Opinion Unpopular opinion - Nothing seperates Eastern from Western fighters apart from the mentality

[StonedLemur]

Caucasians combine top technique, top training and top mentality. Murrkans have good technique, good training but are too unstable emotionally.

Hey, im not emotionally unstable....im an asshole but a stable one, at least I can admit it sir lol.

 

[Bojka]

I doubt there is any difference. Like Brock said, you need to be half crazy to be a pro fighter. And the typical person in any nation isn't going to have what it takes.

 

[fedorthegoat777]

Not in the UK.
In the UK all employees have deducted (automatically, no choice, no opt out) from their gross salary a "National Insurance" payment of 9% (plus US$240 equivalent per year).
This 9% National Insurance payment essentially funds UK Healthcare. (the NHS).

Then ON TOP of that is income tax deductions (usually automatic, at source, each month).
Top rate of income tax in the UK is currently 45% ! Yes income tax is banded, like almost everywhere. Lowest income-tax bracket is 20%.

Also... not only does the employee pay 9% of their salary every month for health-care, the employer pays 13.8% as well. So that's almost 23% funding of every employee's salary to fund the health service. and it's still pretty bad service.

it is NOT free. Everyone pays, throughout their working lives, every month of every year.

I cannot speak for Norway's system, so I defer to others for that.

Wow. That's rough. Must be hard to go to work with the government taking half your money. I read somewhere the people historically revolt when it crosses 50%

 

[FIghtxIQ]

Even the playing field, allow knees and kicks to downed opponent. Grappling is a very safe space to avoid strikes with the exception of ground and pound. Things would be very different if all strikes were allowed. Many strikers benefited from this in PRIDE and ONE. Grapplers can also benefit from this, they have used knees on grounded opponents to their benefits. The rules handicap strikers a bit, so it's just something that benefits the sport/rules aspect of mma where grapplers have the advantage in the sport/mma rule set. Things would be more balanced if knees/kicks were allowed to a downed opponent.

 

[chs140]

It's almost like societies that value tradition and manliness are tougher than woke gen z with his/zer painted fingernails.

Sorry, my fingernails are shit. I use nail hardener to keep from losing my nails all the time. Sue me

 

[FIghtxIQ]

I hate to admit this as an American but Eastern Euro fighters are far superior to us and even the rest of Europe. They're not just great fighters but also tough sturdy men in the traditional sense. Men in America are busy taking selfies and worshipping women on Instagram who don't even know they exist. Meanwhile monsters like Khabib are wrestling bears from a young age and growing up in literal war zones. These Eastern Euro guys have no choice but to be tough. Just look at what's happening right now in that part of the world with Ukraine. We Americans have no fucking clue about conflict and suffering the way those guys do. So when we find ourselves in a cage staring across the ring to fight one of these guys in a silly spectacle like a cage fight we predictably fold to our Eastern Euro superiors. A cage fight is a joke to these guys, they see real life and death shit while we cry over the price of beef. Khabib, Islam, Yan, Chimaev, etc. We just can't F with these guys on a real life human level. That's why they will continue to dominate

Depends on where people grow up. A lot of urban war zones in USA, like Chicago for example.

 

[Marfa]

Former Soviet republics inherited a culture of sports as well as well-developed training systems in disciplines that work great in MMA. The sports tradition is well alive today and people can compete at a high level from an early age up to adulthood before transitioning to MMA (if they can or want to).

The A-level/Olympian/DIV-I athlete hype about good ol' USA fighters is what we get from a lot of these Eastern bad hombres yet annoucers rarely talk about it. If the guy has an International Master of Sports in Judo, Wrestling and Sambo, that's one resilient SOB; and having been through some tough shit in their previous sports, they are ready to get a decent paycheck for once.

 

[NoSmilez]

Places with culture of combat sports produce combat athletes. It is as simple as that. It isn't magic.

 

[FIghtxIQ]

Im talking about the flurry of puches danis was landing on Kahbibs skull as Khabib proceeded to lower his head and extend and flail his arms at what looked like an attempt to defend himself, before being pulled apart, which Khabib seemd glad for as he walked away while Danis was still livid and trying to get to him. I also never saw Khabibs foot touch Dannis.

Danis didn't throw any punches. Danis had a huge black eye after that. All Danis did was try to clinch and grab Khabib while they were getting pulled away from each other. That's why there wasn't a mark on Khabib's face after but there was one on Danis's. Danis hasn't won a single street fight lol. He's taken all Ls and they are all on video online.

 

[TheMaster]

Sorry, my fingernails are shit. I use nail hardener to keep from losing my nails all the time. Sue me

LMAO classic comment

 

[dwightschrute111]

Hard times create strong men
Strong men create easy times
Easy times create weak men
Weak men create hard times

This is the cycle of history. The Eastern Europeans are somewhere between the first two bullets. Westerners are between the third and fourth. Add to this the fact that there's a campaign of very specific actors at the highest levels of the corporate world in the West who have been on a campaign to feminize and secularize Western men for decades, and the result is a generation of guys with soprano voices over here.

The three main champs are of African descent but all grew up and trained in snowflake Western countries

F outta here with that dumbass quote than Joe Rogan made famous, came from a shit book in 2016 not some ancient factual wisdom

 

[BBMN]

The biggest difference I have heard of from fighters, is that Russian / Chechen fighters that come from a wrestling background do grappling drills moreso than other fighters.

 

[Yellowcrab]

I guess all that hype is based on 3 names : Khabib, Makhachev and Khamzat.

Let's see if Makhachev and Khamzat perform as well as Khabib (a proven champion).

 

[AndrewGolota48]

How many eastern European champions are there?
Oh yeah zero.
What exactly is making them tougher?
Because they currently have a hard to figure out style that is allowing them to be dominant?
So were Brazilians better fighters and tougher men back in the founding days of the sport?
Stupid ass thread

Yeah by many of the replies in here you'd think the sport has been completely taken over. You've got Khabib obviously as the ultimate outlier, and then Islam and Khamzat (and if you're counting Yan) who look like they may be the next coming, but after that there are some good fighters but none that freakishly dominate or anything.

There's a handful of great outliers almost like Africans right now with Ngannou, Usman, Izzy.

 

[Marko Polo]

I guess all that hype is based on 3 names : Khabib, Makhachev and Khamzat.

Let's see if Makhachev and Khamzat perform as well as Khabib (a proven champion).

I’m really not buying into the hype here, but I think Khamzat has all the tools needed to be the greatest of all time. Think about what he’s done so far, the skill set he has displayed (against admittedly low level competition) he has all the tools. One thing that’s yet to be tested is his cardio in a long drawn out fight. You can’t even say “his heart hasn’t been tested” because like Khabib we have seen that fighters can have a successful career whilst never being in any actual trouble at all. He doesn’t really have to have heart. Heart is for inferior fighters who have to dig deep.

But yeah, providing he stays on his current trajectory, I can’t think of a more impressive fighter.

 

[Yellowcrab]

But yeah, providing he stays on his current trajectory, I can’t think of a more impressive fighter.

JJ was already a champion at 23 years old. Khamzat is 27 years old...

 

[Marko Polo]

JJ was already a champion at 23 years old. Khamzat is 27 years old...

Jones is a proven cheater

 

[Yellowcrab]

Jones is a proven cheater

No... unless you speculate : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Jones#Failed_drug_tests

In this case, i can speculate too that most of them use something.

 

[XNYHCX]

Most of them probably had fathers.

 

[moosaev]

I think being raised in war torn 3rd world countries breeds fighters that have zero compassion, who would have thought it

This aren’t deathmatches, it’s a Mixed martial arts matchup televised to millions for entertainment

Fighters like Khabib, Islam, Armen etc, they don’t care about taking their opponent to the depths of despair. It’s like none of these guys ever go through this in training so they have no empathy towards it. I heard someone once say that to be a good champion you have to be the hammer and the nail, but these Eastern European fighters seemingly train as the nail all year round, there’s probably a few guys in the gym constantly pissing blood from all the beatings. It’s like a heavy front runner mentality. They don’t entertain a back and forth fight at all

From a spectacle stand point, dominance is impressive in itself. Khabib proved that you can be very successful on the back of dominant performances.

But fighters like Wonderboy, McGregor, Condit etc Those kind of guys are always gonna be beaten by wrestle heavy grapplers. And it boils down to what do you wanna see in an entertainment business. This isn’t a sport let’s just get that out the way, sports are regulated, mandatory title shots etc… but it boils down to whether you want style over substance

Personally I just want to see the best guys fight under the ruleset. But fighters who are showmen, they’re doing that for you, they’re literally handicapping themselves to be more entertaining.

I don’t think these grapple fuckers should be celebrated as much as they are, it’s to the detriment of the product (imo)

Khabib and Islam didn't grow up in a war torn area, that's a huge misnomer that Mixed molly Whoppery helped spread. Dagestan is extremely safe and stable, there was a brief incident where Chechen insurgents would make occasional raids into Dagestan in the late 90s early 00s, but people make it sound like Iraq or Syria, it was never that.