I had a cool discussion recently about this, so i wanted to share my opinion and just hear yours.
MMA. Basically, when MMA was born it was about seeing which martial arts are better. People only trained 1, so it was interesting to see what works against what and what doesnt. Nowdays MMA is basically a martial art itself that contains specific elements of some martial arts to create the best version possible. Since everyone trains simmilary and everyone trains the same elements, we basically dont see which martial arts are better. We just see which guys are better than other guys doing the same thing.
Strongman was designed to see who is stronger doing weird things. Biggest and strongest came to see who can lift the biggest stones, push cars and do stuff in real world. Nowdays, just like MMA, it is kind of ruined by these guys just actually training for specific movements and tasks. An average âstrong guyâ wouldnt be able to compete because athletes in strongman are now almost âsport specificâ and practice exact tasks every day.
Crossfit simmilar to strongman, has become a sport where people compete in who has gotten better in all the exercises, instead of seeing who is more universally fit.
I know that this always happens when people put effort in it and create something a sport. This is not a topic about that. This is a topic about - do you also feel that these sports have become less interesting, and lost their meaning, therefore its just kind of sad and much less fun?
Or maybe some of you dont agree with me at all?
Disagree with this take. Wrestling is the best art form for MMA which is seen by who the champions of major organizations are.
I agree some fight gyms teach MMA as a martial art in and of itself but those either tend to be unsuccessful at producing good MMA athletes or are gyms which only take in established martial artists who have a background of success in one art.
I also think that the amount of fighters we would describe (in an MMA fight) as an MMA fighter as opposed to a âkick boxerâ, âwrestlerâ, âJiu-jitsu fighterâ etc are slim and none. All MMA fighters cross train disciplines to not have weak spots but we still in my opinion have the majority of fighters who excel in one initial martial art enough for it to still be a âclash of martial artsâ.
I agree with strongman and with regards to crossfit I donât really have an opinion either way
MMA and Strongman were totally about testing your style vs everyone else.
Karate dude vs ninja vs wrestler vs bjj guy. It was awesome. They even wore special outfits so it was easier to see what their style was. It was like the movie Bloodsport or the game Street Fighter II come to life.
Strongman was the same way. Highland games guy vs Armwrestler vs Powerlifter vs Football player. On a range of events, to see whoâs training was the best.
Styles make fights, and the class of styles made things a lot of fun.
There was a novelty to early mixed martial arts, no holds barred, vale tudo competitions. And thatâs what got me interested in the sport. But I still see tons of variation, innovation, and style clashes. Itâs not as stark as it was in 1995, but I donât think that approach was sustainable.
After Royce, everyone knew they needed to at least have some awareness of jiu-jitsu, at a minimum, in order to compete. During the Age of the Wrestler (Mark Coleman,Tito Ortiz, Matt Hughes, Randy Couture) that followed, it became clear that wrestling was the ideal base for the sport. This paradigm was challenged by a new breed of striker that knew enough grappling and wrestling to avoid having to grapple and wrestle (Chuck Liddell is a great example of this). And so on.
Its not what i ment. I ment that by knowing which elements work, we basically train those elements, which takes away from stuff being âmixedâ.
We all do striking, we all do takedowns, we all do some sort of grappling and 80% of the stuff is the same as everyone does.
