Help Me Defeat My Friend in the Right

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

First of all - thank you for taking the time to read this and helping me!

Okay. So some weeks ago i was watching UFC 130 with some friends (never seen MMA before). One of them have been training for 1 year. He challenged me for a MMA fight and i accepted (we have always been competitive. Around the 15th of Juli 2012 we will fight (have to pay 1000$ to other if you back out)

Everything is written, signed and set to go.

I’m writing here to gather information to achieve my goal.

About me:

I’m 195 lbs and 6,2 feet. Have been lifting weights for a year.

About my opponent:

150 lbs and 5,5 feet. Have been training MMA for 1 year but not serious at all! (no lifting)
It seems like he LOVES everything about wrestling / grappling in MMA.
Also never had a “real” MMA fight.

So whats the plan?!

Well im going to a school from August till June 2012 - Im going to work there 10-20 hours a week taking care of disabled children, and from 9-16 mon-fri i will have “school” which can be sports, music, art ect. (i plan to take sports)

I will have buffet 3-4 times a day to eat (really good healthy food) + a fridge which is open 24/7 with fruit, milk ect ect.

They have a really good gym and facilities for being really active in general.

So far i plan to:

Lift weights (2 or 3 split program)
Make sledge from a SUV tire to use a couple of times pr. week
Run interval for good cardio
? FILL IN ?
? FILL IN ?
? FILL IN ?
Supplements is good quality protein powder and creatine
EAT A LOT OF GOOD QUALITY FOOD!

What i need is suggestions for what to TRAIN for MMA - articles, videos, books whatever… What advantages to take during better REACH and WEIGHT? Ill get plenty of free time at the school. Of course I’m going to be social but also winning in the ring in 1 year from now is what I’m aiming for!!!

So burst away whatever you feel like to help me!

Thanks!

2

The truth is that unless you are freakishly strong, fast, tough, and athletic he will likely crush you if he is training MMA under a reputable instructor (and doing his sparring/drilling with fellow students) and you are just lifting weights and training from videos, articles, and/or books.

Videos, articles, and books can be great supplemental training aids for someone who is already seriously training, but they are poor primary learning aids for all but the most physically gifted individuals (and even then, those people would be better off training with a qualified instructor).

So, I’d suggest that you:

  1. Seek out and train with a qualified reputable MMA instructor/school

  2. Pick wrestling, judo, boxing, or Muay Thai for your “sport” (which ever is available to you)

  3. Keep lifting weights as tolerated (the other activity will already be heavily taxing to your muscular/recovery systems, so you may have to cut down some, or modify your lifting regime)

Good luck.

3

Dude, you have 50 pounds on him, what exactly are you worried about?

4

The best thing you could do to prepare for an mma fight would be to train mma. There are lots of mma gyms opening up, some better than others, so I suggest you find one and join. Obviously you’ll have a huge height, weight, and strength advantage but if your friend has been training for a total of 2 years by the time the fight rolls around he should know enough to beat you even if he doesn’t lift weights.

5

That he’s sparring with people every week frighten me the most - but its usual 1 minute sparring then break. . . . Having A LOT better physique/cardio than him could be a part of the key?

The school is pretty isolated from any MMA gym. So that will not be possible.

I can pick Judo for sports at the school so that will be my choice. Hopefully theres someone at school with passion for MMA / other combat sport who’s willing to be sparring with me.

Thanks for all your answers so far!!

6

If you want to get good at mma, you need to train mma. Like the above individuals said, you need to find a gym and get on the mats… Your size and strength will be nullified by his ring experience and mma training… However with some basics in the sport you will be able to exploit his physical weaknesses.

Case and point Royce Gracie. Go watch the first couple Of UFCs. He was always out weighed and weaker than his opponent… Granted, Royce was very very trained and a true student of combat. All and all, his performances in those first few UFCs demonstrated that size isn’t the main component to fighting and winning.

7

Jesus Fucking Christ.

8

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
The truth is that unless you are freakishly strong, fast, tough, and athletic he will likely crush you if he is training MMA under a reputable instructor (and doing his sparring/drilling with fellow students) and you are just lifting weights and training from videos, articles, and/or books.

Videos, articles, and books can be great supplemental training aids for someone who is already seriously training, but they are poor primary learning aids for all but the most physically gifted individuals (and even then, those people would be better off training with a qualified instructor).

So, I’d suggest that you:

  1. Seek out and train with a qualified reputable MMA instructor/school

  2. Pick wrestling, judo, boxing, or Muay Thai for your “sport” (which ever is available to you)

  3. Keep lifting weights as tolerated (the other activity will already be heavily taxing to your muscular/recovery systems, so you may have to cut down some, or modify your lifting regime)

Good luck.[/quote]

I agree with this.

9

[quote]duffyj2 wrote:
Jesus Fucking Christ.[/quote]

And this.

10

You are NOT stronger than him, or have better condition. Why? Because you do not train. You don’t spar. Grappling (at least, I do BJJ) is about efficiency of movement. I never gas in training, and we go pretty damn hard at least twice a week. I suspect striking is the same because the few times I’ve dicked around with our MT guys I was gassed as fuck.

What you need to do is train. You’ll need to do some striking and some grappling. Strictly for MMA I’d say Muay Thai or boxing and BJJ.

If you go in with a couple of weeks of boxing or some months of Judo, he will beat the shit of you fast, size difference or not. Unless of course, he sucks horribly.

11

If this is really your priority number one for the following year and you are willing to put in the time and effort to beat the shit out of your friend, cut down on the lifting DRASTICALLY and start training 6 days a week, preferably MMA, but if that is unavailable in the area where you live, try to pick up some good basic sports that work as a good foundation for MMA. Most of these you can find in the posts that are already posted, but given the fact that you have one year to train, I’d go with boxing for standup rather than MT, KB etc., both MT and KB are pretty basic in theory, but when compared to boxing, I think in a year you can benefit far more from boxing (this stuff depends a lot of the gym etc., but from what I believe and know sparring is a much bigger part of the training in boxing than MT and KB and the amount of needed basic techniques in boxing is far smaller than in KB or at least in MT. I’d say its also likely you develop better footwork in boxing), but if that is unavailable any real combat sport will be better than just lifting weights and occasionally practicing some MMA in front of your TV if your goal is to actually get good at it. For groundwork, if I understood correctly your are thinking about doing judo once a week? Not nearly enough if your friend is really taking his MMA classes seriously, try to pick up some wrestling or BJJ on top of that.

Strategy etc. you can weight in later on, year is a fucking long period of time and if you really put in the time and effort you can reach the same level of skills that your friend has if he is not serious at all of his training (I don’t really get what you mean by saying this, is it that he only trains MMA and doesn’t lift or that he trains MMA in a halfassed fashion and doesn’t do shit on top of that). Physique wise you obviously crush him, so just getting where he is skill wise should mean easy win for you.

But then again, if this is just a drunken bet and nothing you are really willing to sweat for, then do what the fuck ever you want to make you feel good about yourself till the day comes, chances are that you are going to get humiliated by your friend so at least make sure not to make a big fuzz out of it and get a shitloads of your friends for spectators :stuck_out_tongue: .

Hope you will be having this MMA fight in an organized event with refs and docs there, if you decide to just fight in you friends basement or backyard you never know what happens if one of you ends up knocked out, even if you signed a contract about this I believe neither of you want to end in a situation with one of you lying in coma for some undetermined time.

12

[quote]MMATHORN wrote:
That he’s sparring with people every week frighten me the most - but its usual 1 minute sparring then break. . . . Having A LOT better physique/cardio than him could be a part of the key?
[/quote]

The thing is that “cardio” is activity specific. I’ve seen Triathaletes (who definitely have good “cardio”) be absolutely exhausted from just getting out on the mat/into the ring for much less than the length of a round in MMA (heck, less than a round of boxing). I’ve seen wrestlers totally gas when asked to box/kickbox, and boxers/kickboxers totally gas when they are asked to grapple. Like someone said above, each activity has it’s own movements/skills which must be trained regularly for the body to become more efficient at them and thus improve one’s “cardio” for that activity.

Yes, you will probably be stronger, but strength without cardio is only going to benefit you if you are able to finish the fight quickly. Once you “gas”, you will no longer have the strength advantage, will make mistakes, and will likely wind up losing.

[quote]
The school is pretty isolated from any MMA gym. So that will not be possible.

I can pick Judo for sports at the school so that will be my choice. Hopefully theres someone at school with passion for MMA / other combat sport who’s willing to be sparring with me.

Thanks for all your answers so far!![/quote]

Definitely go for the Judo. Perhaps the instructor has a school nearby where you can go and put additional hours in at. Or, he/she/other students are really into it and willing to practice/spar with you at additional times other than your scheduled classes.

Even then though, make sure that you do at least some No Gi Judo practice (because not having a Gi to make grips with changes things considerably) and see if you can find any school/one who can teach you a striking art (preferably one where sparring is a usual event like Boxing, Muay Thai, Kyokushin Kai, Joe Lewis Fighting Systems, etc…) and practice that.

Good luck

13

As Sentoguy said, try focusing on takedowns and ground and pound

14

I am friends with both of these dick heads who took up this bet and off course it is retarded, but none the less I’m on UP’s side and I agree with everyone that real combat-training must be prioritized harder than weights.
It’s like saying that you want to beat a guy in basketball and thinks that conditioning and a few inches in height will give you an advantage if the other one actually shoots hoops.

That being said there is no way you can loose the match if you seriously starts to become good at some kind of “fighting”. I don’t know shit about combat, but your opponent is a lazy bastard! Use that to your advantage and go after his jaw - Then its gg!

15

you say hes short and likes to grapple, hes been doing it for a year so i doubt hes amazing so a strength advantage on the ground can still be a small asset you you.

if you think hes going to shoot for the take down you need to punish him savagely when he does so. he probably knows what hes doing well enough to get you down with any solid attempt so id say give him hell throw a big kick or big knee if you can. if not hook or uppercut as hard as you can.

if he takes you down your goal will be to get to your feet as soon as possible, deal as much damage as you can from your back, make him work harder than you
i recommend if he is in your guard try to tie him up and throw horizontal elbows into his head ear neck and top of his shoulders without stopping for as long as hes dumb enough to take it. i have never understood why so many fighters deal so few strikes on the ground. if you have the conditioning be relentless it can throw them off mentally

what the other guys are saying is correct you should seek training i like what sento guy has said

my advice is essentially be relentless and try to put him away early. it wont be what he has seen in sparring use your straights in standup

16

Wear lots of Tap Out and remember to Just Bleeeeeeeeeeeed!

Post vids/pics of this, one of you is going to get their shit wrecked

17

[quote]JaseHxC wrote:
Wear lots of Tap Out and remember to Just Bleeeeeeeeeeeed!

Post vids/pics of this, one of you is going to get their shit wrecked[/quote]

that or affliction with rhinestones and get some tribal tattoos if you decide to give yourself a nick name you might end up going pro

18

I don’t normally chime in here because most of these guys are way more knowledgable than me but I think I have some relevant information.

Three things.

  1. If he is competent in wrestling and grappling, plan to end up immediately on the ground. I’m a PL who also coaches wrestling and still does a few old timer tournaments. About a year ago around midnight (granted drinking was involved) two of my friends headed outside to wrestle. One is a stud 220 PL and the other is an average SHW (weighed about 290 at the time.) The 290#'er thought he was going to win easy. Keep in mind the 220# also coaches wrestling and competes in old timer tournaments. The first match, 290#'er ended up basically getting systematically demolished and pinned in less than a minute. Second time, 290#'er decided to go with a brute force approach which ended up even worse for him. He ended up getting his shirt ripped off him, thrown into some spiky evergreen bushes (momentum used against him) and of all things, because of his body position on attack, set himself perfectly for a headlock and that was all she wrote. He also got the wind knocked out of him for his trouble.

  2. As Sento said, the level of conditioning for combat sports is entirely different than that needed for weight training, field sports, etc. I have an 11 year old son who plays LAX in the Spring and Summer, does some boxing at Top Team, plays football in the fall (both ways every game, almost never leaves the field) and he will tell you right now that he always takes a couple of weeks to get back in wrestling shape. (Boxing helps but it is not his primary activity so his conditioning is more geared towards field sports outside of wrestling.)

  3. Even though your opponent has only been training for a year he is still much more used to somebody initiating contact with him with the intent to physically dominate. Are you? The way you respond in the moment makes a huge difference. If you cannot defend a takedown, not a half-hearted attempt shitty attempt, but shot and followed through well, you are probably in deep shit.

If I were you, I would run through your rolodex and see if you know anybody who coaches HS or College wrestling, or for that matter wrestles, and I would ask if you could come in a couple nights a week to train. Most wrestlers like fresh meat. I would be surprised if you couldn’t get someone to take you up on this and it would probalby cost you nothing. You may have to come in after practice has ended, but so be it. If you walk into this not understanding how to pummel in and defend a TD, you’re likely fugged.

Don’t rely on your level of conditioning from what you have described to be of much help and don’t expect to dominate because of your alleged strength and size advantage because this only happens when all things are basically equal.

Not to mention if he is really training at an MMA gym that’s worth a shit, he’s gonna come in with a combat specific game plan.

Lastly, DreCappa, if you happen to read this please PM me an email addy. I lost yours and I am unable to respond to PM’s. Hope your well, brother.

19

put you thumbs into his eyes and bite/gouge. why not?

20

Judo club. Boxing club. Wash, rinse, repeat. If they meet 2-3x/wk (each) on alternating days and then spar on sat it would be ideal, but no one is that lucky.

Or, if you’re in NC, I’ll train you, but a 6 pack says you’ll try it once and decide to take your chances without the training I’d put you through.