A Question of Skill

A Question of Skill: Analyzing the world of MMA.
Posted by: Marcus

As many of you well know by the time this blog is posted, Anderson Silva has done more than just defeat Forrest Griffin. He outright destroyed a man who was ranked number four in his division, solidifying himself as the top pound for pound fighter in the world.

Seeing the fight myself, I was in utter shock. When it came down to the James Irvin fight, I honestly did not expect Irvin to win at all, mostly because it didn't seem plausible. Irvin was an up-and-comer, but that's not really enough. However, I didn't think Silva would eat him for breakfast. Coming into this fight, there were people out there that actually gave Forrest a good shot at winning this, probably from his submission victory of Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. However, it almost seems to be that may not be enough, as Forrest was made to look like a rank amateur.

Either way, watching that battle I feel like I saw my views of MMA changing in front of me. I went back and watched the Shogun fight, and started thinking of the other all-time greats of the sport. I started to think of how these fighters come up, and are trained. How is it that the greats are forged, and from what?

Though I haven't come to anything definitive yet, I have one main suspicion of what it is that makes a great fighter great. I think that it is the ingrained disciplines brought forth from the one primary style.

With that statement, let me preach on a bit of history. Mixed Martial Arts, when simplified, means exactly what it sounds. A mixing of several styles of Martial Arts, like Muai Thai, Boxing, Kickboxing, Wrestling, Jiu Jitsu, etc. However, here is where I think the problem lies. MMA might be the one sport where the idea of, "Jack of all trades, master of none" may fit best. Fighters like Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans, Chris Leben, and others have a base in something, but it's not as strong of a base as someone like Lyoto Machida (Shotokan Karate), Anderson Silva (Muai Thai), or George St. Pierre (Kyokoshin Karate).

Now, it's not simply fighting styles that I'm talking about here. I'm talking about application of discipline. Machida, Silva, St. Pierre, and others bring with them the disciplines from those arts, and use them as a basis for work ethic and performance, not just how they fight. If you look at Griffin or Evans, and then compare their ethic to the pound for pound greats of the world, it's almost night and day. Not to mention, though someone like Evans does have solid credentials, do you see him apply them very well? No.

Take a look back at The Ultimate Fighter season two. Rashad Evans, whether you like it or not, is still a lazy kid with a lot of cockyness that has no base to it. Though people may say otherwise, there is nothing about his career thus far that would lead a person to think that he is capable of being either a great martial artist, or considered a pound for pound good fighter. Many of his fights thus far have relyed more on Greg Jackson's cornering than Rashad's skills, such as the victory over Chuck Liddell in comparison to the fight with Micheal Bisping, who Dan Henderson (another pound for pound great) was able to destroy. Not to mention that Rashad's record is full of split decisions, which are by no means solid victories. The man was unable to mount a solid fight against a Tito Ortiz that seemed to be fighting at twenty percent of his capability.

It is this lack of true martial arts discipline that we may be seeing in many fights in the future against the pound for pound greats like Silva, Machida, and others. I predict that we'll begin to see men simply defined as mixed martial artists (Rich Franklin, Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans) start to drop like flies against men with solid disciplines coupled with MMA training to counteract other styles. It may take a man like Shogun Rua using the close range discipline of Muai Thai to give Lyoto Machida a fight that will go past round two. It evidently takes an amazing wrestler like Dan Henderson to give Anderson Silva a fight worth mentioning. It may take Minotauro Nogeuira, one of the greatest Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu artists in the world to dethrone an amazing wreslter like Brock Lesnar. It's hard to say at this point, because we're just seeing the beginning. The clash will probably begin at UFC 104, where we see Machida vs Shogun.

I have begun to believe that we have hit the Lyoto Machida era, but not so much in the sense that Lyoto Machida may have an amazing title run, but that we'll begin to see fighters with strong backgrounds rise up in the ranks much quicker, and have better careers. We'll more than likely also see fighters with strong backgrounds that have been focusing too much on strict MMA training instead of their core (Wanderlei, Shogun, Ortiz) get back to basics, and reclaim the old fires. Wanderlei needs to do it, Ortiz seems like he's trying to, and Shogun seems to have already done it, evidenced in his defeat of Chuck Liddell, literally punching him into retirement.

What I pray, from this point on, is that we see the final push that MMA needs. All fighters to consider their core strengths, and not simply try and be a jack of all trades. The examples of the pound for pound best are all out there. Fighters now simply need to wise up.