Tiger Arona & His Awaited Comeback...
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Those who believe in his return are the same type of men who think Osama bin ladin was killed in Pakistan and thown into the sea.
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Our monthly Arona thread!
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Even if you had a time machine to transport Ricardo Arona from his prime during 2003-2005 to the present day, he STILL wouldn't do that well anymore than Ken Shamrock or Royce Gracie from 1993 would do well in 2005.
Arona was really great back then, but MMA has evolved so much since. Back then, a fighter like Shogun, who got back up after being taken down again and again was a rarity. (Fedor and Chuck were the pioneers of being damn near impossible to keep down)
Now? Even mid-level fighters are great at getting back up after a takedown. And we all know how brutally and easily Shogun ran through Arona in the Grand Prix finals in 2005.
Oh, and that's on top of guys now having better wrestling and takedown defense in general. Even Arona in his prime wouldn't be particularly successful.
Arona was really great back then, but MMA has evolved so much since. Back then, a fighter like Shogun, who got back up after being taken down again and again was a rarity. (Fedor and Chuck were the pioneers of being damn near impossible to keep down)
Now? Even mid-level fighters are great at getting back up after a takedown. And we all know how brutally and easily Shogun ran through Arona in the Grand Prix finals in 2005.
Oh, and that's on top of guys now having better wrestling and takedown defense in general. Even Arona in his prime wouldn't be particularly successful.
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"who got back up after being taken down again and again was a rarity."
There were many, but you forgot, Im afraid...
Problem with the 'evolutionists' is that they they didnt pay much attention to the skillsets back in the days...
For instance, watch Amar Suloev´s fights..Might be the GOAT at it.
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You're barking up the wrong tree and making a number of false assumptions. I started watching MMA in 1995, UFC 7, (my username was one of the stars of that event), and have seen every PRIDE match ever televised and every televised UFC fight until 2005.
I love and respect the hell out of the old-school pioneers.
At the same time, I am not foolishly going to dismiss the evidence of my own eyes. Guys today are a LOT better, and it's not even close. There were not "many" fighters then who were good at getting up from being taken down; Fedor, Liddell, and a little later Shogun were essentially it among the elite. Most fighters, even good ones, would mindlessly slap on a closed full guard from the bottom and then suffer for the rest of the round while being pounded.
Ricardo Arona had a great, effective style and skillset for the early and mid 2000s. It would not fare well today.
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I didnt say "watchin", I said "payin´ attention".
Guys like Amar Suloev [Red Devil] was doin´it b4 Fedor or Shogun, impossible to hold him down, and he was realistically a LW fightin´@ openweight, sometimes vs LHWs. And when he did start his career?End of the 1990s.
Who has a more fluid & versatile striking than Amar? From the LW div to the LHW?
Back in the days, he was referred as the very elite of MMA striking, along with Spider, but people forgot or didnt pay attention. And this striker would even work on his ground game and invent submissions [see the Suloev Stretch]!
Other dudes had dynamic grappling, guys like Shogun or Minotau, especially the latter who would work on & transition from a kimura, much b4 hittin the ground, to a dominant position.
Shogun, people forget it, had a Wa-Jutsu Keisyu Kai background, a dynamic guard, always on the move once he reached the ground. You dont see that kind of creative guard these days, even the best on the ground have a somehow bureaucratic one.
Go watch the current LHW div and see how bureaucratic it became, especially grappling-wise.
Sadly, This is a Nu Generation, less skilled grappling-wise, with fewer slick transitions that could lead to a potentially dangerous submission attempt.
Modern MMA [UFC´s in particular]´s fight configuration and judging criterias [Ground Control being the Main Paradigm] make it difficult to commit to such submissions.
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I liked Amar Suloev a lot back in the day. His striking wouldn't even crack the top 100 pound-for-pound nowadays. The main event for tonight's UFC card features two strikers head and shoulders better than he was.
Again, I love and respect the old-school guys, and prefer the presentation and ruleset of PRIDE and early UFC over anything today. However, I feel sorry for you if you can't see the huge strides in technique and skill that have occurred over the last 15 years of the sport, more than half its modern-day history.
Tell this to any serious BJJ competitor or trainer. They will laugh you out of the building. BJJ has evolved almost as much as MMA has.
I would strongly recommend reading this article to gain some appreciation for the differences between MMA then and now. Notice all the old-school guys from back in the day admitting how much better and more evolved the MMA game has become.
https://www.mmafighting.com/2018/1/...uss-biggest-areas-of-evolution-in-mma-in-2017
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What...are....u....talkin....about...
"His striking wouldn't even crack the top 100 pound-for-pound nowadays"
OK, this is laughable and u obviously didnt watch his fights back in the days.
Acknowledge: Suloev, while fightin´@ openweight most of the time, had fluid & versatile striking, great TD, slick judo throws, great boxing defence, seriouz ground game.
I suggest u watch his fights.
The problem is that you´re stuck with this "evolution" idea and are too lazy to do some research about the fighters and their background.
Unfortunately, I keep repeatin´myself in this forum...
The funny thing is that... back in the days, people like you were already talkin´ about "evolution" when this fight was booked:
Castelo Branco was supposed to be BJJ Next Gen by the end of the 1990s... Kopylov was an old veteran...who supposedly knew nuthin about the ground game evolution, as people like you keep saying...
This fight was supposed to showcase the "new MMA Evolution"...
Isnt it amusing?
Bonus:
http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/deconstructing-mma-myths-part-4.3803333/
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What's laughable and kind of pathetic is that you obviously don't watch fighters nowadays. The UFC has over 600 guys under contract, and Bellator is at 200+. Counting the solid guys in Rizin and ONE FC, plus the ones in excellent regional promotions, we easily get 1500+ significant fighters. Would Suloev's striking, which was certainly excellent for his time, be better than at least 93% of those guys?
Not a chance. In reality, he probably wouldn't even crack the top 300 pound-for-pound in striking nowadays. He would still be decent, sure, but nothing special. Suloev in his prime was knocked out by Baroni.
This is pure projection on your part. I don't have any "ideas"; I simply know what I watch, and notice the huge improvement from 1993 to 2005 (which you don't seem to dispute, oddly enough) and then from 2005 to the current day.
Meanwhile, you seem obsessed with the idea that the early 2000's were the pinnacle of MMA and we haven't moved beyond it at all. In the process, you are actually disagreeing with damn near every great old-school fighter of that era, who all mention how much better fighters have become.
But I guess BJ Penn and Wanderlei Silva don't know shit about how MMA has evolved/improved, but you do, right?
THIS is your example? Seriously?
I'm Russian, but Kopylov was a poor MMA fighter who looked completely lost against freaking Mario Sperry and his old-school BJJ.
Also, you probably haven't been watching or keeping track of any MMA during the last decade, but the importance of BJJ in the fight game has vastly gone down. Very few of the new top fighters rely on their BJJ to win fights.
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You´re ridiculous tbh.
"THIS is your example? Seriously?
I'm Russian, but Kopylov was a poor MMA fighter who looked completely lost against freaking Mario Sperry and his old-school BJJ."
>Already in Rings, people knew that Kopylov was physically done: naggin´injuries. Now against Sperry, his age was a whoopin´ 37 yrs old. This is called context, and visibly you have no clue about his Rings & Pride´s context.
A poor MMA fighter? So poor indeed... Did you watch his fights in Rings?
Are you aware about the rumour concerning Sperry´s legs during this Pride fight?
I suggest you go watch Kopylov vs Minotau Round 1... IIRC, in my mind, that was the only round Minotau potentially lost in Rings... And we´re talkin´ about a Prime Minotau, grappling wise [striking wise, his prime was after his Cuban stint, in Pride].
This "poor" MMA fighter managed to be game in Round 1, almost schooling Minotau.
Obviously, Kopylov was too old & broken to sustain this pace in Rd 2, and gassed badly.
The fight ended with a Majority decision in Minotau´s favour: 2 Draws & 1 Judge gave it to him.
I always use this Castello Branco fight as an example to check the poster´s knowledge. It´s a very short fight and clearly there´s no excuse to miss the main point concerning MMA grappling evolution. But like all 'evolutionists' here, u missed it.
It´s indeed not only about a mere rollin´kneebar, there´s somethin else essential.
Anyway, even if it were only about a mere rollin´kneebar, who can do this shit these days? Artem?
"Meanwhile, you seem obsessed with the idea that the early 2000's were the pinnacle of MMA and we haven't moved beyond it at all. In the process, you are actually disagreeing with damn near every great old-school fighter of that era, who all mention how much better fighters have become. "
> Well, technically in this interview here, Arona is sayin the opposite...
This interview says it all. I personally consider Matt Hume of the most respectable minds in this game. He saw it all, did it all.
Moreover, you have to read btw the lines, and understand what is truly at stake:
Essentially:
In ol´school orgs like BJJ vs Luta Livre [challenges], IVC or WVC, even 1st UFCs, u would see more GNP, even from strikers and BJJ dudes...
The game momentarily changed thanks to Pancrase, Rings and Pride 1st era [till the knee-to-a-downed-opponent rule, technically], due to specific rules/fight configuration, and a talented generation willing to create cross-training teams, and adapt their game to a new fight configuration, technically more demanding than Pride 2nd era or Modern UFC.
Technically, the BS about fighters 'evolution' you´re spittin is a ..lazy .myth.
U should pay more attention to the evolution of:
1- The rules
2- Fight Configuration.
3- The fact that the Open Weight System had a great influence on the evolution of the skillsets/gameplans.
Note: "MMA boxing" indeed HAD to evolve [becoming less lousy],
with more quality sparring, more focus on footwork since less Open Weight fights.
The openweight fight configuration had an essential influence on the type of boxing required.
Can you understand that an undersized dude had no gain in workin on his jab if he had to fight at openweight?
I guess not..
"Also, you probably haven't been watching or keeping track of any MMA during the last decade, but the importance of BJJ in the fight game has vastly gone down. Very few of the new top fighters rely on their BJJ to win fights."
>OK, you obviously dont know what you´re talkin´about. BJJ is not only about subz...[sigh]..
Ground control has become the new paradigm these days. Obviously you dont understand the correlation btw BJJ & Ground control, Im afraid...
I mean, this is basic knowledge, all decent MMA hardcore fans know this since Hickson´s run in Vale Tudo Japan.
Moreover, even if you would only stick to the limited perception of BJJ as submissions, this is still about fight configuration:
Modern MMA [UFC´s in particular]´s fight configuration [time limit / short rounds] and judging criterias [Ground Control being the Main Paradigm, no reward for submission attempts] make it difficult to commit to particular submissions [leglocks/armbars]
This is what a recent [BJJ-based] UFC fighter said:
“If I’m at the bottom, it’s a waste of time to throw up submissions. It’s better to get back on my feet."
Got it?
"The UFC has over 600 guys under contract, and Bellator is at 200+. Counting the solid guys in Rizin and ONE FC, plus the ones in excellent regional promotions, we easily get 1500+ significant fighters. Would Suloev's striking, which was certainly excellent for his time, be better than at least 93% of those guys"
Lazy post. You´re not aware of the NHB market back in the days.. Many fighters had few opportunities, fewer events, few tournament spots. Didnt mean these fighters didnt exist.
Now, you´re talkin about statistics related to Suloev´s striking. But guess what? As I said, his fluid striking, much more versatile than most of these 1500 fighters, was deemed as top notch, elite, close to Spider´s level. Would you say that Spider´s level is lousy compared to these 1500 dudes?Laughable, right?
You obviously didnt watch his fights, so please, do so, and pay only attention to one thing: Im not gonna send u watch any special HL, but pay attention to his striking defence, a much more subtle way of assessing someone´s skill.
Remember: he was realistically a LW (IIRC he was about 171 lbs in his 1st fight vs Semenov, obviously never cuttin´ weight) and was fighting @ openweight most of the time.
This is where your quote about:
"Suloev in his prime was knocked out by Baroni. " shows your lack of serious MMA knowledge, Im afraid.
But indeed, you probably didnt even watch the fight...
Suloev was completely schoolin´ and destroyin´Baroni, but after a knee to the head, the ref saved Baroni, Suloev then kept on maulin him till he chose to go for a [legit,no diss] armbar where he lost position.
Jus´ like against Semenov 1st fight, Suloev was completely dominatin´, then somehow made a 'rookie' mistake that cost him the fight. But you probably didnt watch this fight either, right?
Jus´like Semenov 2nd fight, who would have won the rematch, according to ya?
By the way, why didnt you talk about the fact that he had the balls to challenge a natural LHW like Lidell?
Did you watch this fight? Can you assess what Suloev did, on the striking level?
Tbh, I doubt it.
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Perhaps you would like to see a rematch?
