The standard of MMA in Europe ?

O'Leprosy

For those of you who know your MMA, how would you rate the standard in Europe compared to the USA ? If for the sake of argument the USA is 10/10, how would you rate Europe ?
Also wondered, since the Dutch have been so dominant in K1 down the years how come you don't see them much in the UFC ?

filament

i think it comes down to our lack of grappling culture, its especially noticable in ireland and the uk but yeah overall europe hasn't really got a strong wrestling or sambo or shoot tradition nor did we a cool family like the gracies kicking ass and taking names across the eu

i'd give us 5/10 tbh

Pride Fighter

filament wrote: »

i think it comes down to our lack of grappling culture, its especially noticable in ireland and the uk but yeah overall europe hasn't really got a strong wrestling or sambo or shoot tradition nor did we a cool family like the gracies kicking ass and taking names across the eu

i'd give us 5/10 tbh

Thats certainly true in western Europe but in the east wrestling and grappling is huge. Graeco-Roman and freestyle is big in all the former soviet bloc nations as is judo and sambo(think Pawel Nastula and Fedor). There is not enough big MMA promotions in Europe but a lot of small and medium sized ones. I will also give us 5/10.

droc

The Dutch hate grappling, that's why they rarely do well in the UFC. Thai boxing is really dominant over there and there are very few Dutch fighters that are good at both striking and grappling.

DROC

filament

Pride Fighter wrote: »

Thats certainly true in western Europe but in the east wrestling and grappling is huge. Graeco-Roman and freestyle is big in all the former soviet bloc nations as is judo and sambo(think Pawel Nastula and Fedor). There is not enough big MMA promotions in Europe but a lot of small and medium sized ones. I will also give us 5/10.

absolutely, it definitely gets better but over all it's just not great and that's not an inditement of the guys involved in MMA here or anywhere in Europe, it's just clear that on a world level were not exactly in the mix

dunkamania

not really up there, consider Jordan Radev,11-1 in Europe, recently dropped by UFC after two disappointing losses.

Colm_OReilly

dunkamania wrote: »

not really up there, consider Jordan Radev,11-1 in Europe, recently dropped by UFC after too disappointing losses.

Were the losses really that disappointing? How many were there?

Colm
-Useless post

FiannaGym.com

Fedor, european
Cro Cop, european
Congo, European
GSP, "european" haha
Kartinov, european
Alrovski, european

Thats off the top of my head.

Peace

filament

FiannaGym.com wrote: »

Fedor, european Russian
Cro Cop, european supports my point about grappling standards
Congo, European see above
GSP, "european" haha lol
Kartinov, european i've never seen him tbh
Alrovski, european belarus, former soviet union, it's technically europe but it's really grasping at straws

Thats off the top of my head.

Peace

yup

O'Leprosy

filament wrote: »

yup

So, basically, Western Europe is sh!te, and the east isn't much better. A pity about the Dutch, but even if they were into MMA, I suppose the gap in grappling skills between us and the Americans, Brazilians etc is still huge. As for GSP etc been 'European'...... I'm sure their's a few American fighters we could claim under the granny rule

goo

Yeah, what about Forrest "fighting in the homeland" Griffin and Marcus "The Irish Hand Grenade/Celtic Warrior" Davis?? Karo Parisyan lived in Armenia until he was six.
Don't write Europe off so quickly, lads.

FiannaGym.com

I must be smoking crack. You guys dont think Russia/Belarus/Soviet Union are part of Europe? hahaha

If you look at the top fighters in the world you tend to have a mixed bag of nationalities. Of course the UFC has more American names, if you guys watched shooto or rings or pancrase or pride or k-1 you might be asking why Japan is so good.

In Europe there is a focus on striking much more than grappling, in western Europe particularly there is poor wrestling (insidentaly Ireland did have a European Champ) but anyway, people still aim for other sports in a lot of ways. However, if you train the right way it doesnt matter.

It should read:
Fedor, european, Russian (and therefore european, pride hw champ)
Cro Cop, european supports my point about grappling standards (is a top 10 heavy weight, pride GP champ)
Congo, European see above (is a top ten heavy weight)
GSP, "european" haha lol
Kartinov, european i've never seen him tbh (is a top 10 heavy weight)
Alrovski, european (a former UFC champ)

Really this boils down to MMA crossovers, since some of the best wrestling countries in the world are in Europe (Bulgaria anyone?) and the same with striking (Holland, France) so it just comes down towhich countries make the cross over to MMA.

Peace

Scramble

On a grassroots level, what's the situation like- For example, I wonder which countries have the most people participating in MMA training, per head?

Roper

Wanted: MMA forum debaters. Leaving cert geography required.

Belarus is in Europe filament. East or West it's still Europe.

Ultimately you have to look at the geography of opportunity too. Take Wes Simms as an example. That guy wouldn't get on most cards but he's fought in the UFC by virtue of training with a reknowned team and being American. Other more talented European fighters don't get the sort of opportunity that American guys get because they're not on the radar locally. When it comes to filling an undercard who are Zuffa going to pick? A European who they have to fly in and pay for or a guy who lives a couple of hundred miles down the road who they can vouch for?

Nothingcompares

The only thing I'll say on this topic is that sometimes there's a guy in TUF or the UFC who technically I wouldn't rate that highly. But he's in superb physical condition, really strong, fast, explosive etc. In a lot of sports, a lot of the time the difference between a good guy in the lower league and a decent guy in the higher league is the level of physical conditioning not skill. Of course the best guys are always physical monsters and technical gurus. Watching Melvin Guillard from TUF2 and despire having a 40 something fights on his record, seemed technically deficient, at least on the ground. However, physically a monster. I know he's improved a lot technically since then but it illustrates one of the differences between a 70kg fighter on the UFC circuit and the Irish circuit, size and strength.

ryoishin

theres more cash thrown into it in the states etc and they ve a bigger population pool to develop from.

Nothingcompares

Exactly, it's the exact same when comparing soccer in Ireland and the UK.

FiannaGym.com

You guys do know that the population of the US is less than Europe yes?

Mark Hamill

ryoishin wrote: »

theres more cash thrown into it in the states etc and they ve a bigger population pool to develop from.

Well America has about 300 million people, while Europe has 575 million (728 million if you include Russia)

ryoishin

i know the origional post was about the US but i stuck the etc on in my post because i think the population thing for the US also applies to Canada, Ausie land, brazil and stuff.


I also think that in the States they have a gym culture and fitness ethic that translates well into MMA. I would nt say its the same here for the mjority of people.

dunkamania

I would say the issue is money and not so much size of population.

Its alot harder to make a living in Europe as a mma fighter, so less people are going to participate, and of those that do, they are less likely to be training full time.

Roper

FiannaGym.com wrote: »

You guys do know that the population of the US is less than Europe yes?

LOL this a great ad for Ireland's education system. Belarus is in ... well... not Europe. Eastern Europe isn't Europe at all but some nether region and Europe has a smaller population than America!

O'Leprosy

Since we are comparing Europe to the US in MMA, it's a long shot, but anyone any idea of the audience figures in Europe compared to America ? The reason I'm asking is I still meet people who are allegedly interested in Martial Arts but know next to zero about the UFC, Pride, Cage Rage etc. Too busy with their kata, patterns, forms etc I suppose. The reason I'm asking is that it might give us an indication of the following for it over here and it's potential growth. But we'll have to play second fiddle to the US, Brazil etc for a long time to come.

BTW, the pay per view figures in America according to Wikipedia - UFC 66, featuring Tito Ortiz facing Chuck Liddell in their highly anticipated rematch, garnered 1,050,000 buy rates, the current PPV buy rate record for the UFC and MMA in general. The UFC broke the pay-per-view industry's all-time records for a single year of business, generating over $222,766,000 in revenue during 2006, surpassing WWE and boxing. Boxing, via HBOPPV, retook the record in 2007 with 4,800,000 PPV buys with $255,000,000 in sales.

filament

Roper wrote: »

LOL this a great ad for Ireland's education system. Belarus is in ... well... not Europe. Eastern Europe isn't Europe at all but some nether region and Europe has a smaller population than America!

my point about belarus was that it was for nearly 100 years part of the soviet union and as such inherited its wrestling tradition, borders are all subjective. In other words i believe the only reason matushenko and arlovski got to where they are is due to their russian inheritance and western europ has missed out on the finer points of communism

Subbway

I can only talk about finland but we have really strong wrestling traditions in greco mostly. We have many world level guys for such a small country who would be great if they crossed over... The problem is here propably the same than in some other great wrestling countries.

There isn't enough money in MMA yet here to make guys interested to crossover. the sport is still too small. i think there is lot's of potential in european countries we have so many countries with great wrestling or standup arts traditions. it's just atleast in finland that sport is too small... But getting bigger all the time. Look out for this guy. Wrestled since he was 5 or something and world class wrestler.

http://www.sherdog.com/fightfinder/fightfinder.asp?FighterID=13934

Also there is other national level wrestler who does MMA and is one of european finest. He has had terrible luck with injuries though:

http://www.sherdog.com/fightfinder/fightfinder.asp?FighterID=3878

But hopefully sports get bigger and we see more people cross over and we can get more european talent to sport.

Roper

You can say they inherited their wrestling tradition but that doesn't mean that before the Russian's came they were in Africa.

No matter where they inherited things from, they're still European. They were only part of the USSR for 70 years or so all told, some parts only since Molotov-Ribbentrop in 1939 and while I'm not sure how much one country can influence another over the course of 50-70 years, I doubt it has much effect on how Arlovski punches

filament

Roper wrote: »

You can say they inherited their wrestling tradition but that doesn't mean that before the Russian's came they were in Africa.

No matter where they inherited things from, they're still European. They were only part of the USSR for 70 years or so all told, some parts only since Molotov-Ribbentrop in 1939 and while I'm not sure how much one country can influence another over the course of 50-70 years, I doubt it has much effect on how Arlovski punches

that's a nice google search :P
the other point is that defining europe as seperate from asia has always been tricky as they are the same land mass

edit: also as for how much they can influence the country over 70 years?

AA joined the police force and as part of it had to train in sambo mandatorily... any western european countries you can think of that force you to study the russian art?

Roper

I'm offended at the google comment- I'm in my final year of a history degree!

Just stop with the Belarus is NOT in Europe. It's in Europe. Europe. I can't believe you don't think its in Europe. It's in Europe.


Europe.

filament

Roper wrote: »

I'm offended at the google comment- I'm in my final year of a history degree!

Just stop with the Belarus is NOT in Europe. It's in Europe. Europe. I can't believe you don't think its in Europe. It's in Europe.


Europe.

irelands in the british isles

im not debating that it's in europe just that they have inherited a soviet culture, geographical lines are as always, fluid and subject to change where as history and heritage is a bit more linear, that's all

edit: for those offended by the term "british isles" you can now use: the west europe archipelligo