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Khairan said:
It's actually been quite an interesting progression over the years. Back in the day, the earliest fights were between different types of martial artists employing their various disciplines against each other. You would have sumo, boxing, kickboxing, etc. being pitted against one another.
Rocye Gracie was credited with introducing the concept of jiu-jitsu, and famously was able to defeat fighters much larger than himself employing the style of brazilian jiu-jitsu developed by his family. The Gracie victories woke up the MMA world to the extra dimensions a fighter gains when he becomes adept in "ground" techniques, and fighters began to train in multiple disciplines to try and round out their repertoires. It is a truism that controlling WHERE the fight takes place is the key to victory in an MMA match, and frequently grapplers and ground experts are far better at exerting this control than pure strikers. Even some of the most successful strikers today (a well-known example being Chuck Liddell) are well known for their excellent take-down defense.
It should also be understood that initially MMA (at least in the UFC) was no holds barred competition without weight classes. The nature of fighters has evolved as the rules themselves have, but today the best fighters are the ones who have mastered both striking and "ground game," because they are comfortable no matter where the venue takes them and are more capable of pushing less well-rounded fighters out of THEIR comfort zones.
This is a long answer to your question, but ultimately I think grappling and jiu-jitsu is more effective against striking than vice versa, but only if the striker has poor defense (which is frequently the case). I've seen excellent ground fighters get dominated by opponents whose striking was superior simply because they were unable to either get their opponent to the ground or to control him once down, and on their feet they were helpless. Marcus Jones (who I mentioned above), was knocked out by a fighter much smaller than himself simply because his striking is quite poor and far inferior to his impressive ground skills.
Rocye Gracie was credited with introducing the concept of jiu-jitsu, and famously was able to defeat fighters much larger than himself employing the style of brazilian jiu-jitsu developed by his family. The Gracie victories woke up the MMA world to the extra dimensions a fighter gains when he becomes adept in "ground" techniques, and fighters began to train in multiple disciplines to try and round out their repertoires. It is a truism that controlling WHERE the fight takes place is the key to victory in an MMA match, and frequently grapplers and ground experts are far better at exerting this control than pure strikers. Even some of the most successful strikers today (a well-known example being Chuck Liddell) are well known for their excellent take-down defense.
It should also be understood that initially MMA (at least in the UFC) was no holds barred competition without weight classes. The nature of fighters has evolved as the rules themselves have, but today the best fighters are the ones who have mastered both striking and "ground game," because they are comfortable no matter where the venue takes them and are more capable of pushing less well-rounded fighters out of THEIR comfort zones.
This is a long answer to your question, but ultimately I think grappling and jiu-jitsu is more effective against striking than vice versa, but only if the striker has poor defense (which is frequently the case). I've seen excellent ground fighters get dominated by opponents whose striking was superior simply because they were unable to either get their opponent to the ground or to control him once down, and on their feet they were helpless. Marcus Jones (who I mentioned above), was knocked out by a fighter much smaller than himself simply because his striking is quite poor and far inferior to his impressive ground skills.
Those then are the two broad categories of technique? Grappling/ground vs striking? I've always thought of grappling as sort of a telltale sign of inexperienced fighters. I only say that because whenever I've seen a bar fight or something, the two guys always end up in this stalemate man-hug until someone breaks them up or they get tired. That compared to examples of experienced fighters in real world situations who are able to end a fight before it begins with one quick blow.
So this is kind of interesting - it seems like an almost controlled experiment to see what actually comes out on top. I say that realizing that there's never going to be a definitive "kung-fu beats kickboxing, aikido beats kung fu"... but it still seems like it's distilling down what actually goes into a fight and what's more successful.
Does anyone know some of the all time best fights that I can search on youtube?
