Owner Real Deal Posted August 6, 2009 Owner Report Share Posted August 6, 2009 UFC toss the weight classes aside and go back to its roots...why not? State your stance on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smitty Posted August 6, 2009 Report Share Posted August 6, 2009 Think it's fine the way it is. Makes the fights more even, and fair. Plus it'd feel kinda weird to see something like GSP vs. Brock Lesnar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Built Ford Tough Posted August 6, 2009 Report Share Posted August 6, 2009 I wouldn't like it at all and it would probably turn me off from the sport to be honest. If there were no weight classes, all of the fights would be too predictable. The bigger and stronger fighter would simply take the fight to the ground and just overwhelm the smaller fighter with strength and power. Basically every single fight would be like GSP vs. Penn 2 (Penn has no place at WW but his ego leads him to believe otherwise) but even worse because there is a chance that you would have somebody like Tito Ortiz, who is a big, strong LHW with brutal GNP, fighting somebody that he outweighs by like 50 pounds in Gray Maynard or Clay Guida or any other LW to be honest. It just wouldn't be fun to watch and everything would be the same. I know that somebody will probably bring up Royce Gracie beating guys like Kimo and other huge dudes back then, but you have to realize that the sport is entirely different now. Back then, it was more of a style vs. style matchup. The fighters were really only versed in one specific aspect of MMA like wrestling, boxing, kickboxing or BJJ and that turned it into a fight that was more about what aspect of martial arts was the best. That is why a guy like Royce Gracie, who would be a Welterweight if he fought now, was able to beat big brutes like Kimo. Back then, BJJ was a relative unknown and people didn't study it at all and Royce was able to do things that other fighters had never seen before because a lot of them had no idea what BJJ even was and sure as hell never studied or practiced it. In todays MMA, you are no longer able to get away with being a one dimensional fighter and the fighters are regularly training every single aspect of MMA. Back then the fighters were sepcailists and not true Mixed Martial Artists. Now, all of the best fighters are the guys that are well versed in basically every single aspect of the sport. Just look at guys like GSP, Anderson Silva, BJ Penn and Lyoto Machida (coincidently, all Champions in their respective divisons). All of them have a world class attribute to their game (Silva and Machida are elite strikers, GSP is an elite wrestler/GNP and Penn has elite MMA boxing and BJJ) but they are all dangerous everywhere. GSP is the best MMA wrestler in the world probably, but he also have good BJJ, great kicks and is a dangeorus fighter on the feet. Penn is a fantastic boxer and an amazing BJJ practitioner, but he is also a good grappler and well rounded everywhere else. Anderson Silva just may be the best striker in all of MMA, but he is also a BJJ black belt under the Nogueria brothers (some of the best BJJ fighters ever, and very hard to get a black belt) and lastly, Lyoto Machida is a fantastic striker, but is very dangerous off of his back as well due to his BJJ. Some people will try to argue by saying that Lesnar is nothing more than a wrestler, and you have a point, but he is also relatively raw and just a freak of nature. He is a physical beat with amazing strength, but he is agile as hell and very explosive. One thing that I saw from him in his second fight against Frank Mir though, is that he made tremendous strides in his BJJ defense and was able to nutralize Mir's BJJ which shows that he too is evolving. With todays fighters all being well rounded (for the most part) and train all of the major aspects of MMA on a regular basis, I would hate to see them get rid of the weight classes because it would basically turn MMA into nothing more than having the bigger and stronger fighters overwhelm the smaller ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owner Real Deal Posted August 6, 2009 Author Owner Report Share Posted August 6, 2009 Yeah, but you guys wouldn't like to see someone like Silva take on Lesnar? Or even GSP and Silva? And yes, Gracie is different. There won't be another Gracie for a long time (he's still undefeated in my book). Maybe UFC could hold a PPV that contained a three-fight (per contender) tournament to determine the champ of champs. Interesting? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Built Ford Tough Posted August 6, 2009 Report Share Posted August 6, 2009 Yeah, but you guys wouldn't like to see someone like Silva take on Lesnar? Or even GSP and Silva? And yes, Gracie is different. There won't be another Gracie for a long time (he's still undefeated in my book). Maybe UFC could hold a PPV that contained a three-fight (per contender) tournament to determine the champ of champs. Interesting? I don't have a problem with guys like GSP or Anderson Silva moving up in weight classes to MW or LHW respectively but I would definitely not want to see somebody like Anderson Silva fighting Lesnar. I also was never against Penn moving up to WW (although I do think he should stay at LW). I am completely fine when you have a fighter from Bantamweight (135 pounds) move up to Featherweight (145) or a FW fighter moving to LW and so on and so forth. Basically, having a fighter moving up one weight class is fine with me (aside from LHW because they would still be way too small in my opinion), but I would not be interested in seeing somebody like BJ Penn fight Lyoto Machida again or have a HW fight a MW and things like that. I don't know, moving up one weight class is fine, but anything other than that just doesn't appeal to me but I can defintely see why some people would like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Malone Posted August 6, 2009 Report Share Posted August 6, 2009 The reason there are weight classes is because it makes it more even and fair. If you remember back when UFC started where they had no weight classes or anything no tv-stations wanted to endorse it because it was so violent and it was running out of business. That's when dana white came in and bought it with his one business partner and added rules and weight classes. And now its the fastest growing sport and UFC is gettting better and more known. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owner Real Deal Posted August 6, 2009 Author Owner Report Share Posted August 6, 2009 Just so we have an understanding here, I'm actually against eliminating them altogether. My dad and I had this discussion the other day (he's a big UFC fan), and we both agreed that a PPV that uses the tournament-style fighting that they had back in UFC 1 would be great. Maybe just a one-time thing, for fun, or once a year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest N4S Posted August 6, 2009 Report Share Posted August 6, 2009 I like the weight classes better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Built Ford Tough Posted August 6, 2009 Report Share Posted August 6, 2009 Just so we have an understanding here, I'm actually against eliminating them altogether. My dad and I had this discussion the other day (he's a big UFC fan), and we both agreed that a PPV that uses the tournament-style fighting that they had back in UFC 1 would be great. Maybe just a one-time thing, for fun, or once a year. I'm not going to lie, that would be something that I would watch, but again, I just can't help but think that all of the fights would basically be similar where the bigger fighter would just overwhelm the smaller fighter on the ground. I would definitely watch it though and it might be fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billt chamberlain Posted August 7, 2009 Report Share Posted August 7, 2009 (edited) i know hardly anything about the ufc and hardly watch it, but if i knew some 300 pound brawler was versing a 145 pound technical fighter, i'd pay to watch that. you can't lose. either the big guy beats up on the little guy, or the little guy uses his brain and skills to outwork the big guy and defeat him. but since you guys are fans of the sport, i could see why you wouldn't like that because it gets a bit more personal for you guys, whereas im just in it to see some guys get their asses kicked. removing the weightclasses would probably be like making one big league in which nba teams, wnba teams, nbdl teams and euro teams all came together and battled each other equally for a championship. of course the big nba teams would be favorites to win it all the time. i remember i saw this youtube vid that i think was from something called pride fighting or something but it was between two black fighters. one was huge and his arms were like tree trunks and the other guy was big, but couldn't compare to the other guy. it turned out that the big guy was really limited on skill and all he could do was swing(swung really ugly) and use his power to effect the other guy. im not sure who won, but it was entertaining seeing some big [expletive] guy go against the smaller one(no bully). Edited August 7, 2009 by billt chamberlain Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Malone Posted August 7, 2009 Report Share Posted August 7, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOx9vRVVRQI fast forward to about 1:40 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest N4S Posted August 10, 2009 Report Share Posted August 10, 2009 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/233841-divisional-dominance-good-or-bad-for-the-ufc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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