"The overall ability has dropped in MMA" - Jon Fitch

[pankrat]

Timestamped

Cliffs:

- Fighters are better athletes but less technically sound than used to because a lot of the ground and grappling training has been abandoned for the show of standup and being flashy to favour the promoters

- Fighters who you can take down and put in bad positions pretty easily because they are just not used to opposition doing it

- There are a lot of guys who have shorter careers because they focus too much in the standup

- "If we (him and Swick) were to come up at this time, we could be as succesful technically...but if you don't sell tickets the way the promoter wants, they have much more control over fighters nowadays. You literally need a certain number of social media followers to even get signed"

I don't entirely agree but let's remind Fitch is a leading fighter of one of the best and most prolific MMA gyms in the world across two decades. Debut in 2002, arguably beat the Bellator champion in 2019

 

[Get To Da Choppa]

Basically he's pushing his style of wall and stall. He's not wrong though as he's had a successful albeit boring career doing this

Kamaru Usman approves of this message

 

[Phisher]

Ehhhh...most camps have figured out best practices in the cage to nullify most dominant, super-technical grapplers.

You don't need to become an expert to know how to avoid getting into certain bad positions.

The fights always start standing, so stand up should be the most important part of your game.

Look at Gilbert Burns. His career took off in the past 18 months because he improved his stand up drastically and moved up to a division were he has a massive speed advantage.

 

[Bend NvR Break]

I said this in a thread I made a few months ago about how the evolution of mma is a myth.

It's stagnant.

 

[Crash Lance]

Before anyone on Sherdog says it: "If you despise Jon Fitch, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Jake Shields, Georges St-Pierre, Yushin Okami, Kamaru Usman, and many other MMA fighters, then you're not a true, real fan of MMA."

Before anyone on Sherdog says it: "If you're a fan of Jon Fitch, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Jake Shields, Georges St-Pierre, Yushin Okami, Kamaru Usman, and many other MMA fighters, then you're a fan of blankets, pillows, sofas, and other furniture."

 

[Frank McEdgar]

Dropped

 

[Bend NvR Break]

Ehhhh...most camps have figured out best practices in the cage to nullify most dominant, super-technical grapplers.

You don't need to become an expert to know how to avoid getting into certain bad positions.

The fights always start standing, so stand up should be the most important part of your game.

But most fighters ended up on the ground so shouldn't you focus on that? Very few fights stay standing

 

[pankrat]

Basically he's pushing his style of wall and stall

Maybe, the fact a conssumate wall & staller is the current dominant champion proves him right though.

Usman is much more of a wall&staller than Fitch was btw, and has more limited ground skills.

 

[Slatersan]

Fitch is just mad he fizzled in to Bolivia.

 

[MyFavSport]

Fitch delusional can crushing blanket

 

[Phisher]

But most fighters ended up on the ground so shouldn't you focus on that? Very few fights stay standing

Obviously, you have to train grappling. My point was that you don't have to become a jiu jitsu expert to survive at the highest level.

There are a bunch of best practices for TDD and submission defense that are being trained as fundamentals for MMA now.

Look at a guy like Reyes. Yeah, he has a couple of sub wins, but his ground game is primarily geared around standing back up immediately no matter what the cost is, and it's worked for him.

 

[DudeBroMMA]

I said this in a thread I made a few months ago about how the evolution of mma is a myth.
It's stagnant.

I think a pretty good argument can be made for this. I think people way overblow how much mma has improved in the last 15 years.

 

[ArmenianAssasin]

Fitch wouldn’t be a top 20 fighter now

 

[Bork Neslar]

Violence > ability.

 

[pankrat]

I said this in a thread I made a few months ago about how the evolution of mma is a myth.

It's stagnant.

I think it evolves but more at a tactical than technical level - definitely not stagnant.
This decade it has evolved a lot in lighest weighclass and WMMA, becuse of money and talent pool.
At heavier weightclass not that much. At HW you could even argue its stagnant

 

[ScarfaceJr]

wall n stall & lay n pray should cause said fighter to lose 50% of their purse.

 

[Paynebringer]

Fitch never really adapted, blame yourself not mma...

 

[pankrat]

Fitch wouldn’t be a top 20 fighter now

He stll was until his 40s, after 15+ years of career.

 

[Mahkor]

Almost fell sleep reading that crap.

 

[Orochimaru 大蛇丸]

I said this in a thread I made a few months ago about how the evolution of mma is a myth.

It's stagnant.

I totally disagree, some of the best guys like Anderson, or GSP would still do very well

Overall from top to bottom of the card, the ability has gone wayyyy up though

Even in the amateur, and lower level shows the guys look so much better than they used to, the sport has evolved a TON in the past 15 years