox is left hand forward, regardless of the handedness of the fighter + even if you are to appeal to popularity, the majority of fighters in the UFC are still orthodox fighters, this being said southpaws are undeniably more common than in other sports, because of the influence of grappling.
 
AndyMaBobs said:
Yes, MMA is currently a strikers sport and to argue that it's not is to be willfully ignorant. This will probably change again in a few years because the meta of MMA is always evolving and changing.

As for the original topic, orthodox and southpaw are striking terms, MMA orthodox is left hand forward, regardless of the handedness of the fighter + even if you are to appeal to popularity, the majority of fighters in the UFC are still orthodox fighters, this being said southpaws are undeniably more common than in other sports, because of the influence of grappling.
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Yep tottaly.

With regards to stance, for some reason, just because the master wants to stand with his right hand forward, he seems to think that not being called orthodox some how makes him un-orthodox, and in his head that means its not normal.

I know plenty of righties who prefer strong hand at the front, mainly because they wanted the strong leg at the front for the style they was fighting at the time (FC kickboxing). But they managed to develop their hands from this stance. I've never heard of someone taking issue with using the term southpaw before, even if they wasn't a natural one from a conventional point of view.

I don't really understand why he wants to re invent the wheel. Maybe focusing on problems internally in his head in regards to terminology, it confuses him. But I think you summed it up pretty well with more southpaws being in MMA than other combat sports due to people's grappling background.
 
AndyMaBobs said:
Yes, MMA is currently a strikers sport and to argue that it's not is to be willfully ignorant. This will probably change again in a few years because the meta of MMA is always evolving and changing.
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Have pride rules and you will have survival of the fittest grappler. Literally everything is geared towards striking: gloves, stand-up for new round, making progress on the groundetc
 
Stevenseagull53 said:
Have pride rules and you will have survival of the fittest grappler. Literally everything is geared towards striking: gloves, stand-up for new round, making progress on the groundetc
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The ring makes it much harder for grapplers, yes
 
II Muchetto II said:
Yep tottaly.

With regards to stance, for some reason, just because the master wants to stand with his right hand forward, he seems to think that not being called orthodox some how makes him un-orthodox, and in his head that means its not normal.

I know plenty of righties who prefer strong hand at the front, mainly because they wanted the strong leg at the front for the style they was fighting at the time (FC kickboxing). But they managed to develop their hands from this stance. I've never heard of someone taking issue with using the term southpaw before, even if they wasn't a natural one from a conventional point of view.

I don't really understand why he wants to re invent the wheel. Maybe focusing on problems internally in his head in regards to terminology, it confuses him. But I think you summed it up pretty well with more southpaws being in MMA than other combat sports due to people's grappling background.
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Orthodox implies the common stance, but that's not actually how we use the term - we use it to describe leading with the left side - in grappling you don't really see them using terms like southpaw stance or orthodox stance - they'll say left foot or right foot forward, but in martial arts terms a southpaw specifically refers to someone with the left hand in the back (this is also true of baseball but I'm not familiar with the sport to say anymore than that)

Woldog said:
Because that was the question/stats that were given.
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Precisely. Looking forward to his next ban and adding his name to my wall
 
I hear you walk on your hands and fight 'em with your feet (put your strongest foot forward and all that)
 
AndyMaBobs said:
Yes, MMA is currently a strikers sport and to argue that it's not is to be willfully ignorant. This will probably change again in a few years because the meta of MMA is always evolving and changing.

As for the original topic, orthodox and southpaw are striking terms, MMA orthodox is left hand forward, regardless of the handedness of the fighter + even if you are to appeal to popularity, the majority of fighters in the UFC are still orthodox fighters, this being said southpaws are undeniably more common than in other sports, because of the influence of grappling.
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It's not a strikers sport, that is an illusion when the majority of guys have wrestling backgrounds.
The UFC pushes more striking though as it is more fan friendly.

Orthodox is a boxing term.
This is not boxing. So there is no basis for calling the left lead 'orthodox' in mma.
As noted, kickers may prefer the power leg forward.
Grapplers prefer the power hand forward.
Even punchers often prefer power hand forward with smaller gloves and more power in the lead and the left also.

So to take on board the multiple favourable factors for a right lead in mma specifically grappling and even punching I would argue that is the true orthodox and the first stance a right handed MMA fighter generally should learn.

Left lead is just that, left lead but has little basis to be called 'orthodox' in MMA, either technically or statistically which is fairly even.

But the stance which aligns striking and grappling in MMA would be right lead and thus 'orthodox', the stance which misaligns them would not be.
 
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Oscar de la Hoya was a lefty but fought as a righty and did pretty damn good - and his jab was like a power punch.
 
I also think Mark Hatmaker mentioned this (could be wrong).
 
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