What UFC do you like better

[Guest Youth N Asia]

Do you like the old days of the UFC, or the current product?

 

FORMAT, CHAMPIONS, & TITLES

 

Older:

-Tournaments. 8 fighters start a night and winner advances. Alternates are used when a fighter cannot continue to the next round. No weight divisons. Champions were crowned with a tournament or a "Super Fight" held outside of the tourney.

Newer:

-Singles fights. 4 weight divisons; lightheavyweight, welterweight, middleweight, and heavyweight. Ranking system used ti determine title fights.

 

RULES

 

Older:

-Anything outside of biting, eye gouging, fish hooking, and small joint manipulations are legal.

Newer:

-Those same rules are in effect, but now not elbow point shots at the head, no knee strikes to the head on a a downed opponent, and no head kicks to a downed opponent.

 

ROUNDS

 

Older:

-Longer rounds with a short overtime if needed.

Newer:

-three rounds of 5 minutes for regular fights, anf five rounds of 5 minutes for title matches.

 

ROSTER (regulars)

 

Older:

-Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, Olog Taktarov, Tank Abbot, Gary Goodrich, Don Fry, Maurice Smith, Dan Severn, Kimo, Jerry Bohlander.

Newer:

-Tito Ortiz, BJ Penn, Caol Uno, Ricco Rodriguez, Pete Williams, Carlos Newton, Matt Hughes, Pedro Rizzo, Matt Lindland.

 

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Personally I'm digging the more recient UFC. Just seeing what others think.

[Guest razazteca]

I like the recent stuff from what I have seen on the short lived Fox Sports Net show. But I think no time limits should be in place.

 

in the begining it was in all fairness a garbage fed with glorified bar room brawlers like Tank Abbot fighting against this new thing called Brazilian Ju Jitsu. After the Ultimate Brazil and Ultimate Japan shows, the real athletes took over and it became an actual sport.

 

I would like to see more of the new style in DVDs but it seems like UFC is a year or two late when putting out products outside the PPV market rarely making an effort into the retail stores.

[Guest dreamer420]

I have stopped watching MMA now but I did enjoy the UFC when it was all about the one night tournament and weight classes didn't matter. It's too much like boxing now.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

From UFC 12 to UFC 20 it's pretty good. This is about the time when fighters put an emphasis on cross training - but the tournament format hasn't been totally eliminated. It is the last days of Mark Coleman, the rise and fall of vitor belfort, the rise of randy couture, the AWESOME Smith/Coleman fight, TK vs. Rutten, Newton debuting along with Tito debuting -a great time.

[Guest Youth N Asia]

From UFC 12 to UFC 20 it's pretty good. This is about the time when fighters put an emphasis on cross training - but the tournament format hasn't been totally eliminated. It is the last days of Mark Coleman, the rise and fall of vitor belfort, the rise of randy couture, the AWESOME Smith/Coleman fight, TK vs. Rutten, Newton debuting along with Tito debuting -a great time.

Yeah, after the Shamrock/Severn mess ended it got pretty good.

 

The Smith/Coleman fight is just brutal...Mark takes such a pounding, he doesn't give up, but the beating gets worse and worse and he's just getting slower.

 

Early days of Tito were fun to see. His matches against Guy were great.

 

And watching Furrezo (sp?) destroy Tank Abbott was fun to see.

[Guest razazteca]

the Frank Shamrock matches were good

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Yeah, there were some barn burners. Did any of his matches go beyond a minute before his fight with Tito?

[Guest Lei Tong]

People have to understand that with the level of skill and competition nowadays, weight classes and single matches are neccessary for these guys.

 

When the skill level of competitors is so evenly matched (as it should be in any fight), size can play a huge difference. Matt Hughes may be the most dominating WW ever, but he's not going to stand a chance against a Tito Ortiz or Chuck Liddell.

 

Why should we care about the lighter guys? Why should we care if they get a fare chance? Because if we didn't, we'd miss out on great fighters like Caol Uno, Genki Sudo, Tetsuji Kato, Hayato Sakurai, BJ Penn, etc. And any boxing fan knows that the lighter divsions offer some of the most action packed fights ever.

 

As for the tournies: For one, it doesn't prove who's neccessarily the best. Who you face, who drops out, who replaces them etc. makesit all too difficult to definitely say one such person is the best fighter.

 

 

BTW- I like the new UFC.

[Guest razazteca]

but Kimo vs Paul Valens and Vitor Belfort vs Tank and Don Frye vs Tank were won by the smaller fighters by pure speed and skill.

 

But now a days there are no fat bastards......unless you count Bob Sapp.

[Guest Last Warrior]

On a slightly different topic, I have just finished reading brawl and it is really interesting and covers everything you would want to know as a MMA fan.

 

Also for recent MMA, check out my sig.