Why is it so hard for MMA fighters to keep their hands up in the pocket ?

Fedora Millionankles said:
Dustin KO’d him in their second fight and Khabib dropped him because, you guessed it, the threat of the takedown.
Anything else you want to be proven wrong on?
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I admit I got that wrong but I'm that one Conor got outstruck , he had his hands up in the pocket but Dustin was changing it up plus Conor was exhausted. That's a bit different.
 
Fedora Millionankles said:
Do you realize that getting taken down by Cain or Khabib was virtually guaranteed to leave you with CTE after the bout. Getting the Big Foot Silva or JDS treatment on the ground is far worse for your career and your brain than a single punch standing.
You sound like someone who won a couple schoolyard fights in your day which has given you and inflated sense of understanding of a sport you know very little about.
How did you get so confident in your ignorance.
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Here comes the adhominem.

Dude , what are you saying? Are you suggesting that MMA fighters are already perfect and they the hands just can't go up in the pocket because of other threats?
 
Aldo/McGregor is not a good example. He got countered mid combo. That's not the same as standing in front of your opponent with no defense.
 
GrantB13 said:
Aldo/McGregor is not a good example. He got countered mid combo. That's not the same as standing in front of your opponent with no defense.
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sean strickland is the perfect example of an mma fighter who keeps their chin high and hands low but consistently fights in the pocket. sean’s pretty good about recognizing punches and bringing his hands up to parry most things but combination punching will destroy that every time.
 
rstringer said:
I get that they have to be wary of a take down at all times but when you make a decision to enter the pocket not getting knocked the fuck out is more important than preventing the takedown.

If you rewatch most of the KOs you will see that it's due to a high chin and hands low in the pocket.

Even seasoned strikers like Aldo make this mistake that's why Conor knocked him out in 13 seconds.

Why is this so hard for MMA fighters to do? I don't get it.
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The striking in MMA is so different to every other striking art. All defensive positions have weaknesses.

Boxers have to think about 2 weapons, so they have more options defensively.
Kickboxers have to think of 5 weapons, have bigger gloves for blocking and can really on throwing hard and getting a chance to reset if they get caught off balance.
Muay thai has 8 weapons to consider clinching and sweeps.

MMA fighters have to be experts in all the above, add in wrestling and submissions and only have the same amount to train as the above athletes all whilst only have 4 ounce gloves to block incoming strikes. Punches make it through a high guard all the time with the little gloves.

Many fighters rely on speed and their own offence to combat the defensive deficiencies in a sport that doesn't reward a defensive fighter.

Go watch Fabricio Andrade vs Johnathan Haggerty for a great example of this at a high level.
 
Mofos need to decide to block the chin, or get underhooks on a shot/clinch attempt
 
To answer the op, lots of reasons.

One I haven't seen stated in this thread yet is; it's hard to even keep your hands up in boxing all the time. It takes a great deal of training to obtain the endurance to keep your hands high for even a round, let's alone as fight. The higher the hands the more it taxes the endurance of shoulders and upper arms. As you take damage, it becomes even more difficult. Being punched in the shoulders, arms makes it much harder (Canelo, for example, purposely aims for upper arms and shoulders for this reason). Being punch in the body interrupts breathing, which reduces o2 intake, which effects endurance, which makes its harder to keep your hands high etc etc. Keeping a high guard is an aerobic activity. A pretty hard one in fact.

MMA fighters have two additional major factors that exasperate the difficulty

1 - MMA fighters are not training striking as often as boxers/Mt fighters. They have to devote training days to the other parts of mma. Its like wondering why a marathon runner is better at marathons than a triathlete.

2 - grappling wears out the upper arms and shoulders fast while draining the fighters gastank at an accelerated rate. Think of GSPs tactic in his 2nd fight with Penn, "Filling the shoulders with blood." Same idea but applied to keeping hands up.

Long story short, it's really hard to keep your hands up round after round in mma and MMA fighters are blessed thier gloves only weigh 4oz instead of 8 or 10, which would make it even harder to keep hands up.

For anyone who is a fan (which is totally cool and in no way a judgement from me) and hasn't trained. Put your back against a wall, hold things in your hands that are between 4 and 16ozs then try and maintain a high guard for 5 minutes. You'll get it then.

I'll leave the other parts to other posters. TDD, range awareness (big reason), lack of skill, smaller gloves etc.
 
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rstringer said:
Well boxing is a major component of MMA and it just a real basic principle, why would you neglect it when it is the one vulnerability that can cause you permanent brain damage and shorten your career ?
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If they were that good at it they wouldn't be in mma most of the time. Yes their striking is usually inferior and when they are good they look like a demi god compared to everyone else. They not only need the muscle memory for keeping the guard up, but shoulder endurance, and foot work to not stand there stationary with 4 oz gloves expecting nothing to get thu. Yes i'd rather chance getting taken down than have my head smashed in. People would be surprised who has fought on here and who hasn't. Many traditional martial arts teach some bad habits from close range too. I used block with my face like Rockhold before going into boxing.
 
The gloves are small which makes the guard up close much more leaky.
 
tasticles said:
This too. Pain and experience are valuable teachers for most.
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I'd love a MMA coach or fighter to let me know why the X guard (the type most famously used by big George) isn't seen in MMA. It's great with smaller gloves and unlike a shell allows you to stand square.

I wonder if it has to do with making defending tdds or the mechanics of under/over hooks. I can postulate reasons but I have no idea and would love a brrakdown from someone in the know. I'd go into the local gym and ask, but I'm very weary of the "we are warriors of god" LDS family that owns and operates it...
 
Happiness said:
I'd love a MMA coach or fighter to let me know why the X guard (the type most famously used by big George) isn't seen in MMA. It's great with smaller gloves and unlike a shell allows you to stand square.

I wonder if it has to do with making defending tdds or the mechanics of under/over hooks. I can postulate reasons but I have no idea and would love a brrakdown from someone in the know. I'd go into the local gym and ask, but I'm very weary of the "we are warriors of god" LDS family that owns and operates it...
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I played around with the x guard and there's nothing wrong with it anymore than stricklands philly shell. The issue is I was using mma adapted boxing with Dutch blocking and Karate techniques as my main striking arsenal. I wasn't wanting re learn a new system that wasn't broken for me. I prefer to just not be there for the strikes but use checks, Dutch blocks, and parrys.

A low based wrestler will shut down the x guard quickly but if you get a guy that will stand and bang it can be adapted. I'm sure there's guys out there that have adapted it. Things that shouldn't work do. Im a little outdated. If i were to put on gloves again I'd probably have someone calf kick me like a girl lol
 
They start out striking wrestlers / bjj guys at mma gyms and start thinking they’re Anderson Silva.

Very cock. Too much cock guys
 
tasticles said:
I played around with the x guard and there's nothing wrong with it anymore than stricklands philly shell. The issue is I was using mma adapted boxing with Dutch blocking and Karate techniques as my main striking arsenal. I wasn't wanting re learn a new system that wasn't broken for me. I prefer to just not be there for the strikes but use checks, Dutch blocks, and parrys.

A low based wrestler will shut down the x guard quickly but if you get a guy that will stand and bang it can be adapted. I'm sure there's guys out there that have adapted it. Things that shouldn't work do. Im a little outdated. If i were to put on gloves again I'd probably have someone calf kick me like a girl lol
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Yeah, I can see how it would making hand fighting etc much harder in mma. Calf kicks suck eggs. I'm waiting for shots to the hips becoming the new in vogue in MMA. They suck eggs too and screw mobility.

Cheers for the thoughtful answer bro.
 
Takedowns are a thing. Boxing isnt the only thing taught. Smaller gloves means more parrying in the pocket as opposed to shelling up. Those with high guards immediately get dumped. Not that much of a stretch imo.
 
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