Why are the polynesian fighters so tough? (hawaiins, samoans etc)

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Even with BJ Penn, I suspect his success was largely because the overall talent pool was at a much lower level than it is now and someone like him could get away with not having the greatest work ethic or training intensity. If Bj Penn at 22 years old was making a run in MMA, he could be successful but his odds of being a UFC champ in any weight class, even if he was "motivated", would be slim to none.

Wow, you just crossed the line there buddy. Name a LW now that would nearly beat a GSP and (T)KO Hughes 2 in 3 tries and make a 205 Machida gas at the end of the third?

Were you just waiting for this very thread to pop up cause you seem to be on a tear here.
 
Blows my mind that they even found the fucking things (the islands)

Such small land masses in such a vast ocean... There must have been many voyages into nowhere that led to deaths at sea :icon_sad:

It's probably by chance that they even found all those islands. It's not like they knew where Hawaii was before they landed on its beaches.

Polynesians aren't "Asians." The islands are in the Pacific, but saying they're Asians is like saying Russians are Asians because Russia is located in Asia... :icon_lol:

Where did they originally come from then?
 
Kind of a small sample size. I'm sure that polynesians have super tough and super weak people just like all the other races.
 
i didn't read your post about Medieros, Smolka, Doanes and Kimura. :)

I said their lack of success, after being described as major propects, shows that the idea of Hawaiins being tough fighters is either totally wrong or totally irrelevant if it is true.
 
It's probably by chance that they even found all those islands. It's not like they knew where Hawaii was before they landed on its beaches.

Where did they originally come from then?

Where did all humans orignally come from: Africa.
 
Pacific Islanders are basically descended from a mix of Australoid peoples (related to Australian Aboriginals and Papuans), Asian Austronesians, and more recent European explorers/colonists. They are not some distinct race. They are more of a hybrid of different races.

Anyway, most of the Hawaiians you listed are not indigenous Hawaiians. They are not Polynesians/Pacific Islanders. Only like 10% of the Hawaiian islands are native. The rest are asian, white, or a combination of the two.

And there really aren't that many successful Polynesians in combat sports. So I don't really know what the point of this thread is. Maybe if we were talking about the NFL, I can understand. But MMA? There are only like 2 or 3 decent Polynesian fighters.
 
I said their lack of success, after being described as major propects, shows that the idea of Hawaiins being tough fighters is either totally wrong or totally irrelevant if it is true.

oh, i didn't read that either.
 
During a high school football game we played a team with a samoan DT ( i was a left guard). He was short, but gosh damn if he wasn't the strongest mf I had ever locked up with. Those guys really are beasts, only answer I can come up with is superior genetics/ hormonal balance for strength
 
oh, i didn't read that either.

I also said that other Hawaiins, Tavarres, Kendall Grove, Faalaloto, Noons and Browne and their lack of success in the UFC also proves that the whole idea of Hawaiins having unusual toughness is wrong or irrelevant. Now that you know this, what do you say on it?
 
It's a combination of genetics, socioeconomics (kids who are poor fight more, kids who fight more get tougher), and the physical Polynesian culture (you might say "violence" or "warrior culture", none of these terms really fits perfectly IMHO). I suppose you can throw diet in as well or as a secondary cultural reason.I think socioeconomics are probably the biggest factor (a hundred years ago Jewish boxers were considered "tough" but that's no longer a Jewish American stereotype today (Israeli soldiers of course are among the toughest in the world) but I will elaborate on Polynesian culture a bit:

As a half-Samoan who was raised by white people and has never been accused of being tough I can say that Samoan culture is very physical. Every time I went to my Samoan grandparents house my cousins and uncles were playing football on the concrete cul de sac. My cousins literally couldn't believe that I had never been in a fistfight in my life or beaten by my parents, etc. things that are pretty typical for all of my non-Samoan friends and relatives. My father was regularly beaten by his dad growing up, and used to hit my mother as well, my understanding is that those were pretty common occurences for that generation. As the Samoan side of my family has assimilated more and more you can see less "toughness" in each generation. My uncles were first generation immigrants, were all beaten terribly growing up by my grandfather but most of them were all-state football players. My cousins had it a bit easier but just a couple of them were standouts. My nephews have it even easier -- some of them aren't even into sports, they play x-box all day after school. OTOH they were one of the first families to come to Hawaii from Samoa, there are plenty of newer, poorer, less well assimilated families from all over.

tldr: tough because they do the things that make you tough more often than other groups
 
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It's probably by chance that they even found all those islands. It's not like they knew where Hawaii was before they landed on its beaches.



Where did they originally come from then?

The original inhabitants of the islands nearest to Asia (Indonesia, Philippines, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Samoa, etc) were not "Asian" in the sense that we know Asian to mean today. Rather, they were "black looking" people like Australian Aboriginals, Papuans, Negritos, etc.

Asians migrated to these islands thousands of years after these Australoid groups had already been there. Sometimes the two groups mated, and sometimes the Asians out-bred or killed off the native Australoids (like in the particular cases of Indonesia or Philippines).

The Pacific Islands further away from Asia (Tahiti, Hawaii, Fiji, etc) were more or less settled by a hybrid of Asian and Australoid peoples. That's why some of the inhabitants nowadays look more "Asian," some look more "blackish," and others look a combination of the two.

Later on European explorers came and input their genetic legacy into the mix. So that's why now you have a lot of "white looking" Pacifc Islandser as well. Mark Hunt, for instance, looks pretty Caucasian.
 
Natural selection along with tribal warfare leaves only the strong. For the last millennia instead of becoming weak farmers like the rest of the world they raided and fought.

Much like how to the ancient Romans, Europeans seemed "grossly muscled and over developed" in comparison.

The tougher the environment the tougher the inhabitants. Early hunter gathering humans were beasts compared to modern day humans. Palahares is like the norm for them.
 
It's probably by chance that they even found all those islands. It's not like they knew where Hawaii was before they landed on its beaches?

Traditional Polynesian navigation used wave interference patterns and birds to find islands and stars to keep course. There may have been a good deal of trial and error as people exiled from their homeland were sent off in voyaging canoes and most of them died. The counterargument against that is the massive investment of work and materials needed for these voyages. I would guess people travelling the known routes were occasionally blown way off course by cyclones. Looking for the closest land they followed the birds, waves, flotsam, whatever to new islands, then eventually went back and told everyone about the new islands they found.

http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/231waves.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation
 
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I also said that other Hawaiins, Tavarres, Kendall Grove, Faalaloto, Noons and Browne and their lack of success in the UFC also proves that the whole idea of Hawaiins having unusual toughness is wrong or irrelevant. Now that you know this, what do you say on it?

i think it's a silly point 1) because your notion of hawaiian still somehow ignores bj penn (who is very much hawaiian if not polynesian); and 2) the relative success of those people you mentioned (even if you don't think they're a success) is impressive once you consider the small population we're talking about.
 
Short on brains, thick on skulls?? lol Don't get mad. I know some of you wanted to say that as well.
 
It's still being debated because people like you still believe since he grew up in Hawaii, he must be Hawaiian.

If a cat has kittens in the oven, it doesn't make them muffins.

His mom is Korean, his dad is American/Irish. He's not Hawaiian.

hey jackass, i was born and raised in hawaii and i know very well im not hawaiian.

his dad is part irish part hawaiian. he's said it himself.
 
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