Intro:
Not
so much rules, as a checklist. One of the great things about fighting arts is
that most fans also train. We run the laps, roll on the mat, hit each other in
the face and come out of it with an understanding of what it takes to do that
succesfully.
Fight
tapes usually have colour analyst's doing commentary. If you don't know that Randleman
is trying to set up a takedown, you can be sure Stephen Quadros is going to tell
you. Contrast this with football where your average fan trains in the pub and
could not for the life of him tell you why Bobby Robson picked a 5-3-2 today instead
of his usual 4-4-2. You can't blame them because, with perhaps the exceptions
of Andy Gray and Alan Hansen, football commentators say 'goooooaaallll' and 'nice
save' and that's about it for analysis.
But
for all this, mma is a complex thing. Magazine write-ups are notoriously unreliable
and tend to reflect the writer's pet tastes rather than the fighter's actual qualities.
Despite fighting being an inherently unpredictable activity, mma is apt to being
analysed and predicted. Guys have records, styles match in certain ways, some
guys are carefully matched while others are thrown to the wolves.
My
aim in writing this is twofold. For newbies, I'm looking to explain the basic
principles to apply when trying to figure out who's gonna win a bout, or why someone
won. For the old sweats, its like a mental checklist to consider before a match
for entertainment purposes. I'm a firm believer that the more you think about
a match before it starts, the more fun it is to watch.
Research
the fighters, make a prediction, then get behind one of the guys. Then when you
see it all unfold exactly how you predicted, you can bask in the glory and adulation
from everyone who could be bothered to listen to you pre-fight. While writing
this, I'm making specific examples (and predictions) about certain fighters. Don't
get too excited if I'm picking your favourite guy as a bad example. If you're
right about him, he'll prove me wrong. Sitting on the fence makes fights dull.
I'm
assuming you have seen enough fights and had enough mat time to know what all
the moves are and when to do 'em. This isn't a technique library. If you are at
the stage where you still think Ken Shamrock is the World's Most Dangerous Man
and Pat Smith was the only real fighter in UFC 2, you mightn't get much
out of this feature.
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