Should Elbows be Allowed?

Absolutely!  Fights are arranged for the enjoyment of the fan, but to ultimately determine the better of two fighters, offensively and defensively.  Even though fights stopped due to a cut because the fighter is rendered “unfit to fight” may prematurely end a fight maybe disappointing to the fan  may be disappointing, nothing can be taken away from the victor.  Certain organizations, RIP PRIDE, EliteXC, and IFL do/did not allow vicious elbows to rain down in from the mount or to graze the face in the clinch, yet the UFC allows one of the hardest body parts to inflict pain on the opponent.   

Many fans have expressed interest to ban elbows in the UFC.   These people maintain this point of view for any number of reasons, mainly because they are too brutal(amount of blood caused by these gruesome gashes) or end fights prematurely with out really determining the ‘most talented’ fighter.   

Elbows should  NOT be banned.  A vicious cut may cause a fighter to struggle to maintain energy and focus, but the bottom line is that a fighter should be able to defend against all strikes.
 

If you don’t want to get elbowed, avoid getting put on your back and if you end up on your back keep a close guard or stand up!  Fighters should be able to get out of positions that allow the other fighter to rain down elbows. If a fighter can’t avoid elbows, they probably weren’t going to win the fight anyway, which removes one of the main arguments of elbow nay sayers. 

Fan beware the UFC does not allow knees to the head of a downed opponent, foot stomps or kicks to the groin which all could very well be part of a fighters arsenal, the ladder being the worst of the three, but these strikes are not allowed.  If they banned elbows, what is next, high kicks, uppercuts and hooks(all have KO potential)? 

Maybe down the road the UFC will ban elbows in order to prevent fountains of blood and possibly enter the ‘main stream’ media event era, but for now let’s enjoy the fights and let the best fighter win, elbows included!  

Can the Chin be Trained?

The more I examine the question of ‘can the chin be developed’, I think ‘a chin’ can be developed. When I refer to ‘a chin’ I mean the relative ease of a fighters ability to absorb a punch with out being effected greatly. Obviously things like location , velocity, power of a punch or kick can potentially KO anybody. However it is clear that it takes more to KO some fighters over others.

When anyone first starts to train MMA punching(knuckles), kicking(shins), BJJ(flexibility) causes much pain the respective areas of the body because the body is not used to the punishment. After weeks and months of punching and kicking, or rolling around on the ground, the nerves in the hands and shin get used to the pain and the body gets more flexible. I believe the ‘chin’ will react in a similar manner, in that the body will react and become accustomed to the pain. This point is difficult to prove, because not many people want to train every day with out head gear repeatedly taking shots to the chin/face! I haven’t had the opportunity to visit many training camps, but was surprised when watching the last UFC All Access with Wanderlei Silva, and WAND sparred with out any head gear! I thought to myself that’s crazy tough! After watching WAND take the punches from Chuck during their match and not go down, I realized the chin can probably be trained. The question is, who is willing to train their chin…

Swagger Back in ‘08

Here is a list of 10 fighters that this fan would like to see ‘bounce back’ in 2008 from losses, poor performances, or NO fights  in 2007…In no particular order:

 Alistair ‘Demolition Man’ Overeem

Mirko ‘CroCop’ Filipovic

Wanderlei ‘Axe Murderer’ Silva

Andrei ‘Pitbull’ Arlovski

Dennis Kang

Mark Hunt

Josh ‘Baby Faced Assassin’ Barnett

Frank Mir

Rich ‘Ace’ Franklin

Igor ‘Ice Cold’ Vovchanchyn

Match Ups

Does anybody else think it’s completely ridiculous to announce fighters in a match, MAYBE 6 weeks in advance!? Granted we all want to see the best match ups possible and it’s difficult to consistently churn out Grade A fights, but it just isn’t fair to the fighters literally risking their necks!  Using the UFC as an example, they determine the name of PPV events and set it in stone way before having the match-ups of the people actually fighting in the PPV.  RIP PRIDE, but some of their fights were announced a couple weeks in advance!  Granted on reality shows like UFC’s TUF, fighters will only know a week or two in advance who there opponent will be, but these are amateur fighters(except the ‘comeback edition’) trying to ‘make it’ through a reality show.  A tournament style PPV is also set up to where the fighters will just have a number of minutes to devise a game plan for a fight.   

Obviously the fighters find out before the media, so lets be generous and say they find out about an opponent 8 weeks inadvance, is that enough?  That being said, to the rest of the fighters who consider themselves professional athletes, who are capable of devising game plans to cater to their opponents, it’s not fair to inform them of their opponent 8 weeks in advance.  Of course most fighters will say they will fight anybody, sometimes not even in their weight class at any time.  Many fighters also claim to prepare the same for each fight and that is all very admirable.  In my opinion with the rate at which MMA is being considered a main stream sport is evolving, the fighters should also have the same respect given to most other mainstream sports, and given their opponents months, maybe years in advance.