Category Archives: MMA

UFC Submissions: Armbar, Kneebar, and Facebar

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UFC 157: Burrell v VillefortUFC 157, yesterday, had a few interesting submissions and submission attempts. Spoiler alert. Ronda Rousey finished Liz Carmouche in the first round with an armbar. I might be biased but, to me, Ronda is just on another level in terms of grappling. Which is why it was surprising to see her almost submitted with a “facebar” (pictured left).

I am beginning to see more and more that you can’t defend a rear naked choke with your face. The force of the crank and the face crush can be just as effective as the clean under-the-chin choke. I couldn’t help but think that Ronda instinctually was not worried about this choke because she wasn’t used to it in judo (where any choke across the face is illegal).

I think Ronda Rousey is the Royce Gracie of women’s MMA. She is paving the way in a sport where technical brutality is the name of the game. It’s tough to do for a woman, because our culture doesn’t seem to like to watch women bloodying each other. Conveniently, Ronda can finish her opponents cleanly and lady-like by breaking their arm. I look forward to seeing her develop in MMA, but I’ll still be that bitter old man who wishes she competed in judo at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics and bring home the gold at both.

Kneebar from Back Control

The other interesting submission was by Kenny Robertson over Brock Jardine in the first round of their welterweight fight. He caught kneebar from top of back control:

kenny-robertson-kneebars-brock-jardine-ufc-157lex-josh-vogel-ufc-157-kneebar-from-turtleI was skeptical and thought that this was just a trick that couldn’t work on a resisting opponent who  knew this submission was coming. But a dear friend of mine offered to demonstrate (pictured left). That’s Josh of (Angela and Josh fame). Speaking of which thanks to them for having us over and making delicious food.

It was a bit surreal to have a black belt kneebar me from back control while wearing jeans and t-shirt. It was like a reminder that this grappling stuff is real and even a seemingly crazy submission might be an effective technique for outside the confines of the sport of jiu jitsu. There was tons of pressure on the spine and tons of tension in the hamstring.

For anyone reading this who is not aware of jiu jitsu, this is the kind of positions that are involved in the sport. Taken out of context, this will probably ruin my eventual bid for president, and increase my mom’s insistence that I find a nice Jewish girl to marry.

Rousimar Palhares: Beyond Good and Evil

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The man known on the internet as Paul Harris, because no one knows how to pronounce his last name and only jiu jitsu people call him Toquinho, is one of the most feared grapplers on the planet. Usually, top-level grapplers and fighters are not scared of each other, but in the case of Toquinho, opponents know that there is a damn good chance they’ll have torn ligaments in their knees at the conclusion of the match.

To me, Palhares represents the good and the evil of a modern day warrior. The “good” comes out off the mat in the many interviews I read and watched when he is introspective, wise, humble, and respectful to the art of jiu jitsu. Here’s an example:

The “evil” of Palhares comes out in the cold ferociousness in his damage of his opponent’s feet and knees. Here’s the thing, it’s not just that his heel hooks and kneebars are always powerfully applied (and with crisp clean technique). The scary part is there appears to be something wrong with him mentally when he is doing it. It’s almost like he is a confused trance. He reminds me of Lennie from Of Mice and Men when he crushes his puppy to death by hugging it too hard. I don’t mean anything by that except that he looks insane, and that’s the scariest thing a fighter could be: insane.

I can’t quite come to terms with what I see as two sides of a great grappler. They don’t seem to be the same person, but perhaps I am too naive about the nature of fighting. Perhaps it’s more than “just” a sport, and a warrior has to be more than “just” an athlete.

 

Top 3 BJJ and Judo Blog Posts of the Week

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I read a bunch of blogs on judo and jiu jitsu throughout the week, and I thought that I’d pick out my favorite 3 every week. First, let me give a shout out to BJJ News (and on Facebook too). They do an awesome job of finding interesting articles and videos on a daily basis.

Here are three posts I liked in no particular order. Check them out, comment, and subscribe to their feeds! Reward informative blogs with your positive feedback. They will appreciate it, and work that much harder.

  1. Are You Consumed With the Question of Why from BJJ Canvas:
    You should always be asking yourself “why” especially when a technique doesn’t work. That leads to a better understanding of the concept behind the technique and in turn helps you figure out how it can work for your style and body type.
  2. Interview with Professor Jacare Cavalcanti from Science of Skill:
    Lots of wise words here from the head of Alliance in US. Including: a team of champions builds “momentum”, and that the job of an instructor is to find ways to challenge everyone no matter how good they are.
  3. Judo Players to Dominate Mixed Martial Arts? from Business/Judo of Life:
    A brutally honest look at judo in MMA from a judo world champion and the mom of one of the star judokas in MMA right now. If your game relies on grips, your throws may not transfer effectively to the cage.

Comparing Top Salaries of Combat Sports

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There is an illusion that since UFC is “fastest growing sport” that its stars would be paid on the level of other professional. That illusion was shattered for me when I found out that the prize money for Chael Sonnen from this weekend was just $50,000 (source). Of course, he perhaps earned over a million dollars through sponsorship deals, but still.

The following are the top earners (based on approximate yearly earnings from their fights alone) from each of the sports in a recent year.

  • Boxing: Floyd Mayweather at $85,000,000
  • MMA: Rashad Evans at $710,000
  • Freestyle/Greco-Roman Wrestling: $0 (unless they medal, then some countries give bonuses. Russia is highest with $100,000 bonus for gold)
  • Judo: Teddy Riner was paid $100K without sponsors and then sponsors bring that up to a about $1,000,000.
  • Jiu Jitsu: ADCC pays $40,000 to the superfight winner. World Pro pays $30,000 to the winner of the absolute and $8,000 to the winner of the division. Ultimate Absolute pays $10,000 to first place. So someone like Andre Galvao who won almost all of these prizes, could earn $88,000 a year.

It’s clear that superstars in any sport get paid well. An example of that is judo’s Teddy Riner. But still, it surprised me that the top 10 earners in boxing still make more than the top paid UFC fighters.

For many Olympic sports, money is not the main motivator, which is why the Olympics often feel like the purest form of athletic competition. There’s something beautiful about a human being sacrificing the prime of his or her life for the singular (and nearly impossible) goal of a gold medal…

The Early Days of MMA

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“In the beginning I was out there fighting on pure instincts, but when they took away headbutts, I had to learn a lot of other skills.”
- Mark Coleman (from the documentary “Smashing Machine”)

It’s hard to believe it but it’s been 19 years since Royce Gracie, the skinny Brazilian in white pijamas, stepped into the cage at UFC 1 and brought the art of jiu jitsu to the attention of the American public. It seems this one event sparked a passion in the minds of many extraordinary athletes that are now high level accomplished BJJ black belts. From reading and listening to interviews, many of them started the same way with a naive optimism: “Hey, that looks easy enough, I can do that.” And with those words began their journey. Many of them quit, but enough stuck with it that BJJ has now infiltrated most corners of the United States.

Lots of BJJ practitioners romanticize those early years of MMA, because (they argue) jiu jitsu at that time was more practical and “pure”. It was more about “self-defense”, or how to defend against, control, and submit your opponent. Royce Gracie exemplified that idea in the early UFCs.

As the sport of BJJ evolved, point-based tournaments emerged and the human chess aspect of jiu jitsu captured the attention and focus of many BJJ academies. Just like in judo, the question of applicability of a technique in a street fight became rarer in the acadamy. Sure “modern” jiu jitsu is still a combat art, but among many practitioners, the focus has shifted to jiu jitsu solely for the sake of jiu jitsu.

I’m a fan and practitioner of sport jiu jitsu and sport judo. I compete often, and I enjoy it for its own sake. When I’m competing, I don’t think “I wonder if this x-guard will be an effective technique in a bar fight scenario.” That said, I enjoyed and miss the time when MMA was less a sport, and more of a brawl. Athletes were not well-rounded, or especially prepared for everything they were to face. It was much more like a street fight, a battle of wills amidst a chaos of punches, kicks, takedowns, and highly unpolished submission attempts.

The above thoughts were brought on by watching a documentary on Mark Kerr. He is the big-hearted brawler, opposite in style and spirit from the elite technicians of today (e.g. Anderson Silva). It made me miss those days, when MMA seemed like an unexplored landscape, and so the fighters were truly stepping into the unknown. It was a battle not a sport, and in that way seemed more pure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HRrEkKidi8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2sP6jQZ1co