Re: Boxing Freak Show
 

[ QUOTE ]
FYI:

K-1 Kickboxing rules

K-1 MMA rules





Biting.
Attacking the membrane (eye, nose or mouth).
Head butting.
Attacking the groin.
Direct attacks to the throat with fingers/hands, such as attacking or grabbing the throat.
Striking the back of the head, the spine, and/or the medulla of his opponent. (The back of the head is the centerline of the head; the side of the head and the area around the ears are not considered as the back of the head).
Elbow attack s to the head or the face of the opponent.
Attacking fingers (grabbing three or less fingers is not allowed)

Exhibition of ill-mannered behavior or a malicious attitude


UFC rules

Butting with the head.
Eye gouging of any kind.
Biting.
Hair pulling.
Fish hooking.
Groin attacks of any kind.
Putting a finger into any orifice or into any cut or laceration on an opponent.
Small joint manipulation.
Striking to the spine or the back of the head.
Striking downward using the point of the elbow.
Throat strikes of any kind, including, without limitation, grabbing the trachea.
Clawing, pinching or twisting the flesh.
Grabbing the clavicle.
Kicking the head of a grounded opponent.
Kneeing the head of a grounded opponent.
Stomping a grounded opponent.
Kicking to the kidney with the heel.
Spiking an opponent to the canvas on his head or neck.







So, yeah, most of the stuff you allude to which would be a factor in a true no-holds-barred fight are illegal in these matches. Apparently there are organizations that have no-holds-barred fights where nothing is against the rules, but I'm sure you'd never see any of these top martial artists in bouts like that.




[/ QUOTE ]


The portions of the rules you cited are a good blueprint for how to behave in a streetfight. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Re: On a side note to John...
 

Heh, this will get me rambling for a while. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Yep, I competed in the same thing in the '70s and early '80s. I didn't train directly with those guys. (did make it to part of a Wallace seminar once... I based a lot of my kicking on his approach.) When I first got into karate (kenpo at the time) Lewis and Norris had retired not long before from competition. Wallace transitioned into full contact not long after that. Lewis was great. Everyone knows Norris (who was great too!), but few realize that, arguably, when he was competing the very best fighter was probably Lewis. He delved into sparring strategy much more deeply than most. I thought that was cool.

For several years I trained in Phoenix, first in kenpo, then in a pretty much style free environment with friends. No big names there, though I used to see a lot of the big names at the Internationals in Long Beach, sometimes at bigger tournies in Phoenix or elsewhere. Here and there I saw people like Norris (usually just providing commentary and such by then) Howard Jackson (whose style I tried hard to emulate early on), Steve Sanders (later Muhammad, I think), Steve Fisher, Dan Anderson, Ernie "Radar" Smith, Steve "Nasty" Anderson, Tayari Casel, various Urquidez brothers, Darnell Garcia, Pete Rabino (probably Arizona's best toutnament fighter ever), Texans like Ray McCallum, Al Francis, etc. Anyway, the list goes on.

To ramble on a bit more (don't get to talk about this stuff too often anymore! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ): As for my own training, in college I used to work out at the school of a Roy Kurban student named Dan Swenson. It was a Tae Kwon Do school, but he was a very open sylist, as I was, so I fit right in. After college I went up to Portland and trained for a while with Dan Anderson, then ranked around 4th in the country in tournament fighting. (He was good enough to beat Keith Vitali to win the Mid America Nationals one year.) I'd seen him at a tournie in Phx. and loved his tactical style. I improved a lot by working out with him. Sometime after that I linked up with an old kenpo buddy, Kenny Blanch, in Las Vegas. He'd transitioned to an open style too, by then helping to run a school of "American Karate." He was one of the best tournament fighters in the West at the time, having been rated near the top in the region for some time. He was pals with Eddie Newman (a hot shot fighter from that time... got to spar with him once, though he was out of shape and not what he'd once been) and John Natividad. I think both of those guys still have schools in Vegas. I got my black belt from Kenny then moved, not much later, to San Diego. Here I trained for a while with a Norris black belt, Irving Hoffman. He wasa highly rated West coast fighter and was, and still is (at about 50 I guess!) really good. Worked out a few times with "Nasty" Anderson at "Chicken" Gabriel's school here in San Diego. (Anderson was the #1 ranked tournament fighter in the country for a number of years. Gabriel was excellent, and a cool guy too.)

When I wasn't working out in one of the venues above, I had an old karate buddy from Phx. who happened to be in Denver while I was in Boulder. With him I'd work out anywhere and everywhere. Used to spar in parks, at boxing gyms (got kicked out once... I think they didn't want the kids getting interested in karate sparring and defecting. [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]), in garages, school athletic fields, college gyms - you name it. He and I are still friends.

Ultimately grad school required so much time that karate fell by the wayside. Actually, I think I welcomed that at the time as I was struggling with a dislocating shoulder, and had flirted with quitting a few times as I feared brain damage from head shots. It was a great sport though, one that's really so interesting, yet so unknown outside of its practicioners. I actually used to wish they could somehow divorce it from its self-defense underpinnings and just turn it into a pure sport, a kind of fancy game of tag. I use to like watching it more than any other sport, and thought that somehow that might help it grow as a professional spectator sport. Oh well, it was great anyway to get into that kind of shape, to have one's body feel that agile, and to be able to see those guys who were like the idols of the sport. Sometime I should post an interesting karate story or two. There were some memorable times!

Re: Boxing Freak Show
 

Wow, that's a lot more rules than the UFC started with. I think at first the only rules were no biting and no eye gouging.

Re: Boxing Freak Show
 

I'm sure there are a bunch of MMA/UFC guys who would *love* to get in there with Tyson. You summed it up well.

To remark on a couple of things Boris and HDPM have said: Royce Gracie is thought to be kind of over the hill now, though I think he did win a recent match against Judo's Yoshida, no? Anyway, there should be other, younger fighters who'd do better than Gracie against Tyson. I don't think it takes all that much training to learn to get inside a puncher and get him on the ground, certainly not much compared to the overall amount of trainging the better MMA guys go through. As one option, think of a fast collegiate wrestler's double leg takedown. I doubt Tyson could get a decent punch off before he'd be down. But a lot of the MMA guys would use other tactics as well.

As for HDPM's comment about grapplers rolling around a lot, etc. Yes, when they compete against each other, that's what it is. But those who compete against stand up fighters train in getting past the punches.

Re: Boxing Freak Show
 

Bear in mind that while there are all these rules in UFC now, styles like Gracie Jiu-Jitsu are very much street tested. I've seen videos of Gracies going to the beach in Rio, for instance, and goding some local bully into a fight. It didn't last long. Similarly, they've had a standing challenge for years (well, used to anyway) that they'd take on anyone who claimed to have a superior "style", the rules open to negotiation. They had a number of takers, and sometimes it was no rules other than that perhaps someome would step in to prevent someone from being killed. They didn't lose those challenges. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was, if I'm not mistaken, basically designed as a street fighting method, adapted by Helio Gracie from traditional Jiu-Jitsu and Judo to "solve" the problems presented by the street. (I may be a little off on that, but I think it's the gist.) Of course you're right that nothing's perfect, and when you have to take on multiple assailants, stand up fighting does indeed have major advantages.

Re: Boxing Freak Show
 

"Tyson would kill any of the UFC guys. I'd bet the farm on that."

Well I would doubt that. A bigger, strongler grappler would probably get Tyson on the ground without getting hurt too badly in the process, then lock him up and be able to bite both of his ears off at his leisure.

Re: Boxing Freak Show
 

[ QUOTE ]
A bigger, strongler grappler would probably get Tyson on the ground...

[/ QUOTE ]

Up to a point, even a smaller weaker grappler would do so, I'd venture.

Re: Boxing Freak Show
 

Yes.

My own vision of the ultimate martial art would be a combination of Kickboxing, Thai boxing, and Grappling/submission holds. All distance ranges are thereby covered. Elbow/knee strikes are very important in that certain range, and I would guess are probably the most neglected in any of the standard martial arts except Thai boxing.

My limited experience is in wrestling, judo, jujitsu, a little aikido, and a little boxing (just to round it out--I do think boxing hand techniques > karate hand techniques, overall). I never really got into karate because for some reason it seemed to bore me.

Don't know much about Jeet Kune Do but I would hesitate to underestimate it. Also I have heard from a couple of black belts in Kung Fu that Kung Fu takes by far the longest to get a black belt in, but at the highest levels it is the most powerful martial art. I do know that the kung-fu punching I tried seemed more unnatural than the karate punching, especially when moving forward punching continually, but the black belts told me that is part of why kung-fu takes so long to get really good at--it is less intuitive. I have also heard that Tae Kwon Do is the quickest to get a black belt in. Also, I think reaction time is critically important and a generally underestimated factor. Balance is key too and I love judo for the balance and falling it helped me integrate.

Anyway it's an interesting subject, and IMO it will be too bad if Tyson won't agree to UFC rules;-)

Re: Boxing Freak Show
 

Boris,

Looks like you'll be able to wager plenty of farms if Tyson ever has an MMA match against a top fighter. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Boxing Freak Show
 

correct me if i'm wrong clark but i think boxing's rules actually *gasp* hold back mike from doing things he would like to do