2011 Off topic thread(basketball,movies,etc whatever)

[Svino]

I do think stomps / kicks / knees to the head of a grounded guy are just too dangerous. I'd like to see the definition of "grounded" changed to eliminate a guy in a dominant position or "one hand on the ground" though. That change could possibly happen sometime.

I'd be willing to move to 3 minute rounds if we could just get rid of standups.

I'm not crazy about the judging system, but it's designed to do two things, and it does them about as well as any system could:
1) eliminate draws
2) minimize controversy

[zY|]

3 minute rounds are wayyyy too short.

[MMA_scientist]

Well, I do realize that the rules were not actually created to screw grapplers... I guess I am just tired of defending jj to sherdoggers. Passing the guard is almost a lost art in modern MMA, just because the incentive to pass is diminished. If the top guy can avoid submissions, he can just stay in guard and win the round. "Dominant" positions like side control and back mount are not as dominant because you are not really allowed to do the most obvious strikes from there (knees to head and elbows to back of the head). Even mount loses its saltiness, because rolling over to give your back is an actual option for survival. "Well, I will just roll over and hold his wrist so he can't choke me. At least I won't be getting punched."

And to be fair, the no strikes to the back of the head helps deep half guard players (which is my favorite sweeping position too). They can go to half and bury the face and avoid being hit. But that is why half guard is really a sport jj position. It is now being used in mma, but it is just an exploitation of the rule. On a side note, Shogun has a really good deep half guard, and wrestlers really struggle against the deep half IME.

As for the rounds and scoring, a 10 minute first round would be fine with me. Even I don't want to see no time limit fights. But sometimes I think it would be more equitable to just score the fight as a whole. I mean if you nearly finish the fight in round 1 and then get eeked out in the next 2 rounds, you ought to win the fight. But it is just a nuance in modern mma that I will probably have to accept, because round by round scoring is never going away.

[edman5555]

Well they can't to shots to the back of the head, someone could get paralyzed. It does happen constantly though.

[MMA_scientist]

Watched "Lucky Number Slevin" on Spike the other day. I saw it when it came out and I liked it then, but I forgot about it. I recommend.

[SPX]

Watched Predators last night. Pretty good. And it's got Oleg Taktarov in a pretty big role.

[SPX]

How things have changed in MMA since the beginning. I just started UFC 5 and right at the beginning they say:

"This is not for the faint of heart. It is brutal competition. There may be some blood spilled; there may be some bones broken. It's real. It's live. It's brutal."

Like they're all proud of it and shit.

[MMA_scientist]

yeah, in the beginning, it was like watching "faces of death." It was all shock value marketing. Now they try to be legitimate and avoid that kind of talk. But it is seared in the minds of the public.

For outsiders (non fans), they still remember the old days. That is what a lot of people still associate MMA with. We had a bunch of friends over a few weeks ago that are unaware of my secret life as a bjj enthusiast and mma obsessive. I generally try to hide my bjj habit from the world for various reasons. Anyway, it slipped out and all hell broke loose, it ended with me having to show competition footage, much to my horror. These are mostly my wife's friends and their husbands whom I associate with but I would not call close friends. Anyway, out of the 10 or so people present, only 1 of them knew what gracie jj was. After a labored explanation, they all associated it with either TKD/karate or "cage fighting." The one guy that knew what it was had only seen early UFCs... He was all "OH Royce Gracie! He is a bad mfer." It was both disturbing and amusing. Now they think I am some kind of animal... both because of my interests and because I did not tell them about something I spend many hours each week doing, despite having known them for several years. Good times.

[MMA_scientist]

-James Head def. Gerald Harris via unanimous decision - Xtreme Fight Night 2

2 things:

I guess it was a good cut.

There are good guys everwhere.

[SPX]

^^^ Yeah, I remember you mentioning that story a few weeks ago. I think it's a generational thing. I think that most males under 30 have at least a passing knowledge of modern MMA, or have seen something on TV/PPV at some point. I mean, I was only 12 when UFC 1 came out. I remember watching the first few events, but the ONLY reason I had any idea about the shit was because I was absolutely obsessed with martial arts and I saw the it on the video shelf at Blockbuster. Naturally I had to check it out.

My memory of the earliest UFCs is extemely hazy, though. So I'm going back and checking them out. I might just roll all the way from the beginning to the present, or at least to about UFC 83 which is around when I started giving a fuck again.

I'll probably start a thread with all my random thoughts while I do it.

[Mr. IWS]

X, what was the first UFC you saw?

[SPX]

X, what was the first UFC you saw?

I think it was UFC 2. I thought it was UFC 1, but when I went back and re-watched it none of the fights seemed familiar.

[SPX]

Get this shit: It looked like I was going to talk to Josh Koscheck tonight, but apparently that's not meant to be. Would've been cool, though. He would've easily been the highest profile fighter I've talked to yet.

[Mr. IWS]

Get this shit: It looked like I was going to talk to Josh Koscheck tonight, but apparently that's not meant to be. Would've been cool, though. He would've easily been the highest profile fighter I've talked to yet.

What happened?

[SPX]

What happened?

My editor said he had something set up but wasn't going to be available, and asked if I could cover it. I said yes. But apparently they were able to get it rescheduled for tomorrow.

I was asked to remain on stand-by just in case, though. So I guess it's still a maybe.