TUF 3: The Thread

[Lei Tong 0]

Bisping brutalized him, as expected.

 

The remaining fights and outcomes since last week have been pretty easy to deduce.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

The one thing I don't get about TUF, why they insist on including fighters who...shall we say...aren't that good. There is enough talent out there to put all kinds of great guys on the show, but instead they have a few really good fighters, a few medium guys, and a few cans.

 

Just makes no sense to me, since the cans are always going to be targeted first, making the first few fights less then spectacular.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Because its a reality show.

[KingPK 0]

The guys beatboxing in the van to drown out Kristian's poetry was classic.

 

Shamrock is looking worse and worse as a coach as the season goes on. Hey Ken, time off doesn't help when you waste practices having the team just watch yourself on tape. I think Tito knows this and is going to start needling Ken about it, leading to that scuffle next week.

[AmericanDragon 0]

I think Tito knows this and is going to start needling Ken about it, leading to that scuffle next week.

 

That scene never happened. The editors of the show just created it like Arnold vs Ventura in The Running Man.

[randomguy 0]

About BJJ and Gracie, there are a bunch of factors at work.

 

1: Gi's no longer allowed.

 

2: Kindney heel kicks while in guard no longer allowed.

 

3: In early UFCs refs would not stand up fighters on the ground who weren't working.

 

4: A lot of early UFC fighters had no submission experience.

 

People say that fighters have evolved a lot and they certainly have, but most people vastly underestimate the role the rules changes have had.

 

In early UFCs you can get in guard, grab your Gi sleeve and keep a guy pinned to you forever while you heel kick him in the kidney over and over and over again until he starts bruising badly, blood starts pooling and his body starts to just give up.

 

Also it takes a lot of energy to try to work out of a guard, so guys would tire themselves out accomplishing nothing.

[starvenger 0]

Shamrock is looking worse and worse as a coach as the season goes on. Hey Ken, time off doesn't help when you waste practices having the team just watch yourself on tape. I think Tito knows this and is going to start needling Ken about it, leading to that scuffle next week.

It's kinda funny, because you'd figure roid boy the nutritionalist would be the low point of the training regimen.

[Lt. Al Giardello 0]

Bisping striking is awesome.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Ken is trying to have his guys avoid injuries, and it's a pretty good strategy especially if Tito is killing his guys in training.

[Lei Tong 0]

Well considering a number of his fighters are raw prospects who could use the actual training... Ken popping a boner as they watch his video package is hardly the thing these guys need. Luckily for him, Kalib & Herman will be relatively unaffected by this ordeal.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Well here's the thing - the guys who are in there aren't going to improve dramatically in the time they are there. The guys who are good are going to stay good, the guys who are bad are going to stay bad. The good guys are going to thrash the bad guys. So why train the shitty guys? And more importantly, why work the good guys to death when the odds of them getting hurt are much greater than them improving in this setting?

[naiwf 0]

Ken is trying to have his guys avoid injuries, and it's a pretty good strategy especially if Tito is killing his guys in training.

 

Yeah but Tito's guys are killing Ken's in the octagon. Aside from walking through the pretty boy tomato can who had no business being there in the first place, none of Ken's guys were even threats to winning their fights. What good does it do if you're fresher heading into a fight if you're not at all prepared for it?

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

But there are certain things you can do there that will help guys, it's not like the coaching is completely useless. Cardio and strength training are two of the main things. For Ken to completely avoid this and not have his guys stay in shape is retarded. It showed that Kristian suffered big time from not improving his cardio. Tito is not training his guys hard, he's training them smart.

[Lei Tong 0]

Well here's the thing - the guys who are in there aren't going to improve dramatically in the time they are there.

 

For a number of these guys, even the relatively short training camp that the whole thing becomes can dramatically improve their chances of winning the competition, which is a much more realistic goal than them becoming great fighters.

 

The guys who are good are going to stay good, the guys who are bad are going to stay bad. The good guys are going to thrash the bad guys. So why train the shitty guys?

 

Because they have an obligation as coaches. Regardless of why they signed up to be coaches, a lot of these guys are looking forward to the opprotunity to work with them and hopefully pick up a thing or two about the fight game. From the sound of it, you'd rather have them just sit around the house all day with random fights every few days.

 

 

And more importantly, why work the good guys to death when the odds of them getting hurt are much greater than them improving in this setting?

 

As I mentioned already, their training works as mini-training camps for the fights. Rotharmel, Nichels & Hutcherson weren't training outside becuase they were bored; rather they realized that outside of learning the techincal aspects of the game (which they already know), good training is going to keep them physically fit and prepared for their matches much better than sitting around doing nothing is.

 

Thus far, Tito's biggest detractor may be that he's pushing his fighters too hard. However, outside of a freak accident that occurred during some admittedly ill-time rolling, his guys seem to largely appreciate the intensity and thoroughness of his workouts.

 

Ken, on the other hand, has only proven how little he knows about coaching fighters (as though the large gaping holes in the games of most Lion's Den fighters wasn't enough):

 

- He admittedly knows little about BJJ, yet fails to provide a BJJ coach.

- Brought in a little-seen boxing coach, who even if of good quality, fails to address the need for a more well rounded striking game.

- Also brought in a nutrisionalist who, questionable dietary advice aside, seems to provide little to the team as a whole.

- In spite of his "understanding" that these guys need not overtrain, he fails to find a good balance, provinding little training at all and then going apeshit when the injuries he hoped to avoid actually do become an issue.

- Fails to command any respect from his team, who have actually worked with guys quality enough to know his ways are asinine.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

I am not saying I necessarily agree with Kens training methods - I'd choose Tito's camp any day of the week, but part of that is because Tito knows more than Ken and is more well rounded. I am not saying Ken is the best coach, and I am not even saying Ken is a good coach (the nutritionist is a laugh). I am just saying, I see his point in regards to giving his fighters time to rest and not push them to injury and it's a good one.

 

Kristians conditioning would not have improved enough for him to go one full round, let alone 2 with Bisping. You don't just improve your ring shape in 3 weeks. And it's not like Ken is totally ignoring them, either. He's just not killing them. If Bisping and Kristian switched sides, Bisping would still slaughter him. The crappy fighters are going to stay crappy, the good fighters are going to stay good. Even if the crappy guys are going to improve relative to where they started, they are not going to get good enough to beat the superior fighters. You can't improve that much in this kind of environment. If you look at the guys who came into TUF and were successful, they weren't successful because of the training they received there, they were successful because coming in they were already good fighters.

[Lei Tong 0]

I am just saying, I see his point in regards to giving his fighters time to rest and not push them to injury and it's a good one.

 

Again, the problem is that Ken has found no balance. Will his light workout schedule keep these guys relatively injury free? Yes. Will it hurt the in-ring performance of some? Yes.

 

The crappy fighters are going to stay crappy, the good fighters are going to stay good. Even if the crappy guys are going to improve relative to where they started, they are not going to get good enough to beat the superior fighters. You can't improve that much in this kind of environment.

 

An argument could be made that Jesse could've avoided Noah's armbar if Ken actually bothered bringing in a BJJ to help these guys, or had the two been on different teams.

 

If you look at the guys who came into TUF and were successful, they weren't successful because of the training they received there, they were successful because coming in they were already good fighters.

 

While no one outside of Koscheck has become noticably more skilled while on the show, it doesn't take much for a fighter to either be hurt by bad training or coaching.

 

Again, you're giving Ken credit simply for not going Matt Hughes on his guys (which is really common sense), while Tito has largely kept his guys uninjured as well as training them better.

[Damaramu 0]

What did Matt Hughes do with his guys? I never saw the second season.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Let's first admit that editing plays a part in shaping things against Ken Shamrock. They have shown the guys having a few days off, but the vast majority of their time there has been training - which they tend not to show. So maybe the guys have had 4 days off, but 20 days of training? You don't really know. I think Ken is just trying to keep his guys in game shape and hope that their previous training is sufficient. He probably thinks he can't tell them anything they don't already know, that he doesn't have enough time with them to make them better as fighters, so teh best he can do is keep them healthy. This has been the approach of the coaches, IIRC, for the past two seasons. One coach wants to mold guys, improve them, and make them better fighters, the other coach thinks the job is already done and its up to him to make sure they are just ready. I know Hughes and Franklin had those dispositions where Hughes was choosing guys who were ready, and Franklin wanted guys he could help improve. The thing with Ken is he just kinda sucks and doesn't really add anything to that other than a bunch of speeches, it seems.

 

I think short-term training can benefit guys who have had little training to begin with - working with Tito will vastly improve Matt Hamills game, for example, which is why Tito is saving Matt for last so he can get the maximum amount of training.

 

I am not a fighter, so I could be wrong, but I would say that when a fighter gets in the cage or the ring, most of the little bits of training go out the window and the long-term training takes over because it has become engrained and is an instinct. A wrestler who has been training for the last month in boxing isn't going to continue to box when he gets punched in the face - he's going to instictually go for the takedown. So in regards to Jesse, a week of sporadic training with a BJJ coach isn't going to make him more aware of avoiding the armbar. To build a reaction like that, to build instincts, I imagine takes longer.

[Lei Tong 0]

1) I learned to properly defend an armbar from the opponent's guard in a day, and had the defense pretty much ingrained in about a week, so I think someone as athletic as Jesse could've easily picked it up in the same time.

 

2) Even Ken's fighters are saying Ken isn't training them right. I'm with them.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Bisping was training with Matt constantly, Matt was continually taking him down. You'd think he'd learn something from all that but then againt Kristian he got taken down pretty easily with some pretty shoddy takedowns. It's easy to learn something when you are predisposed to it, it's much harder when you don't have the mentality for it.

[starvenger 0]

Bisping was training with Matt constantly, Matt was continually taking him down. You'd think he'd learn something from all that but then againt Kristian he got taken down pretty easily with some pretty shoddy takedowns. It's easy to learn something when you are predisposed to it, it's much harder when you don't have the mentality for it.

I suppose the point you're trying to make is that learning a sprawl is more difficult than learning armbar defense from the guard. Which, I dunno. A sprawl is more of a timing thing, while I suppose that defending an armbar is more technique, so it's almost apples and oranges. So if Bisping was more of a BJJ guy, then learning to escape from the bottom was probably easier to learn in one training session than learning to defend a shoot.

 

As for Matt taking him down, if there's any truth to the 100% vs 50% complaints the LHW had about Matt, well, a tomato can like me (and believe me, I spent a lot of time getting beat in my high school wrestling days.) could probably take Bisping down continually in training.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

DAGGER is back, baby. Rory The Jew vs. Ed the Drunk. FanTAStic.

[Guest AndrewisyourHero]

Tito is a genius..he says he's going to beat Ed by having Shamrock injure him during training, and whaddya know?

[jwpeer 0]

Team Dagger is awesome

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Tuck your neck in.

[Lei Tong 0]

"TWO ROUND FIGHT, SON! KEN KNOWS WHAT IT IS LIKE TO HUMP MANABU YAMADA FOR 40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS!" - MSIA

[Guest AndrewisyourHero]

"Yeah. YEAH!"

[Lei Tong 0]

Rory needs to drop an "oy vey!" before he leaves tonight.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

SOLOMON TALKING LIKE A WHITE MAN!

 

SUCCESSFULLY!

 

They need to have UFC 65: Ill Feelings.

 

Bamboo Court.

[Guest AndrewisyourHero]

Dagger! DAGGER! DAGGER!