Signings/Scouting WMMA Discussion #29

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

Shevchenko has little power in her hands because of how she throws. Never uses her legs or sits down on any of her shots. Differences in upper/lower body power between genders become less pronounced through training. References available upon request/when I get home from work.

Shevchenko was just one example. Maybe they become less pronounced, but it seems pretty clear to me it's still significant.

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

Shevchenko has little power in her hands because of how she throws. Never uses her legs or sits down on any of her shots. Differences in upper/lower body power between genders become less pronounced through training. References available upon request/when I get home from work.

Like it's not just arms, it's upper body in general. Men are so much more broad then women, but their leg sizes tend to be more comparable.

 

[aerius]

Honestly, after seeing Aldana not too slowed down by those calf kicks, I'm starting to wonder something. Women in general have much less upper body mass then men, but their lower half tends to be of a more comparable size. The differential between leg strength and arm strength is more pronounced in women then in men. Valentina can't knock out shit out her arms, but her head kicks can put someone out as bad as anyone we've seen been knocked out.


My point is that because women have to carry less weight around on top then men, maybe calf kicks just aren't as effective on women?

It's not a physiology problem, it's mostly a technique problem. Low kicks aren't particularly well developed in WMMA and even the women who do have good low kicks generally use them to score points instead of doing damage. Joanna & Valentina for instance use their low kicks as rangefinders more than anything else, the kicks are thrown for speed and they don't really turn their hips over to drive them through the target. Amanda Nunes can throw damaging low kicks at times but she usually waits until she has her opponent shelled up before unloading a hard one.

We'll see a lot more women getting their legs gimped once they learn good technique and commit to their low kicks instead of the tentative taps we see too often these days.

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

It's not a physiology problem, it's mostly a technique problem. Low kicks aren't particularly well developed in WMMA and even the women who do have good low kicks generally use them to score points instead of doing damage. Joanna & Valentina for instance use their low kicks as rangefinders more than anything else, the kicks are thrown for speed and they don't really turn their hips over to drive them through the target. Amanda Nunes can throw damaging low kicks at times but she usually waits until she has her opponent shelled up before unloading a hard one.

We'll see a lot more women getting their legs gimped once they learn good technique and commit to their low kicks instead of the tentative taps we see too often these days.

If you say so.

 

[Eater of Souls]

Like it's not just arms, it's upper body in general. Men are so much more broad then women, but their leg sizes tend to be more comparable.

Maximal power output is correlated to the peak cross sectional area of a muscle, yes. But peak power output of a single movement correlates mostly with neurological factors which have nothing to do with the size of a muscle, group of muscles or physical structure.

 

[Eater of Souls]

Since I am still not home where I have endless days of this on my hard drive, think of it like this: Talent pool size. Judo followed by BJJ (may have changed by this time but Judo actually used to have more women competing) have the largest talent pools, then arts with limited striking followed by pure striking based arts including kick boxing. The talent pool in women's boxing is not even a puddle. So few women competing in boxing that a great athlete with shit technique can win multiple world championships. Take Holly Holm, for example. Distance control is terrible, starts punching combinations from kicking range, hips are too square and there is too much weight on her front foot (yes, she won multiple world titles and does not even know how to stand correctly). This is why she has no power on her left straight, for example.

It does not help discussing the issue here when people seem to think that punching = boxing (I have never seen most people in this thread do it, though). How punches are thrown in boxing differs from TMA because, well, all of the focus is on striking with the hands so over time the methods of developing power are the most developed here.

Men in general spend more time focused on striking based arts so by law of averages alone more skill is developed, all other things being equal.

 

[Xuh]

Kuzyutina has some high-level sparring partners

 

[PurpleStorm]

My theme of the card: Low kicks - no can defend. It was pretty funny watching half the fighters on yesterday's event get gimped by low kicks.

Lipski finally became what we hoped she'd be when she came over from KSW. She finally found a good balance of being aggressive without getting overly reckless, she's trusting her TDD & ground game while doing good work in the standup. What I really liked was the clinch work, she went hard to the body with knees and always tried to get free hits in when breaking the clinch, far too many fighters simply reset instead of getting in the free hits. Always get the free hits in, this was a Joanna trademark during her run. Also liked the left kick to end her combos, none of them landed clean until she had Casey hurt, but once again, it doesn't hurt to get free hits in if the opponent is still in range. Overall, I'm liking how she's finally developing as a fighter, whoever's training her is doing a good job.

As for Aldana, why couldn't she fight like this against Nunes? There's a decent chance she could've melted Amanda, of course, also a decent chance she gets flattened but it beats trying to have an outside striking match with the 2nd best striker in the division. Really nice to see her back and go "fuck it, Just Bleed!!", lots of women have looked broken after losing to Amanda so it's nice to see Aldana isn't one of them. Low kick defence needs work though, she would've been in deep trouble if Rosa had stepped in a bit more to connect with the shin more often instead of her foot. Also, body work. Left hook to the body bailed out Aldana in this fight, it slowed Rosa down, had her hurt, and opened up gaps for the rest of Irene's punches. She needs to keep fighting like this if she wants another title shot.

Finally, Rosa. I don't really remember any of her past fights which is unfortunate because she looked pretty darn good here. She had the right idea of low kicking the shit out of a boxer and it almost worked too until Aldana cranked up the pace & pressure. I think her key mistake was ending her combos with a low kick then resetting for the next sequence instead of immediately following up the kick with more strikes while Aldana was off-balance and out of stance. It'll be interesting to see how she does in her next fight, definitely keeping an eye on her.

Hey aerius thanks for another great year of posting these wrap ups. I always read every word of your posts and reflect on them to gain further understanding. Your posts enhance my appreciation of mma.

The second photo of Aldana and Rosa in the hospital together is my mma photo of the year. Hugging & grinning past chipped teeth and bloody faces. Respect.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to another great year of this subsection. Our patience has been tested with the move to the needed new server. They are still fixing bugs. It's getting better every week. Blows me away how many posters keep on truckin' and keep on contributing. We enjoy the banter. We've been bloodied but not broken. Happy holidays to everyone here and to all your loved ones!

 

[teddy078]

I dunno about that, she has really good precision and placement. If she could just make some adjustments she could basically become the female Alex Pereira. She fought like that because she was incensed by her last, unimpressive performance and had something to prove.

I haven't seen her percision from any of her fights. She is trained well and has good-looking boxing basics.

But she doesn't have the talent which great strikers need. She can't pressure oppoents who has good footwork since she has little awareness of space, so she can't trap her oppoents like Nunes. And she doesn't have fast reaction time to be a great counter-striker, that's why she always fails in the long-range engagement.

She was clearly intimidated against Nunes. She fought like this because she wanted to wash her hands of that pathetic performance. She had something to prove.

The fight was going badly for her in Round 1. If she didn't start to brawl in the pocket, she would get her legs kicked for 3 rounds and fail to land enough punches to rise her hand.

 

[MajorTB]

Since I am still not home where I have endless days of this on my hard drive, think of it like this: Talent pool size. Judo followed by BJJ (may have changed by this time but Judo actually used to have more women competing) have the largest talent pools, then arts with limited striking followed by pure striking based arts including kick boxing. The talent pool in women's boxing is not even a puddle. So few women competing in boxing that a great athlete with shit technique can win multiple world championships. Take Holly Holm, for example. Distance control is terrible, starts punching combinations from kicking range, hips are too square and there is too much weight on her front foot (yes, she won multiple world titles and does not even know how to stand correctly). This is why she has no power on her left straight, for example.

It does not help discussing the issue here when people seem to think that punching = boxing (I have never seen most people in this thread do it, though). How punches are thrown in boxing differs from TMA because, well, all of the focus is on striking with the hands so over time the methods of developing power are the most developed here.

Men in general spend more time focused on striking based arts so by law of averages alone more skill is developed, all other things being equal.

Hisae Wantanabe comes to mind as someone who built her technique around striking with power.

Kuzyutina has some high-level sparring partners

I enjoy ATT’s judoka to clinch mauler pipeline quite a bit.

 

[leto1776]

 

[PurpleStorm]

Who do you all think is wmma fighter of the year?

I'd say Alexa Grasso.

 

[Jackonfire]

Who do you all think is wmma fighter of the year?

I'd say Alexa Grasso.

I think I agree with Grasso. Godinez deserves a mention for fighting four times this year and winning all four fights.

 

[PurpleStorm]

I think I agree with Grasso. Godinez deserves a mention for fighting four times this year and winning all four fights.

Yeah Godinez had a great year.

Another nominee would be Stamp Fairtex imo.

 

[Mmmmmmma1234]

Yeah Godinez had a great year.

Another nominee would be Stamp Fairtex imo.

Swarez having two fights in one year. Is a huge accomplishment.

 

[PurpleStorm]

Swarez having two fights in one year. Is a huge accomplishment.

For sure!

 

[Brother Numsi]

Who do you all think is wmma fighter of the year?

I'd say Alexa Grasso.

Gotta be Grasso beating Val twice once by submission

Shev is probably the most skilled women’s fighter ever and even the GOAT Nunes couldn’t finish her

Hespect Alexa

 

[Mittens]

It is a hard choice between Grasso and Stamp for me. Val was Val, but Ham had been undefeated essentially as long and had (in my view) better CV during their respective runs. Add to that the triple crown in ONE accomplishment, so I think I have to lean towards Stamp here.

Special Awards:

Best Bloodbath - Aldana/Rosa
Finally I Do Not Have To Invent a Category Cause She Actually Improved - Lipski
Take The Mic Away - Pena is the obvious choice, by far, but she has no reputation or legacy to worry about, so this goes to Salty-Val
Honorable in Defeat - Ham
Combat Sports Moment of the Year - KAIRI back in WWE
Most Endearing Lady Athele - Jessie Diggins

 

[Xuh]

I enjoy ATT’s judoka to clinch mauler pipeline quite a bit.

We've got a bit of an unheralded judo invasion in WMMA at the moment (especially out of Brazil), in UFC alone Amanda Ribas, Luana Santos, Dione Barbosa, Irina Alekseeva and of course Stephanie Egger all having some kind of noteworthy competition judo background.

I guess we'll be seeing more out of France in the coming years too with them making MMA legal and having lots of judo and stuff. Plus several from Japan already since RIZIN spawned a new wave of interest in athletes there (Watanabe etc)

I was gonna add '...so much for BJJ' but there's a mini BJJ invasion in the UFC too: joining Dern there's now Alencar, Amorim, and Kline.

Not so much wrasslin' though with UFC having UNJUSTLY cut Murata, likely after bribing the judges to rob her to give them the excuse to do so to stop her from taking over and holding the belt for the next 10 years if you ask me #FUUFC #DieDanaDie #SlaughterShelby #MurderMaynard

(Sawada looking good but she's too small to break out of azn scene/be in the UFC)

 

[aerius]

Not so much wrasslin' though with UFC having UNJUSTLY cut Murata, likely after bribing the judges to rob her to give them the excuse to do so to stop her from taking over and holding the belt for the next 10 years if you ask me #FUUFC #DieDanaDie #SlaughterShelby #MurderMaynard

(Sawada looking good but she's too small to break out of azn scene/be in the UFC)

Murata's double hammerfist boob smash was too graphic & violent for the UFC and that's why they had to quickly fabricate an excuse to cut her, hence the blatant rigging of the scorecards.