UFC Fight Night 53 - Nelson vs Story

stiffler123 wrote: »

Not everyone is born with sledgehammer fists and one punch KO power though. Those who are born with it have a huge advantage in mma.

You can get a heck of a long way with practice, trust me.

EuskalHerria wrote: »

Really? I'm white and I can run under 10 seconds.

In 100metres?

Tobyglen wrote: »

Genetics/natural talent,

At a count in 2012, out of 83 guys that have ran under 10 seconds only 1 has been white. Do you really think the black guys are working harder? Natural talent.

I never said genetics don't play a part. We are talking about skills such as grappling and boxing.

The power and fast twitch muscle fibres required to run that fast is genetics, it's not a skill or a "talent". While I wouldn't be as ignorant to say there's no skill in running, it's a much more primal movement than boxing (what we are actually talking about).

To put it another way, hypothetically, transplant Usain Bolts brain into a random persons head. There would be nothing special about their 100m sprint.
Do the same with Mayweathers brain, they won't be the best in the world, but I bet they be a pretty handy boxer.

And, before somebody misses the point again, there are genetic abilities that play a part in top level boxing too. The elite still have these natural advantages - speed, power, stamina, etc. Band that's what separates them from the rest. But fundamentally, the skills of boxing are learned abilities, ingrained over countless hours.
Cathal has poor striking but he's an athletic guy, it's not his weakness because he lacks some genetic ability. At this point he is firmly in the range where technique is failing him. Technique can always be improved.

Ian Whelan wrote: »

I watched the fight again last night. I'm no expert but even I knew Nelson was losing. Surprised more was not said about this advice. The advice he should have been giving was: "You are losing, you have to knock him out/submit him". If I was Nelson I would be a bit pissed off.

I'd like to think that John knew he was losing too. I assumed "keep doing what you are doing" meant "stay calm, takedown if the opening comes, submission". As that was clearly Gunnar's plan of attack throughout.

Regardless of Johns comments. Gunnar obviously knew he lost the 4th. He even if he thought he was 3-1 up, he surely would rather the sub. John's comments were to facilitate this rather than what he actually believed to be true, imo of course.

Ian Whelan wrote: »

I watched the fight again last night. I'm no expert but even I knew Nelson was losing. Surprised more was not said about this advice. The advice he should have been giving was: "You are losing, you have to knock him out/submit him". If I was Nelson I would be a bit pissed off.

Different fighters prefer different coaching methods and a good coach knows how to handle each of his fighters. Some like to get back to the corner and be reassured/calmed down and some need to go back and get a kick up the ass.

In my view Gunni is no fool and was matching Story quite well until that knockdown in the 2nd or 3rd (can't remember exactly). I think he spent the rest of the fight trying to shake it off.

Mellor wrote: »

I'd like to think that John knew he was losing too. I assumed "keep doing what you are doing" meant "stay calm, takedown if the opening comes, submission"

That's bs IMO.

Don't know why people feel the need to cover up his mistake. It doesn't make him a bad coach as it's much harder to judge the fight objectively ringside as opposed to on tv.

Gunni is the most relaxed and calm fighter probably in all of mma.
John kavanagh knows that if he tells him he is losing that he is not going to freak out or let it affect him in any way so there would be no reason to say it if he didn't believe it.

Henry9 wrote: »

But it doesn't.
You don't hear this argument during the Olympics, it's accepted that everyone there is very talented and worked their balls off to get there.

I think the fact that it's a dirty word in coaching circles is either due to coaches managing their athletes psychology so as not to give them an easy way out (fair enough IMO).
Or the coaches think they won't get enough credit.

I'd say usain bolt is something special

DeVore wrote: »

Something very odd happens around the 10,000 hours of practise mark where the routine (be it piano playing to wood turning) goes from conscious thought at some level, to sub conscious routine. (There's a very good book about this topic called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell).

Nothing 'very odd' happens at the 10,000 hour mark.

10,000 hours is just 10 years full time training. Athletes in technical sports would be training 4 or 5 hours a day from their early teens, so all it means is someone of that standard at age 25 has been training away for ten years. The ones who didn't make it to that level jacked it in earlier, so don't have that many hours.

That's not even what Gladwell said anyway.

http://gladwell.com/complexity-and-the-ten-thousand-hour-rule/

He clarifies:

achievement is talent plus preparation

He has talent by the truckload,” I wrote of Joy. “But that’s not the only consideration. It never is.

The point of Simon and Chase’s paper years ago was that cognitively complex activities take many years to master because they require that a very long list of situations and possibilities and scenarios be experienced and processed

You could argue about how 'cognitively demanding' MMA is.

Big Ears wrote: »

This is an excellent article on the amount of practice required to becoming an expert http://sportsscientists.com/2011/08/talent-training-and-performance-the-secrets-of-success/ it also deals with not only some of the flaws in the original study, but the interpretations of the study which have been spouted by Gladwell.

This is a brilliant article. The methodology in Ericsson's 10k hours paper always seemed unsound to me, but it's nice to see the problems laid out so clearly, and especially to see some well sourced counter-examples. The "go play outside" hypothesis is fairly interesting, and seems plausible enough. I guess it's kind of similar to gene-environment correlation, but I'm no expert on this.

There was a paper in Science recently on the influence of genes on students' exam results, and a version aimed at the public is available here https://theconversation.com/how-genes-can-influence-childrens-exam-results-32535.

One of the interesting things though is that in their conclusions, instead of saying "some kids are smart and some are thick", they emphasised that different people learn differently and you shouldn't try to shoe-horn them into a one size fits all model. Taking this to an MMA context, if someone is a strong grappler and for whatever reason their striking isn't stellar, it might not always be the best course to have them working more on their striking. (If this theory holds.)

califano wrote: »

Story looked like a fighting dog. Cruelty etched over his face

Well he had a broken ankle, that'll take the smile off anyone's face.

https://twitter.com/Rick_Story/status/519643022183514112

Doug Cartel wrote: »

Well he had a broken ankle, that'll take the smile off anyone's face.

Good job he isnt a horse.